The Old Woman in the Snow

In a forest beneath a blizzard of goose-feather snow.

Linsey ran for his life, frequently weaving left and right between the trees.

One moment, he was behind a birch tree; seconds later, he had darted in front of a similarly colored maple.

Linsey had chosen this exhausting way of running.

Naturally, it was to evade the dangerous Ice Cones shooting at him from behind.

Every fifteen seconds or so, he would hear a thud from a nearby tree as an Ice Cone gouged a dent into it.

If he had been even one step slower.

That dent would not have appeared in the trunk—it would have bloomed on Linsey's body instead! Linsey glanced at his panel.

Beneath the Constitution attribute was a yellow bar representing stamina, draining more than ten times faster than it did during a jog! At that moment, Linsey was grateful for humanity's ancestors and their efforts, which had given him endurance unmatched among animals.

Otherwise, with this level of exertion, he would have run out of strength long ago!

A few minutes later, Linsey had roughly grasped the situation.

This magical beast had initially been faster than him.

During the first dozen seconds, the distance between man and beast had closed from over twenty meters to less than ten.

But from that point onward.

The magical beast slowed down, matching Linsey's pace and even falling slightly behind.

Yet Linsey's brow remained tightly furrowed, because he had no time to gradually widen his slight advantage and ultimately shake the creature off.

It was not yet obvious from how he felt.

But in just these few minutes, the stamina value on his status bar had dropped by a third!

His remaining stamina simply could not guarantee that he could escape this magical beast.

If it caught up.

One Ice Cone would mean certain death!

Linsey could stake his life on his own efforts, but he could never entrust it to the endurance of an unknown magical beast!

In danger, one had to seek change.

In this race for survival, Linsey began to consider how he could stay alive.

In a winter when food was scarce, the beast would likely never give up such a juicy morsel as him.

Since running could not solve the problem, he could only find a way to solve the source of the problem.

Linsey's gaze immediately calmed, and killing intent surfaced.

At that moment, he recalled a Sherlock Holmes game he had once played. In it, the great detective had encountered a similar situation, pursued through the wilderness by a hunter with a gun.

Wasn't being chased by a magical beast firing Ice Cones at him much the same treatment?

A game was a game.

But some of the experience it offered was certainly useful.

As he continued fleeing, Linsey began avoiding thickets whenever possible.

They severely hindered upright humans, while affecting four-legged magical beasts far less.

Conversely, whenever he came across a path near rocks, Linsey would dive into it without hesitation.

He could use his palms for leverage on that sort of terrain.

And rocks and trees were the best cover for protecting his body.

The magical beast's Ice Cones could not pierce through such things and then injure Linsey.

At the same time, due to the magical beast's cautious nature.

Whenever it lost sight of Linsey around a bend, it would prudently slow down. This gave Linsey, after turning the corner, a brief chance to stop.

He did not need much—just a few seconds.

The yellow bar representing stamina on his panel would recover a little, allowing Linsey to keep up his escape.

The longer he lasted, the more likely he was to find a solution.

After they had chased each other like this for some time, the magical beast realized that Linsey had no ability to fight back, and it stopped being so timid at turns and in other such places.

It was like a skilled athlete.

Accelerating into a final sprint, preparing to devour the precious winter food before its eyes.

But as it happened, Linsey was like a skilled hunter!

His breathing had already become ragged during the pursuit.

But his bold plan, one that staked his life on the outcome, finally received its answer at that moment.

Ahead on his escape route, Linsey spotted a huge slanted boulder jutting out of the ground, its surroundings covered in moss and weeds beneath the snow.

Even more fortuitously!

From the angle of the stone, Linsey saw a dense clump of bushes growing beneath it.

The boulder formed a slope.

The snow-covered moss and weeds were thick, and once one slid onto them, there was no stopping until the bottom.

Together, they formed a natural trap, and the bushes below were Linsey's final hope for survival.

In an instant, Linsey arranged the plan in his mind.

Then, without hesitation, he changed direction and charged straight onto the boulder.

Sliiide—

Sure enough, the rock was incredibly slippery.

The moment Linsey stepped onto it, he slid down the slope of the massive stone the next second. But he had been prepared and did his best to control his body, so the bushes only scratched him without threatening his life.

There was no time to cry out in pain or complain.

Enduring the pain, he immediately got to work, using all his strength to break off a sufficiently sturdy branch. He braced one end against the ground and pointed the sharper end up the slope.

Linsey gripped the branch tightly, keeping its tip under his control.

This gamble would decide life or death! "Awoo—"

Sure enough, the magical beast, convinced that victory was in its grasp, chased after him without hesitation.

The spot where Linsey had slid down was even more slippery than before. Though the magical beast was nimble, it could not stop its sudden slide and fall.

And waiting for it was the sharp point of a piece of wood!

Squelch—

The sliding magical beast was immediately impaled by the makeshift short spear Linsey had raised.

But the momentum of its fall had not faded. Man and beast collided the next second, then rolled into the bushes.

Crack! Crack! Sounds came from within the bushes.

Several seconds later, the magical beast's corpse was shoved aside, and Linsey crawled out, his body scratched by the bushes.

"Cough, cough cough!"

Linsey coughed weakly several times.

The excessive drain on his strength made his chest burn with pain.

But a powerful emotion also brewed amid the pain, making him want to burst out laughing.

Yet Linsey did not do so.

He did not want his laughter to attract any other "little animals," so his urge to laugh became a vicious kick that sent the magical beast he had killed tumbling aside, revealing red spots beneath the bushes.

"Cloudberries?"

Linsey recognized this wild berry. It was edible and quite nutritious.

Already exhausted, Linsey immediately grabbed a handful, and sweet-sour juice filled his mouth.

"Is this the reward for taking down an enemy? It tastes pretty good."

Linsey sat miserably on the ground and enjoyed the fruits of his victory for a moment.

Then he did not dare linger any longer.

He quickly crawled out of the bushes, pulled the thorns from his body, found his bearings again, and limped westward.

His struggle with the magical beast had severely drained his strength.

If not for the handful of berries giving him some energy, then beneath the heavy snow, he might not even have had the strength to brush the snow from his head.

Gradually, Linsey's body temperature began to drop helplessly, and his sense of time grew numb.

Linsey looked at the stamina bar on his Data Panel.

The rhythm of the yellow bar rising and falling seemed like the final pulse of his life.

After an unknown amount of time had passed.

At last, Linsey saw a place with smoke rising from chimneys.

It was a clean, tidy town of considerable size!

At that moment, the foot area of the human-shaped icon on Linsey's panel had turned yellow, marked with the words frostbite.

But Linsey no longer cared about that.

Because right in front of him was the cemetery at the very edge of the town.

Gathering his strength, he made his way to a small white church before the cemetery.

He dropped down at the church entrance and used all his remaining strength to knock on the door.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

That action drained him of his strength.

Linsey rested for a moment, waiting until his stamina bar had recovered a little before calling again, "Is anyone there? Help!"

"..."

The door did not open.

But from the cemetery to the left of the church, Linsey heard the creak, creak of footsteps crunching through snow.

Excitement surged through him, and he stared intently in that direction.

The next second, beneath the swirling snowfall.

A pitch-black figure stepped out from behind the bluish-gray wall nearby.

She was an old woman in a dark black nun's habit, her wrinkled face bearing confusion over Linsey's appearance here. Thick snow had dyed her shoulders white, and her shuffling steps were even slower than Linsey's faint breaths.

But that did not stop the old woman from reaching Linsey.

She emerged from the cemetery, a place of death, and stared at Linsey slumped by the door with dark, clouded eyes.

The old woman stood between the white snow and Linsey.

At last, trembling, she opened the church's wooden door and extended a withered hand toward Linsey—a hand that nonetheless symbolized hope.

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