Achram opened his eyes and saw a dim room around him. For a second, he thought that everything that happened with the Slime and the Icy Rock God was just a happy dream before his death. But then, he saw a ray of sunshine coming out from the outline of the door and saw that he was still in the bamboo hut that he was before. If everything wasn’t a dream, then shouldn’t he have died in his sleep?

But no, he was alive. His body didn’t feel weak, he didn’t feel like his blood was boiling from lava, and he wasn’t shivering like the cold hands of death were about to touch him. He was fine! He survived the Lava Blood! He took a deep breath and calmed down. He thanked the God of Icy Rock for making this a reality, not a dream. That unassuming elixir was miraculous, as expected of something that the God of Icy Rock produced!

That meant that the Slime was telling the truth about everything.

But the Slime and the other weird creatures that he saw before were not here in this room. Where were they? Were they outside? He wondered why they went outside in the cold and blizzard when they could have been enjoying the warmth and heat in this cozy hut. He just survived Lava Blood, so he was hesitant to go out in the cold again.

Achram decided to peek from the door to see where they were. He already preemptively closed his eyes so he wouldn’t get hit by the snow and hail blowing through the door at blazing speeds. The blizzard he experienced before was not something that he could take again.

But when he opened to peek at the door, he suddenly saw a ray of sunshine that shouldn’t be so bright. It should have been dark and dim from all the clouds that precipitated sleet. Instead, warmth and sunlight welcomed him as he opened the door. That shouldn’t be possible this high up in the mountain.

He walked out the door and immediately saw a giant dome around him that not even the clouds of hail and snow could penetrate. It allowed just a sliver of sunlight to pass through and send down heat and light into this one piece of land. His jaws dropped as he saw sleet and ice bursting into a million pieces as it crashed into this protective dome.

“What is this place?!” he exclaimed. How could there be such a wonderful place on this desolate mountain? This felt like a paradise free from all the harsh winds and dangers of paradise. It was so isolated from everything that he felt like this was its own little world. He wouldn’t be surprised if they were in another star entirely.

As he stepped out from the little stars of the bamboo hut, he stepped on solid ground. After a long time of stepping on ice and snow, there was something satisfying in touching dry, solid ground. It ‘grounded’ him and made him feel like he was at the bottom of the mountain.

Just a few steps away from the house was this little hole in the ground with a stone wall surrounding it. He didn’t think much of it, but when he moved closer, he smelled something familiar, something he didn’t think existed in this mountain. He thought everything had frozen over. He went over the wall and looked down the hole and breathed in as hard as he could. He was right! It was fresh water straight from a river! How could there be any fresh liquid water in this place when even his sweat and saliva turn into ice? This was impossible!

He saw a bucket at the bottom with a rope tied up to the top. Achram pushed the rope from the top and heard the bucket scoop up a ton of water. He quickly pulled it back up until the bucket was right in front of his eyes, with the bucket still sweating the water that it had just submerged under. His throat felt dry all of a sudden. He didn’t know how long he survived without water.

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He pulled the bucket closer to him until he could see the clear blue water trembling under his arms. With a sniff, he knew that this was water–drinkable water. He quickly dunked his head over the bucket and started to inhale water into his body. He didn’t know when he would ever drink water again, so he filled his belly with as much water as he could.

When he was finished, he fell on his knees and smiled, his face and shoulders drenched with water.

“Oh! You’re awake!” Slime shouted.

Achram looked around and saw the Slime, the Fire, the metal, and the Bear surrounding what looked like a red giant onion. The bear was happily munching on the layers that they pulled off the giant onion like they were devouring the best food it ever tasted. The fire was simply burning off the layers, and the Metal thing was pretending to eat with them because it had no opening in its mouth.

“Slime…what is this place?” Achram asked as he moved closer with them.

The Slime jumped on top of Achram’s head and declared, “This is the Kingdom of the God of Icy Rock!”

The bear then moved closer to Achram and gave him one piece of the red onion layer.

“The bear is expressing its apology by giving you this piece of mushroom. It didn’t mean to scare you away last time. She was also the one who carried you back here,” the Slime said.

He was wary of the bear earlier, but now that he knew that the bear was a servant of the God of Icy Rock, he felt comfortable and safe with it. Although the village taught him to be careful with mushrooms because they could contain evil spirits, he believed that the Slime wouldn’t do him any harm.

It just took one small bite out of the mushroom layer that he understood why the rest of them were munching on them with frenzy. It tasted like cooked beef! This was a luxury, unlike anything he had ever tasted. Sightings of wild cows were as rare as rainbows in their village, so eating beef was considered to be very lucky and excessive. Selling them to wanderer merchants could give you much more resources than just eating them. At his wedding, he lucked in getting to taste beef.

Now, he was tasting that again. This mushroom layer that was about as tall as he was, tasted so much like beef that he couldn’t believe it wasn’t meat. Even just a quarter of this layer could feed an entire family for one day. He was flabbergasted to see each and everyone snacking one big layer like it was nothing.

“So this is the kingdom of the Icy Rock God…” Achram knew that only a God could create a paradise within a frozen hell. Not even his village down below was as prosperous as this little kingdom. This was a place where he could drink fresh clean water every day, where he could eat mushrooms that tasted like beef, and where no rival tribes could invade and kill them. This was a place blessed by a God Himself.

If his family was here, they could live happy and content for their whole lives. Sudden sadness showed on his face as he reminisced about his family below the mountain. While he was living prosperously here, they were down there suffering all by themselves.

The ground shook as the Treant suddenly walked over to Achram and gave him a piece of its bark.

“No, Treant. He isn’t injured. He’s just sad,” the Slime explained to the big tree.

“Slime, how can I repay the God of Icy Rock? He saved my life yet I have yet to thank Him for his grace.” Achram kneeled and pleaded with the Slime.

The Diplomatic Slime looked over to Patty who wasn’t looking at the system screen and just watching the television.

“He does not need your thanks,” Achram fell deeper in his bow when the Slime said that. “But if you insist on giving him something to thank his grace, then he will not deny it.”

The Diplomatic Slime then activated one of the S-class skills that allowed him to mediate a transaction between two parties even if they were on different planes of existence. This was the reason he was an S-class minion.

It morphed its own body, contorting its shape into something of a flat oval gate. Then, it started to rotate its slime particles until its magical properties broke through the dimension of the virtual world and connected to the real world right in front of Patty.

“You may send anything you want to this gate and it will reach the God of Icy Rock,” the portal said in the Slime’s solemn voice.”

Achram wanted to give his most valuable possession. He removed the fur coat and sent it through the gate. Even though he didn’t have much, he knew that the fur coat was top quality even in his village. But he didn’t feel it was enough.

He took every piece of jewelry he had. He took out the wolf fangs bracelet, he took out the rabbit’s foot necklace, and even the wedding rings he cherished for all his life. That was everything he owned. But it wasn’t enough for the grace He has shown.

What else did he have? He checked his pockets and realized he still had these black rocks that he forgot to throw.