Around the same time, in the frozen wastes…

In the howling blizzard, a man in a thick fur cloak approaches the giant, wolf-like beast coated in white fur and scale-like plates. The beast's red eyes track him, and its horizontally-slit pupils narrow.

It inhales, and lets out a thunderous roar at the hooded man, upsetting the feathery blanket of fresh snow in front of its mouth by the sound and pressure alone. The man keeps walking closer, knee-deep in snow.

The beast arches its back, its wedge-shaped, segmented tail of hard plates sways menacingly left and right like a rattle of a snake. Unfazed, he approaches closer still. The beast's pupils widen into round circles.

Thwip-CRACK!

Its tail snaps at the tall man. Angling its body sideways for better reach, its tail carves deep into the hard permafrost below the snow. After a few hard tugs, the beast frees its tail from the ground, lifting the man's fur cloak on it, now cleaved asunder.

Still faintly red on the inside, it quickly fades into pink, bluish-gray, then completely gray like all the rest. The beast throws the cloak aside with its tail, and its red eyes look down at the gash in the ground.

The man is nowhere to be seen. It takes a few heavy steps back, its long claws dig into the permafrost beneath as its slit eyes dart around the surroundings. The blizzard continues howling away, not subsiding even a little.

A gradient landscape of gray. Gray below, and pale gray above the horizon. The beast keeps turning its head, looking for signs of warm blood, or anything warmer than the snow, if even by a little.

Tempestuous frigid winds render the visibility a mere arm and finger's reach. Feeling a little disappointed, perhaps even defeated, the beast loudly snorts air out. A warmth appears in front of its eyes.

A rising cloud of vapor, initially red, quickly turns blue then gray as it is torn by the cold wind. The beast reluctantly turns around, stomping lazily through the snow. The snow disturbs.

The beast fails to notice the disruption in the perfectly smooth surface of the fresh snow as the bulge rapidly draws near. The snaking pattern in the snow remains gray, and not much different from the rest in the beast's eyes.

Beneath it, just slightly off to its side, a shape leaps out of the snow. The beast snarls and roars in pain when something painfully punctures its soft furred skin between its front leg and torso. It leaps away sideways, leaving a warm trail along the snow.

Its furious red eyes search for the source of the injury. A warm, red point rapidly growing cold at the tip of a spear as it pours down its sharp point. Fading in from the gradient gray background, a shape of a man quickly becomes visible.

First bluish-gray, then bluish-pink, his exposed skin that is not covered by the white, thick fur clothing, stops at a very pink-toned shade of red. He swirls his spear, and as soon as he grasps it firmly, he adjusts his stance to be low to the snow.

The trail of warm blood fades to gray, merging with the background, and the beast's hateful, red, horizontally-slit eyes stare into the man's black, vertically-slit ones. The beast once again snorts out a warm cloud out of its nose in anger.

A steady stream of red vapor leaves the spearman's nose, cooling into and departing with the freezing winds. When the stream of vapor abruptly ends, the beast's red eyes snap open in panicked surprise.

The spearman seemingly disappeared, and reappeared at its side, rearing his spear for another stab. It lifts its paw with humongous black claws up into the air, and slams it downward at the spearman.

Thwamp!

The earth rumbles, and the soft snow compresses into hard ice. The spearman deftly rolls sideways to the hind legs of the beast, and the beast doesn't delay to follow up with a whip of its sharp tail.

Thwip-CRACK!

Focusing on speed rather than power, the beast cracks the permafrost with the hard plates of its tail. It roars again when a stabbing pain comes from between its hind leg and stomach. The beast sweeps through the snow with its claws, backpedaling.

Shwish! Swish! Sskhr! Shwish! Swish!

Following it step for its massive step in front of its drooling maw, the spearman delivers quick jabs with his spearpoint targeting the beast's blood-red eyes. It manages to turn its head away each time at the last second, and the spear's edge deflects harmlessly off its plated cheeks.

The multiple, rapid claw swipes fail to find their mark, and scrape on the permafrost below as the spearman sidesteps out of each one. Seeing that his attacks fail to inflict any damage as well, he zaps to the side of the beast, leaving a cloud of fine snow hanging behind him.

He moves just slow enough for the beast to track him with its hate-filled glare. A warm shape sprinting through the knee-deep snow with ease. The shape dives into the gray below, but the beast continues turning in anticipation of the spearman's path.

After a moment, a warmth flies upward into the sky out of the snow. The beast bares its teeth, ready to rip it apart. A translucent eyelid sweeps across the beast's eye as it blinks in confusion. A fur cloak torn apart, nearly split.

Thwack!

The beast coughs out blood through its teeth. A sharp pain in its throat makes it wince and gurgle. It ignores the flying cloak and its gaze drops to the snow. The man is sprinting in, empty-handed. The beast's eyes widen in panic.

He leaps in and grasps onto the spear stuck in its throat, flipping in the air, then in one violent movement pulls it out in a slash.

Splash!

A warm red liquid sprays onto the cold gray below. The beast stumbles away a few steps, profusely drooling warm blood.

It looks over its back, snarling at the man standing in the cold snow with his bloodied spear pointing up, shaft resting against the permafrost. Then, its red eyes roll backwards.

Thump!

The beast collapses on its side, rumbling the ground and spilling red blood onto the snow. Its growl fall silent, and only the howl of the blizzard remains…

…

An hour later, in the capital's Mages' Guild…

Straf enters, and places his hand in his pocket. He looks around, and the guild interior looks not much different than any other guild. Young and old mages alike, men and women in glasses are reading books at the tables nearby the bookshelves.

「Hello, are you a member?」

The short, elderly wrinkled woman, barely taller than the counter she is standing behind asks. Her gigantic hat's brim extends greatly over her desk.

「Yeah, I am. Are you one of those dwarves?」

Straf shrugs, and asks as he walks up to the tiny woman.

「My, that's rude!」

She exclaims, outraged.

「Okay, my bad, I can't really tell you apart. Gnome?」

「Tsk, I should really give your ear a good pull! I'm old sonny! Old!」

She says, pointing her finger up at Straf in exasperation.

「Wow, really shrunk in the laundry, huh? Listen, do you sell stuff to power magic stuff with?」

Straf smirks, shaking his head gently, then asks as he leans onto the counter with his elbow.

「…Stuff to power magic stuff?… Do you mean magic crystals and charged gems?」

With her brows furrowed, the elderly guild woman lifts her hat's brim with her hands to look at Straf's face.

「I dunno, whichever works and is the cheapest.」

Straf shrugs with a little tilt of his head.

「But… But is it for low power application? High power? Disposable?」

Further perplexed, the old woman tilts her head. Her tiny eyes squint as Straf.

「I dunno. Not disposable, I guess?」

「But what is it for? What will you use it for?」

Straf shrugs again as the woman tries her best to gather some information.

「…Moving stuff, I guess.」

He looks at the tiny woman, finally giving her a small piece of usable information.

「Well… What stuff? Big? Small? Heavy? Will it levitate or be affixed to something?」

She keeps asking away, and Straf looks aside to think.

「…I guess it will be small, light stuff? Just a few blades spinning, really. It'll be used just once every few years but somewhat intensively.」

He explains, and shrugs.

「But you said it's not dis- Tsk, never mind that…」

She sighs, shaking her gigantic hat.

「Well, sonny, it sounds like you need a small magic gem. One charged by an adept should be enough if it's once every few years. A magic crystal would be cheaper, but in the long run you'd need to replace it more frequently too.」

The old woman explains, gesturing with her hands as her brim covers her face. When she's done with her explanation, she lifts it up again.

「But if it's cheaper, why not just get that one? What's the downside?」

Squinting in confusion, Straf leans in underneath her massive hat.

「It will fizzle away with time, sonny. You really want to buy a magic crystal, use it once, and then leave it to rot?」

「…Nooo?」

With his brows heavily furrowed, Straf asks himself as he replies.

「Trust me sonny, you want a magic gem. We should have one somewhere…」

She says, walking towards the backroom with tiny steps. She turns to point her finger at Straf, holding the brim of her hat up with the other hand.

「…And don't think you can get away with insulting the ladies just because you're handsome!」

The elderly guild woman exclaims.

「Wow, you've got a pretty good eyesight for a mage. You can see me from all the way there without glasses? You must have been a looker when you were young.」

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Straf says with his brows raised, and otherwise a straight face. The tiny guild woman starts laughing, and her hat jiggles on her head.

「Ohohohoh… First you insult me, and now you send compliments my way? I couldn't see you from the far end of my hat, sonny! You just sound handsome! Hohohoho…」

「…What?」

Straf says quietly, furrowing his brows as the woman barely squeezes her hat through the doorway while laughing and shaking her head. From the doorway, she sighs loudly as glass clatters, and she returns holding a small red gem in her wrinkled hand.

Clack.

She puts it down on the counter, and Straf takes a close look at it in his fingers. No bigger than a battery, a faint light seems to pulse from within its center.

「That'll be three gold coins, sonny.」

「Three fuckin' what!?」

Clank!

Straf exclaims as he loudly slams the tiny gem down on the counter.

「Hey! Don't break it!… You heard me, sonny. They're in high demand. Three gold coins.」

The woman shouts, pointing at the gem. She calms down, and replies to Straf with her mouth scrunched into a corner.

「Tsk… This is a fucking robbery… Here.」

Straf pulls a few drakes out of his pocket, and slides three one-denomination gold drakes towards her beneath the brim of her hat.

「Oh… These… Tsk.」

She mumbles, grumbles and clicks her tongue when she takes the gold drakes into her hands, looking at them closely.

「What? You've got a problem with them!? Read what it says! Legal tender for settling-!」

「I know what it says, youngster!」

The old woman waves her hand at Straf dismissively, shaking her head. She sighs.

「You youngsters and all your new things. Why can't you just use coins like normal people? Good grief…」

She shakes her head some more as she grumbles, placing the drakes somewhere beneath the counter with a metallic clink.

「Anything else?」

The old mage asks, lifting the brim of her hat to see Straf's blurry blob of a face again.

「Nope. Thanks for robbing me, dwarf lady.」

Straf pats the desk, and throws the charged gem into his [Portable Storage], turning for the exit.

「Dwa-!? Rude! You are rude! Incredibly rude! You will never find a woman like this! Mark my words!」

The bitter tiny old lady vigorously shakes her finger at Straf's back as he leaves…

…

A few hours later, somewhere in the frozen north…

Coated in a thick dusting of snow on his fur clothing and blue bodysuit, Shien returns with a howl of wind through the open door. He slams it shut, and the short old man warming himself near the fire stands up and approaches him.

「It is dead, elder.」

Shien declares, towering over the wrinkly shrunken northerner.

「Aaahhhhh, you've done it!」

The old man exclaims in joy as he waddles up with a broad smile on his face.

「I don't know how to thank you, foreigner. That beast in particular killed eight men, they just kept getting worse and worse, and you got rid of them all.」

The old man says, gesturing him towards the fireplace as he turns around.

「They will threaten the village no longer.」

Shien replies as the elder sits back down on the long bench near the fire. The old man pats a spot next to himself and nods towards the foreign spearman. He sits down, brushing some of the snow off of himself.

「We can't just let you go empty handed… Ahh, maybe if a warmer season comes soon, we'll be able to plant potatoes again thanks to you.」

The elder says, nodding his head with a content smile as he looks above the fire in deep thought.

「I need no reward.」

Shien insists, his vertically-slit eyes look down at the diminutive northerner.

「…I haven't had farming tools in my hands since my wife died, and that was long ago. And then those blood-hungry youngster warriors kept pestering us… It would be nice to harvest crops one last time before I go.」

He looks up at Shien with a kind smile, and Shien simply looks back at him in silence while the fire softly crackles. A small blonde child peeks her head out of an adjacent room.

「…Big brother?」

She asks, and smiles when his almond-shaped eyes turn to her.

「Brother! Brother is back!」

She yells, and hugs into Shien's snow-coated fur-strapped back. More children pop out of the room and run into the room.

「Ah, you're awake? Stop pestering him, he's tired.」

The old man chides the young girl latched onto Shien, pulling her hand away from him.

「No, I am quite rested.」

Shien ever-so-slightly shakes his head, his silken black ponytail brushes some of the snow off his back like a windshield wiper. The children look onto the foreigner with curiosity, and absolutely no caution.

「So… You essentially saved our village. I will not allow you to leave empty handed. What do you want in return? We don't have much, but-」

「I have not come here to reap rewards.」

Shien responds, interrupting the village elder. He becomes quite consternated, furrowing his brows at the foreign spearman.

「…Foreigner, you have saved our village, you ask for nothing in return, and we still don't even know your name. Who are we even supposed to thank?」

The old man sighs with a troubled frown.

「My name is not important, I am merely a tool. You can call me a beast hunter, but if you really wish to thank somebody, thank my master… Straf Katastrof Vindict.」

Shien says as he stands up from the bench. Wet snow falls off in large chunks, and he turns for the exit.

「Wait, beast hunter! Are you leaving already?…」

The village elder calls out with his palm raised at the beast hunter's back.

「Your beast problem is over, is it not? Then there is no more reason for me to stay-」

Shien says, glancing at the sad children before his black eyes return to the old man on the bench. The elder stands up, and waddles up behind them.

「That may be so!… But, why not stay a little longer? To make sure no new beast takes the place of the old ones? A few more days, if you would be so inclined. If you insist on not taking any reward, how about a meal at least?」

The old man nods his head in agreement, interrupting Shien with his hand raised. He pleads with the beast hunter as he places his hand on the blonde girl's head, petting her a little. Shien looks at him and the children in a brief silence.

「Big brother, don't go…」

The girl says on the verge of tears. The other children are similarly very saddened by his intended departure. Looking at the children and the tiny, wrinkled old man, Shien sighs.

「Very well, a few more days… But no longer than that. There are more beasts to eradicate.」

Shien concedes with a nod of his head, and the frowns turn upside down on the faces of the children.

「Everyone in the village will be relieved! Everyone is thankful for your help! Come, I'll make some food, since this rabble woke up…」

The elder says cheerfully as he walks to the adjacent room, roughly patting the head of the oldest-looking child.

「Brother! Can you tell us a story about your home!?」

One of the children asks, grinning broadly.

「Very well, but I will tell you of my master first.」

Shien nods his head as he turns around from the door, and heads for the room to follow the old man. The children follow him like ducklings…