The sled, pulled by two Anteka running side by side, raced across the endless snowy plain east of Liber.
This was the second day of their journey. According to Rand, they were about to cross a vast bay called East Schrade Bay.
In scale alone, East Schrade Bay was no smaller than famous bays such as Metapetatto Bay or Leke Bay.
Its far northern location, however, gave it a brutal climate. The bay froze over completely for more than a third of each year, while large ice floes drifted across it during the remaining months, making navigation extremely dangerous.
As a result, East Schrade Bay had never been developed, nor had a port city ever been built there.
It was winter now, and the bay was frozen solid. The ice was several meters thick and covered in snow, making it no different from solid ground beneath their feet.
They could therefore travel straight east by sled, crossing East Schrade Bay directly and saving a great deal of time.
Unlike travel through the Great Desert, where routes had to be planned around sources of water, crossing the snowfield required careful planning around campsites.
No tent could withstand temperatures dozens of degrees below freezing and the gales blowing in from the polar regions. Camping in the open was suicide, so every overnight stop had to be made at a fixed site.
These sites were generally small caves of a suitable size, sheltered from the wind, inaccessible to Monsters, and quick to warm once a campfire was lit.
Finding them from map markings alone amid the snowfield's endless expanse of white was extremely difficult, making the guide's skill crucial.
As a native of the region, Rand knew the snowfield well and naturally understood how to plan their route.
On the first day, they had traveled for only five hours. Shortly after noon, they made camp near the shore of the bay, turning in early to rest and conserve their strength for the next day's journey.
Today, however, they would cover more than a hundred kilometers in a single stretch, crossing East Schrade Bay over the frozen sea before camping again.
After all, there were no wind-sheltered caves to be found out on the ice...
The second day's journey therefore lasted more than ten hours. Although Rand had prepared all kinds of supplies, including cold-resistant clothing, Hot Drinks, and high-calorie food, the group was still frozen to the bone.
By the time they crossed the bay and reached the campsite on the far shore, they could barely feel their hands or feet.
They scrambled into the cave Rand had selected, blocked the entrance with rocks and snow, then lit a campfire. As the cave gradually warmed, feeling slowly returned to their bodies.
At Rand's reminder, the first thing everyone did was move their limbs and inspect their fingers to guard against frostbite and tissue necrosis.
The second was to dry their clothes. Otherwise, once the campfire died in the middle of the night and the cave dropped below freezing again, anyone who had been too lazy to dry them would wake to find their clothes frozen into a rigid block...
There was no time to fuss over elaborate food. They heated cheese and salted meat over the fire, then piled both onto toasted dry bread. The meal might have seemed far too greasy on an ordinary day, but in this bitter, snowbound wilderness, where every calorie was precious, the hungry Hunters wolfed it down.
Once he had eaten his fill, Altaïr went over to Rand to confirm the next stage of their route.
"From here on, we'll use the camps as waypoints and keep heading east. A few hundred kilometers farther in a straight line will bring us to the edge of the Furahiya region.
"Karin and Haifa should be operating somewhere on the snowfield between here and Furahiya.
"The last message they sent by Carrier Pigeon came from a point about two days' travel from our current position."
"The area is enormous... Can we really find them in this endless snowfield?" Altaïr looked uneasy.
"There's no need to worry. It isn't as difficult as it sounds," Rand said with a smile. "The snowfield may be vast, but there are only so many places suitable for making camp.
"They'll have to return to those camps to rest and resupply, so we'll follow the chain of camps until we find their trail. You brought your Palicoes too. Once we reach a camp, they can use any lingering scent to narrow down the pair's area of activity. It won't be difficult."
Morgan spoke up as well. "Once we've narrowed the search to a general area, we'll send Hakucho and Sajji up for an aerial search. That should be more efficient."
"I'm sorry for putting everyone through so much trouble," Altaïr said with a quiet sigh.
In truth, the journey to find Teacher Karin and Teacher Haifa was not strictly necessary. It was an impulsive decision born of his unease.
Yet his companions had supported him wholeheartedly and endured considerable hardship along the way, leaving him burdened with guilt.
"Not at all. Traveling across an endless snowfield like this is actually quite a new experience," Isis said cheerfully.
Morgan glanced at him, his tone as cool and even as ever. "We're simply helping one another."
He remembered how desperately Altaïr and the others had fought to defend Manti Town and repel the Teppeki Shen Gaoren. Compared with that, riding a sled through the wind and snow was nothing.
—--
Over the next few days, they traveled from camp to camp across the snowfield.
Finally, on the fifth day after leaving Liber, Clawdia, who had the sharpest nose among them, caught a familiar scent at one of the camps.
The search area narrowed instantly.
The clear weather that day allowed Sajji to take to the air with Hakucho and begin a wide-ranging aerial search.
Spotting the tracks left by one or two humans in the snow from high above might not have been easy.
The tracks of an Elderfrost Gammoth nearly thirty meters long and weighing well over a hundred tons, however, were another matter entirely.
That afternoon, Sajji and Hakucho found them.
As a Hunter who specialized in snowy terrain, Rand used the trail and the past few days' weather to pinpoint the Gammoth's general area of activity.
Since Karin and Haifa's quest was to track and monitor that Elderfrost Gammoth, they would naturally be operating within the same area.
Concerned that their sudden appearance might agitate the Elderfrost Gammoth, the party halted the search and returned to the nearest camp.
According to Rand, camping in the open on the snowfield was impossible. As long as Karin and Haifa were still nearby, they would have to return to the camp by nightfall.
If they did not come back, something unexpected might have happened.
At that point, the group could no longer worry about agitating the Elderfrost Gammoth. They would have to begin a more active and thorough search.
They reached the nearest cave camp and lit a fire. Altaïr even used the limited ingredients on hand to cook a pot of hot soup.
Then came the long, anxious wait.
Winter days in the north were short. The sky was already darkening by three or four in the afternoon, and by six or seven, night had fully fallen.
Altaïr looked toward the cave entrance again and again until, at last, he heard familiar voices in conversation.
"Huh? Why are there Anteka and sleds here? Did other Hunters come to the nearby hunting grounds?"
"They could be travelers passing through." The woman who replied paused, her voice dropping until only fragments carried into the cave. "Whoever they are... this place... dangerous. We need to warn them... tell them to leave."
The voices belonged to Teacher Karin and Teacher Haifa!
Relief flooding through him, Altaïr hurried out to greet them and found the two quietly discussing something.
Both Karin and Haifa stared in obvious surprise when they saw Altaïr emerge from the cave.
Haifa could not help blurting out, "What the hell are you doing here, kid?!"
Sajji poked his head out from behind Altaïr's shoulder. "Boss heard you two hadn't been back for so long and couldn't stop worrying, so he brought us to find you, meow!"
Joy and relief crossed Karin's face, but then she remembered something, and her expression changed. With nervous urgency, she said, "We're fine. We'll be heading back in a few days. It isn't safe here, so you all need to leave as soon as possible. Right now... Fine, first thing tomorrow morning."
Haifa stammered in support from beside her. "Uh... right. What could possibly happen to the two of us? Hurry up and go back."
Altaïr immediately sensed that something was wrong.
They were tracking and monitoring an Elderfrost Gammoth, so of course the area was dangerous, but that alone should not have made them this nervous.
After all, a Gammoth was a herbivorous Monster that generally could not be bothered with humans unless they approached and provoked it. Leave it alone, and it would leave you alone.
Judging by their expressions, didn't they seem far more nervous about him than about the Monster?
"What exactly happened?" Altaïr asked with a frown. "If you don't explain it clearly, I won't leave the two of you here by yourselves."
The hot-tempered Haifa glared at him and strode forward. "Getting too big for your britches, huh? You won't even listen to us anymore? Don't think that ranking up quickly makes you something special. You've still got a long way to go, kid!"
"I'm 6★ now, the same as you. I may not have your breadth of experience, but I don't believe the gap between us is truly that large," Altaïr shot back.
He would never normally speak to an elder that way, but he needed the truth, so he chose to confront her head-on.
He could worry about apologizing or taking a beating afterward!
Haifa choked on his words. Grinding her teeth, she muttered under her breath, "Damn it, if I'd known, I'd have worked harder and found a way to reach 7★ sooner. The brat actually caught up..."
"What happened? What's going on?" Hearing the argument outside, Isis and the others came running out as well.
Karin frowned as she met Altaïr's gaze. Their expressions were mirror images of each other.
As his adoptive mother and teacher, Karin knew all too well how impossibly stubborn he could be. When he was younger, she could use her greater experience to bluff him, but now it seemed... she could no longer fool him.
After several seconds of silence, she sighed. "I can tell you what happened, but you absolutely cannot act rashly."
"All right," Altaïr agreed at once.
"Hey! You're really going to tell him?!" Haifa shouted from the side, but when she saw that Karin had no intention of changing her mind, she could only look toward Isis.
"If this idiot does anything irrational, keep an eye on him. Or just knock him out, tie him up, and drag him back. That works too."
"Huh?" Isis froze for a moment, then nodded vigorously. "Okay! He can't beat me!"
Altaïr: "..."
"Let's talk inside."
Karin led the way into the cave camp. As the others followed, Haifa remained at the entrance to guard it, a gesture that left Altaïr rather speechless.
"You should have heard from the Guild Master that our quest is to monitor the Elderfrost Gammoth and, if possible, determine why it left the Furahiya Mountains for this snowfield."
Altaïr nodded. This matched what they already knew.
"We've been monitoring that Elderfrost Gammoth for the past half month. It has been moving southwest little by little, clearly heading toward a specific destination rather than wandering aimlessly. After we notified the Guild by Carrier Pigeon, Haifa and I split up for several days. She continued monitoring the Gammoth, while I took a sled southwest along the Elderfrost's trail to investigate what it was searching for."
At that point, she fell silent for several seconds before continuing. "Near the coast, I found a herd of slaughtered Popo. Their bodies bore... claw marks of an astonishing size. If I'm not mistaken, the monster that wandered onto this snowfield and triggered the Elderfrost Gammoth's strange behavior must be that one."
Altaïr's breathing quickened slightly.
"Grimclaw Tigrex..."
* * *
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