Don't Ask About the Past

All right, now I have targets for causing trouble later.

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My hate points are zero.

Another poor day with no hate points. I'm awake!

Still no hate points today!.jpg

Although Chlorine Sodium was a very patient person, after being here for so many days without even finding the real protagonist, it was indeed somewhat demoralizing.

She needed to pick up the pace. At the very least, she had to determine who the protagonist was before the sunk costs became too great and she ended up losing money.

After all, the protagonist was simply too great a threat. The title of Child of the World was no joke. If she did not deal with this carefully, crashing and burning was only a matter of minutes.

A cautious sailor could sail for ten thousand years. Combined with her own preference for steady methods, that was how she had turned 200,000 points into a chance to win 8.78 million points.

However...

Had this child awakened some strange fetish?

Why did she like aiming at people's nasal bones!?

Looking at the human-face-like structure on the wooden carving of unknown origin attached to the stake, then at the cracks across the bridge of its nose, it was obvious that Yelena had not slacked off in her training these days, but...

Wasn't this spot a little strange???

What was this supposed to be, the mutual convergence of different spacetime continua?

Chlorine Sodium glanced at Yelena's chest and decided that probably wasn't the case.

A certain person codenamed 42 and the Shenzhou tablet are on their way to silence someone.jpg

"Take a break. We can deal with what comes later when the time comes."

Chlorine Sodium had long since shed her Herrscher state. Her face was still cold, but she remained the clumsy older sister.

She placed one hand on the girl's hair and ruffled it a few times, turning Yelena's originally long hair into a bird's nest.

"Don't play with my hair."

Ignoring little Yelena's quiet protest, Chlorine Sodium said,

"By the way, as the old saying goes, all work and no play... How about going into the city once next week?"

"...Huh??!!"

P.S. What an incredibly long three-day holiday. Collapses.

Section 21: Chapter Twenty-One—Don't Ask About the Past

The central cities of Ursus stretched across the southeastern continent, lying close to Kazdel and Kazimierz.

Unlike the south and north, which focused on industry and agriculture, the central region was more of a transition between the two. It had the snowfields of the north as well as the springtime of the south.

Among the Mobile City-States in the central region, one was currently parked atop the snowfields, serving as an important transportation hub for trade between the two sides.

And because it was a transportation hub, it was naturally a gathering place for merchants.

Nobles, merchants—in short, a gathering place for the elite and the respectable. The scent of trade and money permeated every corner.

This was also one of the few relatively prosperous places in the central region.

"We got it wrong. What a failure."

The silver-haired girl looked at the map of Ursus included with the promotional material she had bought from a roadside stall. Chernobog apparently was not in the central region, but in a corner of the east.

Did that mean they still had a very long way to go?

What a failure.

"Can we really avoid being discovered like this...? Maybe we should just leave."

A timid yet rather adorable voice came from behind her. It belonged to a girl hiding behind the silver-haired one. She also had silver hair, but her bearing was completely different.

She was small, and the older-looking one was probably her older sister.

But why did that silver-haired girl have no racial traits on her head?

Well, Chlorine Sodium was not a demi-human, so there was only hair on her head, with no other unnecessary demi-human features.

Of course, there were similar species in this world, so her passport listed her as Iberian. Apparently, marine creatures did not have many racial features visible on the outside.

Her boss had really thought things through.

As for Yelena...

Women passing by who were a little older often liked children. Whenever they saw FrostNova, they would smile warmly, greet the little girl, or tease her to make her happy.

Just like any ordinary child on the street.

It was vacation season, so there were more children out on the streets as well.

But no one knew that only a few days earlier, the girl had still been on the freezing snowfields, learning to control her power so that it would not endlessly release deadly waves of cold.

Now, however, the girl's outfit was nothing more than that of an ordinary child one could see anywhere along the roadside.

She wore a white short winter coat, and her silvery-white short hair hung loose. A hair clip with a little bear design held back the hair by her ears, allowing her secondary ears to emerge from beneath the silver strands.

Under her gray-to-black gradient winter coat was a white shirt.

Below her black tights were a pair of black boots. An orange-red scarf wrapped around half her face, making the girl look even smaller.

There were no excessive decorations or adornments, only the purest side of a child.

Still, the girl seemed somewhat timid and wary in a corner of the street, hiding behind Chlorine Sodium the entire time.

That was normal. She was a child, after all. Little girls in particular were often more introverted.

Yet no one carefully observing those gray eyes would have missed the fear within them.

Her slightly contracted pupils reflected the Ursus military police inspecting people on the street.

It was fear that came from the depths of her heart—or rather,

a guilty conscience.

"The more afraid you are, the easier it is to reveal a flaw. Don't worry. These military police don't have any detection equipment."

Taking the girl's hand, Chlorine Sodium paid no attention to the Ursus military police around them.

She was ostensibly comforting the girl, but in truth, she was telling her not to give herself away and cause trouble.

There were Ursus military police everywhere here. Chlorine Sodium could instantly dismember them into a pile of parts, but then she would have no way to keep her identity hidden.

Fortunately, Yelena's clothing already helped her avoid the risk of being mistaken for an Infected. After all, "Infected" was merely a label. Even among the Infected, nobles and commoners received completely different treatment.

No one saw noble Infected at the mines—not because there were none among the nobility, but because no one dared interfere with them.

Reality was truly both absurd and cruel.

To ordinary people, however, the only way to detect Originium infection was the presence of crystals on the surface of the body.

After all, the infection rate of Originium infection was irreversible, and so were its symptoms. No matter what, going from a low infection rate to a high one was only a matter of time. One could only choose not to use one's abilities and suppress the illness, or use overloaded abilities and accelerate it. To this day, there was still no genuine cure.

Originium infection also had highly visible symptoms.

The Originium crystals on one's body were completely fused with the flesh. It was not as if no one had tried removing those crystals from the outside of their bodies.

But doing so was as painful as tearing off one's own skin. Those things did not merely grow on the skin; they had burrowed completely into the flesh and bone.

That posed no problem for Chlorine Sodium, though. Who was she? She had at least spent a huge number of points to exchange for an enhanced Herrscher of the Void body. Simply finding a way to suppress the spread of Originium infection within an individual was still possible.

Of course, in her own words,

Originium infection had not improved at all. All she had changed was preventing the crystals from piercing out through the skin.

Naturally, that was only as long as she did not use Originium Arts. Once the crystals were stimulated, they would return to their original state.

Still, this was enough.

Even this much was something little Yelena had never imagined.

Being able to appear on the streets of Ursus like this was something she had never dared dream of.

Lowly Infected people were only fit to remain on the wastelands and be slowly swallowed up by nature.

They had nowhere else to go. All they had ever known was that snowfield.

But now, everything felt just like a dream.

"Don't worry about those military police. Right now, you're a respectable person on the streets of Ursus."

Chlorine Sodium led the girl away from the street.

Sure enough, the burly military policeman merely glanced at little Yelena as she passed and paid her no attention at all.

He hadn't noticed! He really hadn't noticed!!

The military police generally chose whom to inspect based on whether they looked furtive and guilty, or whether their clothes were tattered and ragged. The former obviously seemed suspicious, while the latter might be Infected.

The Infected were generally poor and downcast, which made them easy to identify.

As for where these clothes had come from, where Yelena's identification in her pocket had come from, and where the money had come from, her older sister merely raised one finger to her lips.

Some things were better left unknown.

So mysterious.

"Don't worry about those things. Why don't you think about what you'd like to eat later? We might not spend the night here today."

The silver-haired girl dragged her along while looking at the map in her right hand and murmuring,

"Where are we going?"

"Chernobog. It's not too far from here, so we'd better leave early..."

"We need to get there before the blizzard."

She had accidentally heard a disaster-weather warning on the radio earlier. This land was truly full of malice. It was not only incredibly barren; it also sent disasters their way for no reason.

This time, it was not the kind of catastrophe the people of Ursus called a natural disaster, but an approaching blizzard.

If they wanted to leave soon, they had to get out before the blizzard arrived.

As the girl thought this, the left hand holding Yelena's suddenly gave a tug.

?

Yelena had stopped for some reason. The silver-haired girl turned around and saw that the child seemed to be staring blankly at an advertisement on a storefront.

What was she looking at...? A hamburger?

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"So this is... a hamburger?"

At 3.75 rubles, a hamburger was somewhat expensive in an era when riding the tram cost only 3 rubles.

Yet there were still many people inside, because this was the only establishment here belonging to a Columbian chain. For twenty years, it had been the only one.

There were many people in the restaurant, and many eyes as well. She had been alone for most of her life, and even though she now had a sister, she was still used to wandering the snowfields. Suddenly arriving somewhere so crowded made Yelena's already sensitive nerves almost send her fleeing.

After all, nearly half her childhood had been spent suffering in the mines. Once she finally got out, she had merely wandered through deserted villages on the snowfields.

After remaining in places where people were rarely seen for so long, Yelena could no longer adapt to the city.

There were too many people!

In the end, they found a seat in a corner, and only then did the girl calm down.

"Why did you suddenly want to eat this?"

Her older sister propped up her chin with one hand and gazed somewhat boredly out the window as she asked.

But the girl did not reply. She remained silent.

Looking at the thing in her hands—a legendary object she had once heard about—she felt no sense of reality despite holding it.

It was merely a few slices of meat sandwiched between two pieces of bread.

Little Yelena took a bite, half believing and half doubting.