Chapter 1344: Chapter 904 Northern Land Ice City

For the average adventurer, moving forward in the Northern Land is indeed a very painful thing, with continuous blizzards, waist-deep snow, and piercing cold. Not to mention the dragons flying around everywhere, as well as the Demon Clan that could potentially appear right in front of you.

In fact, if you walk along the road, it is very likely that you will see adventurers who have frozen to death.

Fortunately, Duanmu Huai doesn’t need to walk.

“Hoo———-”

The bitter cold wind whistles, but Duanmu Huai doesn’t care and just drives his Jet Backpack forward. His entire body is wrapped in Power Armor, which can be used at will even in cosmic battles, not to mention this mere cold wind. As for Zhenjiling lying on Duanmu Huai, she is also wearing Cosmic Battle Armor from Star Union, completely sealed and absolutely not feeling the cold.

The only one who needs to keep warm is Ogis–however, at this moment, the little girl has entered a dormant state, completely isolating herself from the outside world.

After all, the main body of Ogis is a Puppet, and she doesn’t care about this trivial matter.

“This damned place is so boring, nothing but snow, sigh, luckily I don’t have to shovel it, or else I would be annoyed to death.”

While flying in the sky, Duanmu Huai started to complain out of boredom. It was just like back in his hometown, where people from the south loved snow, but for people from the north, snow was annoying. Not to mention having to clear snow for school the next day, the roads being slippery was maddening, just thinking about it was utterly boring, not at all exciting like how southerners felt about snow.

“Ah, big brother, seems there’s a cave up ahead!”

Just then, Zhenjiling, lying on Duanmu Huai’s shoulder, pointed ahead and looking in the direction of her finger, indeed, a cave was visible amidst the white snow, near the cliff below.

Looks like there might be people?

“Anyway, let’s go have a look.”

While speaking, Duanmu Huai adjusted his direction, headed towards the cave, then he lowered his altitude, descending from the sky…

“Whoosh whoosh whoosh!!”

However, before Duanmu Huai even landed, suddenly, several arrows emerged from below, shooting towards him. The arrows hit Duanmu Huai’s helmet and quickly bounced off. At the same time, Duanmu Huai also crashed down in front of the cave like a stone.

“……”

All around was dead silence, Duanmu Huai shook his head, then turned to look to the side.

“What’s the meaning of this?”

“Seems they are not from the Demon Clan.”

Hearing Duanmu Huai’s voice, a man clad in a white cloak, holding a Bow and Arrow, jumped down from a tree at the entrance of the cave, closely examining Duanmu Huai and his shoulder companions, Ogis and Zhenjiling.

“You are Humans, aren’t you.”

“Isn’t that obvious, do you see any horns on us?”

“True.”

The man appeared quite composed.

“It’s just that you flew over from the sky, so it gave us a scare, is this some kind of Magic?”

“It’s flown by this thing.”

Duanmu Huai pointed to the Jet Backpack behind him, the other person seemed to suddenly understand and nodded.

“I see.”

“……”

“……”

For a moment, both sides fell into silence.

“So, can I go in?”

“Of course, you’re an Adventurer too, right?”

The man jumped up and walked on the snowfield–despite the snow being deep enough to reach his waist, he stood on top of the snow.

Well, probably some kind of strange Magic.

All this way, Duanmu Huai had seen many similar magics, not to say anything else about the Human Magic System, but it has all kinds of weird magic.

Like magic for washing dishes, removing mold, cleaning oil stains, and repelling mosquitoes…you know, these quirky little tricks are kinda useful.

Grandma’s household tricks, right?

It’s probably one of them.

“What is this place?”

While following the archer into the cave, Duanmu Huai spoke up.

“I thought all the Humans outside Northern Land were killed by the Demon Clan.”

“Just like you thought.”

Hearing Duanmu Huai’s inquiry, the archer spoke without turning his head.

“We are not residents from around here; in fact, we are Adventurers who have come to subdue the Demon King.”

Just then, Duanmu Huai and others followed the archer deep into the cave.

The dark cave looked plain and even gloomy, yet the archer only took a few steps, then turned around. Only then did Duanmu Huai see that on one side of the cave there was actually a path, just that this passage was hidden by the external mountainside–if one just glanced at it casually, they probably wouldn’t have imagined that such a route existed inside.

“Oh my, this is really…”

Following the archer into the passage, Duanmu Huai couldn’t help but want to recite lessons.

It was exactly that so-called feeling of “first narrow, just wide enough for a person, then after walking several dozen steps, suddenly broadening.”

However, what lay inside was not some idyllic land, but a huge cavity filled with numerous buildings that resembled an underground city. At this moment, the place was bustling with crowds of people, both men and women, most of whom were dressed as adventurers.

“How many people are there here exactly?”

“Around three hundred or so.”

The archer answered.

“We all came here to subdue the Demon King, but because of the heavy snowstorm, we could only stay here– this place used to be a dwelling of the Dwarf race, but the original inhabitants were killed off by the Demon Clan long ago. Luckily, their buildings are still intact and usable.”

“How long do you plan to stay here?”

“At least until the blizzard subsides, I guess.”

The archer shrugged his shoulders.

“At minimum, it might take a few months.”

“…then how long have you been here already?”

“About six months now. The Northern Land is different from other places, with only two months in a year suited for travel; going out at other times is akin to a suicide mission. We took advantage of these two months to enter the Northern Land, found this place, and continued to wait. Next year during these two months, we’ll go out and try to break into the Demon King Palace. Otherwise, we’d either be killed by the Demon King or freeze to death outside.”

Hearing this, Duanmu Huai was utterly speechless.

“I thought the adventurers who set out to defeat the Demon King would be undaunted and face the difficulties head-on.”

“That depends on the situation though. The Demon King has been around for a thousand years; he’s not short on time, right? It’s one thing to die in battle against the Demon Clan, but dying in a blizzard means achieving nothing.”

“So, you guys have no idea about Paretia attacking the Northern Fortress?”

“There was such a thing?”

Hearing this, the archer looked at Duanmu Huai with some surprise.

“Did they succeed?”

“They failed. They are now slinking back to the Royal City, and due to some problems, they might not even be able to defend the Royal City.”

“I see…”

Hearing Duanmu Huai’s response, the archer sighed, seemingly without much emotion.

“What a pity, if Paretia had succeeded, they might have been able to support us. Now it seems unlikely.”

“You guys are really quite… calm.”

Looking at the adventurers coming and going on the streets, Duanmu Huai felt it was novel. At least superficially, the people here seemed to be enjoying their time, talking and laughing from time to time, playing chase, and there were even elderly people setting up stalls nearby…

Setting up stalls?

“This city also has a history of about a hundred years. I don’t know which adventurers discovered it initially, but anyhow, some adventurers chose to continue towards the Demon King Palace to subdue the Demon King, while others stayed behind to serve the newcomers. So now, this city still looks somewhat decent.”

While talking, the archer led Duanmu Huai and others to a stately stone building.

“This is the city’s municipal center. Since everyone here is an adventurer, currency itself doesn’t mean much here. If you want to earn food and supplies, you need to exert yourself. As long as you take on commissions here and complete them, you can earn corresponding contribution points, which can be used to buy supplies or rent a room for rest. Well, I need to go back to work now.”

After saying this, the archer waved at the guards outside and then turned and left.

At this moment, Zhenjiling, who was leaning on Duanmu Huai’s shoulder, curiously poked her head out.

“Big brother, this city is really quite interesting.”

“Indeed, this place is truly fascinating.”

Duanmu Huai nodded and then walked into the building in front of him.

Just as the archer had said, this place looked like a city hall. In the spacious hall, there were circular stone counters with clerks stationed behind them, facing a crowd of adventurers.

Since there is no ticket-vending machine here, one probably doesn’t need to register.

Duanmu Huai walked directly to one of the unoccupied counters, and upon seeing Duanmu Huai’s arrival, the young girl behind the counter immediately greeted him with a smile.

“Ah, hello, welcome! Adventurers… Are you new to this city?”

“Yes, we just arrived in this city.”

Duanmu Huai pointed to himself, then to Zhenjiling and Ogis.

“Could you tell?”

“Of course, this isn’t usually the time when adventurers enter the Northern Land; typically, adventurers come into the Northern Land a few months later during the thawing period…”

Speaking of which, that archer had mentioned the same thing too. Wait, does that mean the city guards didn’t let me go out because it was still not the safe period to enter the Northern Land?

Can’t you be clear, would it kill you?

Duanmu Huai rolled his eyes helplessly, but well, at least he made it here, right?

Since that’s the case, let him see what this city is really about.