Despite the rapid pace, it still took me approximately half an hour to get back to the half-collapsed chamber.

I stopped and looked at the ice pillars in front of me. I pondered about the possible options, weighing pros and cons and trying to predict possible outcomes. Unfortunately, I could not remember anything that might be of help in such non-standard situation.

Finally, I decided. I approached one of the pillars containing the weakest energy and bent down. As I observed the floor, I confirmed that the ice pillar was almost in the middle of the stone tile, and had not frozen into the crack between the adjacent tiles. I carefully adjusted the position of my feet and used my hands to grab the ice pillar as close to the ground as possible. Then, I pushed.

With a silent crack, the solid mass of ice detached itself from the floor and slightly slid away from me. It felt similar to breaking off an icicle from a window ledge, although on a much larger scale.

Having completed the first part of my plan, I now had to get the wannabe cryogenics patient out of the pyramid.

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I tried to simply hold the ice pillar in my arms and move it like that. Unfortunately, that blocked my view and made it rather difficult to maneuver. Then I tried to carefully move it by swaying it from side to side, but it caused the ice at the bottom to crumble at alarming rate. After some more thinking, I had to run to the entrance and bring back one of the spird hides.

I used the elastic hide to wrap around the pillar, before tying the package to my back. It made me look a bit like Obelix though, but the idea worked. The majestic hallway was high enough to let me carry the piece of ice without any obstructions, and I made good time bringing it outside.

Once outside, I carefully laid the ice containing the frozen person down onto the steps.

Hoping that the person inside was alive and actually intelligent and preferably friendly, I sat down to wait.

Soon it dawned on me, that such a huge block of extremely cold ice will actually take a very long time to melt.

Bored and hoping to speed up the process, I picked up my trusty poleaxe and began to slowly shave off the ice from the top. “Helluva cocktail party we got here. Missing tequila and fruits, yes? Coconuts and pineapples… those would be perfect right now” I joked poorly with the ice block, while my surroundings got covered in slowly melting ice shards and shavings. Wisps of white mist kept rising from the ice and covered the ground in fog, which slowly flowed down the stairs towards the jungle below.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

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Suddenly, after I had removed almost two-thirds of the ice that encased the frozen one, I broke through the layer of ice and almost dropped my poleaxe into the water. Surprisingly, water was covering the person inside the ice! I could also finally see the person lying in the water properly.

A tangled mass of approximately shoulder-length green tinged hair obscured the face, but two modest-sized breasts hinted that the body belonged to a female. She was dressed in beautifully embroidered, but practical-looking green clothes that included something like a toga, detachable sleeves and pants. She also had high boots reaching her knees, made of some sort of scaled leather. A slightly glowing dark green gemstone was fitted using a silver chain straight below her throat

I reached out my hands to try to rise her out of the water. But as soon as my hand touched the water surface, I felt it freezing. “Supercooled water!”, it took me a few seconds to recognize the phenomenon. However, I remembered from reading in the internet, that the supercooled water can remain liquid only until below minus 48 degrees Celsius? But here, in the environment close to absolute zero, it managed to remain liquid! I faintly felt some residual magic radiation from the water, so perhaps magic had something to do with that? Or this world had slightly different laws of physics?

“Magic, must be ma-gic.” - I temporarily assured myself again before I forced my hand out of the ice trap.

Then it hit me. Crap. By triggering the freezing, I may have damaged her!

I started to frantically hack at the ice. Using my extreme strength and speed, I soon reached the body. Oddly, the ice did not reach a few centimeters until the surface of her clothes, and that allowed me to quickly free the woman from the ice prison.

I checked the carotid for the pulse. Nothing. Apologizing in my heart for my rudeness, I ripped the toga and tried to find the heartbeat directly. Nothing. No breathing either.

Following the first aid course, I turned her over and squeezed to remove the water from her lungs. Surprisingly, despite her spending time in supercooled water tank encased in ice, she had no water in lungs. Her skin looked pale, but still rather healthy, and was not wrinkled from water saturation either. But as much as I could tell, she was dead.

I decided to verify the death. Carefully, as not to crush anything, I picked up her hand and used my nail to press down onto the base of her fingernail. No response to pain stimulus.

With a sigh, I wiped off the hair from her face. Dilated pupils confirmed the diagnosis. But I was not looking at the eyes, which even with death-dilated pupils retained an unnaturally bright, sparkling emerald rim of the irises. My fingers stopped at the side of her head, where I had pushed her hair to. Elongated, pointed ears, almost double in length than those of a human’s.

Elf?!