Chapter 71: Gentle Snow Breeze (2) (1/2)
I made a mistake last chapter. Madgar was actually a woman. I’ve revised the previous chapter to reflect that.
And here’s a picture of a blue evening primrose, because it’s referred to in this chapter:
The fire’s momentum was terrifying.
The heat spread to the sky, and the flames greatly rose and seemingly reached several meters in height alone.
“Master Madgar!”
“You must run away!”
The warriors of the Angry Bull tribe were running about in confusion as they cried out.
It was a natural reaction. They were in a situation where the raging flames were coming at them like a tsunami.
“You Gentle Snow Breeze bastards! Have you completely lost your minds!”
To use flames in a place like this.
Are you saying that you want to die together?!
However, the flames have already began to burn everything. Madgar urgently ordered then.
“Retreat! Leave the battlefield!”
Madgar gave her orders, and everyone no longer waited. The warriors of the Angry Bull tribe began running like wild beasts as they avoided the wildfire, and Madgar also began to run as she used magic to strengthen her legs.
And the flames closely followed the warriors of the Angry Bull tribe.
“The wind?!”
The wind roughly blew.
It previously blew from the south to the north, but now, it turned towards the fleeing Angry Bull tribe.
The flames naturally began to follow the wind too.
“Ahhhhhh!”
With her arms raised high, Cordelia made a dying sound rather than a spirited shout, and the golden tattoo on her left arm continued to shine brightly.
“This is hard! It’s so hard that I feel like I’m dying!”
Controlling the gusts of wind in a windless area was much harder than before.
The amount of wind that she had to handle was much greater as she had to control the widespread flames in the vast field.
“Ugh-!”
Cordelia’s legs trembled. It was so hard that she was in tears. Jude hurriedly opened a mana potion and shoved its contents on Cordelia’s mouth.
“Sob…sob…”
“Hang in there! You’ll die if something goes wrong!”
“Bwastwad! Fwak!”
Cordelia couldn’t swear because she was swallowing the contents of the mana potion, but Jude could tell what she wanted to say just by looking at her eyes.
But as Jude had said, failure to control the flames may result to them dying together.
Cordelia focused and concentrated again.
And then there were people who helped Cordelia.
“The shamans of the Gentle Snow Breeze tribe!”
Jude exclaimed as he looked towards the walls.
Just as Great Storm was a wild god of the wind as his name implied, Gentle Snow Breeze was also a wild god who controlled the wind.
A strong wind blew as two shamans wearing colorful ornaments chanted their spells while on the wall.
They controlled the flow of the wind in the same direction as Cordelia, so it became easier to control the flames.
“As expected! It’s going according to plan!”
Jude cheered as he had anticipated that the Gentle Snow Breeze tribe would help, and Cordelia decided that she would definitely smack Jude in the back later, but for now, she used the power again.
“Go!”
The controlled flames turned into a raging fire and struck the Angry Bull tribe.
Because the flames raged over such a wide area, a number of people were unable to escape and were swept away by the flames, and the intense smoke also slowed down the warriors’ feet.
“Ahhhhh!”
“Master Madgar!”
No matter how powerful the warriors of the Angry Bull tribe were, they were helpless against the flames.
As the warriors cried out, Madgar yelled in anger and raised her skeleton staff high.
“Pour down! Strike it! Heavy rain! Heaven’s Tears!”
Prior to being a mid-ranking demonic human, Madgar was a powerful shaman of the Angry Bull tribe.
After she almost used up an enormous amount of mana, the heavens immediately reacted.
Shaaaaaa-!
Rain poured down from the sky.
It was far from enough to cover the entire field, but it was enough to intensively strike the flames.
The flames began to die down.
However, it did not completely die down.
Having consumed an enormous amount of mana at once, Madgar shouted in exhaustion.
“Retreat! Retreat!”
Although it was only for a short time, the damage caused by the fire was great.
In addition, Madgar herself had exhausted her mana, so they had to step back for now and reorganize themselves.
“Retreat!”
“Go back!”
Several warriors of the Angry Bull tribe guided the other warriors with flags, and the warriors who were in a mess because of the fire, smoke, and heavy rain, hurriedly left the basin.
After a dozen minutes…
The rain stopped, and the flames disappeared. The warriors of the Angry Bull tribe had run away.
“Good, as we had planned.”
Jude broadly smiled, and Cordelia collapsed onto the floor.
“Haa…haa…”
It was really, really hard. She no longer had any strength left to remain standing.
Jude said as he deftly carried Cordelia on his back.
“Good job, Gold. As expected of Gold. I’m glad that I’m Silver.”
Because the blessing of the wind was only in the golden tattoo.
In the midst of this, Cordelia tried to strangle the cheeky Jude, and Jude began to walk forward.
Their destination was naturally towards the walls of the Gentle Snow Breeze’s tribe.
***
“What the hell were you doing! Did you want to die together?!”
It was good that the gate opened as soon as they approached the wall, but not after that.
Because one of the shamans who helped Cordelia control the wind had yelled in anger.
In fact, what the shaman said was true.
If the fire had spread across the basin, the flames would have burned the walls to the ground without care.
“Stop it, Fine Snow. It was a reckless act, but thanks to them, the enemies withdrew.”
“But brother!”
“I’m not saying that you’re wrong. But let’s postpone that for now. We have more urgent things to discuss.”
When the black-haired shaman with blue feathers on his head, spoke as if he was comforting the other, the blue-haired shaman with red feathers closed his mouth with a look of discontent.
The blue-feathered shaman said as he looked back at Jude and Cordelia.
“Nice to meet you. Warriors of Great Storm. I am Clear Snow who serves Gentle Snow Breeze. And this is my younger brother, Fine Snow.”
Although Cordelia didn’t know the language of the barbarians, she could understand what they were saying with her senses.
‘Are they introducing themselves?’
‘Yes.’
Jude nodded his head before he responded in the barbarian language, though it was on an amateur level.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Jude. This is Cordelia. We came to help Gentle Snow Breeze. Great Storm, Violent Avalanche, sent us.”
Each tribe living in the wild lands had a slightly different lineage. Unlike the Great Storm tribe who inherited the blood of the winter elves, the Gentle Snow Breeze tribe inherited the ancient dwarves’ lineage.
Therefore, there were many people with a rather short stature and sturdy physique, and the same was true for the shamans, Clear Snow and Fine Snow.
“Hmm, as expected. Gentle Snow Breeze wants to see you. Follow me.”
To begin with, Clear Snow had witnessed Cordelia using the power of Great Storm. There was even the words of Gentle Snow Breeze, so even if Jude and Cordelia pretended to be from the Sälen Kingdom, they weren’t particularly wary or suspicious of the two.
“I understand. We’ll follow you.”
Jude immediately replied, and after he conveyed the shaman’s words to Cordelia, he followed Clear Snow.
‘It’s a small village.’
Jude avoided the gaze of the unfriendly Fine Snow as he looked around, and he was able to estimate the size and population of the village.
‘The population is about 300 to 400?’
The interior of the basin was mostly farmland, but the area where people lived was not that wide.
‘Everyone is exhausted.’
Due to the battle that lasted for several days, everyone was exhausted regardless of age or sex.
Had it not been for Jude and Cordelia’s intervention, the Angry Bull tribe would have ravaged the village by night.
“This way.”
Clear Snow led Jude and Cordelia into a temple that was built in front of a lake.
It was a temple made of wood, though Jude and Cordelia felt it was just a slightly big wood cabin. But still, it was the largest building in the basin.
“O Gentle Snow Breeze, we have brought the warriors of Great Storm.”
They saw a pair of feet hanging down from inside the cleanly wiped temple, and inside it, a person’s silhouette was seen.
As Clear Snow spoke and bowed his head in front of the feet, a voice came from the other side.
“Thank you for your hard work. Send them in.”
It was a gracious voice that soothed the minds of the listeners.
After Jude and Cordelia unconsciously held their breaths in nervousness, they followed Clear Snow and entered the temple.
“We greet Gentle Snow Breeze.”
When Jude and Cordelia spoke together and expressed their courtesies, the little sitting girl had a clear smile.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Gentle Snow Breeze.”
The sight of a girl with white hair and big wings was reminiscent of an angel in stories.
However, her sickly appearance was clearly shown on her white face.
“Thank you for helping. Are you the ones sent by older brother Great Storm?”
(T/N: They aren’t really siblings, but Gentle Snow Breeze uses ‘older brother’ to address Great Storm as he is older than her.)
As a wild god, Gentle Snow Breeze could talk to them despite their different languages.
Jude and Cordelia delivered a brief summary of what had happened so far, and Gentle Snow Breeze was deeply troubled.