[Vol. 9] Chapter 75: Food
She had been moving in this direction the whole time.
Along the way, she found several places where delicious food was hidden, but in both quality and quantity, none of them could compare to what lay ahead in the snowstorm.
So, she only left a split self behind to slowly search those areas, while her main body never stopped moving forward.
Just then, the girl tilted her head slightly. Her pale hand lifted unconsciously, and a wisp of black flame suddenly appeared at her fingertip with a “whoosh,” then quickly went out.
[……?]
It seemed she had sensed something. Her empty eyes looked into the faraway void, reaching toward the distant south. The opposite direction of the endless frozen plains.
That was a place she had passed earlier, where she had sensed some very delicious food. She had even thought about stopping to search there and left her largest split self behind.
But now…
[……It got eaten?]
The voice that came out was soft and beautiful, yet carried a strange emptiness, mixed with a childlike purity and innocence.
Three completely different feelings blended together in an eerie and indescribable way, shaking the mind with a sense of unsettling charm.
She waved her hand, and the black flame stretched out like ink on paper, forming a slightly blurry image.
There were several figures in it.
From an ambush battle, to three young girls using their powers to fight a group of enemies, then to the unbelievable scene where countless flowers of light fell from the sky and extinguished the black flames, the girl silently watched the whole thing.
She saw the girl holding a white staff, saw the calm, effortless way she erased the dark flames.
For a moment, it was as if their gazes met across the endless void.
Then, the white-robed girl in the image suddenly came alive. She broke from her original motion and, without warning, curved her lips into a faint, amused smile. She raised her hand and made a “shooting” gesture toward the distant girl.
“Bang!!!”
The image shattered instantly, bursting into countless glowing sparks that slowly drifted around the girl.
Her already pale face turned completely colorless. Then she suddenly coughed out a mouthful of thick, black blood. It was both gas and liquid at once!
“Boom!”
The moment that black blood touched the air, it ignited on its own, burning fiercely like alcohol before quickly vanishing without a trace.
“Hu… hu…”
The icy wind swept up the ashes, carrying bone-chilling cold across the frozen land.
As if nothing had happened, the pale girl stood silently at the center of the extinguished fire.
Expressionless, she steadied herself again.
Her dark, hollow eyes were fixed to the south, with flickers of black flame coiling around her fingertips, flaring and fading away.
She seemed to be thinking, though her innocent face showed no emotion, as if her mind were blank.
[Was it… sent by Father?]
There was still no change on her delicate face, but deep inside those pure black eyes, darker than the void, a faint ripple appeared for just a moment, like a pebble dropped into still water.
It wasn’t fear, worry, or any other complicated feeling.
It was something simpler. The mild irritation of a creature being disturbed while eating.
And along with it. A deep, instinctive hunger.
[She] looks so delicious.
More delicious than any food hidden in this snowy land, more tempting than anything she had ever touched.
Even more than those brothers, sisters, or even [Father] himself.
If she could eat that girl, maybe she wouldn’t feel hungry for a very, very long time.
But she couldn’t.
She couldn’t turn back.
She was still quite naive and not good at complicated thinking, but she naturally understood the instinct of survival. The stronger and tastier the prey, the harder it was to hunt.
When the difference in strength between predator and prey reached a certain level, their roles could easily switch.
[Father] was like that, and [She] was even stronger than him.
Right now, she was still not able to eat such powerful food. The destruction of her split self just now was the best proof of that.
But...
[Hungry…]
Murmuring softly again, the girl withdrew her gaze from the south and turned her eyes back toward the endless frozen plains covered in howling snow.
In truth, some of the food here wasn’t something she could eat yet either. Some might even turn around and eat her instead.
But that was fine. There were many choices available.
She only needed to hunt smaller prey first, the ones that could fill her stomach. If she kept doing that and slowly grew stronger, eventually she would be able to eat more powerful and delicious things.
So, she needed more time to feed.
Her pale fingers lightly touched the icy ground still burning beneath her feet. A few almost invisible, hair-thin sparks of black fire slipped quietly into the frozen earth, vanishing without a sound.
They weren’t meant to attack or destroy. Instead, they followed certain invisible “threads” that had long been prepared, moving swiftly toward another distant, fixed location.
[She] had already noticed this place, but if [She] was given something to eat, something to slow her down, maybe she wouldn’t chase after so quickly.
After finishing all this, the girl seemed to lose interest. She stepped forward barefoot, continuing her walk into the depths of the frozen plains.
The black flames slowly faded. The swirling snow closed its curtain again behind her, covering the burned remains of the fortress completely.
Only a line of small footprints and a faint trail of tiny black flames, flickering as if they would never go out, twisted across the pure white world like a strange, eerie path.
…………………………
Icefang Island, Broken Stones Valley.
“Heh… small in size, but pretty bold, huh~”
Muttering softly, the priestess withdrew her SP and shifted her gaze back from where it had just wandered.
She found the other three girls staring at her curiously, and only then tilted her head slightly in confusion.
“What? Why are you all looking at me like that?”
They didn’t understand why this woman had suddenly gone absent-minded in the middle of their talk, mumbling strange things under her breath.
But since they were already used to her odd behavior, Moraya didn’t bother asking too much. She just repeated her earlier question.
“I mean, now that this matter is over, Miss Violet, what do you think we should do next?”
“Over, huh… I’m afraid it won’t be that easy.”
Murmuring to herself, the priestess didn’t answer snow girl’s question right away.
Instead, she turned her eyes toward Tina, the mercenary girl still kneeling on the ground, not daring to make a sound, and asked directly.
“How many people does your mercenary group have on this peninsula? And how are they arranged right now?”
“Uh…”
Tina carefully glanced at the three women around her, each with different expressions. After the harsh “conversation” earlier, she had completely given up any thought of hiding the truth or trying to run.
Not to mention, the golden dog crouched nearby, lazily licking its paw but radiating terrifying pressure, hadn’t taken its eyes off her even once.
So, she could only answer honestly.
“There are about… over two hundred people. I left half of them secretly guarding Lin for her safety, and the other half came out with me for this mission. But now that things have turned out like this, the two groups will probably regroup soon…”
“I see… so that means they’ll most likely gather near the [Scavenger Gang]’s base, huh. That saves us quite a bit of trouble.”