24 Parting with Kirllia

After another long walk on this plateau that consisted of thin trees, we reached another slope upwards. Its angle wasn't high enough for us to require even our hands to climb, but winds started to flow within the area, and I formed a barrier to block the winds along with the snow that it brought towards us. Seeing that, Kirllia nodded and we proceeded to ascend.

We climbed straight for an hour before I saw a small platform that looked like there were two lumps of snow that grew on it.

Looking at it closely due to curiosity, I feel being watched before shooting each a Marble Sphere towards those two lumps.

*sffff*

The Marble Sphere definitely passed through, yet I still don't feel good about that platform. I looked at Kirllia and I saw her frown inside her own barrier before I glanced again at the platform. This time I made a larger Marble Sphere twice as bigger than my hand, just enough to cover the two lumps, before shooting it towards there. I also added a forward spin to it to make sure the wind and snow doesn't interrupt its path and speed.

After making a curving angle, the large Marble Sphere slid from the side, tossing the two lumps of what seemed to be dried yellow grass underneath, and I saw two humanoid figures arise from the platform.

They had pale white skin and red eyes, and their hair were also white. Along with their appearance, each of them had a red orb float over their shoulders.

"Demons!"

Aunt Arc immediately lunged forward without hesitation, and I saw the demons block her first strike with their two swords in a cross position. Seeing this, Aunt stepped back a bit before continuing to fight them, but they also blocked her strikes as a team. They concurrently switched positions time to time and even tried to counterattack Aunt before gaining sufficient distance that made a temporary ceasefire.

The two floating orbs emitted a dense glow and light began to gather on their weapons from that short timeframe.

"Little girl, what's the matter?" Aunt asked from the distance before resuming her assault, her sword also started to radiate with a blue sheen.

Seeing Kirllia just frozen in place, I instead tried to help Aunt with my new movement skill.

It was a skill I experimented with as we crossed the white valley.

Origin twirled below my feet, slightly letting me gain elevation, then I whirled it up to a faster rotation, stabilizing me a bit above ground. I also generated two more on my back as if creating two wings made of disks, before making them spin, pushing me with great speeds forward.

I'm not sure why this worked, but I saw a weird insect that had pinwheel feet do this back at the valley so I tried to copy it while we rested. It didn't worked at first but then I remembered how drones worked back at my previous world and... I crashed onto a tree, burying me with snow that shook from its leaves.

These physics surely differ a bit but they do work here. It STILL doesn't let me fly though.

With that I also made a blade of Origin which continuously sparked golden and azure on the sides. The continuous compression made the blade more solid and translucent compared to its transparent form when creating barriers.

Hearing the winds blow towards them, the two paled humanoids faced towards me as I zoomed on their sight.

Before they could even react, Aunt disarmed both of their swords due to inattention and immediately stepped back in a white flash.

Their red orbs glowed then formed along with combining a translucent barrier that looked as red as blood, but my blade made of Origin simply passed through like a hot knife through butter without resistance. I skid and drifted to the side after the cut, and I saw the two demons divided at the middle of their bodies... before turning into ash, and vanished completely from the snowy winds.

Their equipment dropped after, and I insisted that we only bury their equipment at the same place they died. Aunt had a confused expression with that, and Kirllia was still looking at the place where the two were slain.

After realizing I just killed a humanoid being, I felt nauseous and felt a weird headache at the sides of my head. Even if there wasn't gore shown the moment they died... I still felt bad.

We didn't even tried to ask nor talk to them, and just killed them like that. Did we really do the right thing?

Kirllia finally snapped back to reality, and I could see her still frown.

"I guess they still expected a few humans to travel here then, even if this place was hidden. If the person you're searching for went through here and killed all of them as he proceeded, then these are just backups they placed."

Her usual demeanor returned but it doesn't look like she's problem-free. I wonder if she has a certain fear towards demons or something. Her eyes were still slanted as if having a worry.

"After this climb, we'll be seeing a long and wide trail. On the end is another bridge that would take us to the other side of the fort...we might even encounter a few of the people sent to the battlefield, but there are still those higher level beasts that aren't weaker than mage-levels."

"Which means they're...also humanoid?"

"Some, yes. But some, not. A beast can resume to its former form after all."

After climbing for a while, I noticed Kirllia getting closer to me.

"Why did you decide to bury their things there?" There was a frown on her face as she asked this, and her eyes were glued to the ground instead of ahead.

"I just felt like doing it. Maybe a sort of respect, or an apology? Since... I actually killed them."

She became quiet after that, then I started to talk instead.

"I don't even know why there's a war, and I don't even wanted to kill them back then. But it looks like humans just seem to lose themselves whenever they see a demon. It must be a nature installed by their creators I guess? I'm not sure exactly either."

"Installed?" Her head tilted and she looked ahead, dodging a tree and neared me. I felt her cold arm brush past mine, before she got back at the same distance.

"I mean, we don't even know how humans and all the various races and creatures were created. Why do we all have differences and why are the demons hated to the point where a war even started? There are lots of questions right now yet I could only keep it in mind since no one's to answer. Also... There's a clear goal in my mind right now anyway, and that's to find my father."

Telling all this to this girl, took a bit of load off my mind. I hope she didn't mind that or something.

I just heard a chuckle from her and whispered in my ear 'you're really strange' before skipping her steps to a circle before resuming her pace.

Not sure if it was because of the cold, but her face faintly blushed as soon as she once again stepped closer to me as we climbed.

***

On a dense forest of thin trees, a man sat on a wide tree stump of about four meters.

The two suns shone on him as if bathing him with it, being at the center of uncut trees.

The cold winds and snow doesn't seem to touch him, however the winds may turn and sway; it even looked like the weather itself avoided him as his hair did not even freeze from the extreme low temperature.

"She's late."

The man just sat there, without a single source of heat yet not a single sign of shivering from the cold came out from him.

The day passed, night came, and he was still as a sturdy boulder, unmoving.

***

Eight days have already passed as we climbed the mountain. Bit by bit, the cold increased, the snow got dense, the trees lesser, and only high-level beasts were roaming over the horizon. If I'm not wrong, I haven't seen any beast that's smaller than a house, and that's the least of them.

There were also a few plants that probably had sentience as I saw one running as soon as we walked near them. It was quite a surprising view, seeing them uproot from the ground and run away.

I looked back today and all I could see in the distance is an endless expanse of white, even the skies are also shrouded by a veil of mist; Yet the light of the two suns could still give light in this place.

We passed over two more valleys and even encountered a frozen lake with a few blue flowers surrounding it, resilient even with the harsh weather. There weren't any wild animals, so what we hunted for food were a few beasts that Kirllia found edible. That was the first time I ate beast meat, and it almost tasted the same as a goat's meat...only it felt more invigorating when we finished eating.

As Mom was a hunter, I also learned some things from her regarding cooking all sorts of animals but we didn't really ate any beasts back then and only collected their cores instead. Seeing Kirllia determine which kind of specific beasts could be only eaten, it was quite informative.

"Are you sure we're making a shortcut? This place really gets to me, I'll go crazy from all the white I've been seeing all day!" Aunt Arc suddenly sat on the ground, and the large backpack she wore made the sound utensils and tools clash inside.

"If you went directly for the fort, the path is of course, easier. But it would take you months. However, we're already cut travel time into a fourth already so stop complaining."

Hearing that, Aunt Arc's eyes went blank and she slowly stood and walked again. This time, her head just hung low.

That's boredom for you.

"There should be more high-level beasts here but we still haven't encountered a single one within this week. I want an encounter! Encounter! Eeeeeeencooouuuunteeeeeeeeer!!" Her voice echoed and a few moving plants ran away from fright and disappeared into the distant white mist.

"The likelihood of encountering your true love doesn't seem very high here, so stop shouting and don't tire yourself."

"You think I'm tired? I AM tired because of inactivity! Ugh..."

She didn't even took that joke from Kirllia and just continued to droop down her face while walking once more.

"Aunt, it's alright. If I'm correct, we're already near the Trinity Mountain Ranges."

Her head quickly rose and turned to me as if animated, "...Really?" her eyes almost a glare on mine, I nodded with a faint smile.

With that she got back to normal, and we continued our pace.

There weren't really any high-level beasts around, besides from the Lightning Tiger that we met days ago. It made me think that the beasts probably have ran away because of the war, but why would they go further?

Of course I understand if some of them are territorial and some are migratory, but it's just plain white snow here. It even makes me suspicious because there aren't even any tracks or prints that may have been left during their passing, but it's highly possible that the snow also covered those. I could only assume that they moved or gone for a long time already, even before the war had started.

***

Two days pass, and we finally reached a faint trail.

"FINALLY!" Aunt Arc rushed towards the trail that led to a road, and we hasten our footsteps as we chased behind her. She was kneeling over when I reached her, and...is she actually rubbing her face on the ground?

"See? Not bad for you two. You actually survived the hike going here." Kirllia sighed and she looked over the distance, her hands on her hips.

"Are you saying we wouldn't have made it?" With an annoyed voice, Aunt stood once more, and pulled on her backpack.

"So, does that mean that we're parting ways here?"

With my question, the two of them went silent.