"Ugh..."
"Are you serious?"
"Probably your fault."
"Right. Of course."
The two remained silent for a bit, until the Moonlit Feline got off Mark and stood on its four paws.
"Can't sleep either?" He asked as he lay a hand on Krista's head.
The Lioness yawned.
"Mmm... You're taking this Form more often than usual." Mark whispered.
"It's not surprising. After those Draugrs coming out of nowhere, and..." Elisa yawned. "And finding ourselves standing on a damn Olga."
His eyes turned towards her and narrowed.
"How come you didn't sense it?"
"I'm surprised too. That hole we found must have been its... Nose? Mmm... Its breathing should have been enough to let us know."
"Think it just... Didn't breathe for a while? The Hunter's Notes say that Olgas hibernate under the snow. Perhaps it slowed its breathing that much. Wouldn't want to be found sleeping after all."
"Maybe... So, did you...?"
"Kill it?"
Elisa nodded slowly.
Mark took a couple of seconds to think.
"Only way for me to do that would have been by using Corruption Magic. I quickly realized that I didn't have enough Mana to defeat it or even to damage it much. So... I didn't kill it." He lied. "Because I couldn't, not because I didn't want to."
"So you didn't inject too much Corruption before leaving it?"
Mark shook his head.
"That's good to hear..." Elisa whispered.
He could understand why.
Leaving the Olga suffering after filling its body with the pain-inducing and mind-breaking Corruption...
A situation that would've been a bit too similar to hers, Mark thought.
He decided not to tell Elisa the truth.
The standing Moonlit Feline swayed from side to side.
Krista struggled to remain on her four paws.
"Go to sleep." Mark ordered.
He stared at the Moonlit Feline.
And it stared at him.
The order didn't seem very effective, which made Elisa chuckle.
The Lioness turned into a white-furred cat, before slowly walking closer to Mark.
"Can't sleep, huh? Need a bedtime story?" He whispered.
Mark chuckled, but the Moonlit Feline's eyes started sparkling.
"Go to sleep." He repeated.
Unfortunately, the promise of a story seemed to have sapped the Moonlit Feline of all of its fatigue and sleepiness.
With a finger, Mark pushed Krista's head away.
"Sleep. We still have a long way to go. And we're not stopping until we're out of the blizzard tomorrow."
At his words, the Moonlit Feline looked around for a bit.
"A story?" Krista's eyes sparkled once more and she found the aid she needed. "That doesn't sound too bad." Elisa whispered.
"Tsk. Not you too..."
"Why not? Bedtime stories are important, you know?"
"Oh, really." Mark looked away.
"Of course. They can influence how well you'll sleep, they can influence your dreams, they can influence how you will feel when you wake up..."
Mark wrapped his hands around the Moonlti Feline and raised its body.
He lay it on his stomach.
"Go to sleep."
Elisa stared for a bit.
At the hideous Monster and the adorable Cat in front of her.
She turned around and lay on her back.
"It's been a while since I heard a story..." Elisa whispered.
The next second, the sound of steps on the snow resonated.
"If you're not sleeping then we might as well keep going."
"You think she can?" Elisa asked after yawning.
The Moonlit Feline's body swayed from side to side.
Mark remained silent for a bit.
"I'll tell you a story after walking for a bit longer-"
"Yess!" Elisa immediately stood up.
And the three continued their journey through the blizzard.
***
'Shit! Why is it...!'
The Olga's speed had suddenly increased.
It tilted its body downwards, and the rest of its body quickly followed.
A hellish descent during which Mark couldn't do a thing but hold on tightly.
The speed was such that the wind forced him to keep his eyes half closed.
'Should I let go? If its speed keeps increasing this way...!'
The Olga opened its mouth.
Sounds that Mark couldn't hear left that mouth.
He couldn't hear them and yet, they made his ears bleed.
'FUCK-'
Just when Mark was in the process of relaxing his grip,
BAM-
A collision.
The shock was like nothing Mark had ever experienced before.
'Did we... Hit the ground?' Due to the blizzard and to being on top of the Olga, he really couldn't tell.
But he had doubts.
The speed at which they went down was high, but this was still too fast.
WROOOooo-
He looked around,
'Wha-'
Mark wasn't close to the ground yet.
The halted descent resumed.
What the Olga had collided with wasn't the ground, but another Olga.
The latter's giant eyes stared through the blizzard.
"Fuck... Fuck... Fuck..."
Mark's immediately started shivering.
Those staring eyes.
He had only seen similar ones in dreams.
"Fuck..." Mark whispered as he smiled nervously.
Similar how?
He could tell, even through the blizzard, even though it was pretty far from him, that those eyes were larger than he was.
That one of those eyes was bigger than him, just like the Golden Eye that had haunted his dreams a couple of times already.
Having collided with one another, neither Olga could take back control of their own body quickly.
Their size didn't allow for such agility or aerial maneuverability.
And so, both fell for a while.
One had been blinded.
But the other one couldn't forgive being attacked this way.
It opened its humongous month.
The darkness that resided in there made it seem like an opening to hell, and the air that exited it made it seem like a new blizzard had been born.
Mark's eyes immediately widened.
He had already seen such a thing.
Using a large portion of the Mana he had left,
Ice Manipulation & Mana Barrier-
[You have developed a new Skill!]
[You have...]
Mark did not read the rest of those words.
He couldn't care about that.
Not now.
The snow and cold wind were turned into ice.
The ice was placed around the Mana Barrier, adding much-needed thickness to it.
The blizzard that was the freezing mist exiting the Olga's mouth had a peculiar blueish tone.
For some time, Mark couldn't see a thing.
He remained unmoving under the barrier.
Unbeknownst to him, the freezing mist made that barrier grow thicker and thicker.
It didn't take much time for it to turn into a trap.
After a while, another collision.
But this time, the movement didn't stop upon collision.
Mark understood that the Olga had, now, hit the ground.
The scraping and grinding against the floor lasted for a while.
But eventually, the Olga's momentum died.
For a while, Mark struggled against the overgrown barrier around him.
The igloo-like barrier had turned iceberg-like.
He freed himself and looked around.
A large part of the Olga's body had been frozen solid.
Weak whimpers, similar to a whale resonated.
Weak and low.
Dark Corruption, Colossal Harpoon-
Dark Corruption, Colossal Harpoon-
The whimpers continued for a couple of minutes.
But eventually,
[You have defeated an "Olga"!]
[You have earned 800 Experience Points!]
Mark spread his wings.
"Well, shit..."
He lowered his body towards the gigantic Monster he stood upon.
"800 for all this?"
The Olga's huge body instantly disappeared, making it seem like a plot of land had been stolen.
Mark stared at the blueish sphere in his hand.
"Those... Those dark pieces inside... They're..."
[They are Traces Of Corruption that the Olga held inside its body.]
Mark smiled as he raised the sphere closer to his mouth.
"I'm getting the Corruption I injected into it back, huh-"
His hand twitched.
The next second, those same gigantic eyes appeared through the blizzard.
Mark instantly folded his wings.
He instinctively extended a palm as he started falling.
Dark Corruption, Colossal Harpoon-
By the time Mark's feet hit the ground, the staring eyes had disappeared.
Were they the same as earlier? He couldn't truly tell.
Something was lurking in the blizzard.
No.
Things were lurking.
Gigantic things.
Powerful things.
Mark turned away and started moving.
'Can't stop... Can't stop...'
He called out his map.
"This thing shows the map's location at all times. Can I see earlier locations? Or the path I've taken?"
[Affirmative.]
"If I can find the spot where the Olga originally took off then perhaps..."
The words he had spoken to Elisa weren't completely a lie. After all, they were true for one of the true Olgas
***
Mark walked at the front of the group.
'It is comfortable. Even the blizzard doesn't worry me as much when I'm with them...'
The Moonlit Feline dragged its paws through the snow with great difficulty.
Elisa, having completely given up, lay with her stomach on Krista's back.
"How about... We stop... Now?" She begged.
Despite being on the Moonlit Feline's back, Elisa still focused on reading the group's surroundings. Something that was easier to do this way.
The fact that it was easier to read the surroundings wasn't the reason why she wasn't walking by herself though.
"Just a bit longer." Mark turned back.
The three continued walking.
They couldn't know that, but they had already exited the blizzard's territory.
