With that one roar, the world trembled.

And I crumbled to the ground.

For a blinding moment all there was was pain as the roar stormed through my mind and body. When it finally stopped and I could eventually come back to my senses, the world was still and quiet, as if it had been quelled into submission by the monstrous roar and every other sound along with it as well.

Literally.

Laying on the ground in the rain, it took me some time to come around to what had just happened. The first thing I noticed was the pain in my ears. Moving my hands up to them, when I drew them back, I discovered blood on my fingertips. The beast’s cry had shattered my ear drums.

I didn’t even hear a ringing, just silence.

I didn’t have the time to contemplate what this meant though, as what took my attention next was the seemingly disappearing red on my hands as the endless rain I was just beginning to notice shifted…

…into hail.

Suddenly there isn’t so much rain, but only because the rain drops are now being replaced by small hard sharp pieces of ice that are pelting down even harder, and growing more so with every passing second.

I have no time to worry about my hearing loss unfortunately, because I am well aware that hail storms can be even deadlier than regular ones, and that’s even if any shelter survives this tundra.

I shelter my eyes from the pelting ice and quickly turn over onto my stomach, only for the ice falling down to bounce back up and come at me from the ground as well.

Managing to somehow make out my surroundings through the downpour, I find that my sack of books is lying to my side. By sheer dumb luck, the rough knot I had made tying it together has held true, even despite it being completely soaked.

I shuffle over to it and heave it on my back once again, using it as best I can to ward off some of the hail before I make my way over to the warehouse.

Looking through the cold misty haze I manage to pick it out from the surroundings, and as I move to stand up towards it… I immediately fall flat on my face.

Fucking ice!

The ground is soaked, a deluge of lined up puddles, now filling up with massive amounts of hail stones.

I try to stand again only to fail. I try once more and of course the same thing fucking happens.

Fuck it. I start to crawl. I crawl and worm through ice and mud as the hailstones are pelting down at me, getting bigger, denser and much much faster.

I’m soaked, I’m filthy, I’m exhausted, I’m in tremendous pain and I’m almost completely frozen to the bone.

But, I got there in the end.

After some trouble with the key I pull myself into the warehouse and immediately slam the door shut.

“Huff, Huff, Huff…”

I pant and I pant while I lie there, a puddle of a person, sprawled against the floor of the dim and musty warehouse.

But unfortunately, I cannot stop. Too much is at stake.

So, with great and reluctant will, I heave myself upright and start sorting through my spoils.

Untying my jacket I find inside the 27 soaked to the bone books all bunched up together in a soaken mess. I immediately start pulling them apart to sort through them all and make sure they're ok.

Good thing for me, the paper and ink used by the Institute were developed using some basic mana rich materials to flaunt the preciousness of their books which at the same time also ensured their durability. So even with all the rainwater they took in, none of the ink has run off the page and none of the pages have dissolved into pulpy messes.

Thank God.

Laying them all out I try shaking some of the water out of them one by one, myself too, to try and dry them out so I can put them together with the rest of them.

“…”

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Huh?

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!

Suddenly, the ground quakes violently and I fall to the floor once again.

“What the fuck was that?” I ask myself. The words spoken, but still not heard by my vanished hearing.

Scrambling back to my feet I move over to the warehouse door. I can’t hear anything, fuck, so I’ll have to look outside if I want to get an idea of what the hell just happened.

Summoning my courage, I open the door only a slither to take a peek.

And I wish I hadn’t.

Outside, only a few buildings over down the street, is a block of ice.

…A block the size of a house.

Fuck me.

What the hell am I doing?!

This is a fucking monster wave and I’m sitting here trying to shake some water out of some damn books! I have to get out of here!

Monster waves, according to Institute research, only occur when monster hordes are drawn to the cumulative concentration of mana in large settlements. Meaning, that the more populous a city is or the more high tier Warriors of Sorcerers that occupy it, the higher the mana. And so the beasts come out, united, tempted together to get a share of the delicious human cornucopia.

But of course, the members of the Coalition fight them off, and so naturally numbers are culled on both sides until they build back up again, for then another monster wave to occur sometime down the line.

So, if I want to have the best chances of surviving this calamity, I need to do like I did unknowingly the last two times, get the hell away from the concentration of people in this city by getting out to the surrounding areas and as far away from the monsters' hunting ground as possible.

As I’m peeking through the door slot, I see another hill size block of ice, this one though is still flying through the air.

It’s on a downward trajectory and as I watch, it flies through the sky until it exits my sight, before moments after I feel another rumble echoing through the ground, this one a little lighter than the previous one.

Wait a minute!

From the Ocean.

A mighty roar.

Terrible hail storms.

Gigantic boulders of ice, the size of buildings, flying through the sky.

“...it’s an Underfrost”. I murmur.

Shit.

This is either going to be bad, or absolutely fucking catastrophic.

In my time at the Side Branch I had read through many magical bestiaries, and so I had a good amount of know-how about the dangers outside of humans that I may face in my years ahead of me.

An Underfrost, so named for its habitat and abilities, is a magical sea beast, its form not unlike the Kraken from the mythologies of Earth. But in contrast to the supposed Kraken of Earth, an Underfrost is a very real and a very much worse species of calamity.

They are very large and squid-like with their tentacles and maw and attack physically the same way you would assume a Kraken to.

But this Kraken has mana. In this case, a large amount of frost affinity mana, which it uses to manifest hail storms, conjure massive icebergs that it then flings at its enemies, and in its immediate surroundings command waters to move and shift around it to defend and attack as they maintain a semi-liquid/semi-solid frozen state that makes the Underfrost all the more deadly.

Luckily enough, they are stand alone predators. They don’t travel and attack in packs, only by themselves, but are still so powerful that one alone can amount to the disaster level of a small to a large monster wave all by itself.

…If I’m right, and I’m pretty sure I am, right now at the city’s shoreline, the Coalition fighters are all banding together to contain and kill the Underfrost as fast as they can.

If they win, the city situation will be bad, no doubt about it. The Associations are probably trying their best but a lot of those ice meteors are still going to make their way through their defences and lay havoc all throughout the city. Not to mention that all of the city by the coastline is most definitely destroyed by now and all the people within are dead.

But if they lose, that Underfrost will barge in and plunge this city into a flood of freezing waters and icebergs that it will use to direct and collect everything with even the slightest hint of mana into its mouth and down into its belly, before leaving this city a flooded and frozen wasteland.

So… Come on the Coalition!!!

Hurray!!!

…But no matter what happens, I’m getting out of here.

Now.

I close the warehouse door and get to organising my things. The storm is too torrential and the livestock and most of my property here won’t be able to move until after the battle is decided.

I can still pack my essentials however and get the hell out of here though. All I need is my books, the deed to the farm, Elde’s flask, the Warriorhood Technique, some food, clothes and of course, my leftover Wizard money.

Even after I leave and come back, if everything here just happens to be destroyed, I still have enough money to replace it several times over from my remaining on hand cash. So, though it would be hard, I can leave everything here and if I come back and it's all gone, I can still start all over again pretty easily.

Harsh, but better than staying here and possibly dying. I know I’ve lived a long time but I’m not ready to die yet, not when there’s something possibly waiting for me in the future with the Baptisms. I have to leave.

I quickly strip out of my wet clothes and dry myself off before I put on some new warmer and dryer ones. They’re going to get soaked anyway but they’ll help me last a little longer out in the storm regardless. After doing all that, I get all my essentials and all my important possessions packed up and ready to go.

Only once all that was done did I start to hear some ringing in my ears at last, to my great relief.

Praise be. I’m not deaf.

The pack however is even heavier than the one I made on the fly back at the Main Branch, almost double the amount of books plus everything else piled on top, but I can handle it. I have to handle it.

Packed, prepared and ready to escape, I was just about to set off when my stomach rumbled its protests.

Yeah… Probably should eat something. I haven’t had anything to eat since…

Since…

“…will be. You will be back for dinner I hope?”

“Of course. Now there are the leftovers from yesterday for your lunch today and I’ll make sure to pick up some steaks for us on the way back, so don’t worry about going hungry.”

“Don’t bother with those. They’re too expensive and I’m hardly likely to finish it all anyway”

“Then I’ll just have to eat the rest of it for you. Ha! Don’t worry about the money, you deserve it after all, remember?”

“I suppose I do. Very well, I’ll see you for dinner then.”

“Yes you will, now have a good day…”

…Kara.

Kara!

KARA!!!

How?! How the fuck did I FORGET HER!?

I dropped my pack and ran for the door, but before I rushed out I… I hesitate.

There’s… there’s no time. I have to leave this city or I’ll die.

Kara she… she's old, she’s… already dying.

I’m not. I can get out. I… I have to survive.

I…

I…

I…

…Elde.

I rush out and plunge into the frozen hellstorm.

I’ve lived a long time. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’ve made many bad choices.

But I’m not this level of scum yet!

And so I ran out into the hailstorm, into the madness with the almost complete certainty that I was going to die.

But it wasn’t important.

I wasn’t losing another friend to my own weakness again.

NOT AGAIN!