I Was Just Having Fun With The Time Limit - Chapter 76

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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At the top of the stairs.
The person waiting for me there was none other than Viscount Biatonn.
“I knew the Princess would do something like this.”
Viscount Biatonn smiled with a subtle expression.
He wore his usual refreshing smile, yet somehow it seemed tinged with sadness.
“But I was also hoping you wouldn’t come.”
“…But you said you were going south, Viscount Biatonn?”
“You sent me south while wanting to go north yourself. Isn’t that right?”
Hit with such a direct truth, I found myself at a loss for words.
“This is both why I love the Princess and why I worry about her.”
Boom!
The entire castle shook with a tremendous impact.
The tremor threw off my balance, and I nearly fell backward.
Viscount Biatonn quickly approached and caught me firmly around the waist.
“Are you alright?”
“Y-yes, I’m fine. I didn’t expect the vibrations to be this intense.”
What kind of monster was out there? Just how terrifying was a First-Class Monster?
Before this overwhelming force, I felt afraid anew.
“Your Highness, your legs are trembling.”
“I’m… scared.”
“You would have been much safer staying at the Royal Palace.”
“But that wouldn’t be right.”
Viscount Biatonn smiled warmly.
With a tender touch, he helped me to my feet completely, then gently stroked my head.
“Seven-year-olds are allowed to be a little wrong sometimes.”
“….”
“Still, right is better than wrong, don’t you think?”
Viscount Biatonn gazed at me with eyes full of affection and concern.
Though shrieks echoed from outside and the castle trembled, at least in this moment I could forget my fear.
Viscount Biatonn’s warm voice reached my ears.
“This is why I can’t help but love the Princess.”
Ah, what is this? I’m not sure if it fits the situation….
I felt my heart flutter a little.
I really do like kind people.
Just then, something suddenly leaped over the city wall.
“Eek!”
My entire body went rigid.
I locked eyes with an enormously large crimson gaze.
That eye was as vast and red as the sun itself.
The First-Class Monster’s eyes were far more terrifying than I had ever imagined.
“Hyah!”
Viscount Biatonn pulled me into his embrace and leaped skyward.
It felt as though we were flying through the heavens themselves.
Crash!
The spot where I had been standing shattered completely.
“When he gets irritated, he tends to jump up like that and swing his club around.”
“B-but we’re on top of the city wall. It’s incredibly high up.”
“He’s a giant. His height is absolutely massive.”
Viscount Biatonn set me down carefully before speaking in a low voice.
“If we leave things as they are, the city wall won’t hold much longer. I’ll head down and fight the One-Eyed Giant with both magic and my blade.”
“There’s something you want to ask of me, isn’t there?”
“You caught on?”
“Yes. You mentioned this place was the habitat of the One-Eyed Giant centuries ago.”
And this location had a significantly higher average temperature than other places.
That was also why the volunteers had struggled so much with the heat.
It was already a warm place to begin with.
“I understand that One-Eyed Giants are warm-blooded monsters that greatly prefer warm environments, and conversely, they are quite vulnerable to cold properties. Fortunately, I have extensively studied and practiced cold-natured magic, so I should be able to help.”
“…When did you study One-Eyed Giants?”
“I know that when their blood grows cold, their movements become significantly slower. Originally, I came here alone for that very reason.”
Viscount Biatonn gazed at me with an expression that was both somewhat surprised and deeply impressed.
“If only we had more time, I would embrace you right now.”
“Come back safely, and then embrace me without fail.”
Viscount Biatonn smiled brilliantly.
“I shall obey that command without question.”
* * *
Biatone leaped to a tremendous height.
“Here I come, friend.”
Biatone’s movements remained fluid even in the sky.
He was a Mage Swordsman, moving his body freely through the air by wielding his magical power with complete mastery.
As if the air itself were solid ground beneath him.
Isabel was startled.
‘Wow, he’s incredibly fast.’
He moved so swiftly that afterimages trailed behind him.
Isabel’s eyes could not properly track Biatone’s movements.
His form moved with the grace befitting the Chief Advisor of the Sword Art Empire.
His body flashed like rays of light, leaving wounds across the One-Eyed Giant’s body.
‘I need to focus too.’
What Isabel needed to do was draw out all her magical power and manifest mana of a cold nature.
A high-level Mage could summon grand magic like summoning a blizzard, but that was beyond her capabilities.
‘I was determined to come here alone anyway.’
But now, I was with Biatone.
It was still frightening, yet somehow a little less so.
‘I should think of it as a very large freezer.’
No. A freezer wasn’t enough.
‘A deep freezer?’
I tried to imagine a deep freezer, but no matter how large I pictured it, I couldn’t conjure one vast enough to contain a One-Eyed Giant as enormous as that city wall.
No matter how hard I tried to manifest the image, the First-Class Monster’s warm blood burned hotter than the freezer in my mind.
The imaginary deep freezer shattered into pieces.
‘A freezer won’t do at all.’
Then I needed to think of something different.
Something with a cold nature capable of slowing the movements of that terrifying First-Class Monster.
‘The North Pole!’
I’d never actually been to the North Pole, but I’d seen it countless times in documentaries.
A world filled only with ice. A place where glaciers drifted beyond the horizon.
But materializing the North Pole I’d only seen on television wasn’t so simple either.
‘Huh?’
A memory I’d long forgotten suddenly resurfaced.
‘That’s right.’
My childhood in my past life.
I had a small wish.
I’d hoped for a shaved ice dessert as vast as the North Pole.
A gigantic red bean shaved ice that would never disappear no matter how much I ate.
In my imagined world of shaved ice that stretched like the North Pole, there was a large polar bear friend with me.
The fantasy of being buried in Arctic shaved ice alongside my polar bear friend.
For me, lying in a hospital bed, that was a very happy dream.
Back then, I was so obsessed with that imagination that I spent three days straight talking about shaved ice, shaved ice, delicious Arctic red bean shaved ice.
‘The doctors had quite a time dealing with how much I pestered them about wanting shaved ice back then.’
Magic is the manifestation of imagery.
The more solid and firm the image, the higher the success rate of the magic.
‘I should imagine the Arctic shaved ice!’
I closed my eyes while thinking of it.
I drew up my mana and imagined the image.
To pull that image into reality, I needed various magical knowledge and intuition.
And the Arctic shaved ice was something I’d imagined very concretely and firmly as a child.
What was imprinted in childhood was rarely forgotten.
‘A world of shaved ice that never disappears no matter how much I eat!’
A wind carrying bitter cold began to blow.
* * *
Biatone continued his battle with the One-Eyed Giant with skills befitting the Empire’s chief advisor.
But something felt slightly off.
‘This One-Eyed Giant is far stronger than any I’ve encountered before.’
Boom!
A massive club crashed down upon the ground where Biatone had stood, sending clouds of dust billowing into the air.
‘It wasn’t this powerful before.’
This One-Eyed Giant was distinctly different from the other specimens I knew.
What was particularly strange was the peculiar marking etched into its left shoulder.
‘What in the world is that?’
It was a skull-shaped mark.
‘I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere before… Ugh!’
The One-Eyed Giant showed no signs of fatigue, continuing to swing its club relentlessly.
As time passed, rather than growing weaker, it seemed to grow even more ferocious.
In contrast, Biatone was beginning to tire.
‘When is the Emperor going to arrive?’
But then, suddenly, a biting wind began to blow.
A wind so powerful it swept away all the heat.
That wind carried an intense, piercing cold within it.
Crack—
The ground began to freeze.
It felt as though a calamity was descending upon them.
‘What… is this?’
I turned my gaze and beheld a sight that took my breath away.
‘The City Wall has frozen?’
The entire wall appeared to be made of ice.
An ‘Ice Castle’ that seemed to belong only in storybooks now materialized before me.
A pale blue chill extended rapidly toward me.
‘I’m in danger too.’
Biatone moved swiftly, evading the onslaught of freezing energy. But the One-Eyed Giant could not.
The giant’s feet began to freeze.
Crack—crack—
Its toes froze, then its ankles, then its knees, then its waist.
Biatone hovered in the air, looking down at the scene below.
‘It’s been transformed into an ice sculpture…?’
It had become completely frozen, as though carved from ice itself.
‘Ugh. What is this now?’
Brown or black—something in between, like hail, began to fall.
Though they carried a slightly sweet scent, their destructive power was undeniable, forcing me to dodge them all.
‘Red beans…?’
The grains were too large and hard to be called red beans, yet they resembled them nonetheless.
‘Phew. It’s finally stopped.’
Biatone surveyed the surroundings.
‘What is this place? The Erbe Mountains?’
An icy plain stretched out before me, not merely a snowy expanse.
Hail the color of brown beans was embedded throughout, and yellowish, sticky formations were scattered in various places.
What was peculiar was the continuous sweet aroma rising from below.
I wasn’t entirely certain, but it smelled like condensed milk.
Biatone, being a magic-wielding sword master, understood how absurd this was.
‘A large-scale area spell of this magnitude… I couldn’t do it alone.’
Biatone turned his gaze toward Isabel.
Isabel had her eyes tightly shut, chanting a magical incantation.
The magical incantation was somewhat strange.
“Red bean shaved ice, red bean shaved ice, delicious red bean shaved ice, with injeolmi topping, condensed milk is the standard. Eating arctic red bean shaved ice with my polar bear friend.”
Biatone descended slowly as if there were stairs in the empty air, but soon he broke into a desperate run.
“Your Highness!”
Isabel had collapsed.
Biatone rushed over and caught her in his arms.
“Are you alright?”
He first checked her pulse and examined her condition.
Isabel’s face had lost all color.
“Your Highness?”
The composure that Biatone had maintained even when facing a First-Class Monster vanished completely from his expression.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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