Chapter 811: Destination

In this world, it was possible to immediately go from a volcano to a glacier.

Earlier, it was so hot that I needed my personal snow and ice air conditioning, but now it was so cold that I wanted to find a fireplace.

I casually killed the snow ogre in my way, clearing my path of obstructions. After half an hour of difficult traveling and climbing, I finally climbed all the way to the peak of this ancient snow mountain where few people had ever trod before. I became the first to counter these ancient mountain peaks… no wait, something was wrong with the style here, as this wasn’t a mountain climbing story!

The morning sun was gradually rising as I stood on the top of the snow mountain. I looked upon the endless snow-covered plains and the hidden predators concealed in wait… I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry.

Even without using any type of compass, just this fatally frigid temperature meant that this was the farthest north of the continent, a place where no ordinary life could possibly live. This was close to the northernmost point of all of Eich.

Normally, if I wanted to go to Bardi immediately, if I headed in Bardi’s direction… even if I swap across the freezing sea in the north, that would only take me back to the Northlands’ shoreline. It would still take more about six more months to get back to Bardi.

“We’ll stall her for you, so you should go left from your current position for 30 kilometers, where you’ll find a cave with a teleportation portal leading to the farthest northern part of the land. After you reach it, head in the direction of your ‘home’, and you’ll obtain what you want the most.”

I naturally wouldn’t believe that Margaret’s vague words were meaningless. Too many secrets existed in this world. There were too many things that couldn’t be stated out loud. The main reason why mages loved to speak in riddles and mysterious ways was actually because there were far too many things that couldn’t be said or explained. It didn’t have anything to do with acting mysterious in order to scam money… fine, that was also part of it, especially for the prophet scammers. I always felt like they would never try to say anything understandable on purpose. It was already a sick habit for them, far more than just a technique for scamming money.

“The direction of my home?”

If I was to interpret this normally, since my home was the Northlands, I should naturally head there, which meant I should head south?

However, that would be far too normal. I absolutely wouldn’t make it to Bardi on time by going that way. Was there some other answer here?

“Could it be that Margaret wants you to go north? The Northlands is already considered the farthest north of the world by everyone else. The direction of your home means the direction that the whole world views it.”

This was a rather forced explanation. However, Harloys’ confident tone helped me to figure out that she knew more than she was letting on.

“Silly cat, do you know something?”

“Meow. Are you trying to talk to a cat?”

Fine then, she was obviously pretending to know nothing. So, it was the type of secret that couldn’t be stated out loud? In that case, it would be correct to go north. What was north of the far north?

Since I was now certain of the direction, I unhesitatingly opened up my wings, jumped, and then… failed to fly.

My wings had instantly frozen over due to the frigid temperature here. It would be impossible for a pair of ice cubes to fly, which was why I fell down right after jumping up.

Luckily, I didn’t have an audience, as that would have made things even more awkward.

“Ha, are you a penguin? Not knowing how to fly despite having wings? How foolish…”

Fine, I had forgotten that the silly cat was a permanent audience member who would forever make snarky comments at me every chance that she got. However, right now I needed her help to summon flames to melt this ice for me.

But just as I finished preparing to fly this time, Harloys transformed into her Gold Elf form, seeming like she didn’t intend to come with me.

“…Eh?”

“You should go by yourself. It’s my fault for doing too much. There’s no meaning in me coming along now.”

“It’s a one-person teleportation portal? Or some sort of teleportation portal that’s impossible to access after knowing about it?”

“Meow? Are you asking a cat?”

I felt rather helpless about Harloys, who had transformed back into a cat to pretend to know nothing. But in a way, this was actually more confirmation.

Although I wasn’t sure about Harloys’ reason, I made up my mind since she had decided to stay behind.

I floated in the air, glanced back at her one last time, and then unhesitatingly flew forward.

Half an hour later, as Harloys continued to wait in the same spot, a dimensional crack appeared as the world of ice and snow was melted by high temperatures emanating from the incarnation of the Fire Elemental Goddess.

Harloys had a smile that said she expected all this as she looked at the Fire Elemental Goddess’s incarnation in the sky.

“They were only able to stall you for this amount of time? Or, should I say that your true body is still being stalled, so it’s only an incarnation that arrived?”

The flames formed into a human shape which revealed that the pretty Fire Elemental Goddess was currently angered to the point where her veins were noticeably bulging.

Additionally, it was quite evident that this was only an incarnation, as her transformation was unable to quite finish properly.

It would be impossible to kill an existence of Elisa’s level unless their true body was killed. It was basically instinct already for such existences to use astral projections, incarnations, or other such methods to move around in the mortal plane.

All that was required for an astral projection was time, divine power, and to calculate the coordinates to send it to.

However, an incarnation’s combat strength couldn’t be underestimated. Since the Holy War had lifted the restrictions on incarnations’ upper limits, it would even be possible for an incarnation to be stronger than the true body as long as the God invested sufficient divine power. The current Elisa was already unimaginably strong. She hadn’t skimped at all when constructing her incarnation, so no ordinary person would be able to deal with it.

Just her existence alone was capable of changing the world. Ice and snow were forcibly melted as the ice fairies in the area were exiled. A domain of fire and magma appeared in this place where they never should have belonged.

The entire world was being rewritten at the same time while the ice and snow were being exiled by fire.

Numerous library shelves started appearing as the frozen land covered in snow was instantly replaced by luxurious purple crystal flooring. A glorious large library replaced the land of ice and snow, while Harloys wore gold-rimmed eyeglasses, clutched a purple staff, and held onto a thick pile of books as she appeared in this library.

“Now then, Little Elisa, allow me to play a little while with you.”

This sentence ignited the battle as the incarnation erupted in flames, transforming this place into an inferno.

As fire magic erupted in the far north, I finally reached the northernmost part of Eich.

The endless ice tundra had created the edge of the world. The endless void was just one step in front. I could faintly sense that this location was perhaps even more appropriate than Bardi for building the door to the dimensional barrier.

“This is the end of the world. There is no path forward. But, in praise of the brave travelers whose courage and sacrifices brought them here, as well as praise for your fearlessness in not turning back, anyone who reaches this location may carve their names and the place they want to go on this sign. I shall use my powers over Creation itself to instantly teleport you anywhere that you wish to go.”

I saw that Adam and Margaret’s names were at the end of the list. I now understood why they had wanted me to come here without explaining things clearly to me.

The moment that I saw this gigantic sign, my own instinct told me what this was.

This was a surprise Easter egg left behind by Creator Goddess Eich for all her children. After using this sign to teleport and leave this location, it would be forbidden to tell anyone else about what was really here.

It would be allowed to invite others to come seek adventure here, but it was forbidden to tell them what the surprise here was. It would be impossible to read this sign if one was informed of what was here beforehand.

Anyone who learned of this beforehand would be considered a cheater who didn’t want Creator Goddess Eich to have her fun, so such cheaters would lose the right to use this one-time-only teleportation portal to anywhere they wanted to go in the Eich universe.

I counted as someone who had come here on an adventure by invitation without knowing what was really here.

[Mother! This is something that Mother left behind!]

My System kept shrieking in surprise in my mind. This was the first time I had ever seen Astrya losing control of her emotions like this. I had no idea how to console her after her shrieks turned into crying.

Still, this current situation provided more evidence for other things as well.

“Since even the System doesn’t know about what’s here, then Cynthia wouldn’t possibly know, either. Since Cynthia doesn’t know, then Karwenz… and Elisa wouldn’t possibly know of this place.”

Time was precious. I originally wanted to say “Take me to the chaotic domain in Bardi”, but then I thought about how this teleportation possessed the power of Creator Goddess Eich herself, an almost absolute creator right similar to the developer of a video game. This was a one-time-only chance, so I felt that it would be wasteful to use it so simply.

“Perhaps I can reconsider my destination. Maybe there’s some wordplay that I can do regarding my destination…”

This was a divine power teleportation that would be activated upon making a wish. In that case, the wording of the wish would be critically important. Of course, nothing was wrong with saying a specific destination, but I felt that I had a better choice…

I knew that I didn’t have much time left when I felt magic power on the level of a volcanic eruption washing over the entire world behind me.

I took a deep breath and spoke my intended destination out loud. I would gamble my life or death on this.

“I, Roland Mist, wish to go to… the place that Karwenz wants to see me the least!”