“This doesn’t look like a meeting room,” Claud muttered, eyeing the very odd place. It reminded him of the time when he went to report about Zulan Patra’s death, when they went to some freezing room where there was an odd box and a mirror of sorts that allowed Caroline to speak to the White Church.
“What do you think this place is for?” Risti replied, with that familiar small smile on her face. He should see some deep fatigue in her expression, however, and Claud was once again reminded that she too failed in the Third Tutorial, whatever that was.
“Is there something like a Comms Console here?” Claud asked, thinking about the name Farah had given that odd box and glass screen set up.
“Bingo, frozen cupcake.”
“Frozen cupcake?” Claud echoed, raising an eyebrow.
Risti laughed. “In the past, most of our curses and expressions revolved around the Moons, but now it’s the freezing climate. You’ve officially the backbone of Rimestar culture, you know. Everyone uses your name, uses the cold and uses the Frozen Coffin for all sorts of things.”
“…I don’t like the sound of that.” Claud gulped, but he couldn’t quite resist the urge to ask. “But can you name me some examples?”
“Oh, the most famous one, then. It’s a custom for men and women to swear their love upon the Frozen Emperor, condemning themselves to an eternal sleep on a bed of ice if they ever reneged on their love,” Risti replied. “What else do we have? Oh, right. The classic ‘If you don’t finish your soup, the Frozen Emperor will take you away’. In popular culture, we have ‘The Girl who sought the Frozen Lord’, and the super-famous ‘Freezing’, which is a legendary drama with singalongs that is very well-received by children.”
“Legendary drama with singalongs?” Claud tilted his head. “What’s the story even about?”
“Oh, it’s about a princess who ran away from her dukedom after being framed, and then ended up awakening a bunch of ice powers, casting the world into an eternal chill. Her friends work together to find the princess, racing against time to break that chill before everything ends,” Risti replied.
“…Is that directed at me, or the long-missing princess?” Claud grumbled for a few seconds, and then decided to drop the topic. Other than the passing of the people around him, the fact that he was embroiled in many odd works and things were enough to make him conclude that this truly was a bad future.
He fell silent at that thought. If this really was a possible future, did that mean…
“Claud?” Risti waved her hands in front of his face. “Something wrong?”
“I actually want to ask some things. What exactly happened in the period between the Trial of Aeons’ start and when me and Lily le—”
His words cut out a moment later, and Claud stared at a screen that had popped up of its own accord. Enduring the chill running down his spine, he gulped and said, “Forget what I just said.”
“Forget what you just said?” Risti blinked. “You didn’t say anything, though.”
Claud pondered on her words for a moment, and then grimaced. “It’s probably something wrong with my awakening or something. There are probably a few problems lying around here or there. Like I said, I don’t really have much time left on the clock. I’ll probably return to my slumber soon enough.”
“Claud…” Risti let out a breath. “We’ll do everything in our power to crush the other divinities. Not just for you, but for Lily and for our future.”
“Thanks.”
“We’ll just need to wait here for a while. I sent them all a message yesterday, shortly before I went to bed. They’ll be showing up in a few minutes,” said Risti, making no indication that she was actually changing the subject. “To recap, you’ll let us handle resource distribution and everything, right? You just want to push up a whole bunch of people to become ennea-folders, and you don’t care who becomes one, right?”
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Claud nodded. “That said, it’ll be better if none of them are arrogant fellows who, having attained power, would try to charge out recklessly and get killed.”
“Don’t worry. Generations of young men and women have dreamed of the day where they can march out into the rest of the world and force the other divinities back,” Risti replied. “Rimestar is the place with the most tragic and heartwarming stories of how parents sacrificed their lives to buy their kids time to enter your domain. Even for us, the Seekers of Life, there are many such incidents where…forget it.”
“I hope I’ll be able to do some good, at the very least.”
“Then you should maintain this frozen domain at all costs,” Risti replied.
“I’m not sure if I can, though,” Claud replied. “But I’ll pave a way to a brighter future at all costs.”
“Normally, someone who has less than a year of lifespan left would say such things, not the demigod with nearly a million years of life,” Risti replied, before shaking her head. “It’s a shame that you didn’t remember how you got those one million years of life, though. If you could remember it, we’ll have a frozen well’s worth of ennea-folders by now.”
“How much is a frozen well’s worth anyway?”
“It’s a figure of speech, Claud.”
Before she could continue on, the metal boxes placed around the room began to light up, and translucent figures appeared above the box. Popping up like little rabbits, they looked around the place for a while, and then turned to look at Claud.
“It can’t be!”
Everyone jumped as they turned to a particular translucent figure. Claud looked at the speaker for a moment, since he didn’t quite recognise that person, but a few seconds later, he spotted a few similarities between the speaker and Count Nightfall.
“…Nightfall?”
“Is that you, Claud?” The count’s translucent figure rubbed his eyes. “But—”
“Ahem.” Risti rapped the table at the same time. “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to make some introductions. This person here is the final founding member of the Seekers of Life, he who spent two centuries in between dreams and reality. I present to you the Frozen Emperor, Claud Primus.”
An uproar broke out immediately as people sought to speak over each other. Claud ignored the noise and looked at what could be described as their spiritual successors, and immediately noted a single common point between all of them.
Even through this translucent depiction of their bodies, it was clear that their vitality had been hollowed out. Claud somehow knew that everyone present was actually exhibiting the same symptoms as Risti; they had clearly tried their hand at the Third Tutorial and failed.
After a minute or so, Risti rapped the table again. “Silence. I imagine everyone has many questions, but we don’t have much time. The Frozen Emperor has awakened from his slumber and, more importantly, is in a bout of lucidity. Right now, he desires to use his tremendous lifespan for the sake of the city’s young and gifted.”
“…Lord Frozen Emperor,” said a seemingly-youthful young man, “are you intending to use the Life Transfer Channel?”
“Is there a problem? With my lifespan, I should be able to foster a whole bunch of ennea-folders,” Claud replied quietly. “I want a list of everyone who is capable, streetwise and of a good character. These are the people I want to raise as the next generation of shining stars, of humanity’s flag of rebellion against the divine.”
The assembly of translucent figures stared at him closely, but Claud simply met their gaze without any fluster. Before long, all of them broke the quiet challenge, and Risti chuckled. “The distribution will be left to us, as is the personnel selection and everything else. That said, there is a downside.”
Her amused demeanour vanished. “It is very possible that the Frozen Emperor’s world of ice and snow will soon vanish. Its protection would wane, perhaps even just shrinking to the Frozen Coffin. As evidence, the Frozen Emperor awakened from his waking dream; this can be said to be our one and only chance in surviving whatever happens next.”
Everyone nodded, uttering words of assent of cooperation. After saying a few words of encouragement, Risti dispersed the meeting and turned to Claud. “We’re done here, I guess. They’ll rush this out. I give it one day before they start begging us to start.”
“Start the procedure as quickly as possible,” Claud replied. “I’ll leave myself with two thousand years, just in case, and then tell the world about my awakening in the most drastic manner possible.”
“You’ll return to her side, right?” Risti asked.
“…Probably. I can’t tangle with the divinities in their own places of power, but hurling a few dozen bolts of nine-fold mana across the world isn’t that hard,” Claud replied. “I’ll need a map of their territories and everything.”
“Done.”
“Good.” Claud took a deep breath. He didn’t know if these two things combined would be enough for this tutorial, but…
Where exactly was his promised trial? How would one fail a trial to begin with? Keeping those questions in his mind, Claud exchanged some perfunctory words with Risti, before following her out.