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EPISODE 110 – SNOW QUEEN (1)
“Wow.”
When the elevator they were riding on reached the underground…
Cordelia’s eyes widely opened in awe, while Jude also had a bit of an amazed expression.
‘I’m certain this is the ruins of Magellan, the magic kingdom.’
The fact that there were several buildings built inside a large cavity, which seemed to be about a dozen meters high from the ceiling to the ground, completely reminded them of Endymion.
To be more accurate, it could be called a mini-Endymion.
If Endymion was a city, the sight that spread out before their eyes could be called a small town.
“It’s the elves.”
Cordelia said as she pointed to one side, and Jude nodded. As she had said, lined up on the wall were stone statues of beings who had long ears, a trait unique to the elves.
‘The High Elves of Magellan.’
There were several similar statues in Endymion, but because of the very urgent situation then, they didn’t pay it much attention.
‘Was this structure built at the same time as Endymion?’
If Kaplan had been here, he would have looked around in excitement. He would have also answered Jude’s question.
Unfortunately, Kaplan was far away, and Jude had no archeological knowledge to guess the time period of the ruins.
‘But there’s a clue.’
As Jude looked back at the translucent woman, Cordelia suddenly poked his side.
‘Ah, right.’
Don’t give it weird looks.
Because the woman was actually naked.
However, her hair was very long that it covered everything that needed to be covered.
‘Umm.’
For a moment, Jude contemplated where he was going to look at the woman. The woman then opened her mouth and spoke.
“My…masters. Are…no longer…here. They…left…this place.”
Her gloomy voice made it seem like she would burst into tears at any moment.
“I missed…them, but I couldn’t see them…”
The woman’s shoulders eventually fell, and she began to sniff. Cordelia then patted Jude’s back.
She was telling him that she wanted to get off his back.
“Wait a second.”
Jude quickly untied the podaegi, and Cordelia got off his back and approached the woman.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m not okay. But I can’t…do much about it.”
She was like a child.
The woman spoke honestly and met eyes with Cordelia who felt sorry for her.
“Pretty. More than…my masters.”
“Eh? Uh…thank you. Hehe.”
Cordelia softly laughed and the woman also had a small smile before she turned around again and said.
“If you go…to the center…it becomes…clearer.”
What do you mean by clearer?
Cordelia tilted her head, but Jude seemed to understand what she meant.
Because the figure of the translucent woman had become a bit clearer than before they came down to the underground.
‘Her voice also has a little more presence now.’
Perhaps when they reach the center, her thinking abilities would improve.
“What, what is it? Why am I the only one who didn’t get it? Please explain it to me.”
“No, it’s that. As I had thought, Cordelia is very pretty. More than the high elves.”
“Hmph, of course I am. I’m Cordelia, okay?”
Cordelia shrugged as if to brag, but her face quickly turned red.
After all, she was Cordelia herself. And that was why she was embarrassed.
‘Because it’s not transmigration.’
It was reincarnation.
Her awareness that she had become Cordelia herself had grown stronger than before.
“What are you embarrassed about? It is true.”
“Eueueu.”
Cordelia blushed even more at Jude’s words, and she turned around to hide her embarrassment. Jude then said as he stepped forward.
“Anyway, let’s follow her. She has already gone quite far.”
“Come…quickly…”
The woman urged them at that perfect moment, and Cordelia also quickly moved.
“Here…this way…”
She headed for the center after saying that, and about 30 meters ahead of them, a large cylindrical structure that was like an elevator appeared again.
“Ride…down…on this…”
Another way down to the center.
Jude and Cordelia reached the elevator and got on it right away.
And around tens of seconds or so…
The elevator stopped after descending more than a dozen meters.
“Don’t be surprised. It won’t harm you.”
At the moment they heard her voice, Jude and Cordelia were astonished when they saw the woman.
Her figure no longer looked stretched or blurred. Her voice was also clear.
In addition, even her appearance was different.
She was still translucent, but unlike before, the woman was now wearing clothes that looked like a pure white racing suit.
“I’ll open the door.”
The elevator door opened when the woman moved her hand as she smiled at the gazes of the two, and Jude and Cordelia immediately understood why she told them not to be surprised.
“Wow.”
“Dragon vein.”
As soon as the door opened, a faint golden light poured in.
On the other side of the underground cavity was a flowing golden stream on where the wall should be.
“Is this the dragon vein?”
They had seen the dragon vein several times, but the viewpoint was different.
They had looked down at the flowing dragon vein from above.
But it was different now.
They were in the dragon vein itself. They weren’t looking down from above nor looking at it from the outside.
“Aquarium…no, is it more like an underwater hotel?”
It was a structure submerged in the dragon vein and was surrounded by glass walls.
“My masters built this facility in the dragon vein.”
The woman spoke with a small smile and stepped out of the elevator. Cordelia hesitated for a while before going out of the elevator.
“Pretty.”
It wasn’t just gold.
Multiple colored lights circulated in the flowing dragon vein. The brightness and intensity of each color changed depending on the flow, and white light appeared here and there, making it look like the sparkling of stars.
“I’m telling you in advance, but no explosions.”
“I won’t do it.”
“You can’t blow it up.”
“I won’t.”
Cordelia puffed her cheeks, but only for a while. She suddenly clapped her hands and looked back at Jude.
“But, but Jude. Wouldn’t exploding the dragon vein make it easier to cross the Sky Roof mountain range?”
Half of it would disappear like Violent Avalanche’s rocky mountain.
At Cordelia’s innocent idea, Jude flinched and said.
“N-no way. You demon. You can’t.”
What would happen if half of the Sky Roof mountain range got blown up?
A literal catastrophe.
An enormous catastrophe.
“But no one lives here anyway. There are no animals.”
It would be a mess, but nobody would die, right?
Jude froze for a moment at Cordelia’s words, and soon shook his head.
“No, what are you talking about? You know what will happen if half of this mountain range explodes, right?”
“Is that so?”
“That’s how it is. So let’s not do it. Do you understand?”
“Okay, okay. It was a joke anyway.”
Cordelia giggled and turned around again, while Jude stared at her with anxious eyes.
The woman then said.
“This way.”
“Yes!”
As Cordelia ran, Jude also headed towards the woman.
There was a large cylindrical pillar in the center of cavity.
Drawn all over the white pillar were multiple thin black lines, which was some sort of magic circle.
“What is this?”
At Cordelia’s question, the woman slightly smiled and then took a deep breath.
“I’ll start by greeting you. My name is Melissa. I am the artificial spirit who is in charge of the management of this facility.”
The woman, Melissa, politely introduced herself, and the two also introduced themselves.
“I am Jude Bayer.”
“I am Cordelia Chase.”
An artificial spirit.
Beings who were artificially created and did not exist in nature.
“I am a spirit that was created for the management of the entire facility, so it becomes difficult for me to maintain my form if I move away from the center.”
“Ah, is that so.”
Melissa couldn’t speak well and didn’t even materialize any clothes when they met her outside the facility.
Cordelia nodded in understanding, and Melissa continued to speak.
“As you can see, this facility is located inside the dragon vein. It was done so that the power of the dragon vein could be directly used.”
They could understand to that extent just by looking.
What mattered to Jude was what the heck were they using the power of the dragon vein for.
Jude narrowed hie eyes and began to be troubled, but Cordelia just asked Melissa with an innocent face.
“What kind of facility is this?”
It was incredibly straightforward question, but it was effective.
“This is a facility to create a ruler of spirits.”
“A ruler…of spirits?”
“Yes, to be precise, it’s an artificial ruler of spirits.”
Melissa took a deep breath and explained with her arms wide open.
“My masters had done a lot of research to fight against the overlord of hell. Among those was a plan to create a new artificial god created by elves – a being that would be capable of directly fighting the overlord.”
The Melissa in front of them proved it, because the technology of Magellan even created artificial spirits who were capable of thinking on the same level as humans.
It was obviously impossible to create a real god-like existence, but it was different situation for the ruler of spirits.
“This facility was built as part of the plan for the ruler of spirits. The dragon vein supplied the enormous amount of power that is needed to create the ruler of spirits.”
Having spoken so far, Melissa paused for a moment before slightly moving her hand.
Images of light appeared in the air then.
“It was unfortunate, but to begin with, the creation of the ruler of spirits failed. What was created was just a crystal of powerful energy and not a proper spirit.”
In the video, a mass of blue light and the disappointed looks of the high elves appeared one after another.
“But my masters decided to wait instead of scrapping the facility. They did not disregard the possibility that a ruler of spirits would be born if enough time passed.”
The high elves leaving the facility and Melissa seeing them off appeared in the video.
“I was created to manage the facility while my masters were away, and I had been doing my job up to now.”
Melissa’s eyes were filled with pride and self-confidence, but only for a moment.
“One day, I couldn’t get in touch with my masters. The signals in the surrounding facilities that were also in good working conditions were cut off… and not long ago, the signal of Endymion also disappeared.”
The capital, Endymion.
Cordelia flinched at that moment and turned to Jude, who nodded his head.
It was obvious why Endymion’s signal was cut off, but they did not know about the other places.
“Cordelia? Are you feeling uncomfortable?”
“N-no! It’s nothing!”
Cordelia automatically denied it and shut her mouth in a hurry. Jude then moved forward and changed the topic.
“By the way, Melissa.”
“Yes, Jude.”
“Why did you call us here?”
Magellan’s high elves tried to create a ruler of spirits to confront the overlord of hell, and it was apparent that this facility was part of the plan.
But for what reason did Melissa bring the two here?
“I need your help.”
Melissa immediately answered and the video changed again.
There was a space with complex magic circles engraved on the floor as well as the walls and ceiling. A circular sphere wrapped in blue light was in the pillar at the center.
“That sphere is the ruler of spirits, who is also known as the Snow Queen, and is currently in this facility. It is located below the place where we are standing.”
At that point, Jude roughly understood why she called them.
“You have a specific problem.”
“Yes, because too much time had passed. The flow of the dragon vein has changed from before, and as a result, the stability of the facility is getting worse day by day. If it continues like this, the balance will eventually collapse…and in the worst case, the power of the Snow Queen may run out of control.”
The Snow Queen had absorbed the power of the dragon vein for at least, hundreds of years.
The accumulated power in it was indeed beyond one’s imagination.
But the problem wasn’t just the runaway.
It was the place where the Snow Queen was located.
If something went wrong, the dragon vein could explode, and the entire Sky Roof mountain range could disappear.
“Wow.”
There was a possibility that the words Cordelia had said as a joke would become true.
“It’s not just a normal problem if it really happened. There will be a great catastrophe. However, I hadn’t been in contact with my masters for hundreds of years, and the signals from the nearby facilities continue to be cut off…so with a worried thought, I went out to look for help, but there was no one! I became stupid when I moved away from the center!”
Melissa’s voice grew louder. She must have been frustrated.
“But you two appeared. You were my only hope.”
Cordelia asked Melissa, who was about to burst into tears at any moment.
“How many years…were you in the mountain…?”
“37 years, 9 months, 12 days, 8 hours, and 21 minutes.”
“That’s worth crying about.”
That meant that for nearly 40 years, she had been wandering in the Sky Roof mountain range where no one went to.
But Jude was focused on something else.
“It’s been nearly 40 years since the danger warning?”
“Yes, so it’s really dangerous now. Frankly, it wouldn’t be strange if a problem arises at any moment.”
Today or tomorrow. Perhaps right now.
Jude unconsciously gulped in nervousness as he turned to Cordelia.
Although the two had played the game, the Sky Roof mountain range was an off-limits area.
Just like Melissa, neither of the two had any information if the Sky Roof mountain range would explode, or when it would happen if it did.
“What should we do?”
“You just need to separate the Snow Queen from the pillar. I couldn’t do it because I have no substance.”
Melissa had now begun to cry.
Her sadness seemed to have burst out as she spoke.
“D-don’t cry. We will help you.”
Cordelia reached out to soothe Melissa with the method she used to soothe Red Wind, but Melissa truly had no substance. Rather than being able to hug her, her hand just passed, and Melissa cried louder.
“Huhuhu…why was I made like this!”
“Ca-calm down.”
Cordelia pretended to hug Melissa as if she was a mime, and Melissa pretended to lean on Cordelia’s arms.
And Jude waited for the two before saying.
“We just need to remove the crystal?”
It was this kind of facility. It was clear that besides Melissa, there would be some defense mechanisms.
‘Perhaps a guardian or something.’
A guardian of a treasure.
A knight of steel who would protect the Snow Queen.
And it was as Jude expected. The sobbing Melissa moved her fingers and showed a new video.
“It has a guardian. It can be neutralized if we had my masters’ crest, but they haven’t arrived or contacted me…huhuhu.”
In short, the two had to forcefully get it.
Therefore, Jude looked at the Guardian in the video once again.
A giant white being was crouched down in front of the pillar.
It had a dragon’s head and a tiger’s body.
But it looked familiar to him. And it wasn’t just Jude.
‘Yalavaska.’
Cordelia gulped her saliva and spoke with her eyes, and Jude nodded his head.
Light Dragon Yalavaska.
A mighty monster that appeared in the middle of Legend of Heroes 2.
One of the seven major calamities.
If horns and wings were added to that guardian and it grew several times in size, it would become the Yalavaska in the calamity.
And that was why Jude and Cordelia understood it.
‘As Melissa had thought. There’s a problem with the sphere.’
‘The Snow Queen would merge with the guardian during that time?’
‘Perhaps.’
Light Dragon Yalavaska was born at that time.
It depended on which character was played, but in the end, the mighty monster killed either Red Wind or Kirara, or even both.
‘We have to defeat it here.’
Before it became Yalavaska.
Before the Snow Queen’s sphere ran out of control.
“Will you help me?”
When Melissa asked as she cried, Jude and Cordelia nodded.
Even if it wasn’t Melissa’s request, it was a problem that must be taken care of.
But-
“By the way, Melissa.”
“Yes, Jude.”
“Do you have a stockroom or something? Like a treasure room.”
“Treasure?”
“Yes, a treasure room.”
Since they had to take care of things, they should also get what they could get.
At Jude’s question, Melissa blinked her eyes while Cordelia gave him a thumbs up.