The Ice Age Came And I Just Got Married - Chapter 27

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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 27
Chapter 5. Glacier Research Institute
Four days later.
We decided to head to the Rosebrook Naval Base as planned. The Port Authority was located on the eastern coast of Rosebrook.
On the way, we searched for the sled and sled dogs that Nathan had supposedly lost, but it wasn’t easy.
“I thought you’d come on skis.”
Charlotte asked me.
“I thought you’d come on a sled, Charlotte.”
“My skills aren’t good enough yet.”
“Neither are mine.”
Charlotte laughed at my answer. I found myself laughing along with her.
“This isn’t the time to be laughing. Don’t you see this?”
Marcus pointed to his own eyelashes and eyebrows, heavy with frost.
“My lashes are so heavy my eyes keep closing.”
The situation wasn’t as good as his complaint suggested, but only just.
We needed to get indoors as soon as possible.
Still, we were nearly at the military naval facility.
After an hour of hurried climbing, we’d reached the cliff where the naval base stood.
Moving across the snow-laden, frozen slope was proving quite difficult.
“Eve, but that tidal wave down there—doesn’t it look like it’s cracking?”
Charlotte pointed to the city visible below the cliff.
Once we’d climbed onto the cliff overlooking the eastern side of Rosebrook harbor city, the view of the city became much clearer.
And with that clarity came an even more grotesque image of the tidal wave that seemed to be rising up as though about to swallow the city whole.
It was eerie and terrifying.
Charlotte said it looked cracked, but I couldn’t see it with the naked eye. Still, she was probably right.
It wouldn’t be long before it shattered.
“This is troublesome.”
Just then Logan clicked his tongue in annoyance—*tsk*—and we stopped in our tracks, turning to face what lay ahead.
The entrance before us could hardly be called a door. At this scale, shouldn’t it be called an iron wall rather than an iron gate?
The surface of the iron gate was covered in a thick layer of ice. It looked nearly impossible to even touch it.
No matter how I looked around, I couldn’t find any door.
“I don’t see a door?”
Charlotte shrugged.
“This is a door. More precisely, it’s a Lockdown Device—a structure designed to completely isolate the exterior when an emergency situation occurs.”
“So how do we open it?”
My question prompted a skeptical response from Charlotte.
“We can’t. Only people inside the Communications Ministry can open it. There is another entrance, though. It’s hard to access right now. It’ll take quite some time.”
At Charlotte’s words, I looked down at the city from the cliff.
Then we should head to the Central Market District first. We can look for a place to spend the night there.
“What door can the key that Rutland has open, then?”
At my question, Marcus scratched his cheek awkwardly before fishing a bundle of keys from his pocket.
“That’s what I’m wondering. I knew these were base keys, but I had no idea the door looked like this.”
And in that moment—
a sharp cry pierced the air from somewhere.
I instinctively chambered the Shotgun I was holding and turned toward the sound.
When I looked back, I saw a man sprawled on the ground. Logan was pinning him down roughly beneath his boot sole.
What in the world was happening?
“I wonder where you got the idea to go after women when I’m standing right here.”
Logan’s Greatsword bore down on the man’s shoulder. Blood seeped out across the white snow.
A Rifle lay scattered across the snow, fallen from the man’s grip.
Logan lifted the man’s chin with his boot.
The motion was rough, yet economical and clean. It reminded me, viscerally, that he’d once been a soldier.
“Your name and affiliation.”
“Ugh.”
The man groaned beneath Logan’s weight.
“Your name and affiliation. Speak. Before I kill you.”
The man wore a military uniform. He appeared to be Navy.
The problem was that he was already covered in blood. Even before Logan’s takedown, the man had been dying.
Yet his eyes burned with an intense fire. They were eyes alight with madness—like moths hurling themselves into flame.
And those eyes were fixed directly on me.
“Save us! Please save us! You can do it!”
Is he shouting at me?
As I stood bewildered, the man’s voice cut through the chaos like a wedge.
“Director Everhart fled with the Heart of Frost! Eve Lania Everhart! You can stop her! You can save us!!! Damn it!!”
Director Everhart—he was referring to my missing older brother.
Julian Wesley Everhart.
I’d heard that before he vanished in the Northern Region, he’d been promoted to research director of the Glacier Research Institute.
Shock rooted me in place, but Logan didn’t even glance my way. He pressed his greatsword harder against the man’s shoulder.
A gasp.
As the man groaned, Logan spoke in a voice gone even lower.
“What are you talking about? Explain.”
But the man couldn’t answer. His whole body convulsed, and moments later, foam at his lips, he screamed.
“Humanity is doomed!”
The man’s eyes snapped toward me, wild with fury.
“Because of you!”
Then his breath stopped. He collapsed without Logan needing to do anything more.
“This deranged bastard, daring to—”
Logan confirmed the man was gone, then spat out a curse thick with irritation.
Marcus, who’d been keeping his gun trained on the man, stepped forward to check for a pulse.
“He’s dead.”
Silence fell for a moment. Charlotte, standing nearby, sheathed her dual swords and turned to look at me.
“Eve, what was that about?”
At her question, Logan moved forward and positioned himself in front of me.
Charlotte raised both hands, palms out.
“Pure curiosity, I promise.”
“I’m curious too—would you both mind explaining?”
Marcus added his voice to hers.
“I don’t really know either.”
And that was the truth. It wasn’t in the novel, so I had no idea.
I was supposed to be the character who only died to fuel the villain’s narrative, wasn’t I?
I looked back at Logan.
“Logan, do you know anything?”
He stood with his arms crossed, lost in thought.
“This is getting annoying.”
A murmur, dangerously low.
The blizzard howled so fiercely that only I, standing near him, could hear his voice.
I glanced up at him briefly.
Then I turned to Marcus and Charlotte and announced:
“Give us a moment. I need to talk to him alone.”
“What? No—”
Before Marcus could finish his protest, I grabbed Logan’s arm and pulled him far away from them.
“Logan, you have some idea. What is it?”
I whispered the words to him, low and urgent. But he didn’t answer right away.
He furrowed his brow in concentration for a moment, then slowly opened his mouth.
“I’m not certain.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Right before you died in your last life, you said something that keeps coming back to me.”
I knew something? But I just died, didn’t I? The novel showed no special power in me at all.
As if the memory alone pained him, he buried his face in one hand and breathed deeply.
“You said the Heart of Frost would fragment soon.”
The Heart of Frost? What is that? A code?
I struggled anxiously to piece together the meaning.
“The Heart of Frost will fragment. The Heart of Frost…”
And then something flickered across my mind.
Retrieve the Winterstone for me.
That voice I heard whenever I absorbed a Winterstone—why did it ask for retrieval? Was it because it was originally his?
Fragmenting?
His own essence fragmenting, so he wanted to gather the pieces back?
If that were true, then the fragmented Heart of Frost would be the Winterstone itself?
But didn’t Winterstone occur naturally across the world?
There’s no solid evidence for it—just a conjecture seasoned with a bit of imagination.
Yet somehow I felt certain it was true.
“There is, Logan. Every time I absorbed Winterstone, I heard a strange voice.”
“You never mentioned anything like that before, Eve.”
“I’m sorry. I kept wondering if I was losing my mind.”
Logan stared at me with an expression that suggested he had plenty to say, but held his tongue.
“It was telling me to retrieve the Winterstone.”
Logan stroked his jaw thoughtfully as he replied.
“If it’s asking for retrieval, that suggests the original owner is someone else.”
“Exactly. You said the Heart of Frost shattered, right? What if those fragments are Winterstone? What if the Heart of Frost is a massive Mana Stone—the source of Winterstone itself? Then it all makes sense.”
“A Mana Stone? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“And Winterstone does?”
Logan has no answer to my question. No one could deny that Winterstone bears a striking resemblance to the Mana Stones that appeared only in ancient times.
“Didn’t I say anything else in my previous life?”
“There was no time. You were dying. It seemed like you only began to understand something as death approached.”
“I still don’t understand what you mean—that I can save people, or that humanity perished because of me.”
Surely I’m not actually some kind of demon?
“I don’t know about anything else, but you should stop thinking you’re a demon. It’s the opposite.”
“What?”
“If anyone knows better than anyone else that you’re closer to a Saint than a demon, it’s me.”
A Saint? A title that couldn’t possibly suit me less.
“I’d rather be a demon than a Saint.”
“What?”
This time Logan couldn’t hide his bewilderment, his gaze fixed on me.
Why are you looking at me like that? I’m saying I’d stay a demon beside a villain going dark.

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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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