The Ice Age Came And I Just Got Married - Chapter 100
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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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Episode 100
Did she notice the flicker in my eyes?
Amelia apologized at once.
“Oh. W-well, of course I don’t believe it either. A magician? That’s absurd.”
Ha.
She laughed awkwardly, but since it was true, I had no idea how to correct her.
What if I need to use Winterstone Power again from now on?
“Maybe I really am a magician.”
Aiden laughed. At that, Amelia’s eyes widened as she stared at me.
Soon her gaze began to sparkle.
Her face showed she was holding back a flood of questions out of courtesy.
Cold sweat trickled down my spine. The pressure to actually demonstrate magic felt suffocating.
Just then, Aiden’s gaze turned deeper into the corridor—toward the path beyond the collapsed wall.
It led directly to the bank vault.
“Well, let’s stop this and keep moving.”
I had hesitated for a moment about whether to use Winterstone Power because of Amelia.
But after using my power in front of all those people—Hailwood, Orange Market, Tonis—it would be ridiculous to be coy about it now.
In the end, I took a step forward, illuminating the way ahead with Yellowstone.
Silence fell over the corridor where gunfire had ceased, broken only by the soft echo of our footsteps.
Amelia seemed quite shocked to see me use Winterstone Power.
But again, she showed no outward sign of it.
Though she couldn’t quite suppress the way her sparkling eyes kept stealing glances at me.
It seemed I had met her expectations.
Shortly after.
A massive iron door came into view at the end of the corridor.
Its thickness was nearly as wide as an adult man’s forearm.
Above it, a bronze nameplate caked in dust and frost struggled to reveal itself.
[Norton Central Bank · Staff Entrance]
Brian reached for the handle first.
Creak—
The rusted hinges screamed as the door swung open.
Inside was the basement level of the bank.
The walls held scattered archives of old ledgers, and a coal storage room and staff lounge stretched along either side of the corridor.
Centuries had passed, but traces of the bank remained intact.
We climbed the stairs to the upper floor.
The first floor was more desolate than expected.
Snow had drifted nearly to the ceiling, sealing all the windows completely white, and counters and furnishings lay half-buried in the drifts.
Without the interest-rate signboard on the wall and the massive iron vault door, it would have been difficult to recognize this as a bank at all.
“Let’s find the vault section.”
We climbed over the snow-buried counter and moved deeper into the bank.
Offices and record rooms stretched along either side of the narrow corridor.
Documents awaiting approval lay open on desks, and moisture-warped ledgers scattered haphazardly across the floor.
Aiden borrowed the light of Yellowstone to examine the directional signboard on the wall.
“The vault section appears to have been in the western annex.”
The direction he pointed showed a collapsed partition and an overturned iron filing cabinet blocking the passage.
I melted the ice frozen around the cabinet using Redstone Heat.
“Gasp!”
Beside me, Amelia kept catching her breath in amazement each time she saw my abilities, though no one paid her any mind.
The moment a gap appeared, Aiden thrust the end of his sword sheath in like a lever and shoved the obstacle aside.
Beyond it, a staircase leading down to the lower level came into view.
At the base of the stairs stood an iron door far thicker than any other entrance in the bank.
The characters carved above it only revealed their form when I brushed away the frost with my hand.
“We found it.”
No one answered Brian’s words. We still couldn’t be certain we’d truly found it.
The possibility that this wasn’t the bank’s storage vault at all couldn’t be ruled out.
‘I hope the artifact is here.’
Even Logan without his memories was fine, but I preferred Logan with all of them intact.
Beyond the iron door lay a narrow, elongated corridor.
Along both walls, iron doors marked with numbers were arranged at regular intervals.
Vault #1, Vault #2, Vault #3…….
We walked deeper into the corridor, checking the numbers as we went.
Vault #6.
Vault #7 should have come next.
But the door ahead bore only the torn-away traces of a nameplate.
As though someone had deliberately erased the marking.
The very next door bore the name “Vault #8” in clear letters.
There it was.
Vault #7 had been deliberately removed from existence.
“Someone’s already taken the artifact, haven’t they?”
Brian muttered, his voice hollow with disappointment.
Amelia’s face had gone uncertain—she didn’t know what we were searching for.
“Ah, we’re looking for an artifact. It seems to be connected to the Winterstone.”
Graham’s brief explanation satisfied her. No further words were needed. A relief, that.
It was then that Logan pushed open the door to what had been Vault #7.
The iron door, mercifully, was not locked.
Creak—
The moment the door swung open, decades of dust scattered through the air at once.
Inside was far more ordinary than I’d expected.
Ledgers, receipts—nothing but bank documents.
“Wait.”
I picked up an old metal nameplate lying at the bottom of the vault.
Instead of a number, faint characters remained etched upon it.
[Transfer Completed]
Beneath that, a second line was inscribed alongside a date.
[All Stored Items Transferred]
“……Transfer?”
Aiden’s brow furrowed.
“This vault appears to have been emptied once before.”
Graham adjusted his glasses and released a heavy sigh.
It was then that I noticed something—black powder, or dust of some kind, scattered across the documents deep within the vault.
Like the residue of something that had lain in that spot for ages, then vanished.
“Just a moment.”
I approached carefully and rubbed the black powder between my fingertips.
It was extraordinarily fine.
Too refined to be called a mineral, yet too luminous to be mere ash.
That was the moment.
Thump.
My heart struck once, hard and deep.
“……!”
Something within me blazed to life.
Every Winterstone I had absorbed began to vibrate in unison.
As though reaching toward one another, they resonated toward a single point.
Thump.
Again.
This time far more distinct.
I found myself drawn instinctively to the black powder.
‘This sensation…….’
I had never felt anything like it before. In all my discoveries of Winterstones until now, never once had this occurred.
It was as though something deep within me was pulling me toward something lost long ago.
As if I had found a part of myself I’d left behind.
“Found it.”
The words escaped my lips unbidden.
Every eye turned toward me.
My gaze fixed on the black powder, I opened my mouth slowly.
“The artifact that was kept here—I believe it’s the Frost Heart.”
Let me show you.
The voice rang again at the edge of my hearing.
Simultaneously, light bloomed before my eyes.
My heart contracted, then expanded violently. The crushing pressure knocked the breath from my lungs.
Like a brush laden with paint layering over the world, the surrounding landscape faded away one sheet at a time.
Logan, Graham, Aiden, Brian—and then Amelia—all dissolved like paint bleeding into white canvas and vanishing.
When I came to, I was standing alone in a completely different space.
There was no sensation of my body actually moving.
I understood instinctively: the Frost Heart was showing me something in the form of a vision.
Starlight flowed beneath my feet. Time seemed to be passing rapidly.
At some point, I stood alone atop stars rushing past at tremendous speed.
Once I calmed down a little and grew accustomed to it, I could move.
So I walked slowly across the stars, marveling at the wondrous sight—but soon the stars began to fade, and a city blanketed in pristine white snow revealed itself.
I recognized this city.
It was the one that had been submerged in Silvermere Lake.
My body, which had been floating in the air, gradually descended toward the city below.
I passed a colossal spire, intricate bridges connecting building to building, the roofs of residential houses, and finally touched down on the ground.
At that same moment, lights came on throughout the frozen city. All the buildings lit up at once, and suddenly people began to appear.
As if they had always been there, as if they had always lived in that place.
I turned to look at the people rushing past me. No one saw me.
It seemed as though no one knew of my presence here.
When I took a step to look around, suddenly a distant space rushed close to my eyes in an instant.
I passed through a building and found myself standing in a corridor.
There was a laboratory at the front of the corridor.
And there I discovered a massive black crystalline stone.
In front of the crystal, numerous people moved about busily, clutching files and documents.
‘Their clothes…….’
All of them wore the same cloak that the first village chief of Dotori Village had worn.
It was like a robe worn by wizards from a fairy tale.
I slowly entered the laboratory.
And in that moment, everyone’s gaze fixed on one spot. There stood a man holding an infant who looked no more than a few months old.
The baby’s hair shone like moonlight—silver. His blue eyes sparkled like a deep lake.
“This child, then.”
Someone spoke, gazing at the infant.
I had no idea what they were doing, so I watched the scene intently.
“Make haste.”
Then the men approached the black crystal stone, carrying the child.
A mineral shaped like a giant heart.
The Frost Heart.
Beneath the Frost Heart, an enormous and intricate geometric pattern had been carved.
As they brought the child close, the geometric pattern began to glow—
And the child was absorbed into the Frost Heart.
“……?!”
Watching that impossible sight, I was struck with shock—when suddenly the child, now sealed and absorbed within the Frost Heart, looked at me.
Our eyes met. Those brilliant blue eyes and mine.
The moment I realized that, space rushed away from me in an instant. Farther and farther away. I snapped back to consciousness as if I had been thrown.
When I lifted my head, I saw Logan’s face.
“Eve, are you alright?”
Looking around with a dazed expression, I saw Graham, Aiden, Brian, and Amelia all watching me with worried faces.
We were still inside the bank’s Storage Vault Section.
What on earth did I just see?
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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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