"How long will you ignore me?" Frostina asked the bunny who was still rubbing its head on Noel's head.
"I.. uh.. Just give me a minute!" The bunny said nervously.
"..."
Averting her glance toward her liege, she looked at his corpse and had such a sad expression on her face the moment she got her eyes on him.
She thought determinedly. 'I'll save you this time.'
Upon waiting for the snow bunny to do its things, Frostina had been staring at her liege during this time, clearly keeping her guard up.
"Erm.. Shall we introduce each other first?" The snow bunny hopping onto Noel's body, asked anxiously.
Not bothering to look at the bunny, Frostina introduced herself to the animal. "My name is Frostina. Yours?"
The bunny, not expecting a pleasant answer from her, quickly became somewhat startled before introducing itself.
"I am Noelle Absolute's familiar. You can call me Crystal."
Crystal added. "I act as Noelle Absolute's voice for a while, so technically, I'm also her."
Frostina listened closely to the snow bunny before asking. "Who is Noelle Absolute and that boy?"
"This boy is Noel Absolute and Noelle is his twin sister."
"..." Frostina disliked an answer like that, an answer without more information was something that irritated Frostina a lot. Could be because of the 'Helpers''s lack of explanation that caused her to feel this way.
So as to show her irritation, she let out a chilly aura around her and gazed at the snow bunny dead in the eyes.
"Urk! I..! Really! You want to know that 'place' right!? So stop being scary!" Crystal spoke, trembling slightly.
"Where is it?" Frostina asked and stopped revealing her icy aura immediately.
While Crystal stared at Frostina with her red eyes, she hopped off Noel's body and went toward Frostina.
Upon arriving by Frostina's side, Crystal had a glimpse at JoonChul's corpse and also felt a mournful emotion from within her.
"I'm sorry for Noel's action." Crystal apologized sincerely, bowing her small head in front of Frostina.
Frostina's eyebrows twitched when she heard the apology. Not only was that a futile apology, served no purpose at all, it was also what irked Frostina to her core.
'Apologizing after that brat killed my Liege? What ignorant bunny.' Frostina mused in anger.
As much as she wanted to torture Noel and Crystal, she did her best to surpressed her rage by clenching her hands into fists.
"Tell me where the garden is." Frostina asked again.
Naturally, Crystal wished to tell her, but that might bring about her own death if she were to inform Frostina.
Crystal thought to herself. 'If I tell her where that place is, she might kill me after hearing it.. And I really really really don't want that!'
Coming up with an idea, Crystal spoke while going up to Noel and tapping his hand with her paw. "Not until you treat Noel."
Although Frostina was left without an answer to her question multiple times, she still agreed and did as the bunny told her.
"Fine."
While Frostina got up from her spot, she summoned forth two large snowflakes beneath JoonChul and Noel. With Frostina by JoonChul's side and Crystal by Noel's side, Frostina began to bring about a snow storm underneath the snowflakes.
As such, the snow storm acted as a booster to launch the snowflakes toward the top of the hole. Even though it would take long for them to reach the top, Frostina had much of her patience to wait.
Considering that the hole was very deep, there were only tiny specs of light shining inside the hole, if it weren't for Frostina's snowflakes emitting a light source, she wouldn't have seen anything while ascending to the top.
Thanks to the snow light, Frostina was able to barely spot small pebbles dropping down to her. As a result, she quickly shattered them with her ice lances.
Of course, Crystal, who was watching Frostina, grew fearsome of her power.
"Whoa.. this is much scarier." Crystal spoke, clinging onto Noel's hair before hiding inside it.
However, as soon as Frostina ascended upper and upper toward the pit, she spotted the pit having things covering it with tiny holes for light to leak in.
Frostina muttered. "So that's why there wasn't much more light."
Because there were many objects blocking the top of the pit, Frostina needed to generate a snowball that had light to illuminate the area for her to see much more properly.
After she discovered the rocks and stones blocking her way, Frostina raised her hand to create a barricade around her and the other snowflake.
Without a doubt, Crystal was frightened by what Frostina was trying to do, so she quickly proceeded to hide deeper into Noel's hair.
Crystal cried out inside her head. 'Ahhh! She's crazy!! I'm gonna die for sure!'
Sending out another blizzard underneath the snowflakes, it forced the snowflakes to shoot out of the hole in mere seconds.
Destroying the rocks with Frostina's barricade, it caused a lot of ruckus as rocks and stuff kept getting on the barricade as well as tons and tons of rocks rolling off the barricade.
"I.. I survived! Haha!" Crystal gasped while poking her head out of Noel's hair.
After they were out of the hole, Frostina proceeded to lower them to the snowy ground. As such, the rocks that were left on the barricade, eventually rolled off to the ground.
That was when Frostina realized she was dropping the rocks onto people below her, although they had been shielded with threads, Frostina didn't want the caster to feel the crashing sensation of rocks knocking into the threads.
'I should have looked.' Frostina talked to herself, began to strike the falling rocks with her ice lances.
Slicing the rocks into halves or more, she carried on cutting and dragging them away with her ice lances. Thanks to this, Frostina had safely landed to ground while also not causing trouble to the others.
..The others as in 'The Rebels' Guild.
———
A short moment later...
"HwanGi… are you okay?" Alaine asked HwanGi who was standing and blankly staring in one direction.
In spite of Alaine being concerned over HwanGi, she was more worried about the people over in the direction where HwanGi was gazing at.
Mya, who was supposed to be with Louis, had ran hurriedly toward HwanGi to ask him this question. "They'll be fine right..?"
"Mya.." Louis came over to her side and muttered her name.
Not knowing what to say to the child, Alaine and Louis stood there with a gloomy expression on their faces.
Without anything to say, Alaine shifted her eyes toward HwanGi, wondering why HwanGi had the most sorrowful expression like the ones JoonChul's comrades were having.
"HwanGi.. Please say something to Mya." Alaine leaned in to tell HwanGi.
Again, HwanGi didn't let a word out of his mouth, seeming as though he didn't actually hear Alaine's voice. And he still kept his eyes locked in that one direction.
The reason why they were laying their glances over to that one spot, was because that was where JoonChul's corpse was.
Including his comrades, everyone there had been expressing their despair through their expressions. Wholly making the atmosphere extremely melancholic, they didn't speak a word after seeing JoonChul's corpse in front of their eyes.
The moment Frostina brought JoonChul and two strangers into the cocoon, the surrounding was grim and silent.
"Captain.." Mirai with her shaking lips mumbled.
Couldn't hold it in anymore, Mirai shoved herself to Raiden, hiding the fact that she was shredding her tears into Raiden's chest and quietly crying to herself.
With that, Raiden swiftly held Mirai tight, embracing her with as much comfort as he possibly could.
And instead of crying like Mirai, Raiden bit his lips to show his disheartenment and closed his eyes shut to not look at his Sensei who had died.
As for Behemoth, he went up to JoonChul and did the saddest thing ever. Slowly but surely, Behemoth placed his head onto JoonChul's hand, appearing as if he wanted a head pat from his master.
Dolefully, he continued on rubbing his head onto JoonChul's hand before nudging his hand with his head.
As it did nothing to help revive the already deceased JoonChul, Behemoth resumed wishing to have the hand of JoonChul pat him. Even if he actually knew that his master was completely dead, Behemoth still didn't want to believe it.
..Despite experiencing the death of JoonChul's deaths countless times in the past, Behemoth just couldn't accept it. Neither did the rest of JoonChul's companions.
"..."
Frostina observed her comrades having their emotional moment before she turned to look at Crystal and Noel. 'Time is important right now, I must hurry.'
As much as Frostina hated to interrupt her comrades' moments, she had to do something about Noel.
"Mirai, could you treat this brat?" Pointing at Noel, she requested for Mirai's treatment.
After hearing Frostina's request, Mirai stopped crying her heart out and wiped her tears away with her threads on her sleeve.
Before she agreed, Mirai turned her head slightly to only have her right eye see Frostina. "Alright, big sis."
While she was trying to stand up, Raiden helped Mirai a little and accompanied her with the treatment.
'I'll keep an eye on Mimi-Chan. I don't know when she may be crying again..'
Because of a thought like that, Raiden, not worried about himself, became pretty worrisome of Mirai and so, he went along with her just in case.
Only Behemoth by JoonChul's side, Frostina stared at her liege's corpse before gloomily switching her gaze at the others which were HwanGi's direction.
'Why is he as sad as us?' Frostina pondered.
When her eyes caught a peek of HwanGi's expression being different from the others standing beside him, she became a bit stunned.
Somehow, Frostina didn't like how HwanGi was extremely depressed about JoonChul's death.
Nonetheless, she couldn't waste time by wondering about something trivial like this. As a result, she moved toward Crystal, the one who may know about a miracle.
While Crystal was staying beside Noel, she watched as Noel was being treated. But when she noticed Frostina coming her way, she felt herself getting scared already.
'Oh dear.. Not this again!' Crystal thought while her ears were trembling.
Since Crystal was somewhat in the way, Frostina went ahead and grabbed Crystal's ears to move her elsewhere.
'Ack..! Don't tell me she's gonna eat me?! Ah! Please don't!' Crystal kept thinking of nonsense.
After getting placed on the snow by Frostina, she began to ask the bunny a question about 'that place' one more time.
"Now tell me. Where is it?"
Crystal could sense Frostina's aura getting chillier by the seconds. 'I shouldn't ignore her question this time! I think I'll die for real!'
Quickly, Crystal did her best at answering Frostina's questions. "Inside the temple!"
"Did it appear long ago?"
"No! It appeared a few days ago!"
'Then we only have a couple of days left to find and clear it.' As Frostina was thinking of a way, she resumed to ask Crystal.
"The location?"
"Beneath the entrance of the temple!"
"Have anyone tried to enter it?"
"Nope!"
"Does that mean it's difficult to find?"
"Yeah!"
"Lastly, how much do you know about that garden's tasks?"
"Not much!"
"Then, that's all."
"Phew..!" Crystal realizing that she had finished answering, took a breather before slowly stepping away from Frostina.
The fact that Crystal was backing away, was because she was afraid of what Frostina was going to do later to her.
Crystal wondered. 'Now what is she gonna do? Is she going to kill me? This cute bunny? Me?'
"Where are you going?" Frostina asked, grabbing the poor bunny's ears.
"Eek! What are you planning to do to me?! I told you everything!" Sniffling for her life, Crystal replied.
"Quiet."
"Eep!"
After Crystal kept her mouth shut, afraid by Frostina's future plan, she had her eyes closed, praying that Frostina wouldn't kill her.
Unexpectedly, when she felt herself getting taken to somewhere else and being put down to the snow, Crystal took a small peek to see where she was.
By then, Frostina had left her by Noel's side, not saying a word to Crystal as she left her there.
'Huh? Maybe she's not that scary after all.' Crystal thought as she let out a sigh of relief.