Accompanying Sakina and Sona to Ice Blade City had only been incidental. Our real mission here was to find Odysseus, the Old Empire commander who was gradually awakening. Ordinarily, as an officer, Odysseus should have sought out his emperor to report after waking up, rather than having us come personally to meet him. But I had nothing better to do. With the homeworld facilities running automatically, I needed to find something to occupy myself with. Besides, Odysseus had not fully awakened yet and could not leave the Northern Ice Plains for the time being. To get the next phase of work started as quickly as possible, I did not mind making the trip myself—though the main reason was... I was bored enough for my balls to hurt.
We had already left Ice Blade City and stood in a deserted rocky wilderness more than ten kilometers away. Aurelia and Alaya had dropped their invisibility. The former was "looking" toward the ice plains, concentrating as she listened. The cold wind blowing from the plains stirred her wings and hair slightly. This was the borderlands, not yet within the ice plains, and layer upon layer of mountains blocked the wind, greatly weakening its bite. It could be called the last relatively "warm" region in the far north. Beyond it lay a strange atmospheric pressure zone known as the Storm Wall. Past that was the territory of the Storm Giants—the Great Ice Plains of the north, a place mortals could scarcely enter. Odysseus's signal was coming from that direction. According to Aurelia, it was very unstable, as if... he had suffered severe damage.
"I can only determine his approximate location. He probably hasn't reorganized all his information yet," Aurelia said at last, ending her "listening." Her tone held a trace of confusion. "I don't