Chapter 1974: Chapter 1974

This world, so utterly hostile to life, was a mystery. Jenkins couldn't tell if it was merely a projection of some sovereign realm, or if a piece of that realm had directly superimposed itself onto reality.

Given the uncertainty, and to avoid stirring up even greater trouble, Jenkins decided against using his seed to forcibly reshape the snowy landscape.

He soared into the sky on his tall stool. Strangely, snowflakes began to drift down from the perfectly clear expanse above. The higher Jenkins ascended, the heavier the snow became. This was no weather pattern of the material world; it had to be a rule of this sovereign realm, he concluded.

Mr. Augustus, in his guise as Death's emissary, had once warned that the sovereign realm operated under bizarre rules, utterly different from the material world, making it fundamentally uninhabitable for the living. Judging by the current conditions, any Benefactor less than a demigod—with the exception of someone like Jenkins—would likely freeze to death the moment they entered.

He had worried his search would be like finding a needle in a haystack, but shortly after taking flight, he spotted a chain of low-lying hills in the distance. As he drew nearer, he could clearly make out a trail of jumbled footprints on the ground below.

The hills formed a barrier along the edge of the snowy expanse. Pushing higher against the falling snow, Jenkins watched as the hills seemed to sink beneath him. To his surprise, he saw that beyond them lay another plain, this one nestled between four distinct mountain ranges.

Upon that plain, bathed in the brilliant sunlight, stood a vast and prosperous kingdom forged entirely of ice and snow.

He was viewing this from a great height, so the architectural details and the forms of the creatures moving about within the kingdom remained indistinct.

He wanted to cross the hills to get a closer look, but just as he passed over the highest peak, there was a dull thump. Flying at speed, Jenkins realized he had collided with an invisible barrier. He and his tall stool went into a spin, plummeting through the swirling snow toward the ground below.

The snow on the hills was far deeper than on the plain. Jenkins slammed into the drift, and when he managed to stand, the surface of the snow came up past his waist.

He struggled through the deep snow, clearing a path with the flames of his Bestowal, until his hand finally met the unseen barrier.

"Could this be the boundary of this space?"

He surmised as much. Since he couldn't get a closer look at the kingdom, he turned and resumed his search for the missing party. The footprints were still fresh, not yet erased by the wind and snow. A quick count suggested that everyone was still accounted for.

Halfway up the slope, he came across a makeshift campsite, now abandoned. The tracks showed the group had split in two. Jenkins randomly chose one of the trails to follow.

A little further on, that trail split again. One set of prints continued up the mountain, while the other led back down a different route.

Jenkins studied the two sets of tracks for a moment. Just then, the cat tucked inside his coat poked its head out for a breath of fresh air. He turned to it and asked Chocolate:

"Which way should we go?"

Without hesitation, Chocolate glanced upward. And so, Jenkins followed the ascending trail.

The trail was made by thirteen different people. Jenkins lacked the skill to discern individual details from footprints, so he couldn't be sure he was on the right track. Still, he was surprised that after all this time, everyone seemed to still be alive.

Then again, he mused, the ability to walk and leave footprints wasn't exclusive to the living. His mood soured instantly.

Jenkins didn't find the group he was looking for. Instead, as he continued his ascent, he stumbled upon a stranger.

He was an old man, strangely dressed in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, with a bamboo basket strapped to his back and a straw hat on his head. When Jenkins found him, he was huddled behind a massive boulder, seeking shelter from the wind. But the brutal cold had already claimed him; he was unconscious, and even curled into a tight ball, his body heat was rapidly fading.

In a place , it was best not to get involved. Still, after a few steps, Jenkins turned back to help. The old man had simply succumbed to hypothermia, an ailment that was trivial for Jenkins to treat.

When the man opened his eyes and saw Jenkins, his first words were completely unintelligible:

The language was completely alien. The phonetics sounded vaguely like a dialect from the Seventh Epoch, but Jenkins had only ever heard descriptions of that pronunciation; he was utterly clueless about a language from ten millennia ago.

He tried speaking in the modern common tongue, but the old man, of course, didn't understand. After a moment's thought, Jenkins switched to ancient Elvish. This time, the man understood and managed a reply in halting Elvish:

"Oh, by your ears, you must be a half-elf!"

"That's right. I'm a half-elf."

"My old neighbor was a half-elf, but he certainly wasn't as handsome as you are." Thɪs chapter is updated by noᴠelfire.net

He grasped Jenkins's hand, using it for leverage to pull himself into a sitting position. Leaning back against the large boulder, he fished a small paper box from inside his shirt.

"Do you mind if I smoke?"

Jenkins thought he had misheard. He had just saved the man from freezing to death, and in this temperature, he would surely be unconscious again in under a minute.

"I don't mind... but are you sure you want to smoke?"

He took a crudely hand-rolled cigarette from the box, then pulled a single match from a fold in his sleeve. He struck it against the boulder behind him, and somehow, despite the wind and biting cold, the ordinary-looking matchstick flared to life.

The old man clamped the cigarette between his lips. With a trembling right hand, he brought the flame toward the tip, cupping his left hand around his mouth to shield it from the wind. The cigarette caught. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the spent match into the snow and took a long, deep drag. As he exhaled a perfect ring of smoke, his complexion turned rosy and his face lit up with pleasure, as though he'd just stepped out of a hot bath.

This was all deeply unnatural.

"I'm guessing you're not from around here."

He said, still leaning against the boulder. He saw Jenkins staring at his cigarette and nodding, and he let out a laugh that turned into a hacking cough.

"Now and then, people from other places do drop in on us. You're lucky, and so am I." He coughed. "Come with me in a moment, just after I finish this smoke." Another cough. "You sure you don't want one? Oh, well. A real shame."

"Actually... I didn't just drop in," Jenkins began. "How should I explain this... A piece of your world has overlapped with mine."

Hearing this, the old man, cigarette still dangling from his lips, nodded calmly.

"Happened once when I was young. So that's what this is. Looks like I'm stuck here, then. I'll have to wait for you lot to leave before I can."

"You understand the situation?"

"I do. It doesn't happen often, but it's nothing new. And young man, I suspect your troubles are a good deal bigger than mine, eh?"

As he spoke, the old man pinched the cigarette between his right thumb and middle finger. He aimed the glowing tip toward the snow and tapped it gently with his index finger, flicking the ash away.