I had to admit, I expected to see something cool when I climbed through the small hole into the cave. The last cave the System took me to had a pretty magic spring inside. As for this cave, all I got was disappointment. Oh, and the chills. As in, literal chills. I barely fit through the small cave entrance, but on the other side was a wide, black tunnel as cold as a freezer. Levi's underwater cave was warmer than this. Even with my toughened Hunter physique, I couldn't help shivering, a small cloud appearing in front of my face with every breath.

Levi immediately climbed up my body and curled around my hot neck, finally not complaining about the temperature.

Another dark cave, I thought in resignation. It's official, I was becoming a cave woman. And it was all the System's fault.

I quickly turned on the torch orb and slowly moved through the tunnel. I didn't feel anything, but that didn't mean we were actually alone. I wanted to ask Levi's opinion, but I didn't dare voice it.

He understood my intentions and shook his head.

Okay, that was a start. Still, I took my sword out and gripped it tight. After a second, I ran my finger over the tip, covering the blade with water and making it as sharp as possible. Reenact fighting a monster with a useless sword again was not high on my priority list. I wanted to take out a blanket too, but it would be cumbersome in a fight. I paused, suddenly wondering what most Hunters did in the winter. The higher ranked ones didn't even feel the cold — their bodies were too tough — but what about the weaker ones? I heard that the monster populations grow during winter. Was it because no one really wanted to go out and hunt in the snow?

Then again, my mount was a raindeer, who treated fresh snow powder like solid stone. Getting buried really wasn't a threat for me, unlike other Hunters and their mounts. Suddenly, my chest ached as I thought about Shiva. I missed her and her steady presence. Just like I missed my family. I'd never been apart from them for so long. I even missed Micah's bratty attitude — but only a little since Levi's royal moods helped fill that gap.

I shook my head. Focus!

I couldn't hear anything around me, not even my own footprints — I worked really hard to make each step as quiet as possible. But I did notice something odd. Light from my torch orb reflected faintly on something on the edges of all the rocks. Since I was in a rock cave, that meant that nearly every edge glowed. And it wasn't all the time, it was only when the light hit the rock in the right way.

Perplexed, I peered at the wall. Tiny, transparent crystals clustered along the edges of the rocks. No wait, those weren't rock crystals — they were ice crystals.

Well, it was nice to know that it was cold enough here that even the rocks froze, I thought bitterly. That's it, the next task better be on a warm beach, or I will lodge a complaint.

Granted, the task was to collect ice, but since the GPS said that I still had some distance to go, I could only assume this ice wasn't going to cut it for the System. So where was the special ice the System wanted me to find so badly?

The farther I moved, the more I noticed a musky smell permeating the frigid chill. It was definitely a monster smell, but I couldn't place it. Or where the monster was.

The tunnel suddenly split into three. I paused, taking turns to stare into the pitch black holes of each divide. No, that wasn't entirely true. Only because everything else was so dark, I could sort of make out that there was light somewhere in the distance in the first and third tunnels. The middle tunnel was simply a black hole.

I half expected the System to send me into the middle tunnel. It looked the scariest looking, like it would swallow anything that ventured in. Right up the System’s alley. But the GPS arrow pointed to the right, indicating the third tunnel. Grateful for the moment of mercy, I veered right.

There was light ahead, but how far ahead? All I knew as it got colder with every step. It got to the point that it affected the water I attached to my sword. It was so cold, the water started to freeze. Ice was water, just in a different form, but I wasn't an ice mage. I could feel the water in it, but it didn't respond to me. As soon as it changed forms, it was useless. Since I wasn't fire based, I couldn't melt the ice. The only thing that kept the water from solidifying was to continuously move and swirl the water along the sword's edge. At first it took more attention than I wanted it to, but eventually, I got so used to it that it fell to the back of my mind.

The crystals on the walls slowly grew with the drop of the temperature, going from barely visible shimmering frost to pretty polygonal shapes as tall as my knees. The larger they got, the more they glowed, catching the light at the end of the tunnel and amplifying it until my torch orb was moot.

I turned it off with a flick of my hand and carefully stepped around a large cluster of ice crystals stabbing out of the ground.

Ding! [Thirty feet from the destination.]

I paused and looked ahead, but couldn't see around the tunnel's curve. There was ice all around me, how was one crystal different from another? I hurried forward. It wasn't until I almost tripped over a crystal and the sound of my boot skidding on the ground echoed through the tunnel that I calmed and slowed down. Shit, why was I still prone to newbie mistakes? I knew better.

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Suddenly, I felt a monster. No, three monsters. Where were they and how strong? My gaze scoured the large ice crystals, searching.

A light behind a crystal shifted ten feet ahead, as if it was alive.

Instantly, the sword in my hand disappeared, replaced with my bow. But I didn't cancel the Water Manipulation. Instead, the moving water attached to the edge of my arrow, elongating the point and making it stronger. I focused on the moving light and drew back the string, waiting for whatever was there to reveal itself. My arms shook from the effort, which normally didn't happen, but I refused to let the effects of the poison compromise my posture.

Two more lights began to move. One was a little farther down the cave, the other ... was just to my right, only a couple feet away.

Levi jumped off my shoulder and landed on a crystal, standing tall. Water pooled around him, ever shifting to prevent it from freezing.

A small blue head poked out from behind the crystal I watched. The lizard-like head was round and smooth with large, spherical glowing eyes. Its loose flesh was transparent and glowing from an inner blue light, but anywhere that it bunched on its body, the skin turned black. A title bar appeared over its head. [Ice Ora, Lv 9]

I loosed the arrow, knowing that it wasn't effective. As an ice element, the ice ora was resistant to my magic. But my ice attacks were still stronger than my normal attacks, even if it was just a margin at this point. As long as it was a sliver, I'd take that advantage.

The arrow whistled through the air and hit the monster's head right on. Even though the arrow's point was bigger than the monster's head, it deflected off the top, leaving a gash behind.

My eyes narrowed. Just a gash. This was going to be a rough fight.

As soon as my attack hit, Levi launched a handful of water arrows at the monster he was stalking.

I, however, was focused on my prey.

The ice ora flinched back when it was hit. A second later, the monster lunged out of its hiding stop, revealing its lumpy body. If it had organs inside, it wasn't obvious, despite the see-through nature of the ice ora's skin. All I could see was opaque glowing goo.

I blinked, a little taken aback. Ice oras were supposed to be about five inches long. But this one was twice that size. What? I didn't have time to think about it because the ice ora counter attacked and I immediately fell into battle mode.

The ice ora opened its mouth, letting out a thin squeal. Three icicles appeared around it and shot like arrows. At the same time, the second ice ora appeared from behind another ice crystal and added more icicles to the attack.

I conjured up a thick stretch of clear water and spread it across me like a shield. The icicles hit the water, sending ripples through it that sparkled in the tunnel's light. Most of the icicles were stopped, but two made it through. I dodged to the side and felt the bitter cold after air as the icicles missed me by inches. The chill from the ice caught in my water immediately started to spread, corrupting my water shield. I flung my hand, churning the water, and forced the ice out. The four pieces smashed to the ground with delicate chinks.

Another arrow appeared in my hand and I fired it, shooting it right through the water shield. As it passed, water collected on the tip and went with the arrow, right at the first ice ora. The little monster wiggled to get back behind the ice, but it didn't make it in time. My arrow hit it right in the side, the tip sinking in a little. Considering the size of the monster compared to the arrow, that wasn't a good hit. It was like the goo that made up the monster's insides resisted the weapon, coupled with the fact that water was weak against ice.

My lips pressed into a tight line, as I drew another arrow.

The ice ora curled up and wiggled around the arrow, little mouth shrieking. In the meantime, the second ice ora launched icicle after icicle, distracting me. My water shield stopped most of the attacks, but one passed through and skimmed my left forearm. Searing pain radiated up and down my entire arm, from simply touching the ice that was so cold that it burned.

Suddenly, the arrow embedded in the first ice ora snapped and the tip broke clean off of the shaft. Without that long stick in the way, the ice ora rolled back behind the ice crystal. It took me a second to realize what happened — the monster was so cold that the arrow’s metal became brittle. That's why the arrow snapped.

Great, the arrow was only in there for a couple seconds, and it broke like that? What would happen if I stabbed it with my sword? The System restored all my weapons at midnight, but I'd be sword-less for the rest of the day until then.

"Okay," I whispered, and drew another arrow. Since metal and water were ineffective, what about its own element?

This time, I attached a Bubble on the tip of my arrow and grew it as big as I could. Then I fired the arrow. Immediately after, I shot out a thin water whip after it. The arrow hit the ice crystal the monster hid behind. The ice exploded with the Bubble with a magical flourish, sending shards and glittering dust everywhere. The ice ora flung into the air, but didn't get very far. My water whip wrapped around the monster's middle. As soon as the water touched the monster, that section froze, but I didn't worry about it. I flipped my hand, causing the whip to fling the ice ora around in the air with all my might. With a squelch, the ice ora smashed into an ice crystal, the point piercing the monster's chest.

Ding! [+25 EXP]

Ding! [You have Leveled Up!]

Fog puffed out of my mouth as my eyes narrowed with satisfaction. Realization came through mine and Levi's mental bond, as he noticed what I just did. Okay, now we had a game plan. Time to put it in action again.

A couple minutes later, and sporting another frost-bitten injury, all the ice oras were dead. I walked over to the carcasses and looked down. Now that it was dead, the ice oras looked more like a thawed shapeless jello than actual monsters — pretty similar to slimes, now that I think about it. But the weird thing was that these monsters were still twice the size they should be. Why?

Instead of letting the System convert them into drop items for me — which somehow disappeared the carcass while leaving the best parts for me to easily pick up — I put the whole monster inside my Items Bag. A normal Items Bag didn't allow for a whole monster to be put in there, but I had a dozen industrial size slots in mine, which allowed me to. The odd little monster went right next to samples of the unknown dragon that I collected, as well as the weird metal box I found inside said dragon. All of these creatures were mysteries I planned to give to my Uncle, so he could find out what they were, since I didn't have the resources to do it myself.

With the way finally clear, I walked forward around the bend in the tunnel ... and paused.

At the end of the tunnel was an ice crystal that was definitely different from the rest. The large, multifaceted crystal was the size of a watermelon, with pale blue ribbons lacing through the clear ice like high-quality aquamarine. Seriously, it was prettier than any gem I'd ever seen — and I'd seen a lot from all the gear our shop handles. The whole piece sat on a thin V-shaped stalagmite, looking like art.

Ding! [You have arrived at your destination.]

*****