As night falls and the sun loses its light, the snowfields of Ursus do not lose their pristine whiteness.
But even in this pristine white expanse, a scar remains as dull and lifeless as ever.
Outside the Black Forest, the Reunion Movement camp was very quiet.
In preparation for tomorrow's expedition to the northern mines, aside from some patrol personnel, all other combat personnel were ordered to rest and recuperate.
Even so, some people still can't sleep.
Unlike the smaller mines targeted in previous attacks, the Far North Central Mine is one of the largest mines in Ursus.
Compared to guerrilla warfare in the snowfields, the terrain this time has been artificially modified, and there are very few mountains to hide in.
Just as Patriot warned, Ursus's fleet could move freely here.
Having realized this, it's impossible not to be afraid. If it weren't for the confidence built up by long-term victories, the Reunion Movement would probably have already mutinied by now.
Without a doubt, regardless of the success of this operation, those nobles who had retreated into the cities could no longer stand idly by and watch the Reunion Movement expand.
In other words... war is imminent.
Realizing this, some people became even more determined, while others were thinking about how to find a way out.
Just like the group of people who are stealthily sneaking into the forest right now.
"That madwoman Talulah! She actually wants to make enemies of the entire Ursus."
Frank cursed as he marked the tree.
"I knew she was no good. 'Saving our compatriots'? She probably just wants to sell us all off to the mining farm!"
"Exactly! Isn't she a noblewoman too? She must have made a deal with those guys in the city."
The others nodded in agreement, seemingly having forgotten who had saved them when they were on the verge of freezing to death.
Despite the Patriot's warnings, Talulah had already revealed her past noble status.
This has led to a lot of skepticism, but this proactive honesty has also garnered even stronger support from many others.
Clearly, those who spoke were among the skeptics.
Frank looked at the few people who hadn't spoken; the number was now far greater than originally planned.
Upon hearing the news of the impending attack on the Far North Central Mine, some wavering individuals also joined their ranks.
Unfortunately, these guys are opportunists wherever they go.
"... Um, how about we go back?"
Looking at the dark forest before him, Koro trembled and shrank back.
"Didn't Talulah say the forest was dangerous? Mr. Patriot also warned us, in case..."
"What if?"
Frank stared at Koro and made a few hand gestures to the people behind him.
"We don't need to take any risks. Life in the Reunion Movement is already much better than before. We're in logistics, we don't need to go to the battlefield!"
As the cold wind blew, Koro's bewitched mind became increasingly clear.
"Talulah has no reason to lie to us. The supplies that Reunion Movement has given us are more valuable than our lives, not to mention that she personally goes to the front lines in every battle!"
As he spoke with increasing certainty, Koro took a step back.
"Let's go back. I have a feeling something's wrong with this forest. What Black Forest Lord that Talulah mentioned really exists?"
Thinking about how the team members usually talked when they came out of the Black Forest, some people began to hesitate.
Seeing this, Koro is planning to intensify his efforts.
"But we've already violated the ban. Do you want to be kicked out?"
Frank's voice was low and somber, yet it instantly snapped the hesitant man out of his reverie.
"No, no, it hasn't even started yet! As long as we go back..."
What if you tell on us?
"How could I... Ugh!!!"
With his mouth and nose covered by the person behind him, Koro stared at the crowd in disbelief.
The resolute have a cold gaze, while the hesitant have shifty eyes.
Koro struggled violently, kicking away the snow blanket with his legs to reveal the gray permafrost beneath.
She's fainted.
The restrainer released his arms, Koro slid down softly.
"Bury him in the snow; the low temperature will kill him."
Frank tossed down a bottle of vodka as evidence of drunkenness, then looked around; everyone's eyes darted away.
"Now that we're all accomplices, is there anyone who wants to quit?"
No one answered...
Frank's expression softened, and after a few words of encouragement, he led the group into the forest.
Not long after they left, a dark green humanoid figure emerged from the ground and observed Koro in the snowdrift.
After confirming it was still breathing by using vines, the Mandrake Flower, following the Black Forest tradition, tied it into a tree cocoon and hung it at the edge of the forest.
Meanwhile, as Frank and his companions ventured deeper into the forest, the light at the edge of the forest disappeared into the shadows of the trees.
The footprints left by the Gardener were now being swallowed up by the heavy snow.
"What do we do? Which way do we go next?"
"... split up and mark the places you've been on the trees."
The group split up, leaving Mandrake Flower completely bewildered.
They're not going into the village? Then they shouldn't need to protect themselves, right?
The spreading vines quietly withdrew; the Mandrake Flower knew it couldn't be reckless, the territory ahead already belonged to someone else and was no longer its domain.
Rustle...
Frank turned around abruptly, and his companions asked him in a panic.
"What's wrong? What happened?"
"It's nothing, probably just some Fowlbeast."
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and the three teams separated completely.
Squad One headed east and, luckily, soon spotted a light.
"Found it! Shall we go back and inform Frank and the others now?"
Intruder Number One looked excitedly at his companions. The group exchanged glances and murmured:
"I've heard there are many empty houses in the village, but are they all really the same?"
Since their expressions changed, they had clearly considered new possibilities.
As the one who initiated the organization, Frank had the privilege of choosing first, but what if the houses were different?
"Let's go in and take a look, just to check things out for Frank and his team."
The intruders laughed; as the first discoverers, they naturally had the right to choose the best accommodations.
Carefully advancing along the light, the intruders quickly discovered the anomaly.
It wasn't a village; the faint light coming from it was from an extinguished fire, only this fire was rather large.
Beside the extinguished fire were several huge crystal stones.
What is this?
Seeing that no one was around, the intruders no longer hid.
The strange crystals reflected the faint light of the fire, creating a somewhat beautiful scene, but the intruders clearly paid no attention to it.
"Damn it! We've been suffering so much out there, and they still have time to throw a banquet!"
Mistaking the enormous bonfire for a celebratory one, the intruder kicked a large crystal nearby in dissatisfaction.
"Not ice?"
Sensing something was wrong, the intruder touched the surface of the crystal, not moving his hand away even though he was shivering from the cold.
"Hey! This looks like crystal!"
Their initial disdain instantly turned into greed, and the group rushed towards the nearest crystal, examining its translucent color.
"It would cost a lot of money to sell it..."
A hand slowly reached out, just as the intruders were dreaming of the future.
Boom--!
"[Ursus curse!] What's that sound!?"
A loud bang came from the other end of the forest. Startled intruders instinctively stepped back, only to find their hands stuck firmly to the surface of the ice crystals.
"What's going on! I can't get my hand off!"
The panicked intruder tried to pull back by brute force, and he succeeded, but the result terrified him even more.
"My... my hand--!!!"
The other intruders dared not make a move. On the surface of the crystal, a severed hand was tightly attached to the top, and a chilling white frost continued to spread.
"My hands are frozen! They're frozen!"
"My face! It's so cold... it hurts!"
As if as punishment for breaking the silence, the intruders' limbs that touched the crystal were covered in extreme cold, and ice crystals continued to spread along them.
To save their lives, the people had no choice but to painfully amputate their own limbs.
Before the survivors could even feel relieved, seeing their companions completely frozen in place, an even more terrifying change began.
Thanks to the crystal's clarity, one can clearly see the bright yellow eyes. The curled-up miniature crystal mountains stretched out their bodies, easily shattering the bodies that clung to them.
The crystal Giant remained silent, and a deadly chill spread rapidly with their awakening.
But none of them could escape.
Behind them, a furnace-like heat relentlessly assaulted them, Fire Grand Knight, who were meant to extinguish the campfire, awoke from their slumber and ignited deadly flames.
"Ha... haha... I... I must be dreaming."
Intruder 1, the original discoverer, collapsed to the ground.
"Hey! I must be dreaming... right?!"
No one answered; the companions in front turned into ice shards, and the companions behind turned into charred ashes.
The Crystal Giant and the Fire Grand Knight, upholding their duty to protect the Workshop, did not move, but the environmental changes brought about by their mere presence were already Catastrophe.
There was no sound.
The deceased intruder #1 was lucky; compared to the others, he, situated at the boundary between fire and ice, at least had his body preserved intact.
The situation is different on the other side.
"Damn it! Why did the ground explode? What kind of place is this?!"
Unlike Intruder 1, Intruder 2 was cautious.
After discovering crops in the surrounding area that differed from the trees, the group stealthily approached a possible village.
But despite such caution, one of his companions shattered into pieces without warning.
"What happened? Why did it explode!?"
"It's under his feet! I saw a red light under his feet!"
The group dared not move again, carefully examining their surroundings, and sure enough, they discovered a faint red light beneath the snowdrift.
After gently sweeping away the snow, people saw a small mound of earth hidden underneath, and the so-called red light was actually a strange lever stuck above it.
"Potatoes?"
"Idiot! This is definitely a bomb disguised as a potato!"
After a brief moment of shock, the group decided to retreat.
With only moonlight for illumination, who could possibly discover the dangers lurking beneath the surrounding snowdrifts?
"We can't leave! If Talulah finds us, we're finished!" one of the intruders gritted his teeth and stepped forward.
"I'll clear the way, everyone together..."
Boom--!!!
Confused, they touched the shards on their faces. Unable to suppress their fear any longer, they scattered and fled.
Amidst the deafening roar, the few survivors made their way to an open area.
"No snow! There's no snow here!"
Not only was there no snow, but the surrounding ground was not the gray of the Black Forest under the snow, but a deep black.
Beneath this black soil, all sorts of strangely shaped crops grow silently.
"This is... a vegetable garden?"
I think so.
The group carefully observed their surroundings and, finding no suspicious snowdrifts, finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"I'm exhausted..."
The fear subsided briefly, and the intruder, whose legs were weak, was about to sit down when a hoarse voice sent chills down his spine.
"Hiss... If I were you, I wouldn't have sat down there."
Everyone looked in horror toward the source of the sound, only to discover that in the strange grove of plants, a bizarre humanoid figure, entangled in numerous vines, was slumped there.
"A faceless witch!"
Recalling the terrifying stories passed down through generations, the group was about to flee when they burst into room number 2 and stopped them.
"Shut up, all of you! Take a good look!"
Suppressing their fear and observing, the group discovered that the monster's body was bound by vines, and its apparent slumped posture was merely its lower body being buried in the ground.
"He... he shouldn't be able to move, right?"
After an eerie silence, the men's eyes turned dangerous.
"What should we do? Just leave like this?"
"We can't let him stay; he's seen what we look like!"
"Kill him! We absolutely cannot..."
Pfft--
The speaker's throat was pierced by a black spear, and the seven panicked people, who were trying to escape, all followed suit.
"Hiss... a bunch of idiots."
The shaman, or rather the imprisoned Internal Guard, had regained consciousness under the suppression of the vines. Although it never responded to Gorth's calls, it never stopped observing.
He wouldn't have risked speaking up if the group hadn't almost sat on that black mushroom.
Amidst eerie rustling sounds, the awakened carnivorous plant pulled out its roots from the ground and slowly walked to the corpse to begin its meal.
"Frank, we're not going to be found out, are we?"
With both squads wiped out, the surviving Frank and his team were already having second thoughts.
Those booming sounds were by no means small; the Reunion Movement might have already organized people to search the forest.
Frank's expression kept changing, but he still ordered them to keep moving forward, only the target had changed.
He didn't believe the others would keep quiet, and that if discovered, they would most likely be expelled from the Reunion Movement.
In that case, the best course of action is to find that village, seize some supplies, and leave as soon as possible.
Fortunately, he had anticipated this. With his face deliberately concealed, not many people recognized him, and through Gil, he might still have the opportunity to infiltrate the Reunion Movement again.
While remaining outwardly calm, Frank explained the pros and cons to everyone and quickened his pace.
Unfortunately, the earlier commotion did attract attention.
"Who's there! Don't wander off, we're coming right away!"
The Gardener, drawn by the commotion, arrived with torches. Frank cursed under his breath and immediately led everyone away.
"Wait a minute! That's over there...!"
"Ah!!!"
Before the Gardener could finish their warning, Frank and the others lost their footing and slid into the ice cave.
The villagers stood in front of the cave, looking at each other in bewilderment. Recently, many caves like this had appeared in the forest. They thought that after the warnings, everyone was aware of the dangers, but it seemed that some had still slipped through the net.
"What should we do? Should we go down?"
"But Alina said we can't enter these caves; that was the order of the Lord of the Forest!"
"... Leave a group of people here to keep watch; they must be from outside. The rest of you, go find Talulah."
Unable to hear the conversation above, Frank and the others were speechless, stunned by the magnificent scene before them.
The crystal-clear blue ore emitted a fluorescent glow, which, together with the ice crystals, made the entire cave look beautiful.
But none of that matters.
The real reason Frank and his companions forgot their predicament was the abundance of golden ore throughout the cave.
"Gold... this is all gold!"
Dragging his broken leg, he crawled forward, picked up a piece of ore, examined it carefully, and determined its composition. The intruders were overjoyed.
"Damn Talulah! I knew she was up to no good!"
The panic in his eyes had long been replaced by greed. Frank tore off the clothes of his companion and frantically grabbed the gold on the ground.
Before the person whose clothes were torn could react, the others swarmed over, completely ruining the already tattered garments.
"Damn it! Why don't you use your own!"
No one responded to his roar. Even though the mine was full of gold, people still greedily scrambled for it, regardless of whether they could take it out.
Soon, the Roarer also joined the fray.
Seeing everyone descend into madness, Frank, who had caused the chaos, breathed a sigh of relief.
He's not stupid; finding it isn't a skill, being able to take it out is what's useful.
Feeling the cold wind, Frank confirmed that there was another exit and immediately ran deeper into the area.
Picking things up and running, Frank quickly found the source of the wind.
Click... click...
The sound wasn't his own. Frank, who had hidden behind Crystal Mountain, was surprised to find that there were indeed living beings in the mine.
No, that doesn't even qualify as a living organism.
Armor interwoven with ice blue and gray, sharp limbs piercing the ground, and huge cannon muzzles and steel claws on its hands.
Work Mining Robot, Dungeon monster used by Gorth to mine mineral veins.
Frank certainly didn't recognize it; rather, the mech in front of him resembled a deadly weapon more than a mining tool.
Following their trajectory, Frank witnessed a scene he would never forget.
A massive golden mountain stretches across the center of the passage.
The robots bombarded the gold ore on its body with cannon fire, then crushed it with steel claws, and continuously transported it away in mine carts.
The wind was coming from behind the golden mountain, so it's easy to imagine that the cave's exit was just behind it.
But Frank had no intention of escaping at this moment; a surge of anger filled his heart.
No wonder Talulah always manages to acquire supplies, no wonder they prevent them from entering the forest—it's all to conceal this enormous wealth!
Frank watched all this with envy until the mining robot left, then ran towards the gold mine.
Reason urged him to escape quickly, but the gold ore with even higher purity in front of him kept him firmly in place.
"Mine... mine... all mine!"
Using both his legs and hands, Frank frantically tore at the largest and most dazzling piece of gold, thus failing to notice the sudden disappearance of the wind.
Feeling the itch on its tail, the Golden Giant Crab opened its eyes, its long, deep breathing briefly ceasing.
Compared to the violent bombardment of mining robots, this soft, itchy sensation reminded him of the harassment from Ice Worm.
He acted instinctively.
It was too late when Frank realized he was starting to rise. The Golden Giant Crab propped itself up and frantically rubbed the itchy parts against the walls of the ice cave.
This was how he had always dealt with the undeveloped Ice Worm larvae, and it had been quite effective.
But... are there Ice Worm larvae here too?
The doubts quickly disappeared, Golden Giant Crab prepared to find its brothers to clean each other's shells.
As for Frank...
Congratulations! He is now forever intertwined with his beloved gold.
That's how it is.
When everything was clear, the morning light had already climbed onto the eaves.
Koro, who was discovered by the patrol, provided testimony, and Frank and others were labeled as traitors who wanted to kill their fellow countrymen.
No one felt sorry for them, and many people didn't even notice they were gone.
Only Talulah, who had been busy until midnight, frustratedly stimulated her nerves with ice and snow.
"If you didn't sleep well, you can go rest for a while. There's still some time before we leave."
"No need. What kind of laziness is it to slack off before leaving?"
Dodging the flames on the Red Dragon's body, FrostNova helplessly pointed to her face.
"Then control your expression. If you can't muster up the spirits as a leader before departure, the Old Stubborn One will give you a lecture later."
"Okay, I'll adjust."
Even so, Talulah still sighed.
"You just made that promise, and you've already embarrassed yourself so quickly. Your advisor must be disappointed in you now..."
"What does this have to do with you? Those traitors who harmed their own people are more hateful than the Infection Patrol. Eliminating them beforehand would be more helpful to our operation."
"That's not what I care about." Talulah shook her head.
"Alright, it's time to cheer up!"
"That's more like it. The Talulah I know shouldn't be so dejected."
After patting each other on the shoulder, FrostNova and Talulah headed towards the camp together.
"As for Uncle Gorth, let's apologize with a perfect victory."
"Great! Let's get this party started!"
Flames erupted from the dragon horns, Talulah, now refreshed, looked at the towering monster in the camp.
"I never expected that the Lord of Snow would be willing to join this operation."
"Of course! The Yeti Squadron has no cowards!"
FrostNova proudly put her hands on her hips, seemingly forgetting how the King Snow Ape joined the team.
Talulah didn't expose her, and continued to greet the people she met with a smile.
As time passed, the camp gradually became solemn.
Under the solemn commands of the Shieldguards, the Reunion Movement's forces assembled in front of the Black Forest.
Patriot led the Shieldguards.
FrostNova leads Yeti Squadron.
Talulah's mech unit.
And a few scattered caster guards.
Even if all the Reunion Movement teams were gathered together, the number would only be a little over 2,000.
And this small force is about to ignite a war.
War...
Even the children of Ursus are very familiar with this word.
Throughout Ursus's thousand-year history, days without war are few and far between; but this time, it is her children who rebel against their mother.
Can we stop Ursus's scimitar?
The Reunion Movement looked towards the high platform, awaiting a response.
"I don't know, but we have to stop it."
Talulah, the leader of the Reunion Movement, said this.
"This sharp scimitar is stained with the blood of those who were famous. The children of Ursus were proud of its power, but now the scimitar no longer shines; the blood of the innocent has corroded it."
"It remains powerful and sturdy, yet it is obscured by rust and has lost its edge."
"Perhaps one day it will break due to this corrosion, but how many innocent people will be sacrificed in the process?"
"Fellow countrymen, your very presence here speaks volumes about your will; we have long since reached our limit of tolerance!"
"We can endure the cold winds of the snowfields and the hardships of life, but we absolutely cannot tolerate them trampling us to death like insects!"
"The fire of the Reunion Movement will burn away the rotten remnants, and the steel of the Reunion Movement will shatter the blade of slaughter."
"To nurture those budding shoots, the flame of Reunion Movement will never be extinguished until the harsh winter of Ursus is over!"
Talulah drew her longsword, and the blazing dragonfire dyed the sky red, like a burning banner.
"We have only one way out, and that is victory."
"Ursus is trying to use the snowstorm to cover up our words, Reunion Movement is determined to make its voice heard."
"Shout! Fight! With our fire and steel..."
"Let Ursus answer!!!"
"Roar--!!!"
Ignited by this heightened emotion, the King Snow Ape pounded his chest vigorously.
The bright morning light was obscured by the wind and snow; the overlord of the snowfield summoned a blizzard to conceal the group's tracks.
Boom--!
The halberd's tail slammed into the ground, causing the blizzard to pause for a moment. Long-dormant fervor ignited, and the Patriot shouted:
"Marching!"
"Marching forward!!!" xN
The footsteps of a thousand people fell simultaneously, causing the snowfield to tremble.
At the forefront of the Reunion Movement, at the edge of the snowfield, their enemy stood silently.
Everyone knew this trip was fraught with danger, but unlike previous trips, this time...
No one looked back.