The first rays of morning sunlight streamed through the outer walls of Ice and Snow Castle into the hall. With all that brightness around, there was simply no way to sleep in—as you can see, most of the castle walls were piled from translucent blocks of snow, and under the Eye of Absolute Zero's continuous transformation, those snow blocks were nearly all turning into ice. Everyone knew that this kind of impure ice could obscure vision somewhat, but it barely blocked light at all. At the right angle, the ice's focusing effect could even turn parts of the castle hall into the focal point of a convex lens: like my face this morning. This was yet another crushing blow to my childhood fantasies about the ice castles in fairy tales. Whenever I thought about how the northern witches sleeping in those castles had to be woken by the sun every morning, I felt like my childhood had been pretty much ruined.
The two Half-Dragon girls had gotten up early. By the time we woke, they had already been exercising in the open space before the Entrance Hall for quite a while, shouting and sparring with each other in what looked like this world's fighting techniques. When Sona saw me come out, she wagged her tail in greeting. "Good morning. I slept well yesterday."
My gaze fell on her tail, and it took me a long while to realize that this was how Half-Dragons greeted people...
The two Half-Dragon girls were still wearing those slightly revealing short leather outfits. Fine beads of sweat covered them after their morning training, and under the slanting sunlight, they looked brimming with wildness. Sakina wiped the sweat from her face and said calmly, "When exploring outdoors, you need to stay in good shape. We're not