The man stared at the horizon, his expression grim. A merciless blizzard raged around him, yet he stood clad only in a light leather vest, his eyes fixed on the distant, white expanse.
“What are you doing?” a voice called from behind.
A gray-haired woman, dressed just as thinly, tilted her head.
The man’s mouth opened, a puff of steam escaping into the wind. “Admiring the scenery.”
“Why are you calming your mind?”
“Because I’m tired,” he said, his voice flat. “You’re an ignorant barbarian. Stop asking questions.”
“Your mind is tired?” The woman cocked her head again, thoroughly confused. “Why is your mind tired, not your body? I don’t understand.”
“I told you I’d handle the perimeter watch. Why are you here? What is it?”
“Five tribesmen ate the black scorpions.”
The man’s face twisted in disgust. “Again? I told them not to eat those things. I told them they’d get sick. It hasn’t even been a week, and five more of them are dead?”
“It was a glorious challenge,” the woman said, laughing brightly. “I was proud of them.”
He let out a heavy sigh. “Go back and deal with the bodies. And if you even think about eating one, I’ll kill you myself.”
The man clicked his tongue. “Eat one, and you’ll die by my hand. Understand?”
“Ah, I understand,” she said, shivering before scurrying away. “I will never eat them.”
He watched her go, another sigh escaping him.
“Ignorant Horde.”
Of course, his threat was the only thing they’d fear. The fact that the scorpions were deadly on their own meant nothing to them.
Ignorant, stupid fools.
The man kicked at the snow in frustration, and a moment later, his form was swallowed by the white curtain of the blizzard.
It was a world of pure white, a landscape sculpted from snow and ice. Through this unforgiving wilderness, several carriages forged a path.
“Gods, what a plague. It’s freezing,” muttered one of the men escorting the carriages, pulling his fur hat down over his ears.
The breath he exhaled instantly turned to a cloud of frost. His eyebrows were white and stiff, looking as if they might snap off at the slightest touch.
“Wrap your furs tighter,” the man who seemed to be the leader commanded in a low voice. “Or you’ll freeze solid.”
The men cinched the collars of their coats, huddling deeper into the layers of fur and leather as they trudged onward. The tracks from the carriage wheels and their own heavy footprints were erased by the driving snow almost as soon as they were made.
A man with weary eyes glanced around. “Captain, I don’t care how good the pay is. This is madness.”
The captain raised his head. Before them, behind them, to the left and to the right, there was nothing but white. They were the only slash of color in an endless, monochrome world.
“Crossing the Pale Expanse… Are we really doing this?”
“Then be quiet,” the captain’s voice cut through the wind. “We’re getting close to the border.”
With a muttered curse, the man fell silent. There was little time for talk anyway. The moment they opened their mouths, the cold air would sear their lungs.
In silence, the caravan moved on.
Inside one of the carriages, an old man clicked his tongue. He had a long white beard and was dressed in a fine, expensive suit that was ill-suited for the climate.
He turned to his companion, his face etched with worry. “Are you alright, my lady?”
The young woman nodded, a lock of her blue hair swaying with the carriage’s movement. Her black eyes met the old man’s.
“Must we really do this?” she asked quietly.
The old man sighed, a look of despair on his face. “There was no need for you to take this arduous journey yourself, my lady…”
The young woman shook her head. “This was the condition of the agreement with my father.”
“Ah, that old man. He doesn’t appreciate his own daughter’s efforts to save the family, and—”
“Hey! I’m going to freeze to death out here!” a voice grumbled from outside, cutting off the old man’s lamentations.
The old man’s face flushed with anger. “Those disrespectful creatures.”
“Don’t be too hard on them,” the young woman said softly. “They were the only ones willing to escort us through the Pale Expanse.”
“Still… can’t we bring them inside? They look so cold.”
The carriage groaned under the strain of the brutal cold. Even with the protection of enchantments, the chill was impossible to ignore. She could only imagine what it was like for the men outside.
The young woman spoke with concern, but the old man’s refusal was firm. “No. You don’t understand what exists in this Pale Expanse.”
“Monsters… is that it?”
Monsters lived in the Pale Expanse. Horrifying creatures, things beyond imagination, lurked in the endless white.
“The probability of an encounter is low, but we must be on our guard. That is why we have escorts.”
The young woman gazed out the window. All she could see was snow. Not a single other color broke the monotony.
“Can people really live in a place like this?”
“That is merely a legend,” the old man said. “There is no way a human could survive in this environment.”
“But it’s a very credible legend.”
Even the old man couldn’t deny that completely. An empire had once ruled the world, its territory stretching from one end of the sea to the other. It had conquered everything.
Everything except the Pale Expanse.
This hellish realm, which occupied more than half the continent, lay at the very center of the world. No one who entered its depths had ever returned.
But the emperor, a man who wished to hold the world itself in his grasp, became obsessed with conquering it. He led his strongest warriors and all his armies into the Pale Expanse himself.
Years passed. The empire, having lost its master, collapsed and was nearly forgotten.
Then, the emperor returned. He came back alone, having lost countless soldiers and champions. He looked decades older, and he spoke like a man who had lost his mind.
He spoke of monsters in the Pale Expanse. Glacial Serpents that could devour icebergs whole. Jotun-bears whose steps caused earthquakes. Hideous rats that fouled the very oceans.
But the most dangerous thing in the Pale Expanse, he had said, was not the monsters.
“Ashen Horde with scars across their chests, wasn’t it?” she murmured.
“It’s just a legend, surely?”
“Perhaps. But the emperor’s words have credibility. Most of the monsters he described have since been discovered.”
After the emperor’s death, countless adventurers and expeditions had braved the Pale Expanse. Most never returned, but the few who survived brought back tales of their harrowing journeys. Their stories often matched the emperor’s descriptions.
“But no one ever reported seeing Horde, did they?”
In all those accounts, there was never any mention of them.
“It was likely a delusion brought on by the emperor’s ordeal. It is not something we should worry about.”
The young woman fell silent at the old man’s dismissal. As he said, it wasn’t their concern.
Just then, a sharp knock came at the carriage door.
“We are approaching the border.”
Tension instantly filled the small space, reflected on the faces of both the old man and the young woman. The Pale Expanse was not uniformly dangerous. The sacrifices of countless explorers had at least helped to map the areas where monsters were most likely to appear.
Once they crossed the border into that territory, the risk of an encounter would rise dramatically.
Outside, the mercenaries’ expressions hardened. Where they had been trudging loudly, their steps now became nearly silent.
“Not everyone who crosses the border runs into a monster,” the leader of the mercenaries said, his voice low and steadying. “If we move carefully, we can pass without incident. And even if we do meet something, we can probably defeat most of what lives here.”
“And what about the ones we can’t defeat?” another man grumbled. “We just die?”
“I won’t deny the possibility… but our chances are good. Move slowly.”
The sound of the carriage wheels was a soft crunch in the snow. The mercenaries swallowed hard, muscles tensed as they crept forward. They prayed that no new colors would appear in this world of white.
But reality had little room for prayer.
The leader, walking at the head of the column, came to a halt. “There’s something ahead.”
“I can’t see it clearly.”
The blizzard was too fierce. They could make out only a hazy silhouette, impossible to identify.
The leader narrowed his eyes. “I have good news and bad news.”
“Damn it, just spit it out.”
“The good news is, it’s small.”
Countless monsters roamed these wastes, some as large as mountains. A creature human-sized was one they could likely fight.
“The bad news is, it’s coming right for us.”
There was no escaping a confrontation.
Men swore as steel rasped from scabbards. One by one, they readied themselves for battle. Inside the carriage, the old man and the young woman clenched their fists, their knuckles white.
Through the tense, charged air, the figure drew steadily closer.
Finally, the blizzard parted for a moment, and its form was revealed.
The leader, who had been about to charge with his sword raised, froze in his tracks. The young woman, peering anxiously through the frosted window, felt her eyes go wide.
The creature that had emerged from the storm was not a monster.
It was a man. His ash-colored hair, dull as if bleached by dust, whipped in the wind. His body was a sculpture of muscle, and across his chest was a jagged, starburst of a scar. He wore only a light leather vest, offering no concession to the biting cold.
The barbarian stared at them for a long moment, then his mouth opened.
“I didn’t feel like going back, so I went for a walk. I didn’t expect to get this lucky.”
For a moment, they all doubted their hearing. The fluent, articulate common tongue was jarring, coming from a man who looked the very picture of a savage.
His ash-colored eyes met theirs.