Blankly I stared at the blue-green screen floating mid-air. 

[Your body condition has reset due to additional health.]

[Body condition: cold*]

[*Make sure to warm up. Staying in a cold body condition for more than 1 hour will have a (semi-)permanent effect on your emotional state, health, and strength.]

I understood. Every time I increased my health, I would get another hour to evade frostbite. The idea would be more comforting if freezing was just a poor option and not… well, a potentially gruesome death.

From earlier on, small particles fumed from the body of the beast. They danced in the air and then flew in my direction. After it touched any part of my skin, the shimmering dust immediately dissipated.

What a beautiful view! I would have enjoyed this moment a lot more if I were dressed properly. I sighed. The cold air blew through the tiniest holes from the close weaving of the shirt. 

My breath had stabilized. I squatted down next to the snow fanger and tried to open its skin. The fur on its back was long and pure white. I could use it as a cloak. While the whole beast was too heavy to carry around, only the fur would work fine, right?

When the knife moved over its skin, it slit off like on a metal plate. It couldn’t cut the skin of the monster at all!

‘Maybe the claws would be able to cut it! Like Heracles in one Greek myth.’ But that didn’t work either. The skin was too sturdy!

Dejected, I rubbed my nose. Even if the permanent effect of frost was delayed, I couldn’t stay in the cold any longer. It made me sick, literally. I shot one last, slightly disappointed, look at the cadaver of the snow fanger. I should get going.

*

About half an hour later, I arrived in a different part of the city. The streets although foreign felt familiar. I stopped and looked up at the balconies. I had long since passed the area where the facades were decorated with frescos. Here the houses were made of plain concrete with straight outer walls.

Occasionally a house made of red bricks was mixed in, the crème de la crème of this neighborhood. You scored big time if you could afford to live in one of these.

If I didn’t err, I was very close to my apartment complex. Without paying attention, I had found my way here.

Now that I was here, I might as well go there. The sun had already passed its zenith and was on its way down. What time was it? There were only four to five hours left till sundown and I hadn’t any idea how to survive the night.

When I looked up at the building, I saw the iron staircase outside of the apartment complex. I remember how ridiculous I had always found the staircase. Why did you need them if there was one inside, too? In the six years I lived here, I’ve never seen a single person use it. Would it even be safe to step on it?

I could get a good overview of the city on the roof. Maybe other people found a possibility like an igloo.

Maybe I should have built an igloo in the first place…

I pulled down the ladder that connected the ground to the ground floor of the staircase. My breath condescended in the cold, my voice vibrating a bit, “Dragon Anima, d-does an igloo count as a r-room?”

Promptly, the answer arrived.

[Dragon Anima, “I don’t know.”] 

Wow, so helpful…

But I would rather not risk it. Maybe if someone else would try… I shook my head. I couldn’t just let someone risk their life just to prove my theory.

My blue lips twitched up. A big icicle hung on the bottom rung. It creaked ominously when I stepped on it. Creepy… I shifted my weight from one side to the other, it creaked again. It still felt sturdy overall. I should risk it. I was slowly running out of options.

The iron was freezing. For a moment, I feared my hand would stick to it. Thankfully, they didn’t.

When I arrived upstairs, I had to support my upper body by resting my arms on my knees. My lungs were burning as if they caught on fire and my breath was going as fast as if it wanted to run away. It took me a while to catch it. This was the second time today I was so out of breath and there was roughly half a day and night left. All these sports activities were not for me. 

The view from the roof was astonishing. Behind the almost black skyline, the sun illuminated the clouds and made them glow from behind. Rays of light shone through the snow in the air like headlights in the club.

Crystalline flakes fluttered in my hand which was shielding my eyes. My fingers felt so frozen. The snowflakes might not melt.

They did.

What was I even searching for? A sign of life over this distance? Even if my eyes were pretty good, I could impossibly recognize people down there.

*

At that moment, not that far away, a flickering light drew grotesque shadows on a few faces. One was a familiar person. A Chinese man in his late twenties looked at the fire and shouted,

“Now, put in the next log!”

“This one?” a pale European man in his late thirties who already lost most of his hair and had only a few strands left on his head asked. He was having trouble lifting a plank of wood the other team had torn out from the floor downstairs earlier.

“Yes, this one is good,” the Chinese man answered. “… do you need help?” 

“That would be nice.”

The familiar younger man went to the European and, with only one try, lifted up the entire plank and carried it to the fireplace. There, he threw it in. A few flakes of paint were left on his shoulder. He smiled complacently, putting both hands on the sides of his hip. 

A few snowflakes got caught in his black suit’s material, which gave it the look of a modern abstract painting.

*

Meanwhile, the only thing I saw from my standpoint was a small flame. Or rather a bit of flickering and the smoke that rose to the sky in a gray pillar. Flashbacks from the blue snake intruded my mind, giving me shivers.

Did I still not get over it? 

Then I remembered that not even one waking day had passed since.

I sighed.

So much had happened since then.

It felt like forever.

A recurring shiver from the cold sent me back to reality. There were people and they had enough time and manpower to light a fire. I had a reference point.

[Body condition: cold*]

My screen window hadn’t changed after killing the fanger. 

[*Time till semi-permanent debuff occurs: 25 min.]

I looked down the steep flight of stairs. I really didn’t feel like going down. It felt cold, just from looking at it. The cold sensation was still vivid in my head.

On the other hand, going down without touching the railing would be difficult. The steps were too steep and close together.

I shot one last glance at the beautiful city. Not too far away, something flashed, as if a mirror reflected the sunlight.

But as much as I tried to look for anything in that direction, I couldn’t make out any outline. It was probably just the reflecting snow.

“Ah! Cold!” I whiffed when my hand touched the railing. Unconsciously, I had reached out to it when I took a closer look.

{What was that?!}

“Sorry, little voice. I don’t have time to check that out right now.”

I shook my head. Hair flew around my head, the ash joined the falling snow, and the wind blew away a single hair from my head, which glinted like a strand of shining silver.

{Meanie! I will check it out myself! But don’t expect me to tell you later!} The voice became fainter and I could barely hear the last words, even though they were shouted.

Climbing down the stairs was much easier than getting up. I made sure to keep in mind the direction of the smoke when changing direction a few times. Within only a minute, I arrived at the bottom.

I had 24 minutes to reach the fire and potential humans. Even if it just was a burning building… When standing against the wind, it would warm me up and shouldn’t be too dangerous, right?

I was lucky that I could follow the street ahead for a long time without changing direction. It enormously reduced the risk of losing my way.

After a while, the cheeky voice returned. {Ohhh! What is that doing here?!} It shouted incredulously.

“What is happening?” I was hooked.

{I’m not telling ya.} I could almost hear the tongue sticking out, dripping from pettiness.

“Okay, then don’t.” I shrugged my shoulders. If the voice didn’t want to tell me, why would I waste energy on it?

On the other hand, I anticipated a very specific reaction from the voice, who behaved like a spoiled and bored brat.

“Di-rring!”

[Dragon Anima, “Who are you talking to? Do you have another private messenger?”]

I typed out a message to Dragon Anima this time. [“I am talking to someone who is probably not a god. Don’t worry.”]

“Di-rring!”

[Dragon Anima, “Not a god?! Is it the order?! Is ‘The Order of the World’ talking to you?”]

The order of the world was not a god? Then was it some sort of other power? What was this ‘The Order of the World’ that the gods and the god wisp ‘Dragon Anima’ seemed to be so afraid of?

{…You don’t want to know?}

“No.”

{But it’s cool!}

I stayed silent.

Bingo.

{Are you sure you don’t want to know? I can tell you, if you want to.}

A feeling of victory overcame me. “I am all ears.”

{Okay! I will tell you~ It’s a portal! And it’s from veeeery faaaaar away!}

This made me slow down my walking speed. “A portal? What portal?”

Far away? How far was very far? A portal to the gods? A time portal?

{… Not telling. It’s already gone anyway…}

“Di-rring!”

[Warning! There are only 20 minutes left until your body condition “cold” has to be annulled. After the time runs out, a (semi-)permanent effect will appear.]

Let’s hurry first. As the voice said, the portal was gone already anyways.

In the front, someone had piled up the snow in the middle of the street. There was no way around it, only over it, or I had to take a detour. To not challenge my non-existent orientation sense, I went straight ahead.

Above the houses, one could see the billowing gray smoke from the fire. The whole situation was surreal. Not even a week ago, I was just driving in a yellow bus in a plain gray blazer to my boring work with no perspective or goals except the meetups with Ellie every other month. 

But it wasn’t dangerous. I had enough money to make ends meet, a roof over my head, and food to fill my stomach. I could even finance my brother’s studies! 

Now I stood here in the cold with a big turquoise, translucent screen window to my left, trying to reach a fire that might save my life.

But before that could happen, I would have to get through that situation first.

In front of me, blocking the narrow way, a tall woman with an afro was shouting at two grown, white men, who tried with all their might to pilfer the suitcase in her hand. A third man stood further away, mocking the woman. 

He blocked her way to escape. She, however, didn’t think about escaping at that moment, anyway. With her svelte hand, she reached back and then scratched one of the men across his face. He screamed.

“Ahhh! You bitch!

The fingernails had left an ugly streak on man no. 1’s face. It was deep enough that at a few places, red drops formed.

“You will regret that.”

Man no. 2 right next to her pushed her further. She stumbled against the wall behind her, now completely cornered. 

“Fuck you, Schwartz! Let me go, asshole!”

“Our dear Ayo Guh, how would I come to this? We will, of course, let you go immediately, if you hand over the bag,” man no. 3 said and pointed at the suitcase.

“What do you even want with this? In this environment…” she scoffed nefariously.

“If you don’t need it, why are you keeping it so adamantly?” He shrugged his shoulders.

The two men, who listened to man no. 3, called Schwartz apparently, had fixated the woman’s, Ayo Guh’s, arms on the wall. When Schwartz grabbed her suitcase, she glared at him furiously. 

Now was the moment! Everyone was distracted. Be fast, be quiet, I reminded myself.

I hadn’t closed the message concerning my body condition yet. It had been coming along afloat on my right side. It ticked like a timer. The minutes would run out soon. 

[*Time till semi-permanent debuff occurs: 13 min.]

I looked ahead. The fire was still a good half a mile away. I couldn’t delay my journey much longer, or I would really find myself in a predicament.

… But was it right to just leave the woman here? Who knows what the men would do to her after they took the case? This was a lawless time. Nobody would ever find out whatever they would do.

I tip-toed, as far as it was possible in the crunching snow, by them.

She spotted me, and her ferocity gave way to surprise, then pleading. Her mouth was covered by one of the men’s hands, while Schwartz tried to open the fingers that clutched the handle.

I shook my head. This had nothing to do with me. I hurried. The steps in the snow resounded loudly in my ears. 

Should I go back? I shook my head again. Really, I had to make it to the fire! I glanced over to the screen: 12 minutes.

She would be fine.

I struggled against the high piles of snow. Maybe I really should have taken a detour… Whatever. Step after step–I came closer to the end of the back alley. Finally!

I couldn’t celebrate, though, because, at this moment, another snow fanger walked past the exit from the alley. It did not spot me yet, but it blocked the only way out.

Shit.