The Ice Age Came And I Just Got Married - Chapter 3

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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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Chapter 3
I traced back through the nine lives Logan had lived.
In his first life, Logan only watched Evie from a distance, and in his second, he’d tried to become her friend.
By the third life, he confessed to her for the first time, only to be rejected.
When the fourth came, he decided not to meet Evie at all, wondering if his presence would lead to her death.
But even so, Evie died.
In the fifth life, he gathered more courage and managed to get engaged. Yet before the wedding could take place, Evie died.
In the sixth life, the two of them dated and enjoyed a few days of happiness. But days later, Evie died again.
In the seventh life, he tried to keep her alive by abducting and imprisoning her. But this time too, someone broke through the window and murdered Evie.
In the eighth life, Evie confessed her feelings first. This time he thought things would truly work out—and then she died once more.
In the ninth life, he abandoned his emotions. He abandoned his will to live. This time Evie grew desperate trying to save him, but in the end, she died first again.
Across ten regressions, Logan had never even shared a proper kiss with Evie. Getting married in the eyes of the law—that had happened for the first time in this life.
With each regression, the relationship between Logan and Evie shifted in small ways, yet one thing never changed: Evie remained Logan’s first love.
By this point, it was clear that fate itself harbored malice.
I looked at Logan again.
He soon drew a metallic cylindrical flashlight from his bag and pressed the switch.
There came a brief crackling sound, and a dim yellow light pushed back the darkness. The beam flickered unsteadily, but it was far brighter than candlelight.
“I scraped this together from some mad scientist’s invention—performance isn’t great. We should move as much as we can while we still have light.”
Logan then pulled out winter clothing from his bag and dressed me in it.
Next, slinging the bag over his shoulder once more, Logan held the flashlight in one hand and my hand in the other as he began walking forward.
An awkward silence fell between us.
And at the end of that silence, Logan spoke.
“Evie.”
“Yes?”
“How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“About this tunnel.”
I turned over the novel’s contents in my mind, searching for a way out of this.
But I thought it would be better to go with the direct approach than to overthink it.
“Logan, you came from the future, didn’t you?”
At my question, he stopped in his tracks.
After a moment, he turned toward me. In the dim cave, lit only by the flashlight’s glow, a thin tension crept between us.
Breaking the silence, I spoke.
“When it was snowing earlier, I had a strange vision. I saw you behaving like someone who’d come from the future.”
It wasn’t a lie. In the novel I’d read, Logan exhibited the distinctive behaviors of someone who’d experienced regression.
Logan’s eyes flickered with sharp intensity.
“You saw the future?”
“Yes.”
“Evie, then you—”
“I also saw myself being murdered by certain people. I saw that I’ve died and returned nine times over.”
Clang.
The flashlight slipped from Logan’s hand and fell to the ground.
I picked up the flashlight rolling across the floor and held it back out to him.
Logan took the flashlight quietly. Only then did I notice his hands were trembling.
He was afraid of something.
Perhaps it was the weight of witnessing my death so many times over.
If he’d given up on everything by the ninth life and succumbed to darkness in the tenth, he should have stopped caring whether I lived or died.
So why was he still clinging to me, this fool.
“I’ve also figured out that you’ve loved me for a long time.”
If he’d cared for me this whole time, why had he pretended not to know me?
Until recently, I’d thought Logan had no interest in me whatsoever.
I don’t know when or what had made him fall for me in the first place. The novel had provided only sparse insights into Logan’s emotions and inner life.
‘Right now, Logan and I feel differently about each other.’
It honestly left me bewildered.
My heart beat a little faster, yes, but this was hardly the time for romance.
‘I’m going to die soon anyway.’
If I died this time, Logan wouldn’t regress again. I steeled my heart.
Then I drew the watch from my dress pocket and checked the time.
The current time was six in the evening.
The hour when the sun was setting and temperatures were plummeting exponentially.
“Let’s move.”
“Evie, you knew I cared about you.”
“Yeah. I was a little surprised.”
“Is that all the gratitude I get?”
Logan asked with eyes that yearned for something more.
“So that’s why you saved me? Thank you.”
I held back as much as I could. Clearly it wasn’t the response he wanted—he exhaled sharply and ran a hand through his hair.
My heart felt anything but settled saying it.
‘For Logan’s sake, and for mine, distance is the wiser choice right now.’
“Yeah. I suppose anyone in your position would be confused.”
I’d expected further resistance, but Logan understood my reaction quickly enough.
“Don’t rush into anything. All that matters to me right now is keeping you alive.”
Logan’s crimson eyes burned quietly.
He was different from the Logan I knew.
Something about him felt…….
I suppose you’d say he seemed off somehow.
‘Logan caring for me is one thing, but I can’t be certain it’s love.’
The novel had kept his emotional descriptions sparse, but there was this passage:
[Now I can’t tell if I truly loved Evie, or if I was merely obsessed with her.]
Human emotion is unpredictable.
So even though we’d married somewhat haphazardly, I needed to cultivate my own strength rather than lean on Logan.
Logan seemed to have much he wanted to say, but he said nothing at all.
Instead, he spoke in a voice grown quieter still.
“Let’s go.”
Logan nodded, and I followed him obediently forward.
If I’d known this truth back when I was burning with rivalry toward him, would things between us have been different?
Probably.
Very different indeed.
The Tunnel was deep. Impossibly deep—it stretched on without end.
“Evie, are you sure this tunnel really does lead to Rosebrook?”
“Yes. It does. It should take about three hours on foot. Probably. Just bear with me a little longer.”
From that point on, we walked in silence for three hours straight.
The only words we exchanged came when the Flashlight batteries died and I had to pull out the Lantern.
The fact that I’d brought a Lantern too—of course I was thorough.
As we walked through the dim darkness without speaking, all manner of thoughts crowded in.
‘Could this all be a dream?’
We were nothing but dreamers in a long, endless dream. Though the sensation of cold was so vivid that dismissing it as a dream was nearly impossible.
The moment I felt a hint of fatigue, a trickle of blood—drip—began from my nose.
Logan stopped walking, pulled a Handkerchief from his pocket, and pinched my nose for me.
What?
“I thought maybe you’d hit something earlier, but it’s the same old trouble—nosebleeds at the slightest strain.”
“You really did know everything about me, didn’t you? You must have cared an awful lot.”
At my teasing question, Logan shook his head firmly, as if to say I shouldn’t speak. His gaze was that of someone watching a troublemaker.
I felt wronged, but stopping the nosebleed came first, so I swallowed my protests.
Three hours later, we finally reached the end of the Tunnel. Beyond it, just as the novel had shown, stretched a forest leading toward Rosebrook.
Beyond this forest lay the port city of Rosebrook.
“Wait, Evie. We can’t go out there now.”
Logan gripped my shoulder. I hadn’t been planning to go out anyway.
From six in the evening onward, the outside temperature drops to minus sixty degrees.
I understood the Ice Age well enough.
Millennia ago, this world had experienced an Ice Age, and humanity had nearly perished.
Anthropologists had theorized that the destroyed civilization before ours once possessed something called “Mana.” They speculated too that Mages who wielded this Mana must have existed.
When I sat through those lectures, I’d dismissed them as more of the scholars’ peculiar claims…….
But now, recalling the contents of the novel , I wondered if those claims might not be so baseless after all.
‘There was a scene where Logan handled Mana Stones.’
Perhaps the scholars’ hypothesis had merit.
No known method existed to end the Ice Age. The academic community was still researching it actively.
But humanity’s survival tactics from the distant past—how they’d endured the Ice Age—those I knew quite well.
“Logan, do you know what my major was?”
Logan nodded at my question.
“Isn’t your specialty Northern Glacial Environmental Studies?”
I’ve never met someone who gets it right every single time. I slip up occasionally myself.
Then why did he act like he didn’t know my name during the festival?
Special Contribution ∥ Ice Age Case Report
Three thousand years ago, according to observational records, the First Ice Age began in early spring.
During the Ice Age, daytime temperatures plummet to negative thirty degrees, and nighttime temperatures sink to negative sixty degrees.
At such temperatures, the likelihood of outdoor survival is extremely low. Should signs of the Ice Age appear, one must evacuate immediately to a shelter sealed against the wind.
According to observational records, summer temperatures moderated to positive ten degrees during the day and negative thirty degrees at night.
Therefore, above all else, I urge you to focus on surviving until summer arrives.
<The Granden Kingdom Newspaper Association reserves copyright according to its usage regulations. Copyright holder ⓒ Evie Lania Everhart>

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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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