Having bested the fire-breathing Red Iroed arctic snair, the trio on the other side of the mountain pressed on until they could press on no more. They anxiously waited for the next blockade in their path, they waited and waited, and yet... Nothing. It was as if they were stepping on shattered glass shards with each step barefoot with how scary and painful each step was, and the path they were treading getting narrower as time went on certainly didn't help with that.

"Ah." Eleanor accidentally stepped on Issei's heel, "Sorry about that."

"No worries, just watch your step here." Issei warned, "We don't want any of us to fall off at this height. The clouds are practically within arm's reach, after all."

Choosing to not look down in favor of focusing on the cloudy sky above, Eleanor gulped before nodded her head understandingly, "R-Right. Sorry again."

Turning yet another corner as they pressed on, they had steadily began to notice some patches of snow begin to appear around them. It seems they have escaped Aru's barrier by now, meaning they will have to bundle up way more, lest the frostbite screws them over during the hike. As Cecily struggled to open her backpack mid-walk, she too accidentally stepped on Issei's heel, making him stumble forward a bit this time.

"Crap! Sorry about that." Cecily stopped rummaging as she anxiously waited for a response.

"...Sigh, no worries." Issei waited before his head could simmer down before replying with a mildly annoyed tone, "Both of you girls need to realize that we're no longer on a path wide enough to have three people walking side by side. We've already switched to a line formation, so as the person at the very front, I'd appreciate it if you could please match my pace."

"Right, I really should focus more on what I'm doing." Cecily stopped to rummage through her stuff more carefully.

"If you're looking for something in your bag, you really should've stopped walking from the get-go." Eleanor lectured her, "Multitasking is an appealing trait in a person, but very few can actually manage it. Just focus on one thing at a time, okay?"

"Hey, you tripped Issei up first, I don't wanna hear any lectures from you!" Cecily got a bit peeved.

"Wuh!? W-Well yeah, but I'm just saying...!" Eleanor tried speaking up, though the man in question really wasn't interested in letting this petty argument go on any longer.

"Shut it, the both of you!" He yelled with a whispery tone just in case they caused another avalanche, "I don't mind people making mistakes at all, so it's not an issue, okay!? What I would mind is when people repeat their mistakes without learning from them! Don't you remember what happened the last time things got a little bit too heated and we resorted to shouting?"

Indeed, the last time such a thing happened, the entire search party was split into two, and had it not been for Aru's favor, this group would have surely died in the avalanche. Honestly, just the fact they've managed to recover their time loss without any injuries is already incredible to begin with, so there's no reason for them to be so antsy in the first place. Issei knew this all too well, of course, so he was the one who mostly kept a level head this entire time.

"Yeah, Issei's right..." Cecily slumped forward dejectedly before remembering something, "Hey, I wonder how far up those guys have made it."

"They're with Aru, so I'm sure they're plowing through the entire thing easily." Eleanor rolled her Eyes, "Damn them, getting the easier path."

"Yeah, but wouldn't we hear them from above in that case?" Cecily figured, "I think I heard some scary sounds from down under us, like cogs turning or something like that, but there's no way that we already surpassed them so easily, right?"

"Nah, of course not." Issei groaned, "Thanks to you guys not matching my pace, we didn't really get any chances to surpass them."

"So what do you think that sound was, then?" Eleanor returned the nasty tongue clicking in full, "There aren't any other travelers on here apart from us, at least as far as we know, so what else could it be?"

"Ah, I've seen this before." Issei pointed up as if to shout Eureka, "It's a common trope in puzzle exploration games like this. Basically, they did something up top which affected the bottom parts of the mountain. If it really is what I think it is, then I'm afraid they'll have to backtrack."

"What!?" Both girls jolted in surprise.

"O-Oi, shhh!" Issei turned around to glare at them, "Keep it down! Sigh, why must women always be so noisy, now I finally get the kanji being made like that..."

"Kanji?" Cecily seemed intrigued, "But never mind that, are they really gonna have to go all the way down?"

"Don't worry, such a thing could only mean two things." Issei raised two fingers as he named the possibilities off, "Either it's a bonus not at all connected to the main quest, or a fast travel waypoint got unlocked."

"Fast travel...?" Cecily tilted her head.

"Way...point?" Eleanor finished Cecily's question for her.

"Oh, you know, like..." Issei tried to find an appropriate way to explain it, "Like a checkpoint, I guess? A way to go from the base of the mountain to where that waypoint is."

"So, like a giant ladder?" Cecily tried to guess based on that.

"Yeah, sure. Just way way faster." Issei recalled his experiences playing games back in his room in Japan, "Fast enough where it's practically instantaneous, if you ignore the loading times."

"I'm not sure I understood all that, but if it truly is like that, then I'm super glad they've unlocked this "way" "point"." Eleanor smiled as she put quotation marks around both parts of the word, "So you're saying that sound we heard from below us is this "way" "point" at the base of the mountain, and they're in fact way ahead of us?"

"Exactly! See, you're getting it already!" Issei seemed happy that they were finally getting it, "Man, I wanna play God of War now. I wonder how that series is doing. I bet Atreus is as big as his old man by now..."

"Atreus? God of War?" Cecily then slipped on the snow and stumbled a bit, "Crap, lost my footing. Hm?"

Looking down at the hands holding both of hers, she had noticed that both of her party members located behind and in front of her had grabbed her tightly. Of course, had she really fallen off the ledge, doing this would have only killed them as well, but it served as a way for them to realize just how much they cared for each other. Smiling bashfully as they let go of each other's hands, the trio continued walking through the narrow path until they were practically hugging the wall next to them.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

***

"I hate this! Hoo boy do I hate this!" Issei started hyperventilating the moment he looked at the seemingly endless abyss below, "How much longer until we make it to some stable ground again!? It's already night, goddammit!"

"Hey, you're the one in the front, so you tell us." Cecily smirked, "Besides, just don't look down and you'll be fine."

"I-I'll try..." Issei braced himself mentally, even stopping to close his Eyes tightly shut before looking up and opening them again, "Oh, you've gotta be fucking kidding me...!"

"What, what?" Eleanor peeked over Cecily's shoulder before whimpering in a similar manner, "Ah, for Prylos' sake...!"

"I-Issei, just to be sure..." Cecily gulped with a nervous chuckle, "T-That ledge on the other wall perpendicular to us... Is there maybe possibly another way for us to get there, by any chance?"

"Sigh, I'm afraid not, sadly..." Issei resigned himself to his fate, "If we're to continue on our path forward, we're gonna have to make a jump for it, from one narrow edge to the other. That being said, it looks like there's a clearing right after that, so we'll be safe to rest once we make this one jump."

"I-Is that so?" Eleanor chuckled nervously, "Then, by all means, do your best!"

"What!? I ain't jumping that!" He shouted, "What if I fall!?"

"Well, it's not like we have any other option." Cecily shrugged, "We can't go back, the path is too narrow to account for us turning around."

"Ugh, if only I could reach in and grab my Instarope..." Issei sighed, "I could use it to safely get us across, but it's in my bag."

"Oh, I think I can get it for you, then." Cecily slowly put her hand out to unzip the backpack smushed between him and the cold and rigid stone wall.

"Then, if you would..." He even bent his quivering knees a bit to help her reach it more easily, "It should be in that smaller pocket on the left side of the biggest compartment."

"Just how big is this damned bag?" Eleanor wondered, "Where'd you even buy it? I'm thinking of getting one myself..."

"I designed it myself and commissioned someone from a town Othelia and I were staying at at the time to make it." He explained, "I'll mail the guy and ask him to make you one as well, just as long as we make it out of here alive, that is..."

"Hey, stop moving so much... Ah, got it!" Cecily dramatically pulled out a grenade, "Ah, that's not it."

"W-Wait, I heard a click." Issei looked at the grenade in her hands that was missing its pin, "Crap, throw it down, throw it down!"

"Eep!" Cecily chucked the live grenade into the abyss below them with all her might, only for the nade to blow up mere seconds later, making the ground below them crumble just a bit, "S-Sorry, I keep screwing up..."

"No, we're alive, that's all that matters." Issei calmed himself down as he told her to continue, "Heh, though you did make our path just a bit more narrower. I'm afraid I won't be able to squat down for you anymore, since I might fall now."

"It's okay. I can still reach, I think." Cecily once again stuck her hand inside the backpack, "Geez, how many things do you have in here?"

"That compartment is reserved for all of the handy-dandy gadgets I make use of on my travels and expeditions." He scratched his cheek nostalgically, "Since I don't have any Iro Abilities like the people of this world do, I have to use those to compensate."

"Iro Abilities... Yeah, I remember Lune teaching me how to use Spark a while back." Cecily smiled with her hand still inside the bag, "Sigh, good times..."

"C-Cecily?" Eleanor seemed spooked as she called out to her attention, "I-Issei's bag is..."

"Hm? A-Ack!" Issei finally realized the smoke originating from his backpack was mere seconds away from turning into a hearty flame, "S-Shit, all my stuff is in there!"

"O-Oi! Don't move around so much!" Cecily's hand was still inside his backpack, leading to her wriggling around with him, "We're gonna fall...!"

As one would expect, wriggling around on a small edge up against the wall on a tall as fuck mountain whilst your explosive-filled backpack was in the process of burning to a crisp was hardly considered a good time for just about anyone, but it was especially bad for these three. It seems Cecily had accidentally cast Spark whilst reminiscing about learning it back in Sulfury, so she was probably the main culprit to be held accountable for this whole fiasco. Not that that mattered in the moment, of course, as they had just slipped off and fell.

Issei however, wasn't willing to give up just yet, so he decided to just use the moment from slipping off to leap over the gap below them and reach for the ledge on the other side. This only worked partially, though, as he had just barely grabbed on. Cecily was latching onto him thanks to her hand still being firmly stuck inside his backpack, and Eleanor was latched onto Cecily's leg, making for quite the awkward and inconvenient chain link.

"P-Phew, that was a doozy!" Issei chuckled, "Crap, wait! The backpack is still on fire!"

"It's not, don't worry." Cecily groaned, "All your wriggling actually put it out safely before the sparks turned it into a proper fire."

"Is that so? Thank goodness, I had all my stuff in there, from my old shirt to my phone that's all out of battery." Issei heaved a sigh of relief, "Had they burned up, I'd literally lose all that was tying me to my home world."

"Yeah, that's all well and good..." Eleanor yelled from below, "But shouldn't we be laughing about this AFTER you lift us up to safety?"

"O-Oh, right. Here I... hnggg, go!" He tried his very best to lift his own weight plus the weight of the two girls, but alas, "Nope. Maybe if I...? Hngggh!"

"Y-You... CAN lift us up, right?" Cecily inquired with a scared expression.

"I-I can! I totally can, lemme just... HNGGHHH!" He tried pulling them up with one last push until, "Fuck..."

Stuck at an impasse, they were essentially trapped in this awkward position where Issei had enough strength to hold on, but not enough to get them to safety. This is what most people would refer to as a situation straight out of your worst nightmares. Choosing not to give up just yet, Issei pulled and pulled, gripping the cold stone ledge so hard he broke some nails trying to get a better grip. In the end, his strength could only last so long, so before he fell, he turned around with a painfully teary smile.

"Guess that's all she wrote, huh?" Issei joked as his grip loosened.