Rime Hills, or rather, Rime Forest.
Situated along the border between the northeastern edge of the Servia Kingdom and northern Untergard, it had become a buffer zone tacitly recognized by both nations after the war years ago, with each side guarding its own border.
Even today, passing adventurers and merchant caravans often found remnants left behind by soldiers from both nations during the war, beneath the thick snow blanketing the ground and among the brittle branches crusted with ice crystals.
The Royal Geographical Society of the Servia Kingdom believed that Rime Forest had formed when cold air from the northern plateau collided and tangled with warm, humid currents from the southeastern sea above the local hills.
The low temperatures, abundant moisture, hilly terrain, dense local vegetation, and a tiny yet crucial amount of Magic Particles had turned this crystalline forest, perpetually shrouded in ice and snow, into something that truly existed in the real world.
Compared with that, northern Untergard's explanation for the origins of Rime Hills was far more superstitious.
They believed Rime Forest had been created by the [Goddess of Winter], Auril, transformed from scraps of clothing torn from the goddess during that earth-shattering divine war.
Given the beliefs of his previous life, Xia Nan would have unquestionably believed the former explanation.
But on the present-day Aifala Continent—considering the [Destiny Glimmer] die he wore—the theory that it had been created by a goddess did not seem entirely unconvincing.
The party's destination was a small human settlement called Ice Tree Village, located in the southern part of Rime Hills.
Just as they had planned before resting the previous night, the group of five arrived at the village around noon. From the other side of a nearby slope, they could see cooking smoke curling up from the forest in the