Barbarian's Adventure in a Fantasy World-Chapter 363: To the White Snowfield (2)

Hashvalt followed Helia’s glance and studied Ketal. “And who is this barbarian? I do not remember him.”

He did not bother to ask about Serena. He felt the intense holy power radiating from her and decided she had to be a Saintess or a follower of a god from somewhere. Ketal, however, remained beyond his guessing. The man looked every inch a barbarian, and the Myst he felt from him reached only the Transcendent tier. It was not weak, but compared to Helia or Hashvalt, the difference felt obvious.

Helia gave Ketal a small signal. When Ketal nodded, she spoke. “He is our guide to the White Snowfield.”

“A guide? No one knows this place,” Hashvalt replied.

The world had only scraps of information about the outer belt. Of the inner region, there were no records at all. No guide could exist.

Helia’s voice stayed low. “He knows what this place is. He knows the shape of its ecology, what lives here, and how barren it truly is. He knows it better than anyone else, because he used to be a resident.”

Hashvalt’s eyes widened. He looked at Ketal’s ashen hair. “That cannot be...!”

“You survived here for a year. I know how hard that is. You’ve done well,” Ketal said gently. “I am Ketal, a barbarian of the White Snowfield. I will ask for your grace.”

***

Shock flickered across Hashvalt’s face. He stammered, “I never saw a single barbarian the entire time I stayed here.”

“This place is vast. A single year shows only fragments. More than that, they do not come out easily from the inner region. It is very likely you simply never crossed paths.” Ketal’s tone remained even.

“I see. So you truly are a barbarian of the White Snowfield.” Hashvalt calmed by degrees. A strange competitiveness stirred in his eyes. He held it down and asked, “You came to find the barbarians. May I know why?”

“The Mortal Realm is in very poor condition. We need their strength.”

“What?”

The word left Hashvalt on a breath. Helia quickly explained the situation. As she spoke, Hashvalt’s eyes grew larger.

“The Demon King appeared, and you won? And now something from the White Snowfield has broken loose?”

“We won the war against Hell, but the Mortal Realm was badly damaged. The gods cannot easily intervene again,” Helia explained.

“I see...,” Hashvalt murmured. He took a moment to arrange the facts, then nodded. “May I join you?”

“Are you planning on leaving the White Snowfield with us? After we find the barbarians?” Helia asked him.

“I cannot sit still if the world is as troubled as you say. I can return here whenever I wish.”

“Thank you.” Helia’s face brightened.

Hashvalt was a Hero, one of the strongest in the Mortal Realm. He was an unexpected addition, and she could not help her relief.

“More than that, I want to see them,” he added, glancing at Ketal. “The barbarians. I want to see how they live here. Is that acceptable?”

“It makes no difference. More hands are better,” Ketal replied.

“Thank you. Then allow me a moment to gather my things.”

“Of course,” Helia said.

They followed him to a cave mouth jutting from the snowbound mountain. Helia looked surprised. “A cave? You lived here?”

“Yes. The inside is rather spacious, and strangely, it keeps a steady warmth, so it was comfortable. There are other curiosities as well. This place never stops surprising me.”

Hashvalt packed light and came back out, ready to follow. The look he turned on Ketal held a challenge. He had lived more than a year in this killing land without disaster. Naturally, he took pride in that. The barbarian of legend stood before him—the man from the stories who could live here as if it were ordinary ground—and Hashvalt wanted to prove he, too, had adapted and survived. Fire burned in his eyes.

Ketal did not react. He stared at the cave for a quiet moment and asked, “You stayed here for a year?”

“I did. Without this place, it would have been difficult.”

“You were fortunate.”

“Fortunate?” Hashvalt repeated. The word threw Hashvalt off.

Ketal answered with action. He lifted his heel and stamped the cave floor. A heavy report rolled out. The mountain underfoot shivered.

Hashvalt recoiled. “What are you doing—”

A deep moan rose from the depths, resonating through the frozen ground. The mouth they had mistaken for a cave began to contract, the sound of heavy mechanisms echoing as it slowly sank into the snowfield. Ice fractured and compacted snow gave way, crumbling inward until the last shards collapsed into themselves. When the noise faded, nothing remained but scattered fragments buried in frost—the cave was gone, erased as though it had never existed.

“What...?” Helia stammered.

“I... what,” Hashvalt muttered.

“That is not a cave,” Ketal said, almost idly. “That is the mouth of a turtle.”

“A turtle?”

“Yes. The White Snowfield rests on glaciers. Below them lies a vast, deep ocean. And this is a great turtle that lives in that sea. From time to time, it surfaces to breathe and holds its mouth open like this. When the time comes, it goes back down. It takes roughly a year. Your timing was close.”

Hashvalt’s eyes shook. He had lived inside a turtle’s mouth.

“I did not spend the year asleep. I thought it strange and pushed my senses as far as I could, yet nothing felt wrong,” Hashvalt said.

“Your perception is not something you should trust here. Nor your Myst,” Ketal replied.

This was a land where things older than order lived. Myst barely meant anything.

“In any case, the problem is solved. Let us go.” Ketal’s calm voice carried through the brief silence.

***

They followed him into the cold. Hashvalt could not shake the shock quickly.

No. No, Hashvalt thought.

He forced himself to focus. Cave or not, he had still survived more than a year here. That experience had to count for something. He held to that belief and began to speak. “I can tell you what I learned living here. You have been away for some time, so—”

“I am sorry, but it will not help much,” Ketal said, glancing back. “You stayed on the boundary.”

“The boundary?”

“The line between the outer belt and the inner region. It is not weak, but it does not hold the truly strong things either. It is manageable.”

“Manageable?”

Hashvalt had suffered a great deal for a year. To hear it called manageable stung.

“Once we go deeper, what you know will not matter,” Ketal said.

“I understand,” he said, though belief did not take root. In truth, he expected a difference of degree, not a new world.

However, that belief dissolved quickly. A creature emerged to block their path, its hulking frame cutting through the mist. A low, guttural growl rolled from its throat, rumbling across the snow like the warning tremor before an avalanche.

“Wolves,” Ketal said quietly.

It was the color of snow, white from nose to tail, and three times larger than any wolf of the Mortal Realm. Hashvalt stepped forward. “I will handle it.”

He had fought such wolves often. They were dangerous, around Transcendent level in strength, yet not beyond him. He moved with practiced ease and brought the beast down. His blade drove into the wolf’s neck. The body, all jitter and spasm, went limp. His thoughts flickered.

The inner region is supposed to be different, yet the monsters that come out look the same, Hashvalt thought. The thought had barely formed when something punched through the wolf’s eye.

A white worm burst forth, stretching at least a meter in length as it streaked toward Hashvalt with blinding speed. Acting on instinct, he thrust his sword, the blade flashing through the air. The worm twisted mid-flight, slipping past the steel with a deft, fluid motion. It coiled along the blade’s surface and surged upward, darting toward his exposed skin, its movements sharp and deliberate as it sought to burrow in.

Without warning, Ketal moved first. His hand shot out and seized the creature midair. It writhed violently, its body twisting as it tried to drive itself into his flesh, but his skin was unyielding, harder than forged iron. No matter how fiercely it struggled, it could not leave a mark upon him.

He tightened his grip, and the worm snapped in two with a sharp, wet sound. The severed halves fell to the ground, twitching weakly before going still, their brief, frantic movements fading into silence.

“W-what was that?” Hashvalt stammered.

“It parasitizes living things. We call them White Tendrils,” Ketal said, brushing off his palm.

“I have never seen anything like that,” Hashvalt whispered, shaken.

“They mostly survive only in the inner environment, so they rarely come out. But that does not mean they do not exist. You were lucky.”

He could not argue. The White Tendril was fast enough that even a Hero like himself would struggle to answer it cleanly. Without prior knowledge, an ambush like that could have been fatal. Hashvalt fell even quieter and followed Ketal with a more sober face.

Ketal stopped. “From here, be careful. Step exactly where I step.”

“I do not see anything,” Hasvalt replied.

“It is faster to show you.”

He opened his pouch of space and took out a piece of junk, then tossed it toward what looked like a meaningless sheet of glacier. The ice heaved as if angered and swallowed the object whole. A wash of cold burst out and tried to freeze the holy power that protected them.

Helia drew a breath. “This is what you described before. The icefield that eats.”

“Yes. Do you think you could get out after you are swallowed?” Ketal said.

“It is possible,” she said after a beat. “But only if I spend everything.”

Even then, most of her holy power would have been spent. The cold radiating from the icefield spoke clearly enough of the cost. If even she, the highest among the Heroes, had to pay that price, then for Hashvalt, stepping forward meant wagering his life itself.

Hashvalt had no answer. He had never seen such a thing. Nor did the strangeness end there.

Hail began to fall, each shard descending with unnatural precision, aimed solely at them. At the same time, swarms of unseen insects swept in, their rasping bodies scraping against the divine wards. Something hidden within the cold itself stirred—a presence so faint it seemed part of the air—creeping closer with the patience of thought, seeking to freeze them from within without ever revealing its form.

Each threat demanded the full attention of a Hero. Helia spoke in a tone thick with awe. “Everything you told us was true.”

“You thought I lied?” Ketal said.

“No. Not that. But...”

As one born of the Mortal Realm, doubt had always been natural to her. The idea that such beings could exist had once seemed beyond belief. Yet now the truth stood before her, undeniable. This land allowed no one, not even the strongest, to endure without struggle.

Hashvalt realized he had stood on the boundary and known nothing of the White Snowfield’s truth. He slumped. He looked so much like an abandoned dog that Serena could not help but watch him with sympathy.

After walking for quite a while, the group stopped.

“We have arrived,” Ketal said. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Ahead of them lay rows of huts, not a handful but hundreds stretching into the distance. Ketal looked upon them with a quiet, layered expression, the kind that carried both memory and restraint. The barbarians of the White Snowfield lived there—the people among whom he had once walked, fought, and endured. Now, after all that had passed, he had returned to the place that had once been his home.