Whoosh~
The north wind howled incessantly through the icy night.
This was the far northern wilderness, far beyond the northern borders of Rabona, deep in the snowy fields north of the area where the small town of Pieta had once stood. So, as one might imagine, this was still a bitterly cold world of howling winds and endless snow.
"..."
At that moment, a battle broke out in the frigid night wind. Claire stood some distance away, hidden among conifers whose branches bowed slightly beneath thick layers of snow. She watched the fight unfold from behind a small tree, also blanketed in snow.
She had originally been searching for Laki along the southern border. Unfortunately, aside from finding a few clues in some small towns and a dungeon, she had ultimately come up empty-handed.
So in the end, she had no choice but to steel herself and keep heading north, pressing on into the Far North. She continued her painstaking search in the bitterly cold lands farther north, abandoned by the Abyssal One Isley. At one point, she even passed through the ruined town of Pieta and kept traveling north toward this even more desolate region.
She didn't know whether she would find that boy, or whether he would ever come to this frozen hell where ordinary people couldn't survive. But she had to look for herself before she could finally give up. After all, she had made him a promise.
Besides, she had learned that this world was actually one enormous island, and the Far North was already close to its northern coast. If she reached the shore without finding a single clue, then she could more or less give up and turn south.
As for whether she would continue searching after returning to Rabona, she hadn't decided yet.