Although spring had arrived in the Northern Frontier, the wind still cut to the bone.
Sif gripped the reins tightly with both hands. Her fingertips had long since gone numb.
The warhorse beneath her panted heavily, its hooves stumbling as the sweat on its body quickly froze in the cold night.
Faster... just a little faster...
Behind her lay the flames consuming the Cold Moon Tribe, and the time her older brother had bought with his life.
I can't look back. I can't stop...
"Run south, and never come back!"
Sigel's roar still echoed in her mind, driven like a nail into the depths of her soul.
Sigel was dead. Her father, mother, brothers, and sisters were all dead.
Yet she lived on in misery, like an abandoned soul wandering a world where she no longer belonged.
With nowhere to call home, she simply kept fleeing south.
Her food had run out long ago. Sif could only drink river water to quench her thirst and barely fill her stomach with tree bark and the few wild fruits she found.
After several days, the warhorse finally exhausted its strength and collapsed with a long neigh.
Sif tumbled from its back as well, hitting the ground hard.
She wanted to stand, but she could not even move her fingers.
Her consciousness began to drift, and Sigel's face appeared in her mind.
I'm sorry, Brother... I can't go any farther...
Her vision gradually blurred, and Sif's consciousness sank into darkness.
A large party from Red Tide was making its way north.
The hunters looked focused, while the knights scanned their surroundings warily. All of them wanted to make a good showing during the hunt.
After all, their lord was personally leading this expedition.
Louis, meanwhile, wore a thick wolfskin cloak and swayed leisurely atop his warhorse.
A jumble of animal tracks appeared on the barren ground.
An experienced hunter immediately crouched to examine them and said quietly, "My lord, there are signs of hares up ahead. More than one, too."
Louis nodded slightly, slowly drew the shortbow at his waist, nocked an arrow, and narrowed his eyes at the ground ahead.
Sure enough, a grayish-white hare cautiously poked its head out beside a clump of withered grass nearby.
Whoosh-
The arrow sliced through the air so fast its path was almost invisible, piercing the hare's neck with flawless accuracy!
The hare rolled over, twitched twice, and went still.
"Excellent shot!"
"Just what we'd expect from our lord!"
The hunters and knights immediately applauded and cheered, falling over themselves to flatter him.
"Our lord truly excels in both learning and combat. Even his hunting shots are so precise!"
"With archery like that, even the kingdom's royal hunters would be ashamed of themselves!"
"If our Northern Frontier Province had a hundred such sharpshooters, why would we fear barbarian invasions?"
"Exactly! A born warrior indeed!"
One knight even lifted the hare in both hands and ran up to Louis, his face full of admiration. "My lord, could this hare be descended from the king of beasts? Why else would it have been so hard to shoot?"
The corner of Louis's mouth twitched.
These people... they really know how to lay it on.
Still, he did not mind. After all, a lord's authority and reputation sometimes had to be built upon little "legendary feats" like these.
Of course, this hunt was merely a cover.
His true target was the little princess who was about to be devoured by a Frostfrozen White Bear.
Louis was using the hunt as an excuse to head north and find her because he did not want anyone to know he possessed something akin to prophetic powers.
Of course, Louis also knew that some of the cleverer people around him had already begun noticing something unusual.
They were no fools. They had long since realized that their lord was "far too lucky."
Ever since coming north from the south to the Northern Frontier Province, he had been able to predict all sorts of dangers and opportunities with uncanny precision.
No one would believe it was merely coincidence.
But in this fantasy world, even if Louis told them outright that he had a "Daily Intelligence System,"
They would not understand what those words meant. After all, this world had no webnovels.
So they attributed everything to the Dragon Ancestor's divine favor.
"What a haul we're getting today! My lord, your archery is simply miraculous."
"Exactly! Even the Dragon Ancestor is smiling on us today."
"Haha, we'll have to celebrate properly when we get back."
And so the party traveled onward amid laughter and conversation, gathering a plentiful haul along the way.
The hunters shot several plump wild deer and even caught some rare cold-water fish beside the frozen river.
"Relaxing like this once in a while... isn't so bad." Watching everyone's cheerful faces, Louis could not help smiling too.
Suddenly, a hunter scouting ahead hurried back to the party with a strange expression on his face.
"My lord! We found a girl up ahead!"
The hunter's words instantly silenced the entire hunting party, and everyone turned to him in confusion.
"A girl?" Lambert frowned. "What's a girl doing out in the wilderness?"
"Not far from here, near the frozen river." The hunter panted, a trace of lingering fear still on his face. "She's lying in the snow. She looks unconscious."
Found her.
Louis's gaze shifted slightly, but his expression remained calm. "Lead the way."
After passing through a patch of low-growing woodland, they found the unconscious Sif near the frozen river.
The girl lay on her back in the icy snow, her body slightly curled up. Her short white hair lay in disarray, dusted with windblown snow.
Her fur coat was badly worn and torn, leaving her shoulders and arms exposed to the air and purple with cold.
Several wounds that had yet to fully heal revealed how difficult the past few days had been for her.
Yet a trace of stubbornness remained on her delicate face. Even unconscious, she showed no hint of frailty.
An experienced hunter bent down to examine her for a moment, then his expression changed. "My lord, she's from one of the northern tribes."
Another hunter studied the patterns on her belt and added quietly, "The Cold Moon Tribe."
For a few seconds, everything fell silent.
The knights nearby could not help exchanging glances.
The Cold Moon Tribe was a major enemy of the Northern Frontier Province.
But Louis made his decision after a single glance. "Take her back for treatment."
Without hesitation, the knights quickly lifted the girl and carefully placed her on a warhorse.
With the hunters bringing along a cart full of game, the sizable party set off on the return journey.
After they returned to the Red Tide Fief, the girl was taken to an empty room and placed in the care of a local healer with some basic medical knowledge.
Louis fell silent for a moment, his gaze resting on the girl's face.
Her eyes were tightly shut, her lips cracked from hypothermia, and her brows slightly furrowed, as though she were struggling against death itself.
Louis took out a bottle of life potion he had brought from his family and handed it to the healer. "Give her this."
The healer paused in surprise, but slowly poured the potion between the girl's lips.
After a while, a little color seemed to return to her pale face, and her breathing became steadier.
Although she remained unconscious, she had probably been pulled back from the brink of death.
"A bottle of life potion is pretty expensive. Let's hope she wakes up," Louis said, looking at the unconscious girl.
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