novelraw Chapter 520: Main Text Side Story - Destiny and the Moon
Chapter 520: Main Text Side Story - Destiny and the Moon
The wind in the [Snowlands] has a shape. The living beings who have lived here for many generations are the least stingy with using all sorts of extremely exaggerated adjectives to describe the wind here.
They are the most beautiful sculptors of the Snowlands, transforming the white snow, glaciers, and mountain ranges into such majestic and magnificent appearances; they are the tellers of the Snowlands' oldest stories, firmly binding the native masters who grew up here, and the guests who will arrive here in the future, to this land.
Naturally, the wind is also the enemy travelers fear the most and least want to encounter.
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh!"
In the freezing dusk of deep winter, the urgent, knife-like gale quickly swept across the earth, becoming an overwhelming blizzard that completely obscured everything visible.
A human figure, extremely tiny from the perspective of heaven and earth, was walking arduously in such a blizzard. Everything surroundings was fading in the gradually sinking setting sun. Only the newly risen crescent moon in the sky pierced through the snow-capped whiteness, pointing the way for this figure.
Looking closely, this figure was draped in heavy sackcloth garments, but dotted with white snow, consequently mutating into bone-piercingly cold dampness. On a face tightly covered up revealing absolutely nothing, merely explicitly a pair uniquely tracking pale green eyes remained exposed. Within those eyes resided uniquely sheer annoyance alongside unwillingness. Anchored additionally behind her back were two straps, pulling a miniature sled laden with supplies completely explicitly blanketed charting precisely beneath a layer of sackcloth.
Judging by her figure, this was a young human girl, but judging by the reindeer sled behind her, she was again transporting goods for a Deer-kin tribe.
This is the unique "Human-Mule" phenomenon between humans and demi-human tribes in the Snowlands. Because there are very few vehicles capable of traveling in the snow in the Snowlands, for a long time, many tribes have remained in an isolated state. The few exchanges and transport jobs are also completed by the residents of the tribe.
"Shit!"Looking at the increasingly dim sun in the sky, the young girl's emerald green eyes grew increasingly anxious. She panted a few times, then exerted the strength she used when nursing, using all her might to drag the sled behind her forward. As she walked, she trembled and muttered in a low voice,
"You can do it... you can do it... Ashley..."
She really shouldn't have gotten angry and separated from those guys in the Deer-kin transport team. That group of weird guys with horns and manes in this world had bullied her for a month. It was only today that she couldn't stand it anymore and took another transport route alone...
As a result...
As a result, she happened to encounter a blizzard today...
Fuck!
Why am I so unlucky!
As Ashley struggled to drag the sled behind her forward, she gritted her teeth and cursed indignantly in her heart.
"Those sons of bitches... their horns should be shoved up their mothers'..."
"Crunch!"
Just as this girl was speaking with foul language, continuously cursing those guys in the Deer-kin transport team who bullied her in a low voice, the sled she was dragging behind her suddenly got stuck next to a huge rock. Unable to pull it, she stumbled and fell face-first into a snowdrift as high as her knees right in front of her.
She groaned in pain, then quickly turned her head to look at the sled, then quickly ran back to the side of the sled, wanting to lift it up.
But the more anxious she was, the less she could accomplish anything, especially now. Her hands and feet were completely frozen stiff; she couldn't feel a thing or muster any strength at all. She tried to lift the stuck sled, but after exerting herself for a long time, it remained motionless.
She looked at the sky in a panic. The setting sun in the west was growing dimmer and dimmer, as if it was going to take away all the light and warmth of the entire world.
"No no no no no no..."
Looking at the disappearing sun, Ashley was about to cry.
She had been in this world for several months now. Having stayed in the Deer-kin tribe and transported things several times, she knew very well that the nights here were absolutely not a place for humans to stay. In just over ten minutes, she would be devoured by that terrifying low temperature and completely turn into a lifeless ice sculpture.
Not to mention, those guys from the Deer-kin tribe also said that the ground at night was full of monsters and ghosts...
God, what kind of terrifying things would a group of things that are two meters tall and have a large pair of horns on their heads call monsters?
"No no no no!"
At this time, Ashley didn't want to care about the sled she brought anymore. Perhaps she should have done this earlier, but there was a rule in the tribe: the value of the goods everyone transported was more precious than their lives. If they lost the transported goods, they didn't have to come back to eat; they might as well die in the snow outside.
This group of inhumane guys...
I...
Fuck!
Ashley wanted to untie the rope tied to her shoulder, but her five fingers seemed to have completely fused into one right now; she had no sensation at all and couldn't feel the rope knot at all. Nor did she dare to take off her gloves.
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh!"
And so, under her extremely anxious gaze, she could only watch helplessly as the setting sun in the sky was obscured bit by bit by the mountain range, completely disappearing above the sky. Replacing it was that bright, incomparably freezing moon.
At that instant, Ashley instantly felt the surrounding temperature drop by more than a few degrees, while darkness wrapped around her like a devil, making it impossible for her to see even a sliver of the path.
It's over...
Everything's over...
Her emerald green eyes moistened slightly. Unable to control herself any longer, she fell to her knees on the ground and couldn't help but cry,
"Ah, fuck! Damn it... damn it... fuck! Why me... why did I come to this world..."
Who would have known that a few months ago, she was still an American first-year high school student who quarreled with her family every day, didn't want to study, and wanted to mingle with bands and gangs.
She couldn't read any books at all, and the best grade she got in her first-semester courses was only a B...
At that time, her biggest enemy was her mom, who lived in constant fear of her abusing alcohol, getting tattoos, or even abusing drugs. She would even jump down from her locked third-floor attic and take a joyride in her brother's Mustang...
And now, her biggest enemies were the Deer-kin who called her "Little Pipsqueak" and "Soft Horn Bug" every day, this day-after-day blizzard and cold, and the tribe that wouldn't give her food if she couldn't deliver the goods back...
Only at this moment did she begin to recall the goodness of modern society. At least there was twenty-four-hour hot water there, and the steak her mom made for her.
"Wu wu wu... everything's over..."
Ashley felt colder and colder. She curled up painfully beside the sled she was transporting, attempting to use this method to live for another minute or second. But perhaps, picking a decent posture to die in now was what she should do?
She struggled to use her hands to cover her body, which was trembling incessantly as if equipped with a motor, but it was to no avail no matter what she did.
She narrowed her eyes and sneezed. Then, not knowing if it was an illusion, she actually began to feel her body start to become warm...
Even hotter and hotter?
"Haa... fuck... haa... so... hot..."
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh!"
Amidst that berserk blizzard, time ticked away bit by bit, and her consciousness grew increasingly blurry. The only thing she felt was her body getting hotter and hotter, so hot that she wanted to undress.
She tremblingly took off the mask on her face, and long blonde hair that reached roughly to her shoulders scattered downin actuality, her hair used to be even longer, but because an elder in the Deer-kin tribe really liked the color of her hair, she traded her hair for quite a bit of food.
At the very beginning when she transmigrated to the Deer-kin tribe and hadn't yet begun transporting things for them to beg for food, it was exactly by cutting off her own hair that she obtained her first meal.
The past her had absolutely no concept of money; her mother gave her a thousand dollars a month and she still felt it wasn't enough.
She had so many musical instruments she wanted to buy, as well as idols' albums and merchandise. Hair care and cosmetics were naturally a must, oh... clothes too. Her mom's taste in clothing was simply too unfashionable.
Her mom most wanted her to be a good girl, go become a lawyer or a doctor, exactly that kind of country bumpkin wearing glasses with a single braided pigtail...
As a result, up until now, she finally realized that the meal she used to get full on for ten dollars might now cost her a trip dragging this fucking sled.
She opened her mouth, inhaling less and less air. Her hollow eyes reflected the moon in the sky, yet her hands still motionlessly pulled at the clothes on her body.
"So hot..."
But just at the final moment, a fair palm suddenly stretched out and abruptly grabbed her wrist tightly.
"Smack!"
When the other party's palm tightly gripped Ashley's wrist, a gentle warm current suddenly struck her brain. Her action of pulling her clothes came to an abrupt end. At that instant, she dazedly realized that she was freezing right now.
Her pupils contracted slightly, then she hurriedly withdrew that grabbed wrist and put the taken-off mask back on.
"Haa... what the fuck am I doing... haa... so cold..."
Right as she was panting heavily, having escaped from the grim reaper's clutches, only then did she realize that, unknowingly, a figure who wasn't considered tall and was completely covered in a black cloak stood in front of her.
The figure held a slender walking stick in its hand, devoid of any decorations, yet under the illumination of the hazy moonlight piercing through the blizzard, it revealed dense, bumpy traces engraved upon it.
Gh...
A ghost!
The very first concept that popped into Ashley's mind was this. She retreated several meters in the snow in extreme terror. Covering her face, she said in panic,
"Fuck you, you son of a bitch Dementor! Stay away from me!"
"..."
The figure before her was slightly taken aback, then slowly raised her other hand and took off the cloak covering her head.
In the next moment, an extremely young, green face that seemed not even eighteen years old crashed into Ashley's eyes.
This "little girl" before her had long, slender black hair. Her iconic Asian features were fair and young; Ashley even felt she was younger than herself. But for some unknown reason, her light brown eyes seemed to flicker with a profoundly deep light even deeper than the starry sky, preventing Ashley from feeling any sense of encountering a peer for a moment.
But the most crucial point was, this fellow before her seemed to be a bona fide human!
Jesus above, this was the first time she had encountered a pure human in these past few months!
This place where birds don't shit only had fluffy Deer-kin and those... Snow Fox-kin that look like dogs...
But those Snow Fox-kin seemed to like her quite a bit, even though she explicitly kept cursing them previously...
At this moment, the young black-haired girl before her smiled at Ashley and asked softly in a light voice,
"Dementor? What is that? An existence from a movie?"
"Ah... that's right, Harry Po... wait! You know... you know what a movie is?!"
Ashley's eyes were practically about to jump entirely out of their sockets. She couldn't wait to abruptly stand up. She mistakenly thought somebody exclusively tracing spanning specifically her hometown arrived deliberately expressly explicitly uniquely mapping specifically to pick her up.
Haha, so the Pentagon could already develop a world-traversing rescue team.
That's wonderful!
Looking at Ashley who inexplicably wore a delighted expression before her, the black-haired girl smiled gently. Then, she looked at the blizzard nearby, nodded, and said,
"Of course I know what that is."
"Are you here to pick me up and take me home? That's wonderful! My name is Ashley O'Connell, I live in Washington D.C., United States of America..."
"Hmm, in a sense, coming to pick you up was just done in passing, and even so, it's not to pick you up and take you back to that home of yours."
"Huh? What did you..."
Ashley's expression froze slightly. Only at this moment did she suddenly realize that the language this girl before her was speaking was different from her own, but strangely enough, she could just intimately understand the words she was saying.
Sure enough, you're still a ghost, right...
The black-haired girl before her looked at Ashley's blank appearance and didn't interrupt her. She looked at the blizzard all around her, then gently raised her walking stick and tapped it on the ground.
"Thrum!"
In the next second, all the wind and snow in the entire Northlands seemed to fall still.
That berserk storm was smoothed out as if by a pair of gentle large hands, and even the pure white snow swept up by it suddenly paused in mid-air, before falling down like a dance.
The entire Northlands, at this second, slumbered at the feet of this girl before her.
Ashley looked at this spectacular scene in disbelief. It wasn't until the white snow within a radius of a hundred miles had settled, and even the clouds in the sky had completely disappeared, revealing the starry sky and that massive bright moon above, that she finally realized what had happened.
"Jesus... above..."
"Alright, getting back to the topic a moment ago. Ashley... what were you saying..."
Although the girl before her was asking Ashley, she walked forward without turning her head. It wasn't until her voice transmitted from ahead that Ashley dazedly looked at her back. Subsequently, she chased after her, and because the rope on her back hadn't been untied yet, the sled initially stuck behind her, which was jolted loose by the girl earlier, was also dragged along with her.
"Uh, I mean... fuck, sister, just now... how did you do that just now... fuck, that was too cool... that move, it was simply like... wait, are you from the same place as me, sister?"
"Hmm, that's right. What, did you think you were the only Transferred Person in the whole world?"
"Transferred Person? Is that our name? Or an organization? Did you come up with it? I..."
Just as Ashley was about to continue uttering crude language, the girl before her didn't turn her head, but stretched out her walking stick. The walking stick violently struck her face, causing her to swallow the words she was about to utter in pain.
"Ashley, use cleaner language."
"...God, why do you act like my mom. She's also like this... 'Oh, Ashley, stand straight! Sit properly! And watch your tongue!' It annoys the hell out of me..."
"But I am certain, your mom wouldn't turn you into a pus-oozing toad, right?"
The girl before her smiled and turned her head back, causing Ashley to suddenly freeze in place. Only after several seconds did she somewhat sluggishly look at the other party's black walking stick and reply,
"Alright... I will pay attention."
"That's good."
"Then what is your name, sister?"
"Karasawa... Asuka Karasawa."
"Oh, Japanese, how rare. Hey, did you know, there was an Asian in my class too, her grades were very good, I used to borrow her homework to copy quite often. She was also Japanese, what was her name again... Jennie Lee?"
"That's Chinese."
"No wonder she never lent me her homework again after I called her that, I fu"
In the next second, Asuka Karasawa's walking stick lit up, and the words Ashley was about to utter came to an abrupt end again.
Ashley just dragged this heavy sled like this, following behind the girl named "Asuka Karasawa" all the way. She pouted. Obviously, this fellow before her was the same age as her, yet she acted so old-fashioned. What was she pretending for...
"So, where are we going? And... what are you here for... didn't you say earlier you were here to pick me up? Although it's just a side job..."
"Ashley, in truth, I noticed you from the moment you transmigrated here. I originally intended to come pick you up, but got delayed because of some other matters... Fortunately, I have to come to the Northlands every once in a while, and it just happened to be today."
"So, you let me stay with those horned monsters for these few months, and even watched them throw me in the snow?"
"First, they are not monsters, but Deer-kin who give you food and drink. Labor in exchange for food is the most basic rule between this world and our original world; second, I do not owe you anything. Even if I didn't come pick you up and let you die of old age in the Northlands, it wouldn't matter; lastly, they didn't throw you in the snow, you got angry and walked off yourself..."
The more Ashley heard, the uglier her face became. Hearing the end, her footsteps suddenly stopped in place. Frowning, she somewhat unconvincedly untied the rope from her shoulder.
She walked towards Asuka Karasawa before her in two quick steps and said to her,
"Fuck! Enough... Fine, you saved me in the blizzard, I owe you. My coming to this world was also entirely me asking for trouble, it's what I deserve. I deserve to labor in this crappy place for a lifetime and then die of old age in the snow, is that okay? I have nothing to say, but I also don't want to listen to a pip-squeak who isn't even taller than me lecturing me here like my mom..."
As she cursed and walked towards Asuka Karasawa, her outstretched hand was quickly about to reach Asuka Karasawa's shoulder. But in the next moment, the originally petite girl before her turned her head back expressionlessly.
At that instant, a pair of cold, scarlet eyes crashed straight into her eyes, as if wanting to smash her soul.
Ashley's movements instantly froze in place, while Asuka Karasawa made no other movements. She merely turned her head back expressionlessly, then raised her walking stick and tapped her own head.
"Suit yourself. You can go back now if you want. It just so happens I have something to do right now; after I'm done, I'll come take you away again..."
Fuck, so bottom line is I have to go with you, right?
"But there's still one point to remind you. Although I don't care that you view me as young as yourself, in this world, it is best not to judge people by their appearances..."
Ashley was still immersed in the afterglow of that terrifying glimpse from the seemingly "young" girl before her just now. Even her spoken words couldn't help but tremble slightly,
"Since I have to leave with you anyway, haa, it doesn't matter if you tell me nothing, what's the fucking use of saying so much..."
"You don't necessarily have to leave with me, it's just that for a period of time in the future you need to stay with me. As you can see, you are not the only Transferred Person in this world, and I am one of the earliest Transferred Persons to arrive in this world. I came to help you adapt to this world. After living here for a few months, aren't you still ignorant of everything besides those Deer-kin and Snow Fox-kin?"
"...True, I even thought there were no humans in this place."
Asuka Karasawa's footsteps suddenly stopped as she walked. She turned her head to look at Ashley following behind her, then looked at the sled she had left far behind. Subsequently, she tapped her walking stick. Accompanied by the flash of an extremely dim light, that sled was seemingly pulled by the wind, running alone towards the faraway Deer-kin tribe.
"Fuck, that's really cool..."
Ashley muttered under her breath, then turned to look at Asuka Karasawa, who had stopped walking forward. She discovered that at this moment, the two of them were standing in the middle of a snowy plain, while Asuka Karasawa quietly gazed at the moonlit sky, not knowing what she was contemplating.
After waiting for a long time, although she didn't know why standing next to this girl wasn't cold at all, she still couldn't help but ask,
"Didn't you come here because you had other things to attend to? What is it..."
"I came here to meet a friend."
"Here? There's not a damn thing here, I don't see anything."
Asuka Karasawa smiled gently, then explained to her,
"Ashley, this world has three layers in total. The innermost layer is where we are standing, it can be called 'Reality,' and it's the place where most living beings survive. Reality can be further divided into the Mortal World, Outer Space, and the Boundary of Matter, but you can ignore those for now. Outside of Reality is a layer of space tightly wrapping around Reality. That is a space managed by a deity, and we call that place the 'Crevice.' And outside the Crevice is an even vaster space. That is both the outermost layer of this world and the deepest layer of this world. That place is called the 'Spirit World.'"
Ashley opened her mouth, dazedly listening to these extremely unfamiliar concepts. Although she didn't know exactly how much she remembered, it was always better than dragging a sled and shoveling dog shit in the snow every day.
"That friend of mine is in the Spirit World, gazing at us across the Crevice..."
Continuing, Asuka Karasawa raised her finger and said to Ashley,
"And in Reality, there are two places closest to the Spirit World. One place is right below our feet, a certain point on the Snowlands continent, and the other point is on Dragon Tail Island, at the location of the Dragon Court established by the children of the Dragon God Femabaha."
Ashley's expression became somewhat abstract. She scratched her head and said,
"What what what Dragon God Femabaha, Dragon Tail Island, Dragon Court?"
Ignoring her confusion, Asuka Karasawa merely continued,
"Every time the process of communicating with my friend occurs, it's actually very dangerous. You staying by my side should be fine, but other living beings cannot. That's why I had to stir up a terrifying blizzard to drive all the living beings here away to a certain distance."
"Should be fine... Fuck, you also... Wait? What did you say? That damn blizzard that trapped me earlier was caused by you?"
As Ashley spoke, she couldn't hold it in anymore. She hurriedly tore off her mask, revealing the pretty, little apple-red face that had already warmed up inside.
She was very beautiful, and it could be seen that before coming to this world, she had always been the darling of her family, the spoiled type; otherwise, she wouldn't still look this beautiful after being tormented by the harsh environment here for a few months... Mhmm, naturally beautiful inherently also accounts for a portion of the reasons.
Upon hearing this, Asuka Karasawa also turned her head back again. A mischievous smile finally appeared on her face. Then, she nodded and said shamelessly,
"It is indeed so."
"I fu"
Before Ashley could finish her words through gritted teeth, Asuka Karasawa before her smiled in satisfaction, then raised the walking stick in her hand pointing towards the sky.
"Rumble!"
In an instant, a powerful energy capable of changing the color of heaven and earth burst forth from Asuka Karasawa's walking stick.
Ashley took a deep breath. Losing her balance, she very embarrassingly plopped down onto the ground...
That massive impact blew away all the snow and wind that had been accumulating for a long time on the neighboring ground. It blasted the crust and frozen rivers on the ice plain until they were full of cracks. At this moment, Ashley incomparably believed those words Asuka Karasawa had said.
She suddenly felt a bit dizzy, because at this moment, the light splashing from Asuka Karasawa's walking stick seemed corporeal, rousing auroras resembling waves across the cloudless sky.
Subsequently, the stars and the galaxy above seemed to be dragged and shifted by Asuka Karasawa's power, continuously drawing closer to the tiny earth here.
"Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit!"
Ashley was terrified out of her wits, almost wetting herself. She continuously retreated in fear, deeply afraid that the sky would fall and crush her to death.
But exactly within this dazzling brilliance, not knowing if it was an illusion, she seemingly saw illusory rope knots condensed from golden light...
She didn't know what those rope knots were, yet she invariably felt that those rope knots were calling out to her. And within those rope knots, images she couldn't see clearly continuously surfaced...
But feeling extreme terror, how could she have the leisure to study what those rope knots and images represented? She merely tremblingly crawled on the ground and screamed incessantly, shouting loudly towards Asuka Karasawa,
"Ah ah! Fuck! Ah! Help! Help! I'm going to die! Oh my god! Asuka Karasawa! Ah ah! The sky is falling!"
Whereas Asuka Karasawa, who remained standing in place from beginning to end, watched Ashley crawling on the ground like a caterpillar, even wanting to dig a hole to drill into. Then, truly unable to hold back her laughter, she covered her lips.
Actually, she could have retracted the walking stick much earlier, and originally there wouldn't have been such a huge commotion.
But making this foul-mouthed little guy suffer a bit might also be an interesting thing, right?
Seeing that she truly couldn't take it anymore, if it didn't stop soon she probably would go into shock or incontinence.
Thus, the smiling Asuka Karasawa finally withdrew her fair hand, retracting that walking stick flashing with massive light back into her own hand.
"Thrum!"
"Haha... I... I'm dying... God... oh my god..."
Ashley beside her was about to pass out. This commotion was truly too huge, terrifying her small heart so much it was about to jump out.
She still carefully crawled on the ground, just like dodging a school shooting she raised her head slightly to examine her surroundings, deeply afraid that something more terrifying than a shooter's bullets would appear nearby...
But everything had already quieted down. Only that Asuka Karasawa, who remained standing in place with her cloak fluttering, was so free, easy, and elegant.
"Haa... I... I..."
"Raise your head, Ashley. My friend is here, do you want to say hello?"
"Fr... friend?"
Ashley held her head and dawdled in the snow for a moment. Only then did she follow Asuka Karasawa's smiling reminder and slowly raised her head to look towards the sky.
In the next moment, a massive moon that seemed illusory yet also seemed physical occupied all the sky in her field of vision just like that, gazing at her seemingly explicitly a negligible specific exact minimal distance explicitly apart identically concurrently spanning tracing exactly seemingly identifying exactly explicitly exactly mapping uniquely tracing exact identifying directly navigating mapping exactly traversing exactly exactly characterizing corresponding explicit navigating identical corresponding precisely tracing navigating exactly exclusively tracking precise exactly mapping completely navigating navigating exact mapping entirely corresponding capturing exclusively matching mapping exact purely traversing mirroring identical uniquely explicit tracing accurately mapping spanning explicit identical exactly capturing completely separating strictly uniquely identically exactly corresponding identical uniquely navigating exactly matching referencing tracing matching mapping tracking corresponding tracing navigating explicitly pinpoint locating exact spanning identically precisely far identically spanning locating exactly navigating locating identical mapping tracking spanning tracing explicit pinpoint spanning tracing precisely precisely pinning strictly mapping matching precisely spanning bridging entirely bridging spanning identifying exact identical identifying pointing explicit precisely specifying navigating precisely characterizing locating traversing precisely mapping locating navigating corresponding specifying corresponding mapping specific identically distinguishing specific traversing locating precisely specific locating mapping precisely distinguishing tracing identifying tracking specific explicit determining explicit precisely identical capturing distinctly capturing purely specific uniquely denoting precisely uniquely precise pinpoint denoting mapping directly specific matching precisely tracing exclusively locating exactly spanning identical referencing exactly entirely distinguishing explicitly mapping traversing specific identical specific indicating exactly completely distinguishing specifying explicitly isolating denoting identifying exact tracking uniquely identifying specifying completely pinpoint explicitly exact locating precisely designating indicating specifying mapping specifying directly matching...
...seemed close at hand yet also seemed as far as the horizon.
That was such a bright, such a massive, and concurrently extremely bone-piercingly freezing moon...
"The... the moon..."
Asuka Karasawa smiled gently, retracted the walking stick into her embrace, and similarly looked towards the sky, saying in a low voice,
"Yes, He is exactly the moon."
(End of this chapter)