SWY 161 (End)

The path to the Ice Cave was relatively smooth. Though they did encounter some moving corpses, they were not in swarms of dozens, so even with their injuries, Sharhan and Lestel were able to handle them.

The deeper they went into the mountains, the fewer corpses they encountered. It was only natural. Corpses are drawn to places where people live.

And the area around the Ice Cave had always been sparsely populated, visited only occasionally by hunters or herbalists. Ever since they got older, even Sharhan and Lestel hadn’t come back to the Ice Cave.

“It’s been a while since we’ve been here.”

“Yeah, almost ten years, right?”

They had wagered over the cave’s ownership many times, but neither of them had ever claimed it. As they grew older, responsibilities piled up, and naturally, their interest in the cave faded. Besides, it was a bit ridiculous for two people in their teens or older to argue over ownership of a natural cave.

Still, they had visited it so many times in their youth that finding the place again after ten years wasn’t hard at all.

The only sounds came from the wind rustling the branches and the flapping wings of mountain birds taking flight, but Sharhan and Lestel didn’t let their guard down. Silently treading the ground, they kept their hands tightly clasped. They spoke only in quiet whispers.

“Are you okay? Want me to carry you?”

Sharhan gave a dry laugh at Lestel’s question.

“You’re more injured than I am. If anything, you should be the one asking.”

“And you think those wobbly legs could carry me? You’d collapse after five steps.”

“Ha! Want to bet on it? Let’s see if I can walk more than five steps.”

“Alright. What’s at stake?”

“If I win, how about you bottom?”

Lestel flinched at Sharhan’s challenge, then gave a sly smile and leaned in to whisper in his ear.

“Oh, so you want to be on top for once? That means your weight will push my cock even deeper in.”

“You know that’s not what I meant! You manipulative bastard. All that talk about letting me do whatever I wanted was just bluffing, wasn’t it?”

“I’m delicate, you know. Getting pinned down scares me. So my brave sweetheart will keep spreading his legs for me, right?”

As Lestel teasingly stroked his earlobe, Sharhan couldn’t help but feel dumbfounded. His hand instinctively curled into a fist before relaxing again. In the past, he might’ve punched Lestel lightly on the shoulder for being annoying, but now even that felt like too much.

‘Damn it. Am I going soft? Just the thought of hitting him, even playfully, makes me feel bad.’

But looking at Lestel smiling through the pain, drenched in cold sweat from head to toe yet still trying to reassure him, Sharhan couldn’t help it. If someone could love you that deeply and you didn’t treasure them, your heart had to be stone.

Sharhan’s heart was far from stone. It beat powerfully for Lestel.

“I’ll spread my legs as much as you want. So come on, let’s hurry.”

Sharhan quickened his pace. Lestel followed without another word. Though their banter had sounded light, both of them were struggling. As they neared the cave, the air grew colder, and each breath came with visible white puffs. The sweat on their brows only made it more apparent how hard they were pushing themselves.

Even while remaining vigilant, they moved as quickly as possible and finally arrived at the entrance of the Ice Cave before sunset.

It looked just as it had before. Even from outside, the cold seeping from within made their entire bodies tremble. Just in case there were corpses inside, they tapped the cave’s entrance with the flat of their blades.

“I don’t hear anything.”

They paused, straining their ears. No sounds came from within. The cave seemed empty.

“Let’s go in.”

Still cautious, they kept their hands on their weapons as they slowly stepped inside. It was just as cold as they remembered. A sharp chill seemed to shrink their bodies and freeze their organs.

Hunched against the cold, they continued forward. The farther they went, the darker and colder it became.

“Did we ever come this deep before?”

Lestel asked, pointing at a jagged, arrowhead-like protrusion from the cave wall.

“Yeah. I think this was about as far as we got.”

Back then, they’d been too scared to go any deeper. They’d tried to act tough, pretending it was nothing, but deep down they’d been afraid. Smiling at the memory, Sharhan stumbled slightly as something caught his foot.

Startled, he stopped and crouched down, running his fingers over the ground. He picked up a piece of wood suitable for kindling. They had just been thinking they needed a light source, so it was perfect timing.

“You have flint, right?”

“Should be in the bag.”

Lestel quickly took out the flint and struck a spark. The stick caught fire. It didn’t brighten the cave like daylight, but it gave them enough visibility.

“Good thing it’s brighter now… but what’s with all the sticks?”

As they walked on, they noticed more discarded branches. Lestel picked one up and lit it from Sharhan’s torch, making the cave a bit brighter.

“Looks like people the marquis sent left them behind.”

When they shone their lights on the cave walls, they found signs of impact, marks from hammers or pickaxes. The deeper they went, the more frequent and desperate the gouges became. It seemed like the marquis had tried to open the ruins by force.

He probably tried everything when the door wouldn’t open… just started smashing the walls hoping to find a mechanism.

Imagining the marquis despairing when he realized that it couldn’t be opened without the Kaios heirloom made Sharhan chuckle. He wondered how the marquis felt when he lied and claimed he had already opened the ruins.

Farther in, they saw more abandoned pickaxes and even rotting food. The ground was strewn with powder and stones from the damaged walls. Every step crunched, and sometimes they stepped on sharp edges that pricked the soles of their feet.

Even as they frowned in discomfort, Sharhan and Lestel kept moving forward. The cold became so intense that their jaws began to chatter. Then, at last, a wall appeared before them. They stopped at the same time and looked at each other.

“Looks like this is the end.”

“Yeah. That must be the door to the ruins.”

The walls around them were battered and scratched, but the solid, pale-gray door showed not a single mark.

The marquis must have tried to force it open.

Sharhan, curious, raised his sword and scraped it against the door. It didn’t leave a single scratch, if anything, the tip of his blade chipped off. That’s how hard the door was.

Sharhan looked down at the dulled edge of his sword, feeling his heart race. He couldn’t help but feel excited thinking about how many relics might lie beyond the door.

“Get the brooch… take it out.”

Lestel nodded and pulled the brooch from inside his coat, then carefully separated the gemstone from the setting using his blade.

“If this is the key, there should be a slot somewhere.”

The two of them began to feel around the door with their hands, searching for an opening.

“Here!”

Lestel found a hole near the upper right side of the door. It was high up, he had to stretch his long arm to reach it.

“Hurry, put it in.”

Sharhan’s mouth had gone dry from the tension. He wetted his lips with his tongue and urged Lestel on. Lestel, taking deep breaths, slowly raised the amethyst and inserted it into the hole.

At first, it wouldn’t go in smoothly, so he turned it gently until it fit the shape precisely.

Click. Rumble.

With a heavy sound, the door slid to the side, revealing the interior. Holding both anticipation and awe, the two stepped cautiously inside.

“……”

Just like outside, the interior was cold. Several houses made of pale stone stood within. The ground was the same pale stone, giving the place a bleak and frigid atmosphere. There were no supplies or healing stones like they’d hoped.

Still, Sharhan and Lestel didn’t lose hope. They stepped farther in and opened the door of one of the houses. What they found left them speechless.

It was full of food. Nothing fancy, mostly potatoes, corn, and what looked like seeds for various crops. But even after all this time, they hadn’t rotted. That alone was astonishing.

Sharhan carefully picked up a potato and took a small bite. His eyes widened.

“It’s a potato!”

Overcome with excitement, he grabbed more and tossed one to Lestel before sprinting to the next house. The second one was filled with mana explosive, and the third housed weapons, swords, spears, bows. They didn’t seem enchanted like Lestel’s sword, but the blades were so sharp they brought a sense of reassurance just by being there.

In the fourth house, they found mana stones. They filled not only the main room but every other room as well. At a glance, there were enough to last for years, even with generous use. Sharhan opened sack after sack, searching for healing stones. Since he had already seen heat stones, water stones, and smoke stones before, it was easy to tell them apart.

“Healing stone! Healing… is this it?”

From the final sack, Sharhan pulled out a mana stone with a strange hue. It shimmered between silver and white and gave off a vaguely sacred aura. As he gripped it tightly, a calming sensation spread through his body and mind.

“Shan, is that… a healing stone?”

“Huh?”

“Your body… your wounds are healing!”

Lestel’s voice was full of excitement. Sharhan quickly looked down at himself, and his eyes shone with joy. The wounds that had covered his body were vanishing. He hurriedly grabbed another healing stone and handed it to Lestel.

“Hold onto it tight.”

The wounds on Lestel’s body began to disappear as well. When the stones turned ashen gray and crumbled into powder, there was no trace of injury left on either of them.

“I think I finally understand why the marquis was so desperate to open the ruins.”

Food, weapons, mana stones to treat injuries. In this kind of world, it was the equivalent of holding a second life in your hands. Of course anyone would covet it.

“After leaving all of this to us, he must be fuming in hell.”

Sharhan let out a laugh at Lestel’s remark and sat down on the ground. Lestel sat beside him, close enough for their shoulders to touch.

“It’s cold, but this place is way safer than outside. Let’s bring everyone down once the sun rises.”

The heatstones should take care of the cold. In a world like this, safety was the highest priority. It seemed like the perfect place to start over. Of course, living here forever wasn’t an option.

They couldn’t survive on just potatoes and corn, and even if it was safe, there was no land to farm. Eventually, they’d have to move out. But if they used this as a base, they could make use of the weapons and mana explosives to gradually clear out the corpses and secure safe ground.

‘Once this place is cleared, I’ll bring Derry here… maybe Ardelle and the kids too, and the people from the tax storehouse. We’ll need numbers to rebuild the estate.’

Just like Verden. Maybe it was because he had found Iris safely, or maybe because he had gotten his revenge, but Sharhan found himself naturally thinking about the future, and it made him smile.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s just…”

He didn’t finish the thought. It just feels like we’ve finally reached the end. The journey that began in Verden was finally over.

“Just?”

“It’s nothing. What’s that?”

“This? Look familiar?”

Lestel grinned playfully and held up a magic contract.

“Where did you find it?”

“It was lying over there.”

While Sharhan had been digging through sacks for healing stones, Lestel had apparently wandered to the corner of the main room and picked it up. Sharhan had been about to scold him for always noticing these things, but then–

“So now we have two, right?”

“Yeah. One for you, one for me.”

“How do you use it again?”

“You drop your blood on it. Once the contract recognizes you, it splits into two. Then on the other half, the name of the other person… Wait, why are you asking?”

“Do you want to make one together?”

“Huh?”

“I’ll write your name on mine, and you write my name on yours.”

That would bind them to each other. Lestel stared, dumbfounded, at the smiling Sharhan, then his eyes curved into a crescent moon.

“I love you, Shan.”

Sharhan smiled brightly and pulled him into a hug.

“I love you too. So much.”

Their hearts beat as one, strong and steady, as if foretelling a happy future to come.

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