Chương 278: (273) 4.52. Cold as Ice

"Come on!" Vin said, immediately rushing in the direction of the scream. In this open tundra dotted only by occasional hills of snow or stubby trees, there was no telling how far away the scream had originated from. Unfortunately, Vin came to a sudden realization as he tried to run toward the source of the noise. While convenient, snow shoes were not fast. Struggling to pick up one foot after another with an unusual gait, Vin nearly fell face-first into the snow as he tripped over his own feet.

Lumel warped in front of him and caught him before he could fall, and she shook her head as she gripped his arm.

"We'll never make it on foot like this, hold on!" Before the words had even left her mouth, a familiar purple bubble popped into existence around them, and the world shifted as they were moved. Vin had no idea how far they'd gone, as the snowy tundra looked the same as it had before, but it had to have been a good distance based on the strain on Lumel's face.

"See anything?" she puffed, working to catch her breath.

"No, nothing," he said, desperately turning to look in every direction at once.

"Scule?"

"Nothing here either," Scule confirmed, his and Reginald's heads poking out of his pocket and searching with them.

"They could be anywhere!" While they tried to spot whoever needed help, a second scream echoed out across the land, sounding much closer than the first one. Vin's head snapped in the appropriate direction, and Lumel nodded.

"Get ready," she said, casting Mass Dimensional Shift a second time and teleporting them toward the source of the scream. This time, when they appeared, there was a rather noticeable change in the vast white fields of snow stretching all around them. Primarily in the form of a monstrous bear with spikes jutting out of its back towering over what appeared to be a much smaller, human-sized bear cowering on the ground. New elite monster discovered! 500 exp gained.

It took Vin a second to realize what he was looking at, before it all clicked into place.

"Elite monster attacking a capillan!" he snapped, raising a hand and firing off a spell without waiting." Stone Shot!" His projectile shot across the snow, slamming into the thick, muscular chest of the distant bear monster. He would have preferred hitting it in the head, but they were a good few hundred feet away from the two, and he didn't want to risk missing the monster entirely. Thankfully, his spell worked as intended, and the distant monster let out a snow-rumbling roar as the stone projectile drew blood.

"Great, I think you pissed it off!" Scule said, already bringing his blowgun to his lips in preparation of what was to come.

"Get ready," Vin said, watching as the elite monster forgot about its original prey and began loping across the field in their direction. He had no idea how the bear was managing to stay atop of the snow when it looked to be somewhere around six feet tall while on all fours and packing who knew how many hundreds of pounds of muscle, and Vin's face paled a tad when he finally realized the answer. It wasn't staying atop the snow.

The bear was powerful enough to run through nearly three feet of dense, compact snow like it was nothing, barreling toward them as if it didn't even exist. That also meant the six-foot-tall bear was actually closer to nine -feet-tall, and Vin's face paled further as he came to the sudden understanding that this wasn't going to be like fighting the big bad bear monsters of his own fragment.

"Scule, you wouldn't happen to have any poison capable of taking that thing down, would you?" he asked as the bear grew closer and he spotted the damage his mana-empowered Stone Shot had done. There was a small bit of already-frozen blood coming from the scratch on its massive chest, but Vin probably would have had better results attacking a car with a butter knife.

"Maybe," Scule said, narrowing his eyes and waiting for the right moment as the monster grew closer and closer.

"Let's find out, shall we?" Once the bear was only a few dozen feet away, close enough that Vin could hear its rabid panting and see the murder in its eyes, Scule brought his blowgun to his lips and fired. Vin knew that the blowgun wasn't capable of packing enough of a punch to penetrate the tougher hides most elite monsters seemed to have, but Scule had a plan for that already.

In a miraculous display of skill, Scule's dart hit the monster in the chest, directly on the tiny wound Vin had already inflicted with his own spell.

"Lumel, now!" Scule shouted as the monster rushed the last few feet toward them. Having been waiting for her cue, Lumel cast Mass Dimensional Shift, and the four of them were suddenly standing over by the fallen capillan. While Lumel turned to check on them and make sure they were alright, Vin kept his eyes on the elite monster. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The monster bear roared as its prey vanished directly in front of it, and it slammed a clawed hand into the snow bank, causing the ground to shake badly enough that even they could feel it all the way from where they were standing. As it spun around in search of them, the bear staggered slightly, nearly tripping and falling over.

"There we go!" Scule grinned, watching the monster shake its head and try to shrug off whatever Scule had hit it with.

"That's one of the newer poisons I've been working on, ever since the sky fragment. I figured this guy was too beefy for my usual toxins, so I went with a different approach. Remember what I told you about those flying stingray monsters and their magical venom? His internal temperature should be plummeting right about now." Sure enough, it wasn't just the bear monster's internal temperature that was plummeting.

Even at this distance, Vin could make out the thin layer of frost that was rapidly accumulating on the monster's body as it literally began freezing over before their very eyes. Unfortunately, it would take a little more than that to put down a monster that made the Trunkbacks of the Sacred Forest look like scrawny children. The monstrous bear finally spotted them back where it had originally been standing, and it roared once more before charging them down.

Knowing Scule's poison would probably take care of it so long as they bought enough time, Vin got to work." Stone Wall," he muttered, dumping mana into the spell to extend its reach and summoning the thickest wall he could manage directly in front of the monster. Unsurprisingly, it smashed through it like it had been made of glass, and Vin decided to try a different approach." Aqua Sphere." This time, when the giant bubble of water spun up into existence, the monster didn't fare quite so well.

It crashed into the large bubble and began struggling to swim its way out. While it was strong enough to shatter rock, it didn't seem to be able to move through water all that well. Vin's idea ended up working even better than he could have hoped, as his spell actually began freezing almost instantly. Within seconds, the outside of the bubble of water had frozen over completely in the frigid temperatures of the fragment, and before they knew it, the rest of the bubble had followed suit.

Vin slowly trudged up to the elite monster, before tapping on the frozen sphere it was now trapped within. There were a few cracks here and there, no doubt from a few last ditch death throes from the rampaging monster, but it seemed Scule's poison and his own spell had worked together to freeze the monster from the inside and outside simultaneously. Just like that, they'd taken down one of the physically largest elite monsters Vin had ever seen.

"Good Gods, that was a big one," Scule said, tucking away his blowgun as he stared through the ice at it.

"If Lumel hadn't been here to teleport us away… You know, have I ever told you how much I approve of your and Lumel's relationship? You should put a ring on that." Snorting, Vin went to tell Scule to worry about himself, when a third blood-curdling scream rang out across the frozen tundra. Spinning around, Vin searched for whatever new threat was bearing down on them, only to find absolutely nothing. His eyes darted around the white landscape in confusion, before finally landing on the capillan they'd rescued.

It was pretty much impossible to tell if the capillan was a man or a woman, what with the dense layer of black hair covering them from head to toe and the complete lack of clothing, but one thing was obvious. The screaming capillan was clearly terrified, as it desperately scrambled backwards away from Lumel's crouching form.

The pulmon had been offering it a hand up off the ground, but at the capillan's reaction, Lumel stood back up, pulling her hood further down over her face before wrapping her arms around herself and turning away in shame. Immediately, Vin understood what must have happened. The person they'd just rescued had seen Lumel's face underneath her hood when she tried to help them and had freaked out at her transparent skin.

For the first time since learning about how the neilans had been responsible for the death of the blue fur clan, Vin saw red as he stomped his way back toward the still-scrambling capillan. Lumel must have seen the look on his face, as she suddenly warped into place in front of him in a flash of purple, stopping him with a hand on his chest.

"Vin, I'm fine," she said, offering him a small smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"Seriously, I'm more than used to it by now. It's my own fault. After spending so much time with you and the others, I started getting more careless about keeping myself covered. I should have been more careful."

"In no way is this your fault," Vin said, his sudden anger already slipping away from the desperate look in Lumel's eyes for him to just let it go.

"The only reason we even got here fast enough to save them was because of you and your magic!"

"That doesn't change what I look like to other people," Lumel shrugged, withdrawing into herself slightly.

"Come on, let's make sure the capillan is okay, alright? Let's just forget it." Vin felt a maelstrom of different emotions warring away within him, but Lumel clearly wanted him to let the capillan's reaction go, so he did his best to take a few deep, frigid breaths and calm himself down. Logically, he knew that seeing a pulmon up close for the first time when one wasn't expecting it would freak out just about anyone.

Hell, he probably would have had the same reaction if Lumel had surprised him like that during his first day on Edregon. But having come to know how sweet and shy Lumel was… Scule seemed to share some of his own frustrations, as the petian hopped up onto his shoulder and whispered in his ear even as he shivered in the cold.

"Don't worry, this guy might not have shoelaces to steal, but mark my words, I'll find something if they don't apologize." Scule's remark helped ease the last of the anger Vin was feeling, and he couldn't help but laugh as he saw the determined grin on Scule's face.

"Thanks, but I'm okay. You can go back to cuddling up with Reginald if you want."

"In fact, I think I'll do just that. This fragment sucks!" Scule complained, shivering all the while as he clambered back into the pocket. His anger abated, Vin walked over to the capillan who had finally gotten back to their feet. Other than the hairy forest of black fur, the only thing Vin could make out was the being's matching black eyes, currently staring at him in fear.

The capillan looked like it wanted to turn and run, but seeing as how its eyes kept flicking toward Lumel, it no doubt understood that they could teleport and catch up to it in a heartbeat.

"Hello there," Vin started, nodding toward the being they'd just saved and doing his best to give them a friendly smile.

"I'm Vin."