Compared to the second area where the location is located on the map, the third one isn’t too bad in terms of pathing. Elaina made sure to create a pathing that she will follow in the future as she will have to travel in these areas back and forth to feed the saplings with mana stones. It is necessary as she would take a whole day’s worth of job if she didn’t properly create a path to these saplings in the future. Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs novel_fіre.net
Elaina holds a physical map of Darcero Kingdom that Princess Margaux owns as a way to portray where they should go and how they should arrive there. She was even surprised at first as to why Princess Margaux keeps a map with her and her first reason was...
"I always had that in me during the first time we met as I needed that during my escape. I still haven’t used it and it is still inside my bag. I didn’t expect I would make use of it though."
And with that, Elaina can point out where they should go without Elaina describing which area they should head into especially since she is not familiar with the whole area.
10 minutes after they departed from the second area, they arrived in the third area, and compared to the other two, the area is located in a mountainous area of Darcero Kingdom. It is also the area where the mining business of the kingdom is currently located though the actual place where she will plant the saplings is far from the civilized area where the miners are currently operating, allowing Elaina to keep the location still a secret aside from Princess Margaux.
The area is much colder and the snow is significantly higher in regards to the amount that accumulated around. Thankfully, it seems that the miners hired a few magicians who can melt the snow to reduce the area’s danger of producing avalanches of some sort.
Still, since it was just yesterday since the snowfall happened, the amount of snow in the area at the moment is quite staggering. But even with the snow, Zaza and Shardu had no trouble scaling the place, allowing them to arrive at the location without much difficulty.
However, as soon as they arrived at the location, a structure that Elaina had seen in books before appeared before her. They stopped in the distance as they lingered near it.
"What is that?" Princess Margaux asked as she wondered what the little structure was.
As for Elaina, she has seen it before but not personally. After all, this thing only existed on eternally frozen continents in the world. She has seen it before as one of the standard houses in these areas and some even use it as shelter if they are stuck in the cold areas. But seeing it in a place is something that she didn’t expect to see.
"An igloo..." Elaina frowned.
"It’s a structure that can be considered as a shelter made from snow blocks. It is one of the standard houses that some people use as a home in freezing temperatures," Elaina explained.
"An igloo huh...but why is it here? We are not so cold to be capable of creating ice blocks though. And the snow formation isn’t solid enough to create one either. Why is there an igloo here?"
As Elaina wondered what an igloo was doing in the wild, the gods immediately issued Elaina a big warning.
"[Elaina! Be cautious! That is not an igloo made by a human!]" the god of fishing said.
"What?" Elaina frowned.
"[I recognized that shape and igloo structure before as I have seen and made igloos before to do some ice fishing in the past but seeing that igloo made me remember the igloos that popped out of nowhere. Those igloos are the spawners of the Snow Men!]"
"Spawners?!" Elaina immediately readies her sword as she watches over the igloo before her.
"[Yes. Those monsters are being spawned in those things. That igloo will spawn one Snow Man one at a time, perhaps once a day even, though I have no idea how that thing works.]"
As the God of Fishing explained it to her, they soon noticed something coming out of the igloo’s entrance. It is moving a bit slowly, like being born being delivered by a mother, the Snow Man is emerging out of it.
At first, Elaina was reluctant to destroy it as there might be some people trying to build something but after seeing the Snow Men trying to emerge from the igloo itself, there was no need for reluctance as Elaina dashed forward and sliced over the Snow Man’s Igloo before dodging away from it in fear it will explode.
"DODGE!" Elaina shouted as the group ran away from the area and as expected, the area exploded and ice soon covered the area, and the igloo that was once present there was also shattered to pieces by the exploding Snow Man that was sliced before it could be fully born.
"A Snow Man!?" Princess Margaux was taken aback after seeing the explosion that happened and causing the various ice in the area after.
"To think a spawner of those monsters would be sitting not too far from the mines where the miners are working...Coming here was a good choice after all..." Elaina shook her head as she glanced over the ice that slowly melted after a while.
"Miss, the ice is melting!" Princess Margaux points over the rapidly melting ice that appeared after the explosion, slowly merging with the snow as it turned liquid.
"So it seems. Since I destroyed the Snow Man before it could fully develop itself and form properly, the ice that it produced after being destroyed isn’t as hard and sturdy as the ones that were done by the fully manifested one. Still, if we got caught by the explosion earlier, we would be injured nevertheless." Elaina glanced over at the blast radius.
It didn’t have the biggest ice-freezing power like regulars do after the explosion but the explosion itself is the more destructive itself. It was like a homemade bomb exploded after being lit up and thrown over to that area as it even shattered a few of the rocks around and the trees in the vicinity where it exploded are now broken to pieces.
But because of that explosion of the igloo, the spot where Elaina was originally about to plant has already formed a big hole, enough for Elaina to plant the sapling on the ground. Despite after the planting was done and the light shone on the area for a few minutes, Elaina didn’t feel secure. After all, the Snow Men might sabotage the place without them knowing.