An ice mountain suddenly surged up from the endlessly sprawling frozen plain.
Atop the ice mountain, a gigantic woman, hundreds of meters tall, looked down below.
Her fluttering clothes, translucent form, and enormous size made her seem unreal.
And yet she did not look like a hologram or an image.
Unlike an image or a hologram, she was unmistakably there.
Perhaps the monsters felt the same, for they stood frozen, unable to move.
The spirit, Shamila, looked down at the monsters that had come to a halt and said,
-This is my home. I left you alone while you stayed still, but I can’t stand by and watch insects crawl all over my house!
Her voice shook the earth,
and Shamila spread her arms wide.
Like a goddess extending her arms, her figure unfolded across the sky, and her clothes billowed fiercely.
Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwa!
The wind began to blow.
From behind her, a tremendous wind swept in, whipping her clothes about.
A terrifying wind mixed with sleet—a snowstorm.
It was a tremendous gale that blocked all sight and seemed as though it would send even the monsters flying.
As the storm bore down on them, the monsters curled up and stretched their tentacles in every direction.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Countless tentacles drove into the ice, and the monsters began to withstand the dreadful storm by bracing themselves against them.
Sharp shards of ice were mixed into the snowstorm as well, but they could not pierce the monsters’ hide.
Seeing the monsters endure the storm covered in shallow cuts, Shamila’s eyebrow twitched.
-So you can withstand this much?
Biting her lip, she raised her fingernails this time and made a gesture as if scratching the ground.
Grrrrrk.
The ice beneath the monsters’ feet began to split.
The tentacles they had embedded in the ice were flung out.
Crash!
The monsters that had been holding on with their tentacles were caught in the storm and tumbled backward.
But once again, their wounds were not severe.
Even as they rolled several times, the monsters stretched out their tentacles again.
Shamila’s expression changed.
Her playful look vanished, and with an utterly serious face, she clasped her hands together in the center and pulled them apart with all her strength.
Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwa!
The split ice began to spread wider and wider.
The fissure continued to extend, as though trying to swallow the monsters that had been sent tumbling.
The monsters, now about to fall between the ice, tried to support themselves by stretching their tentacles in all directions.
But the tentacles shooting out in every direction lost their strength before they could pierce the ice.
It was because of the cold air surging up from the fissure.
Shwaaak!
It was a cold so frigid that the tentacles froze as they shot out.
The cold began freezing not only the tentacles but the bodies of the monsters as well.
The monsters thrashed, trying not to freeze in the cold, but the more they struggled, the more they had no choice but to sink into the fissure.
One by one, the monsters’ tentacles lost their strength, and the monsters were sucked into the fissure in turn.
Once the monsters had vanished like that, Shamila brought her hands together again.
Clenching her teeth, she forced her arms together with all her might.
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
The fissure began to close again.
As though hiding all traces that the monsters had ever been there, the crack, the crevasse, gradually began to disappear.
One by one, the fissures were erased, and the traces of the monsters disappeared with them.
And the moment all the fissures vanished.
Kuwaaaaa!
A single tentacle burst out from beneath the ground.
-No!
Just as the startled Shamila was about to wave her hand again,
Crack.
The tentacle that had burst out shattered into pieces.
It was a tentacle that had already frozen solid.
It seemed to have been a final struggle.
Seeing the tentacle break apart, Shamila let out a sigh of relief.
Thud.
With that tentacle as the last, all the fissures disappeared.
The ice became flat once more.
Now not even a trace remained to show that the scout monsters had ever existed.
After carefully scanning the ice, the spirit said cautiously,
-It’s over now, right?
Her expression had changed from before.
Back then, she had worn a dignified expression like a goddess, but now her face was full of shock.
True to her name as an ice spirit, she had gone pale.
When she waved her hand, the snowstorm stopped as well.
Srrrrrk.
The spirit shrank in size, and the ice mountain that had surged up from the frozen plain sank back down.
Now, nothing remained on the ice.
The figure of the spirit, Shamila, disappeared.
Through the ice mirror, we had been able to watch the scene vividly.
We had seen everything—her appearance like a goddess, and her defeat of the monsters.
Wooooong.
After the spirit disappeared from the screen, she appeared inside the ice pillar.
She was not wearing the pale expression from the screen, but a coy, mischievous one.
Srrrrr.
After slipping out of the ice pillar, she stood before us.
The spirit placed her hands on her waist and lifted her chin.
-You saw my power well, didn’t you?
Hearing the spirit’s words, Soph muttered,
[We certainly saw you break out in a cold sweat.]
Fortunately, since I was holding the spear, the spirit did not hear Soph’s words.
“That was incredible. How is something like that possible?”
Soph had spoken sarcastically, but no matter who saw it, this had been an incredible feat.
She had dealt with several Akzar scouts all by herself.
For someone like me, who struggled even against a single scout, it was a sight that naturally drew admiration.
-It’s because the Creator made me well, and because I have spent many long years increasing my strength.
As the spirit spoke while twisting her fingers together, Soph clicked his tongue.
[It seems this place, like the terraforming facility, draws in and uses all the energy of the star. Since there is an administrator here in the form of a spirit, the administrator must have been able to use that power directly.]
Seeing how proud the spirit looked, I discreetly turned Soph’s words into a question.
“That’s amazing. By any chance, can you use this kind of power on other stars?”
At my words, the spirit shook her head.
“I am a spirit of ice. The spirit of this star. I cannot go to another star.”
It was not merely that she could not use her power elsewhere; she could not leave the star at all.
[No wonder she could use this star’s power far too easily for a spirit. So that was the reason. She was created from the beginning as this star’s guardian spirit.]
I learned how the spirit had come to use such incredible magic, but at the same time, I felt deeply disappointed.
If she could use this power elsewhere, she would have been an enormous help……
As expected, getting something for nothing was impossible.
Of course, even this much was a great help.
She had dealt not with one, but with ten scouts.
If she had not been here, our party would have had to bury our bones in this place.
And that was not the only help she had given.
I opened my other palm and poured energy into it.
In my mind, I pictured water being created.
A magic circle came to mind, and a formula formed.
Shwaaak.
Moisture gathered from the air and created water.
Droplets danced above my palm.
Looking at the droplets, I brought another image to mind.
The magic the spirit had just cast.
The blizzard, the ice, and even the cold she had unleashed.
A single magic circle rose in my mind.
Beside it, a formula unfolded to reduce the movement of molecules.
Clatter.
Ice fell onto my palm.
It was ice formed from the droplets that had been floating in the air freezing solid.
[Don’t tell me… did you just use temperature-control magic?]
“Isn’t it ice magic?”
[Ice magic is a lower form of temperature-control magic. If you can use ice magic, you should soon be able to use the others as well.]
I did not quite understand Soph’s words.
If it was ice magic, then it was ice magic. Was this connected to other magic?
[You became able to use new magic just by watching it through an image. This is beyond even what one could call genius.]
As I tilted my head while looking into the ice, Soph’s words reached me.
I clenched my fist and looked at the spirit.
The spirit was staring at my hand with curious eyes.
She seemed to want to ask me as well, but I asked first.
“Since when have those monsters been on this star?”
For our safety, I needed to confirm when the monsters had come to this star, and how many there were.
At my words, the spirit pointed to the sky with her finger.
-The monsters fell onto this star around the time one of the mother planet’s moons shattered.
A moon?
When I tilted my head, she brought up an image on the ice mirror.
A shattered satellite appeared on the screen.
It was the satellite we saw every night.
-It was after all the researchers had left, when the moon was destroyed. Those monsters fell from space. At the time, I thought they were corpses. They didn’t move after they fell.
She spoke as if it had happened only recently, but it had occurred tens of thousands of years ago.
And hearing directly that they had fallen from space made the Akzar monsters feel different.
‘Were they really something like aliens……?’
For a moment, I thought of monsters that laid eggs inside bodies, but I shook my head and brushed the thought away.
It did not matter whether the Akzar were ancient monsters or aliens.
They were simply enemies that had to be removed.
However, the fact that the satellite had happened to shatter then sounded rather significant.
I asked Soph, but I did not get the answer I wanted.
[I don’t remember. It must be a memory that hasn’t returned yet.]
It was the same for the spirit.
-I only saw the satellite shatter. I never knew what happened on Planet Four at that time until now.
In the end, if we wanted to know what had happened, Soph’s memories would have to return.
“Are those all of them?”
-I couldn’t check the entire star. But as far as I know, that was all.
Her words put me somewhat at ease.
There might be more, but if they were the same scouts, she should be able to stop them well enough.
With this much confirmed, it seemed there would be no greater danger.
Just then, I heard my companions’ voices from outside.
It seemed everyone had come down underground.
Since the urgent matter was over, it was time to meet up with the team.
Before leaving the room, I asked the last thing I was curious about.
“Earlier, you started to say something about the underground and stopped. What is underground?”
At my question, the spirit smiled brightly.
With a proud expression, she waved her hand.
Clunk.
With a loud sound, the wall began to move.
Startled, I gripped the spear, but there were no enemies.
It was not a trap, either.
Only the walls and ceiling were moving.
The ice walls continued rising upward, and the ice pillar in the center of the room also shot upward.
The ceiling was receding endlessly as well.
No—the floor was descending.
[So this place was a kind of lift.]
It was just as Soph said.
The room I had thought was a control room was an elevator that moved around the ice pillar at its center.
The elevator continued descending.
I was about to protest the sudden movement, but the spirit waved her hand first.
-It will be better for you to see it directly than for me to explain.
The ice walls continued rising for a long while, until at some point, the walls disappeared.
Whooooosh.
A vast space unfolded before my eyes.
It was a dark space.
Through my senses, I could tell that it was an incredibly wide space, but it was difficult to confirm with my eyes.
Several ice pillars were embedded in the ceiling and scattering light, but the underground plaza was so vast that such light was almost no help at all.
Even so, I could tell.
The farther down we went, the more things my senses caught.
Countless buildings and facilities, roads and streets.
This dark underground space was a massive city that exceeded the reach of my senses.
-It may be hard to see, but……
The spirit began speaking with a gloomy expression, then soon continued in a lively tone.
-This is the place I have been building all this time. When energy was lacking, I stopped, and when it filled up again, I continued building. This is a city for people to live in, the city the Creator asked me to make before leaving.
With her hands clasped together, the spirit’s eyes shone with pride.
According to her, this underground city was a city she had spent tens of thousands of years building all by herself.
Her city, built until now according to the instructions of the people who had left her behind.
For an unfathomable length of time, she had silently carried out the mission given to her.
Even seeing her expression asking to be praised, I could not say anything.