[Translator - Night]

[Proofreader - Gun]

Chapter 385: The Story After (17). [Side Story 17]

“Mm.”

Ketal stirred, slowly waking from sleep.

The soft bed enveloped his entire body.

Out of habit, he reached his hand to the side.

But unlike usual, there was nothing to grab.

He opened his eyes and sat up.

“Oh, you’re awake?”

From the kitchen, Arkamis was cooking.

Dressed comfortably, she moved with practiced ease as she handled a pot.

“I wanted to have it ready before you woke up, but I’m a bit late.”

“Breakfast?”

“Mm. This time I wanted to try making it myself.”

“I’ll enjoy it then.”

Ketal smiled as he sat down.

He scooped up a spoonful of stew from the pot and put it in his mouth, while Arkamis watched nervously.

“How is it?”

“It’s good. Maybe just a bit more seasoning would make it perfect.”

“Mm. I’ll try that next time.”

Arkamis relaxed and smiled warmly.

After the meal, Ketal cleared the dishes.

When he went to find Arkamis, she was in her workshop, fiddling with something.

Sitting down behind her, Ketal asked.

“Still needs adjustments?”

“Mm.”

Arkamis spoke in a vague tone.

“I’ve got the shape down and the function working… but the fine-tuning isn’t easy.”

Arkamis wanted to have a child.

For that purpose, she had successfully created an artificial womb using nano technology.

But just because it was “complete” didn’t mean pregnancy would immediately happen.

The device was built, but to work properly, countless minor errors had to be corrected.

That process could only take time.

In the end, it needed repeated trials to confirm if there were problems.

Ketal gently reassured her.

“Don’t be too discouraged. I’ll help you.”

“…Mm!”

Arkamis nodded vigorously.

From then on, life settled into a rhythm.

She spent her time testing; if it failed, she would go back to adjustments.

Ketal stayed beside her, helping and supporting however he could.

Months passed like this.

Arkamis, with a slightly anxious expression, asked one day.

“…Ketal. Aren’t you bored?”

For months, he had never left her side.

The Ketal she knew loved freedom and travel.

Knowing that, she couldn’t help but worry he might feel trapped.

But Ketal truly didn’t mind.

“Doesn’t really bother me.”

“R-really?”

“Actually, I feel quite comfortable.”

It wasn’t an empty answer.

For the first time in ages, he was simply resting—spending days lounging at home, helping Arkamis, and being with her.

The restless tension that had always filled his head gradually faded away.

It wasn’t unpleasant—rather, it felt like he had finally found a sanctuary, a place to rest.

“Arkamis. You and I are family.”

A bond to last a lifetime, closer than anyone else.

“In a family, you lean on each other. No calculations, no strings attached. You just… stay together.”

That is what family is.

“Don’t hesitate. Rely on me whenever you want. In fact, that’s what I want.”

“…Really?”

With a giggle, Arkamis threw herself into his arms.

Ketal smiled as he embraced her.

Time passed on.

Despite her continued efforts, Arkamis made little progress, and eventually, she was the one who grew tired of it first.

“Ugh…”

She sprawled out on the bed, groaning.

Truthfully, she wasn’t the type who could sit still for long either.

Leaving the elven sanctuary had been partly because their values didn’t align—but also because she had been too bored.

While rolling around, a thought struck her, and she asked Ketal.

“Ketal. You lived in the White Wastelands, right?”

“That’s right.”

“How long did you stay there again?”

“I don’t know.”

Ketal shook his head.

It had been too long.

So long that he couldn’t even measure it.

The only thing certain was that it had been far beyond any human sense of time.

Arkamis leaned closer with curiosity.

“So… how exactly did you live there?”

She had heard a little before, but never in detail.

With nothing else to do, she thought she’d listen to his story.

“Hmm.”

Ketal hesitated. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ ɴovᴇl(F)ɪre.ɴet

For him, they were unpleasant memories he had no desire to revisit.

‘…No. Not anymore.’

Now he was free.

He belonged to this world completely.

There was no longer any reason to turn away.

Ketal began.

“You know my past before the White Wastelands, right?”

“Yes, I know.”

Ketal was not native to this world.

He was an outsider, from an entirely different universe.

Arkamis knew this much, having heard it from him directly before.

Calmly, Ketal continued.

“In that world, I prayed.”

Please.

Please let me escape that wretched hell.

A world with no wonder, no magic, no dragons—a colorless hell.

Please let me leave, and go to a world of fantasy.

Every night, he prayed.

And one day, that prayer was answered.

But in a twisted, alien way.

* * *

As always, he prayed for hours, to no one in particular.

And then, he fell asleep.

When he opened his eyes—

“…Huh?”

A chill.

A horrifying cold, cutting into his flesh, freezing his lungs until they burned.

His whole body felt frozen to the point he mistook it for heat.

‘What’s happening?’

He panicked.

[Translator - Night]

[Proofreader - Gun]

Just moments ago, he had been sleeping in his room.

Forcing his frozen eyelids apart, he finally managed to see.

And there was his body, half-buried in a glacier.

[First Quest.]

[Survive for one week.]

A system window suddenly appeared before his eyes.

But there was no time to make sense of it.

His body was freezing solid, his skin turning blue.

If he didn’t break out of the glacier immediately, hypothermia would kill him.

Struggling desperately, he forced his body to move.

“Nrgh!”

Crack!

The glacier trembled.

A hairline fracture gave him just enough space to move his hand.

He struck the ice wildly.

Crack!

The cracks spread further.

He slammed down with all his strength.

Crashhh!

The glacier shattered, and he tumbled free.

Shakily, he propped himself up on the ground.

“Uh… uh…”

He had escaped the glacier, but barely.

The deadly cold still clawed at his body.

He pressed himself against the broken ice, shielding against the wind.

“…What is this?”

Dazed, he looked around.

An endless land of glaciers.

Everything was white.

Even behind the ice, the freezing winds made him shiver uncontrollably.

Just moments ago, he had been asleep in his bed.

So why was he here?

But then, a thought struck him, and his eyes lit up.

“Could it be?”

His heart pounded with excitement, heat rushing through his veins against the bitter cold.

He clenched his fist.

“Could it be?! Finally!”

Had he finally arrived in a fantasy world?

Had his prayers been answered at last?

His eyes shone with ecstasy.

* * *

“Wait a second.”

Arkamis, listening intently, raised her hand with an incredulous look.

“…Are you saying… you liked that?”

Suddenly waking up in a frozen hell where he almost died—he enjoyed that?

She couldn’t fathom it.

But Ketal simply nodded as if it were obvious.

“I thought I’d been transported to fantasy at last. Why wouldn’t I be happy?”

“But you could’ve died there!”

“Even so, it wouldn’t have mattered.”

To die in the fantasy world he had longed for—that, to him, would have been a perfect ending.

“……”

Arkamis was speechless.

She thought she understood his yearning for fantasy, but clearly, it went far deeper than she imagined.

Ketal shrugged.

“Well, it didn’t take me long to realize I was mistaken.”

* * *

[Screeech! Screee!]

Something alien.

A grotesque lump of slime rushed at him, trying to engulf and dissolve him.

“Hm.”

He gripped his axe.

With one strike, he split the slime in two.

[Screeech!]

But it didn’t die.

Instead, it divided, two masses trying to smother him.

Annoyed, he stomped the ground.

Boom!

The impact sent the slime flying.

With a rough swing of his axe, he shredded it into over a hundred pieces before it finally stopped moving.

He picked up a piece and stuffed it into his mouth.

The vile, nauseating taste twisted his face—but if he didn’t eat, he wouldn’t survive.

“Hm.”

He gazed out across the horizon.

A boundless white expanse.

He walked and walked, but there was no end.

And the creatures he encountered were not fantasy monsters, but bizarre, unidentifiable abominations.

After several days, a thought entered his mind.

‘…This place.’

Was this really the fantasy world he had wished for?

A place of dragons, elves, and magic?

So far, it was nothing of the sort.

Just a ruined, alien wasteland.

“…No.”

No. Impossible.

This had to be the fantasy world.

There was no other possibility.

He forced himself to reject the doubt and gripped his axe tighter.

Crack.

The glacier broke beneath the axe’s edge.

He popped a shard of ice into his mouth, crunching down.

His gaze drifted to the axe in his hand, gleaming with strange embedded crystals.

“…This really is a good thing.”

It was an odd weapon he had found beside him after waking in the ice.

He didn’t know why it had been there, but it was sharp and durable—an invaluable tool.

Unbeknownst to him, the axe was a monster itself.

A monstrosity that had already fused with his body, slumbering within.

To Ketal, though, it was simply a lucky find.

“Hm.”

After a moment’s thought, he resumed walking.

No, not yet.

It hadn’t been that long—just a few days.

Too soon to judge.

Perhaps he had just landed in some remote part of the fantasy world.

If so, then he just needed to get out.

Yes, surely that was it.

Believing so, he pressed on.

“And at the end of it, I found them.”

Ketal’s voice lowered.

“My kin. The barbarians of the White Wastelands.”

[Translator - Night]

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