The Last Late Autumn

Chapter 156 The Last Late Autumn

—It's really cold.

After navigating a shallow pool of frozen water, the hard-soled leather boots crunched over the frost-covered leaves, startling a fat squirrel perched on a tree branch overhead.

Old Horton tightened the leather belt around his chest, checked that the cargo strapped to both sides of his backpack hadn't fallen off due to the bumpy ride, and then tucked the bearskin lining of his thick coat deeper into his collar.

Unfortunately, the thick, rough glove made his already swollen fingers even more unsuitable for such movements. For this bulky old man, the attempt to keep himself warm had failed. So he sighed softly and exhaled a breath of white mist that wasn't too thick.

"Hurry up."

Old Horton shouted behind him, and took advantage of the momentum of the sound to stomp his foot hard. It was as if frozen blood vessels were ruptured by this action, and along with the slight pain came a burning numbness.

—It's so cold, and it's getting colder and colder.

The old man thought this way.

—Even though the season hasn't really changed yet, the late autumn in Anvargin has already begun to make people aware of nature's changing attitude. Starting half a month ago, the cool breeze that used to make people feel comfortable disappeared, and in the past few days, it has changed its appearance and returned unfriendly.

The frozen tides came in with great force.

This was the first time old Horton had experienced a winter in the mountains, and it had to be said that it was much colder than any of the seventy-four years he had experienced on the plains.

—It's so cold.

Rune calendar, 1724, Brumaire.

Midgard, a central courtyard off the northern plateau, the Anwaglin Range, a sunny slope south of the Skud Mountains, backed by a shallow depression.

Melting snow from the mountains brings abundant fresh water, fertile land, and an endless supply of wild animals—before the first crop even grows, people can fill their bellies thanks to nature's bounty.

Old Horton did some mental calculations and remembered that it had been exactly seven months since the Embra tribe moved to their new home.

The early spring that greeted us when we first arrived has melted away, and what has emerged is a long, vibrant new winter, ready to welcome our birthday.

Today, perhaps it is the last evening of late autumn. It is only a short afternoon, but it feels like one or two o'clock in the afternoon. The dappled, dim curtain of light foreshadows the arrival of night.

It will be dark in a little over an hour.

The hunting party had to trek through a snow-covered forest halfway up the mountain. Here, the combination of two legs and two arms was more effective than four legs. Even the best hunting dogs had a hard time climbing those forest slopes covered with withered grass, where even a shortcut was hard to find.

But people can.

The thin, sharp ice that forms on the cedar needles is often a sign of danger—if these thin, sharp ice shells were to fall from the coniferous forest, which can be tens of meters high, a person's skull would be no harder than an egg.

So, for people who travel around this area year-round, besides wearing thick woolen hats, all they can do is "not stay in the same place for too long"—similar advice from elders and seniors.

The hunting party, consisting of about a dozen hunters, moved silently through the deep silence until Old Horton, who was walking alone to the side and was responsible for observing the team members' condition, frowned.

"Mu?"

He paused, turned around amidst the soft crunch of snow under his feet, and looked at the figure who, at some point, had silently fallen to the very back of the procession.

A young man who looked not very old wore a white robe with silver thread patterns over his thick coat. A crown made of elm leaves was wrapped around his forehead. His fluffy light golden curly hair made his fair face look young, and his light blue eyes were like melting spring ice.

At this moment, he stood frozen in place, his beautiful blue eyes completely unfocused.

"Mu!"

He called the name again, his lips, cracked and bleeding from the cold, parted slightly, and a still-strong voice, resonating from the old man's withered chest, boomed out in stark contrast, like a drumbeat: "Don't stand still, move around! Get your bones used to the temperature of the snow—they're not as delicate as you think, just keep moving!"

foot----"

The young man called "Mu" still didn't react. After hesitating for a while, he noticed an open space not far away. Old Horton decided to use a gesture to stop the advancing team and instructed the team at the front to take a short rest along the small lake in the woods.

He stepped through the light snow and approached the figure that had been left behind.

Mu had already opened his eyes, and his unfocused pupils slowly solidified amidst a violent tremor.

When the deep dive came to an end, and he regained his long-lost gift of sight, he endured the dazzling light, like fine ice daggers, seeping into his pupils through the gaps in his eyelids.

Mu—now he should be called Ai Yi—silently raised his head, squinting at the unfamiliar sky. Towering cedars occupied most of his vision, yet they could not obscure the presence of the winter solstice sun. The waxy white sun hung high in the sky, its tiny, needle-like rays filtering through the gaps in the needles, presenting an inhumanly cold, incandescent white light—after the diffuse reflection of the first snow, the light that entered his eyes was so cold it was blinding.

The winter sun had lost all its warmth; instead, it seemed to be the source of the cold, he couldn't help but think.

The next instant, a familiar light screen, accompanied by an inorganic voice, appeared simultaneously before his eyes and in his ears: "You are Mu An Isai, twenty years old, born and raised in the Embra tribe. You just completed the coronation ceremony of the 'Elm Sacrifice' three months ago and are now an apprentice master of ceremonies for the tribe. Today is your first time accompanying the tribe's hunting party, and considering the approaching winter, it may also be your last time this year."

"Over the past seven months, the tribe has undergone a transformation, migrating from the southern streams and wilderness to its current location on the northern plateau, driven by ambition."

The ambitious elders chose to relocate to a place near freshwater and wild mountains. The fertile land and lush forests teeming with deer and bison brought prosperity to the Embra tribe.

"Although nearly half the year here is shrouded in winter, the high-quality wheat grown here, along with the fertile black soil, is still enough for you to exchange half the planting season for a full ear of wheat that will fill your stomach. If that's not enough, the abundant herds of deer in the forest will make up for our greedy bellies, and the foolish black bears will warm people's bodies with their skins."

We will live in peace and contentment, dancing around the bonfire during the winter festival, praising the abundance of the earth, the generosity of the mountains and fields, the stability of the seasons and the radiance of the sun, and singing praises to the grace and gifts of the sacred trees and life.

"The promised world has never rejected us, so why should people yearn for a divine kingdom beyond the sea?"

"Landing point has been anchored. Your current country: [The White Ash Wood that Supports the World - Midgard Courtyard] - Searching for available missions. The difficulty is estimated in parentheses."

"Nourishment for Exploration: Complete the exploration of the lost kingdoms as much as possible. Current progress: 0.04%. (Including worldview, history of civilization, and exploration of special areas — Difficulty: ※ — ?)"

"Complete a tree ritual. ( )"

"Understanding the mysterious forces of our time"

"The original texts of the Midgard faith ( )"

"Found a fragment of the heart / (—?)"

"Finding the path to ?"

"The next stage is not yet unlocked; exploration progress of 1% is required."

Unlike the scene in Ys, this time, as I finished reading all the information, the light screen did not dim, but instead became brighter.

Xiao Bai looked very energetic, or rather, too energetic. In a corner where no one could see him, he stretched out his light tentacles and twisted Ai Yi's ear hard.

"I'm asking you! Where were you looking just now? Damn it, if Radiance hadn't been too lazy to take you in, you would have already melted into a puddle of fox fur at the bottom of the pool. This is no way to court death—by the way, aren't foxes canines? I thought you were some kind of suicidal Hakimi."

"It hurts..."

Without making a sound, Ai drove away the light strand, then savored the distant call that had come not long ago—a call that transcended reason, as if etched into her spiritual instincts.

—What is that?

He asked himself this question, but Xiaobai, unusually, did not answer his question. Instead, she gave him some cryptic and nonsensical replies to brush him off.

"The nature of radiance is a question for any spiritual being; even something as great as the sun is merely the first ray of light it overflows, and even in death, it continues to change its paradigm, attempting to penetrate the deep core of light—"

At the top of that radiant tower, at the bottom of the red pool, what flows outward from that unknowable place is the prior phenomena, the radiance, the only metaphysical wholeness, and then the shattered divinity—the bloodstains seeping from the true knowledge buried deep in the mud, or the divine sparks that bloom, are enough to rule over all realms belonging to reason.

Ai looked at her fair hands, yet bearing the marks of labor, and fell into a brief daze—a kind of unbalanced inertia. Although the feeling of "transcendence and return" could not be contained by any of her physical senses, it quickly dissolved into nothingness.

But that preserved reality, from a spiritual perspective, is like a black box that has swallowed up light. Though it cannot overflow, it has already altered something that resides beneath the mud, something that was never witnessed before—

A radiant glow.

With the word repeated to herself one last time, Ai took a deep breath, decisively casting aside the feeling of "loss" and instead immersing herself in her current role.

"Mu".

—My current name is being called over and over again by a strange old man. As a rough fingertip pulls up his eyelids, Mu meets the old man's gaze, which is filled with deep concern. His pale blue pupils contract sharply at this moment. He endures the stimulation brought by the strong sunlight that he is not used to and reluctantly opens his eyes wide.

"Uncle Horton."

Some of the consciousness belonging to this body surged out from the chaotic mind. Looking at the old face in front of him, which looked as red as if it had been scorched, Mu showed an embarrassed and shy smile and straightened the heavy backpack behind him.

"Sorry—I was a little distracted just now. It was probably too cold, ugh, this damn frozen snow."

The Embra people, who spend their lives traversing the snowy jungles, even their children know how to distinguish between different types of snow. Freshly fallen snow, no matter how thick it is, only poses the greatest danger of wetting clothes and boots. But frozen fine snow, these white demons that have covered the earth's surface for a long time, are the things that can truly cause skin to rot and bones to become brittle.

After standing there for only a short while, Mu's lower legs, buried in the snow, had already lost all feeling. Mu exhaled a breath of white air and, with the help of old Horton, slowly moved to the base of the cedar tree—a spot slightly higher than the ground around him, at least preventing further frostbite.

"Next time you feel unwell, just shout it out."

The experienced old man helped Mu take off his frozen deerskin boots. Under his solemn gaze, he tried to pull at the layer of velvet socks close to his skin. With a breath that Mu clearly suppressed in pain, blood mixed with snow water seeped out from the torn skin.

"Bear with it, your skin will get frostbite."

After giving a casual instruction, old Horton took a sealed leather bag from his backpack. He unscrewed the cork and poured out fresh water, which was icy cold to the bone when it hit his hand—that was to be expected.

"Here you go."

The old man tossed the leather pouch into Mu's hands and then rummaged through his belt to find a few thin, seemingly specially polished stones.

He pressed one of the stones, carved with strange patterns, against Mu's chest and whispered.

"Don't forget what you learned from your father—recite Rune's teachings silently, imagine yourself as a tree—remember, your roots are strong, you have an inner fire, and the sap and blood of the elm tree congeal into the strong sinews and flesh of the Embra people."

A tree.

Mu squinted.

A bright and warm sensation emanated from the surface of the stone slab, like sparks burning like fuel, slowly spreading throughout the body's veins.

He lowered his head like the old man's charcoal ash, their eyes meeting as if they had reached the end—he listened to the incessant pulse and heartbeat in the large hands covering his chest, a pulse as intense as thunder or drumbeats.

The leather pouch had been opened at some point, and some scalding hot water was poured down his ankles into the stiff leather boots. The frozen tissues and the flesh stuck to the fibers melted silently, and his numb toes finally regained feeling.

The cold is like the receding tide.

"Runic spell: ke naz·Mingliao "Start a fire on the spot."

Old Horton called out to the crowd gathered by the lake, then led Mu slowly closer. The hunters in the group, ranging in age from young people like Mu to elderly men like Old Horton, all looked at the back corner of the group with a half-smile. Every gaze, whether worried or playful, was focused on Mu.

The messy footprints wove a path leading to a small lake in the woods. Old Horton patted the young man on the shoulder, comforting him not to worry about it.

"Let's take a break."

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