“Winter holiday?” I blinked.

“Yeah!” Rose nodded, enthused. “Otherworlder traditions carry over, y’know?”

“And this is…”

“Not Christmas—they didn’t have a Christ here, obviously—and not Hanukkah for similar reasons. There’s been a lot of otherworlders over the years, and something that’s been near-universal among them is some kind of celebration during the winter. During the middle of December, mostly, but, well…”

“No December here, huh?” I asked.

“Yep,” Rose said, smiling. “But there sure as hell is a winter. Granted, the winter’s super mild in this part of the kingdom, but you know my mom’s on top of squeezing everything she can for profit.”

“Ah, capitalism,” I said, “now that’s the true Christmas spirit.”

“Winter holiday,” Rose corrected me. “Heh. Get it right.”

“Yep, yep,” I replied. “So how’s it work?”

“It hews closest to American Christmas celebrations, I think,” Rose said. “You’d be surprised. Even my mom managed to get the idea of the holiday spirit across, no matter how much she tries for money.”

“So gifts and stuff?”

“Yeah, except it’s a lot more focused around giving to others and less around the idea of a Santa Claus,” Rose said. “Pumps up the number of customers, of course, but I feel like it wraps around to being sweet in a way.”

“Aw, that’s nice,” I said. “Do you celebrate?”

“Just a bit,” she said. “It’s in a couple of days. You mind if I swing over with the rest of the party for an hour or two?”

“I’d love that.”

Plus, I have some ideas…

----------------------------------------

“Is that snow?” Rose asked.

She had changed out of her [Bard] outfit for the day, favoring a festive-looking white and green top with a red skirt and leggings. The rest of Minus One had similarly altered their outfits—Troy had changed into a vaguely wintery sweater and pants while Ryan had added ornaments to his armor. It might’ve been a bit dumb, but it was just the right kind of dumb. Seeing them like this would’ve gotten a smile out of anyone.

“It is indeed,” I said. “A bit localized, and only really doable in this section, but it is. Some localized applications of freezing items along with [Infuse Magic] for, uh, something—“

A dozen modified [Ice Mephit]s, I didn’t say. They didn’t need to know that this patch of wintery-looking land was made by a load of exploding monster corpses.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“You blew up [Mephit]s, didn’t you,” Troy said, amused.

Fuck.

“Well, it’s still snow,” I said, doing my best to not sound defensive.

“That is true,” Troy admitted. “We do not get much of that around here, so I cannot vouch for its accuracy. This part of the kingdom is far too temperate.”

Ryan hadn’t spoken yet, and though I wasn’t looking at him, my dungeon senses told me why he hadn’t.

“Hey, Troy,” I said, flashing him a shit-eating grin.

“Hm?”

“Behind you.”

The [Apprentice Mage] turned around just in time to get beaned by a roughshod snowball, fresh off the still-magical residue of an [Ice Mephit]’s death.

“Hey!” Troy shouted, wiping his face off. “You’ll pay for that!”

Instead of bending down to make another one, he pushed mana into the ground, exerting himself with his [Telekinesis]. Troy’s snowball was less of a snowball and more of a snow boulder when he sent it flying forth.

Ryan fell from the force of the strike, but he wasn’t done, already gathering more snow even as he lay there in it.

Rose laughed at the scene, dropping to one knee so she could contribute her own bit to the fight.

I watched the three of them, warmth blossoming in my chest—

And then something wet and cold hit the side of my face, breaking apart on impact.

I whipped my head around, mock-glaring at the [Bard] who’d sent the snow coming my way.

“Oh, you’re not ready for this,” I said, gathering snow with [Reshape].

“Catch me if you can,” Rose said, singing a single note and sending herself sailing over her teammate’s heads. While she was midair, Troy sent a flurry of snow flying at her, and she narrowly dodged it with an inhuman twist of her body.

I grinned, dashing forward to join the mess. “I’ll try.”

----------------------------------------

“You brought gifts?” I asked, blinking.

I’d made some for them, of course—I was part dungeon, making things was the name of the game—but I hadn’t expected them to give any in return.

“Yep,” Ryan said. “Rose’s idea. We went shopping with some of our dungeon rewards, so we can’t really say that this was completely ours, but…”

“Hey, it’s the thought that counts,” I said.

They’d gotten me three sets of items, one from each of them.

“A series of novels by the great River Rose,” Troy said, unwrapping a box that contained twelve separate volumes that had to be a thousand pages thick each. “Rose said you were a fan of her other work.”

“I picked out a new hat for you,” Ryan said, revealing one that looked fairly similar to mine. “I saw that it was getting a bit worn out, and this one’s got better leather and armor on the inside.”

“Last and hopefully not least,” Rose said, opening one final box filled with miniature cakes and cookies with details on them that could’ve come straight from an art book, “some desserts that you realllly don’t want to know the price of.”

“I—thank you all,” I said, trying for words and failing. “Thank you.”

“It’s the least we could do,” Ryan said.

“Besides, it would appear that you have gifts as well,” Troy said. “This is the bare minimum for us.”

“I do,” I said.

I brought them out from the alcove in which they’d resided. They weren’t anything too complicated, but I hoped they’d satisfy. With Iris’ addition of metals to my arsenal, I’d been able to make three identical small charms that could fit on a necklace or bracelet or similar item. I’d made stylized rings with the number -1 writ in large font within, taking up the empty space. Not the fanciest design, but…

“I love it,” Rose said.

“Wow,” Ryan added. “I’d never thought of getting a logo.”

“Thank you,” Troy said. “We will treasure these.”

I couldn’t keep myself from smiling. Childlike joy was painted on all three of their faces, still bright red from the cold of a lot of snow being thrown at each of them.

Minus One really were something special.

“Happy winter holiday,” I said. “I hope we’ll get to spend quite a few more of these together.”