I’d Thought Something Was Strange.

“Mjolnir!”

Lightning dwelled within the axe.

He already knew it would not work even if he threw it like this.

He knew that, and yet Kikori still threw it.

His target was the one directly in front of him.

As expected, the thrown axe was deflected, and the lightning slid across its surface as well.

And of course the other Snow Alligator did not miss that opening.

It lunged from behind, aiming to bite Kikori.

Into that wide-open mouth went “the other axe” Kikori threw as he turned around.

“Gah… GYAGAGGAGAGAGAGAGAGGA!?”

The lightning that mercilessly entered through its mouth ravaged the Snow Alligator’s body from the inside.

“Flame Sphere.”

The enormous fireball Orphe hurled down from the sky bore down on the first Snow Alligator.

The Snow Alligator did not seem to care about that attack in the slightest.

It did not, but… the “snow” beneath it was a different matter.

If magic “slid off” the Snow Alligator’s surface,

then naturally the magic that slid off would go to its surroundings.

And this too was only natural… when struck by flames hot enough to scorch a Yeti, snow would normally evaporate helplessly.

With a heavy hiss, the snow beneath the Snow Alligator melted away in a large patch.

To begin with, the snow had piled up deeply enough for a Yeti to hide in.

A hole large enough for the Snow Alligator to “fall” into opened up.

“GYAAAAAAAH!?”

It tried somehow not to fall, but there was no way it could manage that.

It tumbled down pathetically and ended up flipped onto its back with its belly facing upward.

And once it exposed itself like that,

“Mjolnir.”

The axe wrapped in lightning that came flying in held more than enough power to finish the Snow Alligator off.

“…Phew.”

Catching the returned axe, Kikori dropped down to sit a short distance away from the hole.

Snow had already begun to pile up in the great hole Orphe opened, and before long it would probably return to being the original snowfield.

And then… while holding out his palm as if to catch that snow, Kikori murmured,

“I’d thought something was strange.”

“What?”

“This snow. It’s filled with mana, isn’t it?”

“Well, of course it is. This is that kind of place, you know?”

“Well, yes, it is. But even though this much snow is piling up, there’s no sign of it building past a certain height.”

When Kikori said that, Orphe tilted her head.

What Kikori recalled was a winter landscape from the northern countries he had seen on the news in his previous life.

Snow piled far higher than a person. Thinking of that sight…

“If the snow is falling this hard, it wouldn’t be strange if the area beyond the Transfer Gate were in the middle of a wall of snow.”

“Ahh, I see?”

That was probably a sensation Orphe, who did not walk on the ground, could not really understand.

Kikori could not help but give a wry smile, but… now that he thought about it, the hint had been there from the very beginning.