Biting winds swept in with swirling snow, engulfing the surrounding seas and the distant land in what seemed like a single instant.
The air suddenly filled with a bitter chill.
It was cold enough to sting the skin. Anyone who stayed in such conditions for long would certainly die of hypothermia.
For nobles, a blizzard like this was merely a minor inconvenience that kept them from going out hunting.
For ordinary people, however, it was nothing short of a catastrophe.
They would be unable to go out to work or find food. All they could do was wait at home, then die of cold and hunger once their stored food ran out.
This was the plight most people in the northern lands were about to face.
But it was not the plight facing Reef Island.
Rows of white houses, built from the magical construction material known as "white soft mud," had long since been completed.
They stood neatly on level ground.
Although Kroya was no expert in urban planning, he had at least played plenty of games. He could manage uniform rows of houses with room left for roads and open spaces.
Perhaps to satisfy a little compulsive urge, he had made almost every house identical, with exactly the same distance between them.
Reef Island had never had many inhabitants. Even with everyone living together and each household given its own house, there were only a little over a hundred and thirty houses.
It could just barely be called a small town.
Under Semir and Elena's leadership, houses had even been built for families who could no longer work, with the aim of ensuring that everyone had a new home.
Some of this had been done on Kroya's instructions, while some had been Semir's own initiative. The young man, who