“This mountain is so high!”

Kairen looked up in astonishment. In front of him was a really tall mountain, so high that he couldn’t even see its top.

“It sure is.”

Serria replied, also looking at the mountain in a similar position to Kairen.

“It’s nice that they gave us warm clothes.”

Reyan also chimed in, sitting on a stone and playing with his sword.

“Yeah. It is really cold here.”

Reyan had been nowhere to be found in the past few days, he didn’t even answer Kairen and Serria’s messages and calls. When they finally met him here, he said that he had to take care of things. He had created a great mess so it was natural to be out of touch for a while he thought. Now that he was back, he was behaving as if nothing had happened.

The three of them, as well as about half of the students from each class, were standing at the foot of a tall and snowy mountain. It was a mountain in the northern parts of Hainston.

Most of the cadets were teleported here as they were all scattered here and there doing their mission and there was no time to travel by vehicles.

“Alright everyone, I will explain the situation once more for the ones who have just arrived.”

Their supervisor, a tall muscular man, clapped his hands and gathered everyone’s attention.

“The situation is quite urgent. A few hours ago we received reports regarding detecting high-level monsters at the peak of the mountain. Any communication was cut off due to an avalanche after that. It is highly likely that the avalanche was also caused by the monsters. What you have to do is simple: kill the monsters and rescue if there are any people trapped there.”

“YES!”

Mount Fiera is one of the tallest mountains on the continent. It is a hard task to clear out the monsters that spawn there as it is cold and snowy the whole year. It is impossible to patrol the whole area and build bases for agents to settle down there as done in all other places, so the only way of knowing if there is any danger there or not is by installing special devices.

Low-level monsters always lure there, there is nowhere to clean them all so people just leave them be as those weak monsters don’t really leave the mountain. But it is a different story when it is a high-level monster. There is a high possibility of the monster leaving the mountain and attacking the nearby residential areas so it had to be taken care of as fast as possible.

As soon as the supervisor’s words ended, they were given protective and communicative pieces of equipment. Helicopters would move them up to the mountain to a certain hights, but they had to climb the rest themselves as the heavy snow wouldn’t let any vehicle pass that point.

It was also possible to use teleportation magic to reach the peak, but as the mountain was really high and had unstable weather conditions, the method couldn’t be used that often.

Well, the way they would reach the top wasn’t really by climbing the mountain.

“Frist group mages, open the way.”

By that order from the supervisor, a few mages stepped forward and cast spells. The snowy way in front of them melted and disappeared. A road around 30 meters long was created, wide enough for a few people to walk in it side by side. They had to make it wide in order to keep their formation.

“Second team.”

The rest of the mages, which didn’t help in smoothing the way, cast heating and supporting spells.

Knights surrounded the mages like a shield from all sides to protect them against strong winds or any danger that may occur as the mages had weaker bodies. Like that, they climbed the mountain at a fast pace.

While walking slowly, Kairen approached Reyan in front of the group. Reyan glanced at him for a moment before opening his mouth.

“You shouldn’t move out of the formation.”

“I am still in the formation, besides, I wanted to ask you some questions.”

“What is it?”

Kairen stopped his conversation, cast a spell to open the way, and talked after his work was done.

“About my past, I wanted you to tell me anything I have told you about my past.”

Reyan raised one of his eyebrows at that question and turned his head towards Kairen.

“Why are you asking that now?”

“I want to know about my past. Is it weird?”

“It is weird that you have decided to search about it just now. Isn’t it a bit late? I thought you didn’t want to know about that at all anymore.”

Keiren could see a ridiculing expression form on Reyan’s face.

“Are you teasing me now?”

“No, I was just stating the facts.”

He looked forward again as he thought about Kairen’s question a little bit. He gave his answer after about a minute.

“I believe that I’ve told most of the things that I know already. You didn’t talk a lot about your past so I don’t really know much.”

Kairen expected that. He asked another question this time.

“Then what about other things like… any weird hobbies that I have forgotten about or any friends I had but can’t remember them anymore?”

Reyan was about to shake his head again when he stopped.

“Ah! There was something.”

“What was that?”

“You used to be really interested in history. You would stay in the library for hours, reading history books one by one. The projects you worked on for the university or high school were all related to history and you liked to visit historical sites.”

“Really?”

Kairen actually was interested in ancient stuff and those old-time stories since being a kid, but not to that degree.

“Also, I remember you were searching about Philomns for a while.”

“Why Philomns all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know your purpose. It was natural to follow the news and read articles about them since they have been a hot topic for years, but what you were doing was more than that. You even secretly visited a place that was attacked by them once. It was forbidden to enter that area, but you sneaked in and were almost caught. I know about that since I tagged along as well.”

“Why did you tag along?”

“I was curious as well- Be careful!”

Reyan pushed Kairen backward as he stepped back as well. Everyone in the team reacted the same and humped back as far as they could.

FOSHH

A huge wave of snow burst and fell right where they were standing. An avalanche swept away the area in an instant. Everyone backed away from the flood as fast as they could.

KIYAAKK

A loud cry echoed in the snowy mountain and the sound of wings fluttering could be heard from not too far away.

“It’s a group of monsters, ready yourself.”

Everyone was getting ready to fight even without the supervisor’s warning. Mages circled their mana and knights took out their weapons.

Kiekk Kii Kiakk

The group of monsters became visible after a few seconds. They were a bunch of flying monsters that resembled huge eagles. They opened and closed their beaks as they approached the group.

Despite their size, the pressure emanating from them wasn’t strong.

“They are weak.”

“They seem to be level 4 or lower.”

“Don’t waste your mana or aura. Take care of them without exhausting yourselves.”

“Yes.”

Taking care of a few level 4 and 5 monsters wasn’t hard. They didn’t even need to use aura-wrapped swords or high-level spells. The heads of two monsters were cut by a swing of Reyan’s sword and a blade spell from Serria cut down three huge eagles in half. The supervisor himself killed three monsters in his every attack.

The group of monsters was slaughtered in a few moments.

“Few!”

“That was easy.”

“…Hey, what is that?”

One of the cadets pointed at somewhere with her finger. Everyone turned to where she was pointing.

“What is that thing?”

Now that the snow around them was swept away by an avalanche, they could see a little bit of the peak of the mountain that was hidden previously by a wall of snow.

“Is that the monster?”

Everyone could see a huge, white thing right at the peak of the mountain. It was emanating huge pressure from itself. Two red and shiny balls were looking at them, they resemble one pair of eyes. The monster was staring at the group with its scary eyes. Well, not exactly at the group but only at one individual.

‘Esteemed monster, can you please stop staring at me?’

The weather was cold but Kairen was sweating while trying to hide from the monster’s gaze.