Northerlheim [3]

Chapter. 50

Both of them fell silent the moment they learned the truth. A restless feeling pressed harder against their chests—thoughts of the people they had left behind, and of the misfortune that now offered no choice but to be accepted.

“Don’t worry,” Moreira said with a faint smile, trying to ease the mood, though even his own voice sounded forced.

The blue-eyed man’s jaw tightened. His fingers clenched unconsciously, his heartbeat growing faster by the second.

“Huh,” he snorted quietly. “You don’t understand. I have a family and a business I can’t just abandon.” His tone was heavy, his expression clearly showing the arrogance he wore as a shield.

“Hey, you damn man,” Shuisa cut in. Her voice was cold, almost devoid of emotion. Her gaze locked onto him without blinking. “I don’t care what kind of business you have. But looking at your face right now, I really want to vent my emotions.”

The corner of Moreira’s lips lifted slightly. “Enough. Do you think I’d just stay quiet after being dragged into this place? No… idiot.”

Both of them immediately turned their eyes toward him. They waited, as if believing that Moreira was the only hope capable of bringing them home and understanding how Northerlheim worked, the white mist spreading in every direction.

“I’ll go first,” Moreira said calmly. “There’s no point in staying here.”

Yes, there really is no point in standing still. It felt like his soul was clawing its way out of his body… he thought, forcing a smile.

Without waiting for an answer, he turned around and walked toward an unclear direction. In his mind, a single possibility kept circling—a way to leave this place. A way that would surely demand a price.

The two of them remained silent as Moreira’s body was slowly swallowed by the white mist. His figure faded, leaving behind a faint silhouette, then vanished without a trace.

That man… I don’t even know his name.

But one thing was certain. He wasn’t walking without purpose. He was searching for a way out of the white-misted world—Northerlheim.

Having no other choice, Shuisa finally stepped forward to follow him.

She left the blue-eyed man behind without a single word, her face set in irritation.

“Ckk.” The man clicked his tongue softly. “Do I really have to follow that guy?”

He cleared his throat. “No. I’d better stay here. Moving without direction will only put me at a disadvantage.”

He sat cross-legged on the cold ground.

The mist around him slowly crept closer, brushing against his skin like damp, biting air. The cold crawled from his feet up to his chest. He took a deep breath, only to cough softly.

“Hkk—” He covered his mouth, rubbed his nose as it began to itch, then sneezed once. “Damn… my nose feels strange.”

The mist grew thicker, wrapping around his body, yet he remained still, as if it wouldn’t slowly kill him.

…

Meanwhile, Moreira continued walking without a clear destination.

He knew what was right and what was wrong. He also knew that escaping this place was nearly impossible—unless he was willing to do something that would cost him once again.

Something felt off with his hearing.

It wasn’t his ears that were picking up the sound, but his mind. Calm, rhythmic footsteps echoed clearly from behind him.

He glanced to the side before finally turning around. “Why are you following me?” he asked flatly.

Shuisa looked away. The corner of her lips lifted slightly. “Who says I am? It’s just a coincidence.”

“Tch…” Moreira clicked his tongue. “Do you think you can fool me?”

Shuisa’s eyes widened slightly as she stared at Moreira’s vague figure behind the thick white mist.

Wait… something’s wrong. Isn’t the language used in the southern continent different from the western continent? How can he understand me? Shuisa realized something. She wasn’t truly hearing Moreira’s voice the way she normally would. The words seemed to enter her mind directly.

This… wasn’t normal.

The realization left her both startled and awed.

“There’s something I want to ask,” Shuisa finally said. Her black eyes locked onto Moreira.

Moreira shrugged slightly. “Go ahead. I’ll answer as long as it’s not a strange question.”

“How can you understand my language?” Shuisa held her chin, exhaling slowly before continuing. “Yeah, I thought I was affected by something strange, but now that I think about it, this must be related to this mist-covered world. Am I right?”

Moreira’s eyes widened—not in shock, but in realization that he had only noticed it after Shuisa pointed it out.

He chuckled softly.

Huh, even I didn’t realize it myself. Yes, the language we use isn’t the same, but that doesn’t really matter either, because ears in Northerlheim don’t function the way they normally do… Moreira nodded, then turned his body and gave a small gesture with his thumb.

He stepped forward, his posture straighter than before, each step seeming to carry something indescribable.

An equivalent exchange? Moreira lifted his head. His brown eyes fixed on the figure hanging in the air—an eagle, transparent, without skin, without flesh. Only a pale gray aura formed its silhouette, like a marionette controlled by the white mist behind Northerlheim.

“Miss,” he said quietly, his tone restrained, “could you stop for a moment?”

Shuisa followed the request without asking anything. Her silence felt strange—as if her head was filled with something left unsaid.

“All right,” she replied at last, her voice low.

Neither of them moved.

Moreira’s gaze remained fixed upward. From the corner of his eye, he glanced back, confirming one thing: Shuisa had never been involved in matters like this. And that made the eagle’s presence feel even more… inappropriate.

In Moran, he had never seen such a creature—not even in symbols, not even in myths. And what hovered before him was clearly not a living being. No wings flapped, no flesh held its form. Only aura, condensing on its own, as if the world itself had decided what form he was allowed to see.

Then, without warning—

The scent of cloves slipped into his nose. Followed by cinnamon. Vanilla. Warm, fragrant, yet piercing. It touched his nose, then shot sharply into his head.

Moreira held his breath. He knew this smell. Not from a clear memory, but from something that should have been buried long ago.

Isn’t this scent from… Moreira remained still, thinking about the eagle’s sudden appearance in Northerlheim, a place where thick white mist spread in every direction.

But a few seconds later, both of them saw silhouettes behind the dense white mist—several men and women suddenly appearing before them, as if someone had placed pieces of bread into a jar and sealed it shut.

“Huh!?” Instinctively, they both uttered the same word.

More arrivals? According to what’s written in that book, that should be impossible… Did someone perform an exchange? Or could high-level Receivers be drawn to Northerlheim and struggling desperately to escape? Moreira thought uneasily, sweat beginning to bead on his face as he realized the situation was changing and had no idea what Northerlheim would do next.

“Damn it…” he hissed.

Shuisa, curious and having heard that mutter, couldn’t hold back her thoughts. “Are you irritated? I can see the veins on your neck bulging.”

“No. My neck just suddenly got stiff. Probably because I slept wrong last night,” Moreira muttered with a faint smile, brushing off the remark and lying yet again.

Huh, you think I can be fooled by that strange way of speaking? Shuisa thought irritably, staring at him with an expression of disbelief and suspicion.

Feeling her gaze on him, Moreira rubbed his neck and massaged it slowly, merely to divert the atmosphere. But the attempt failed; his eyes caught Shuisa’s reddened face, and a laugh slipped from his lips before he realized it.

“All right, all right,” he said with a thin smile. The smile didn’t last long. His expression hardened, his tone dropping. “You see it too, don’t you?”

“See what?” Shuisa asked to be sure, her eyes no longer reflecting only the eagle. Around them floated roughly nine other forms.

A wolf, a hunting dog, a killer jellyfish, a cat, a leopard, a snake, a rat, an orca, and a polar bear. No skin. No flesh. Only a gray aura pressing down, thickening on its own, forced into those shapes.

“Sir… it looks like the condition is getting worse…” Shuisa muttered in panic. Her hand reflexively grabbed Moreira’s shoulder.

But from Moreira’s perspective, the scene was different. He didn’t see the nine animals. Only a single eagle hovering silently before him, staring straight ahead, its beak slightly open, as if about to release something.

“Stay still,” Moreira said as he wiped the sweat seeping at his temple. “This… someone is causing Northerlheim to react, and it’s releasing something like what you’re seeing.”

Strange. This was truly strange. His fingers tightened around the dagger in his coat pocket, firm, ready to be drawn at any moment.

And… without giving him time to think, the silhouettes of the men and women he had seen earlier began to move. At the same time, the eagle hanging before him vanished.

However, the nine gray auras remained, still dense, still forming those animals, floating around the two of them like circus puppets pulled by strings, controlled by an unseen clown or puppeteer.

“It seems those people are already conscious and moving toward us,” Shuisa said, drawing her pistol and standing close beside Moreira, her body clearly on alert.

Yeah. It seems they’re not ordinary humans. Hahahaha. Damn it…. Even at a moment like this, Moreira still found time to laugh at his own misfortune, before his thoughts returned to his three friends—and Zavi. Whether they were safe… or had already fallen into a condition far worse than this.