The Ice Age Came And I Just Got Married - Chapter 28

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

Chapter 28
“No. That’s not it. Unconditional sacrifice isn’t always virtuous. Humans are far too complex for that.”
A demon with tremendous power would be preferable to a saint who gave up everything.
Logan stared at me as though I’d lost my mind.
“Hey, juniors. You two keep whispering. How about you fill the rest of us in on what’s going on?”
At Marcus’s prompting, I finally explained things calmly to Charlotte and Marcus.
I told them that the Frost Heart seemed to be the source of the Winterstone, and that Julian had apparently taken it and fled somewhere, only to vanish.
If the Frost Heart was the source of the Winterstone, then it had to be a Mana Stone itself.
‘Could it be that finding it is how the Ice Age ends?’
Why had my older brother run off with it? And how had he disappeared? Was he even still alive?
“So what do you mean our junior here can save people? What do you mean by saying that because of our junior, humanity was destroyed?”
“I don’t know that much either.”
Silence fell again.
It was Charlotte who broke the long quiet.
“We shouldn’t linger here. Let’s move inside. The sun’s getting low.”
She was right—the sun had begun its descent.
Once it started dipping, sunset wouldn’t be far behind.
In the end, we turned back toward the downtown area.
Creak—
Then, at that moment.
Crrrrreak—
The gate to the naval base suddenly began to open.
All of us froze, unmoving.
The interior was pitch-dark.
There was no one visible—it was impossible to tell how the door had opened at all.
We all looked toward Charlotte at the same moment.
As the daughter of the naval commander, she would have more information about the base than any of us.
“It must have been opened manually from inside. It seems like there are survivors.”
At Charlotte’s answer, Logan turned to look at me.
“Eve.”
“We should go.”
“…All right.”
He didn’t try to stop me.
By now, he understood that my survival depended on absorbing Winterstones—that much was clear.
“But there don’t seem to be any people inside.”
At my words, Charlotte’s face showed confusion.
“How can you be sure? This manual mechanism won’t open from inside unless someone’s there.”
“I can sense the aura of a Winterstone within. There’s no sign of any person, though. But you’re right—we should go in and check.”
It was only wise to be cautious, just in case.
We all checked our weapons.
Thanks to Logan’s thorough preparations in Dotori Village against the Ice Age, we had plenty of weapons and ammunition.
Marcus and I took rifles; Logan and Charlotte took greatswords.
And then we carefully stepped into the naval base.
As we entered the dark interior, we immediately spotted a staircase descending below.
It appeared to lead directly to an underground facility.
Logan raised a lantern. Its pale light illuminated the damp concrete walls.
“It’s deeper than I expected.”
Marcus was right.
The stairs stretched downward with no visible end.
One step.
Then another.
As we descended, the air grew colder.
Military lights were installed at regular intervals along the walls, but they had been dark for a long time.
Frost had settled thickly on the ceiling edges, white and crystalline.
From time to time, the sound of dripping water echoed out.
Drip.
Drip.
The sound traveled far through the empty underground space.
I kept my guard up while pinpointing the locations of the Winterstones.
Beep—
Pipi wriggled out of my pocket, where he’d been sleeping.
Chirp?
He fluttered about my head, disoriented by the sudden change of scenery.
It was natural enough—we’d arrived somewhere entirely unfamiliar.
We descended the staircase without end.
Down, and down again, my thoughts drifting as we went.
Specifically, I was turning over what the soldier we’d met earlier had said.
‘There’s so much that never made it into the novel.’
Of course it hadn’t. That was obvious.
For all its claims of omniscient narration, the novel had a protagonist—the story had been told through Aiden’s eyes.
I had no idea what lay inside the Ice Age Research Institute.
But might I find answers about Julian’s disappearance and the truth of this Ice Age catastrophe?
When we finally reached the bottom of the stairs, I heard Charlotte draw a sharp breath—she’d been leading us with such confidence.
Before us stretched an enormous corridor.
Dozens of iron doors lined either wall, their labels barely legible.
[Supply Storage]
[Communications Room]
[Operations Briefing Room]
[Medical Bay]
[Records Archive]
I could imagine how feverish with activity this place must have been before the Ice Age began.
Now there was only silence.
Our four footsteps echoed alone through the hollow corridor.
Logan’s lantern cast light across the floor ahead.
An old military cap lay there, abandoned.
Beside it, a rusted rifle.
And on the wall above—scratch marks, as if made by fingernails clawing frantically.
Someone had fought to survive here, until the very end.
But that was the mystery.
The marks gave the distinct impression of flight—as if fleeing from something.
Charlotte stared vacantly, murmuring under her breath.
“Why is there so much blood?”
She was right—blood stains covered the corridor in multiple places.
But the problem was clear: no bodies were visible. Not a single corpse.
Rather, there were signs that bodies had been removed. A long smear of blood dragged along the floor, heading somewhere, simply ended—abruptly cut off somewhere in the middle of the corridor.
A chill ran through me.
I looked around, but there was no obvious explanation for blood vanishing so suddenly in the middle of the hallway.
Unless something down here had consumed the bodies.
“There must have been internal conflict,” Marcus said quietly.
“Internal conflict? When disaster strikes, people should be pooling their strength to survive, not fighting each other,” Charlotte countered.
“Survival situations make conflict easier, though. People panic.”
Marcus pushed back against Charlotte’s protest.
We made our way into the communications room first. We needed to establish contact with other regions.
Logan and I already knew what we’d find—the same devastation everywhere else.
But Charlotte and Marcus needed hope. The way I’d once clung to a phonograph despite knowing the truth.
The communications room was in better condition than expected.
Complex wiring tangled like a spider’s web across one wall, and rows of radio communication equipment stretched along another.
Marcus moved straight toward the machinery.
“There won’t be any power, but…”
He muttered to himself, examining various parts of the equipment.
A moment later, he found a manual generator tucked in a corner, pulled a chair over, and sat down.
“I was a communications operator when I was younger.”
Marcus had served as a boy soldier before entering the Academy.
Creak.
He turned the handle of the manual generator.
Hum—
The dormant machine vibrated softly to life.
Charlotte’s eyes brightened slightly.
“Will it connect, do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
I only ran business after graduating from the Academy.
Marcus continued cranking the handle as he spoke.
Soon static poured from the Radio Communication Equipment.
Crackle—
Everyone’s eyes snapped toward the device at once.
Crackle—
Marcus slowly turned the frequency dial.
“This is Rosebrook Naval Base. Please respond.”
Silence.
“This is Rosebrook Naval Base. Please respond.”
Still no answer.
Crackle—
Only static filled the speaker.
Charlotte bit her lip.
Marcus, saying nothing, turned to a different frequency.
Capital.
Southern outpost.
Western outpost.
Railroad Administration.
Kingdom Military.
He sent every call signal he knew.
But all that came back was endless silence.
Then it happened.
Crackle—
A faint voice suddenly cut through the static. Everyone’s body went rigid.
“……Help…….”
The voice was too faint to hear properly. Marcus hurried to adjust the dial.
“Please say that again!”
Crackle—
“……Help……rescue……save us…….”
Then it cut out.
The signal died.
Silence fell over the communication room.
No one could speak.
No one could even be certain whether what they’d just heard was a real transmission.
Marcus stared at the speaker for a long moment, then slowly withdrew his hand.
“If that transmission wasn’t an error, it looks like there are still survivors among the Kingdom Military.”
“But they sounded like they were dying. That was a rescue request, wasn’t it?”
At Charlotte’s words, Marcus fell silent.
Even if they’d received a signal from the Kingdom Military and heard a distress call, without knowing their exact location or situation, there was nothing they could do to help.
We tried working with various machines after that, but nothing functioned.
The Manual Generator shut down not long after we activated it—likely because the temperature was too low.
The facility was deep underground, so it was warmer than outside, but it had been abandoned for too long regardless.
We had no choice but to leave the communication room.
“Where could the Ice Age Research Institute be?”
At my question, Charlotte rubbed her forehead as if searching her memory. She looked around the corridor for something, then pointed to the Records Archive.
“There should be internal maps there. I remember there was a restricted area near the Admiral’s office. I think we should investigate that place.”
According to Charlotte, not only were there maps, but the mere sight of “classified documents” made it seem worth investigating.
‘The Winterstone is definitely somewhere inside the base, but I can’t pinpoint its location.’
Was it because we were underground?
Outside, the location registered the moment we got close to the Winterstone.
I glanced back at Logan. He stood holding his greatsword, staring at something intently.
“Logan, what is it?”

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