Before heading to the west, I decided to leave Silver behind to help Claire and the kids. That action probably had been better than my ‘’thank you’’ which still haunts me after one month. Besides, Stella couldn’t carry him on her back, and I would fly as much as possible. In any case, for a long time, I wondered if Claire would kill Silver. His existence would always remind her what I did, after all. But even though I was far away, I was still could feel the link between Silver and me.

Since I was always moving and busy searching for survivors in all the cities I came across, one month passed in the blink of an eye. I found thirty survivors, and after analyzing them for ten days, I sent them to my hometown and told them to look for Harry.

I was doing the job they gave me correctly, but I didn’t receive my payments. I didn’t want to meet any of them, because they would probably inform Claire and I didn’t want to meet her. Just by thinking about that night was enough to make me feel weak and anxious. Every time I recalled our moments together made my heart race, the scenes of that night always made my body want more, but I couldn’t fool myself. So, I did my best to get rid of those thoughts and feelings.

Anyway, along this month, I found many new monsters, slimes, goblins, kobolds, and orcs. They were monsters, one would only found in games and books, but since Jerry had informed me, they didn’t surprise me. Besides, their strength was pretty much the same as the monsters I fought inside the tower, and their power wasn’t increasing every ten days. They had the same strength as a survivor who broke their limit forty times, but a single magic fire arrow in their heads was enough to kill them.

“If the monsters’ strength is just this, then we will soon eradicate them.”

When I thought that, I found a massive cave in the middle of a destroyed city. It was summer, but all the surroundings of the cave were frozen. Near it, I found signs of a recent battle.

“I few survivors of this city completed the virtual reality, huh.”

But, I didn’t find any monsters inside or near the city. The only explanation was that something came out from the cave and killed the survivors. My job was to search for survivors, but I couldn’t just ignore possible threats. So, I entered the cave. The inside of the cave was surprisingly bright; it seemed that the ice was emitting light.

While I was wondering about that, suddenly, the space around me changed, and I saw myself surrounded by knee-deep snow. As if that wasn’t enough, I was in the middle of a blizzard, the cold was almost unbearable, and I barely could see anything fifty meters away from me. But I saw signs of monsters on the radar, but instead of attacking, I waited to see them. After a few seconds, I finally could see tree meters tall humanoid creatures wearing rustic pieces of leather as clothes, they had blue skin, and they had terrific muscles. They seemed to be pretty smart because they were trying to surround me, and they had huge chunks of wood and ice in their hands. Their weapons were quite simple clubs, but those were sturdy and would cause a lot of damage.

Troll (Ice) – HP: 5000 MP: 400 STA 5000

Physical limit Lv 55, Mental limit Lv 10, Sensorial limit Lv 01.

Skills: Ice Pillar Lv 07, Ice Spear Lv 07, Smash Lv 07.

‘Another fantasy race… but those look much stronger.’

For some reason, one of the trolls prepared an attack with its club, and I then frowned since the monster was too far away. But half a second before his club could hit the ground I felt that I was in danger, so I teleported to Stella’s back. In the next second, a five meters tall ice lance emerged from the snow and pierced the air, exactly where I had been.

Sensing my will to fight, Stella opened her mouth and used the thunderstorm. All five trolls were being electrocuted, but they still could move.

‘It can’t be helped; it is an area of effect attack, and they are stronger than Stella.’

That being said, they were slower than me, and the electric attack was slowing them down even more. I teleported to above the nearest troll and made a fire arrow, and six steel bolts pierce its head.

Troll (Ice) – HP: 3504/5000 MP: 350/400 STA 4975/5000

Physical limit Lv 55, Mental limit Lv 10, Sensorial limit Lv 01.

Skills: Ice Pillar Lv 07, Ice Spear Lv 07, Smash Lv 07, Life Force Lv 08. Frozen Aura Lv 01.

‘It is even more resilient than I thought… time to go all out.’

I teleported to behind the same troll, and then I made other six fire arrows explode its head. The creature died, but the others began to attack, three ice spears were flying toward me, and another troll was preparing to create another ice pillar. Moving in that snow was too hard, so I just teleported around.

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‘Wow, no wonder they are so sturdy…’

Using their large bodies as a cover, I eliminated one troll after the other. After only one minute they had died, it was nice to end a fight without wounds, but even though I was increasing the level of my best skills, the MP used wasn’t something to laugh at.

Even though they were stronger than normal monsters, their bodies dissolved a few minutes after their death. Unfortunately, they didn’t drop any items.

‘I need to be fast to absorb their energy, or it will dissipate…’

Now that everything was calm again, I tried to analyze my surroundings. The blizzard was too strong, but I was sure that I wasn’t inside the cave anymore. I got teleported to another place. I redid my steps, and in the blink of an eye, I was inside the cave again.

‘A portal, huh. The trolls probably killed the survivors who completed the virtual reality, but why didn’t I see them outside?’

I was also curious where in the world the trolls were. But I doubted that I could identify just by looking, I didn’t know any regions covered in snow, after all. Besides, it didn’t matter if they were in the North or South Pole. They just had to die.

‘That blizzard will probably make things difficult for Stella, but if she uses her MP only to fly, I will have a lot of time to kill those trolls. In any case, I’m interested in why this place is connected to a place so far away; I need to investigate it.’

We returned to where I had fought the trolls, and without wasting time, I climbed on Stella’s, and then she took off. The wind was against us, so Stella wasn’t flying that fast, but that only made things easier for me, because my magic arrows would lose a lot of power thanks to our speed and the blizzard.

Since the blizzard was obstructing my vision, I made Stella fly just fifty meters above the ground. At that distance, I would be able to see the trolls, and they also would be able to counterattack, but by teleporting, I could avoid significant problems.

Using two-meter long fire arrows, I was able to kill the trolls in a single shot. But their numbers didn’t decrease; they came from all directions as if our very presence was attracting them. After twenty minutes, my ammo of magic arrows that could kill those trolls in a single shot was already running low, and I couldn’t exactly stop in the middle of that blizzard to create those. Besides, it took ten minutes to create them.

‘What a pain… I guess I can’t keep doing this forever. I need to find a good place to attack them and meditate at the same time.’

That being said, I couldn’t even see what was ahead of me much less find such a place. But I knew that even those trolls needed shelter, they couldn’t stay under that blizzard forever. I was bound to find the place that I needed. I confirmed my hypothesis after twenty minutes; the blizzard was so dense that we didn’t saw a massive mountain covered in snow right in front of us, and Stella almost crashed against it.

“Let’s see if we can find a shelter in this mountain.”

Stella nodded and then she began to fly around the mountain. Fortunately, we found a big entrance at the base of the mountain. It was so big that even Stella could cross walking. But I felt something was off, the ground inside the mountain was too uniform. The walls also didn’t look uneven, ice was covering everything, but that wasn’t the reason that place felt so weird.

“Whatever, I will find out what is this feeling later.”

Trolls were coming from our front, and from behind us, I sat on the ground and began to meditate. It was rare to find so many monsters, much less strong monsters which could track me. Regardless, I decided to make use of that opportunity to my heart’s content.

“Let’s see what will end first, my MP and potions or your numbers.”

Since the trolls didn’t have much MP, I couldn’t use the universal absorption. That skill was handy in long battles. In any case, I used my magic arrows until I ran out of it; the magic arrows, which I had created in one month, had disappeared after two hours. I tried to use the small ones to buy some time, but the regeneration speed of those trolls was crazy. They could regenerate a destroyed limb in a matter of minutes, but they got smaller because of it. In any case, after two hours, the trolls stopped coming. And I picked my spoils, which were just a few low-quality potions.

“I guess I need a melee weapon; the spiritual knife is good against humans, but it can only be used a single time, and it needs MP to be created, stored, and summoned. I need a melee weapon to conserve my MP… steel bolts barely work on small fries now. Besides, it is a pain that I always need MP to kill every single fucking monster. It is time to learn how to fight without depending too much on magic powers.”

That was easier said than done, but I had time. Not exactly at that moment, but after discovering why that portal existed, I would have time to train. And I also needed to think of the best melee weapon for me to use. But I couldn’t think of one, because the mountain began to tremble. It wasn’t an earthquake, I felt some energy passing through the walls and ground, and then I heard it…

“Who is the worm who invaded my castle and killed my servants? Show yourself before me!” A gravely and loud voice echoed through the mountain.

It didn’t look like the voice of a human, but I was yet to find a monster that could speak. However, the voice was somewhat different, as if the owner of that voice had a really big throat.

“Answer me, worm! Face me like a true warrior!” The gravelly voice echoed even more strongly.

“I’m not as loud as you, and I don’t want to shout.”

“A human’s voice… did you came to avenge your friends and take my throne? Come to me, and I shall accept your challenge.” The owner of that gravelly voice said pleased.

Castle, warrior, throne… those words echoed in my mind. It seemed the mountain was actually a castle buried in snow… I had never heard of a castle that big. That was probably why I felt weird because that wasn’t a natural cave, it was an entrance covered in ice, or perhaps the castle was made of ice. It was hard to tell.

“Who are you?”

“I’m emperor of this world; my name is Tinemouth, the most powerful troll in the entire world!” Tinemouth proudly said.

“Not again… I’m tired of kings and emperors. Why do you claim to be the emperor of this world? You aren’t even from here, and humans still exist.”

“Your words make no sense human,” Tinemouth declared unfazed. “I’m the strongest troll; it is only natural that the strongest is the emperor. Soon I will kill all humans, and soon I shall be your planet’s emperor as well.”

Tinemouth's words confused me; it was like he was saying we really were in his world, not on earth.

“Wait, aren’t we on earth?”

“Human, are you mocking me?” Tinemouth growled. “Or perhaps that you crossed the dungeon’s entrance and arrived at my castle without knowing what was lying ahead of you? No wonder your race is on the verge of extinction, humans are utterly stupid… this is my world, the frozen world! And here, my words are absolute!”

It seemed that I had entered a dungeon, and that dungeon was an entire world… how in the hell earth was connected to another world?