GRP Chapter 10

Garth grasped the woman's wrist and pulled her close. She followed powerlessly, bumping against his solid embrace. The woman lifted her head. At a distance where breath could touch, two gazes met.

Garth looked deeply into her eyes. Pink irises shone transparently even in the dark space.

"Pretty eyes."

Voicing his appreciation plainly, Garth brought his hand to her throat. Even at the threatening contact, the woman didn't blink. No, she truly wasn't blinking.

The moment he realized the abnormality, the woman's pupils gradually turned upward, then flipped over with a whoosh. Her slender body collapsed powerless as a puppet with cut strings. Garth lightly caught the woman falling into his arms.

The hand that had been about to kill her hesitated in the air for a moment. There was the option of continuing what he'd started, but….

"Hm."

Garth, who'd exhaled shortly, looked down at the woman draped limply over his arm. Instead of gripping the woman's throat with his hand, he pulled out the dagger that had been lodged in his heart all along and threw it to the floor.

Garth laid the woman roughly on the sofa. Then he picked up the candle rolling on the floor, lit it, and placed it on the table. As the room brightened faintly, newly revealed details emerged.

A beautiful face, but nose and cheeks were bright red. Graceful, slender fingers and toes like delicate crafts, but they were also stained red. She looked like she'd experienced all the world's cold alone.

Garth moved to the window the woman had entered through. Sticking his head out the window and looking down, what appeared to be a coat was gradually disappearing under accumulating snow. She seemed to have thrown it off as cumbersome while climbing the wall. Garth tilted his head askew and raised one eyebrow.

'What… is that?'

As time passed, incomplete gods were also born on the continent. Not omniscient, not powerful, unable to commune with natural things, even short-lived. The world teemed with such half-gods, but Heimdrykze was different.

The frozen ancient mountain range was the domain of complete gods who'd escaped time's flow. Frost giants from when the world was born gathered in groups, and ancient gods with power strong enough to twist nature's flow breathed here and there. Complete and perfect. Strong and beautiful. Great and mysterious. Able to kill or save insignificant life with abilities like disasters or miracles. Beings closest to the concept of 'god' that ordinary humans spoke of.

Then what was this Heimdrykze god collapsed before his eyes? Feeble divine power barely qualifying as godlike. A body that absurdly felt cold. On top of that, fainting because she'd stabbed a dagger into a human heart.

Fundamental doubts arose about whether she was truly Heimdrykze-born, but for now she seemed to be from there. Though the amount of divine power was small, the purity of the energy ranked among the gods Garth had met. Only Heimdrykze, where the purest divine power condensed, could produce such a thing. A bit defective, but the material itself was good.

Garth sat at the table and watched the woman lying on the sofa for a while. She furrowed her brow deeply and groaned. Her expression was far richer than when awake.

Leisurely appreciating the woman, Garth realized something. The curse that had reached its worst had subsided gently. The pain pouring down on every nerve from head to toe felt only minutely present. Someone's foolish prophecy rang through Garth's head like a bell.

'Yes, she who flew in like wind is the destiny you've searched for your whole life!'

Mariaeks blinked. She was standing in a broad field. How long had she been here continuously? About an hour? Maybe a year? No, it felt like more than a hundred years had passed.

A sweet fragrance touched the tip of her nose. Mariaeks turned her head following the direction the wind blew from. A massive tree that seemed to block out the sky stood there. Wind blew again. Mariaeks caught a fluttering leaf.

Thud!

Suddenly the ground trembled. Mariaeks stiffened in surprise. A huge shadow fell over her. When Mariaeks turned around, her eyes went wide. A land turtle massive enough to hide mountains was moving steadily. On its shell like a transplanted meadow, trees and stones, flowers and moss grew luxuriantly. Butterflies and birds flew peacefully above the shell.

Looking at the turtle, its eye also turned toward her. Mariaeks feared large-bodied gods, but this turtle wasn't frightening at all. Though she'd certainly die if crushed, it felt peaceful enough to nap at its feet.

Thud. The turtle placed its foot on the ground. From the forest-like shell, one small bird rose into the sky, then passed over Mariaeks's head.

At the wind gently stroking her hair, Mariaeks closed her eyes softly. When she opened them again, it was a different place from before. Air bubbles escaped glug glug from Mariaeks's mouth. Underwater. She looked around at the surrounding deep darkness. Too dark to see anything, Mariaeks raised her head. Because she knew light generally shone from above.

In that moment, the space began to brighten faintly. Not in the direction Mariaeks expected. Blue light that sparkled even more brilliantly in darkness rippled and spread from beneath her feet. As if moonlight were drawing pictures in the ocean depths.

Soon the light formed a complete shape. A massive jellyfish. Beautiful patterns engraved like phosphorescence on its transparent, round body. Below that, hundreds of long lace-like tentacles fluttered and glowed. Like a dress swaying in wind.

The moment that jellyfish appeared, small lights arose here and there. Small somethings with the same phosphorescent glow as the jellyfish. The ocean depths not fully lit by the massive jellyfish alone brightened with hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of tiny lights. Mariaeks thought she'd entered the night sky she always looked up at. The night sky she'd vaguely assumed would be cold was warm. Mariaeks's eyes slowly closed.

The comfortable floating sensation vanished. Familiar cold wrapped around Mariaeks instead. When she opened her eyes, the world was dyed entirely white. A place contrasting with the dark ocean depths. A place familiar to Mariaeks. The domain where she'd lived her whole life. Heimdrykze, the divine land covered in snow that hadn't melted for thousands of years.

A raging blizzard obscured her vision. But Mariaeks knew where she stood. Heimdrykze's tallest mountain—the center of the frozen lake at its peak.

Mariaeks hastily knelt and began sweeping away the snow piled deep on the lake with her hands. Thick snowflakes poured down as if beating her. Mariaeks's fingertips gradually turned red. But she dug out the snow without rest, seeming not to feel the cold. Soon her fingertips touched the lake's frozen surface.

Mariaeks hastily cleared the remaining snow and pressed close—nose nearly touching—to the lake's surface exposed about a hand-span. Eyes narrowed, she looked down beneath the milky ice. A being more beautiful and great than any other lay submerged below the lake, eyes closed. The most noble one in this world. Heimdrykze's sovereign. Mariaeks's god.

She exhaled a sigh of relief. Thank goodness. They still slept. In that moment, crack, the sound of something solid splitting along its grain. Goosebumps rose on her spine. The rupturing sound grew louder, sharper, faster.

Pink eyes chased the sound. And she realized the sound had reached directly below. Mariaeks slowly lowered her gaze. Deep cracks were boring into the only passage through which she could view the god.

Mariaeks's breath stopped. One form reflected refracted in dozens of fracture planes created by the crack. The sleeping god's eye. Dozens of eyes large and small were closed peacefully. Mariaeks couldn't move at all, only watched. Then crack, a sound. Dozens of afterimages became hundreds. And the god opened their eyes.

"Ah!"

Mariaeks gasped sharply and blinked. The brief dream evaporated leaving only emotion. Breathing quickly with a rushed, urgent heart for a moment. As breath gradually returned and focus aligned, making her vision clear, Mariaeks could recognize she'd fallen into the middle of an unfamiliar situation. An unfamiliar room, an unfamiliar bed, and even an unfamiliar face. The environment and people that had always been the same for a hundred years were all overturned.

A man was sleeping right in front of her. Mariaeks stared at his face. After spending several meaningless seconds that way, she finally remembered who this human was.

Last night. Mariaeks had infiltrated the humans' village to rescue Ullri and Baen. She'd waited for evening, avoided the building where a banquet was held, and groped her way up the outer wall. After even abandoning her only coat, she'd barely succeeded infiltrating a room with the lights off.

Joy ended briefly. Her eyes met a man sitting soundlessly in the dark room, as if dissolved into it. A strong human. She could tell without testing strength. The fierce divine power radiating from inside him filled the surroundings as if to swallow her whole. Power on par with Heimdrykze's gods—no, surpassing even decent gods.

Mariaeks realized the moment she faced the man. He was the hero Rhaevydie had spoken of.