[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: Heart Kingdom Outskirts]

[Virelheim Mountain Village]

Those cold blue eyes pierced her very being.

It wasn't a glare. It wasn't even anger.

It was worse.

There was something in those eyes that stripped her down to nothing — that hollow, steady indifference that made Gretel feel as though her soul was being judged and dismissed. It was the same kind of gaze one might give to an insect before deciding whether or not to crush it.

Her breath hitched. It felt as though a weapon had been drawn, resting just beneath her chin, forcing her to stay perfectly still. How could a simple gaze feel so lethal?

She took an involuntary step backward, boots crunching against the debris-strewn dirt.

From her uniform, from that composure and ethereal beauty — Gretel knew who she was looking at.

The Mortifer.

Snow.

A Nil far more experienced. Far more powerful.

Gretel didn't need to see her fight to understand it. She could feel it — the overwhelming, suffocating certainty that she was standing before someone who had long since stopped questioning whether her actions were right or wrong. Someone who had accepted her own power as reason enough.

And standing there, surrounded by the corpses of villagers, Gretel felt that same bitter truth settle inside her chest. The woman before her — this Snow — was the one responsible for all of this.

Her throat tightened. Her jaw locked. She wanted to move — to shout, to strike, to do something — but her limbs refused to obey. That gaze had turned her to stone. For a long, unbearable moment, there was only silence. The faint sound of the wind whistling through shattered beams, the distant trickle of blood into the dirt, the stifling silence of two Nils regarding each other across a field of bodies.

Then Snow finally spoke.

"Ah," she said softly, tilting her head slightly. "I see now." Her tone carried some measure of curiosity, as though she were piecing together something she already knew. "Based on your appearance," Snow continued, "you must be the one who stole the artifact."

The words hit Gretel sharply. Her lips parted, but she didn't answer. She didn't need to. Her silence was enough.

She had already guessed why Snow was here. The artifact — of course it was that. It always came back to that cursed thing.

Snow's expression didn't shift as she continued.

"Seems you are a Nil," she mused, fully turning to face Gretel now, as though finally acknowledging her as something slightly more than scenery. "Well, make things easier for yourself, girl. Give up the artifact. You appear to be little more than a traveler… so I need not kill you like these villagers."

The casualness in her voice chilled Gretel further. The way she said it — I need not kill you like these villagers — it was as if she were discussing the weather.

Something inside Gretel cracked at that. Her fear gave way, if only for a heartbeat, to something else.

Her gaze swept over the blood-soaked ground — all the bodies, all the faces frozen in terror and disbelief. She could almost hear their last breaths lingering in the air. And then she looked back at Snow — at that woman who stood amidst the massacre as if it were nothing more than a necessary inconvenience.

"Do you…" Gretel's voice wavered, disbelieving. "Do you even feel anything for killing them?" The words escaped before she could stop them.

For a moment, Snow said nothing. She simply looked at her, as if weighing whether the question deserved a reply at all. The silence stretched on long. It was suffocating.

When she finally spoke, her voice was cool. "Why," she said simply, "would I feel anything for those deserving of death?"

Gretel blinked. Her breath caught in her throat.

"What?" she managed to blurt out, her voice trembling between disbelief and anger.

She couldn't comprehend the words. The logic behind them twisted something deep in her chest.

Snow's expression didn't change. If anything, she looked faintly bored. "My reasonings are my own, girl," she said at last, waving the matter aside. "Now, the artifact. I understand that you still, no doubt, want to cling to your life."

That condescension — that cruel, casual dismissal — made Gretel's heart pound harder. The idea that life itself was something Snow could choose to grant or deny stirred something fierce within her.

She looked again at the villagers' corpses, at the empty sky above, at the ruin she had walked through to reach this point.

"I see…" Gretel murmured at last. The words came resigned, almost inaudible. She had seen monsters before — fanged, disgusting, misshapen things that snarled and clawed at the dark. But this… this was something else entirely.

The monsters that haunted her now didn't wear fangs or claws.

They wore human skin.

They looked just like her.

Wordlessly, Gretel's hand reached for her weapon. The familiar sound of steel sliding free filled the air.

Her rapier gleamed in the dull light, trembling slightly in her grip. The weight of it felt heavier than ever.

Resolve or desperation. There was little difference now on what fueled her.

Snow's eyes narrowed, her expression finally shifting — not in surprise, but in faint disappointment. "So you choose to throw your life away, hm?" The Mortifer tilted her head slightly, regarding Gretel. "I cannot comprehend it," she continued softly. "Perhaps you feel responsible. Or perhaps you believe it your duty to avenge these sinners. I suppose it does not matter."

Her tone was unhurried.

She extended a hand, palm open.

"Come then," Snow said quietly. "If death is the only answer you will accept, I'll grant it to you myself."

Gretel's fingers tightened around her rapier's hilt as her breath trembled.

For a moment, she simply stood there, staring into those indifferent blue eyes — eyes that reflected nothing back at her, not even malice. It was as though the Mortifer was carved from glass.

Gretel inhaled once. Her lungs burned already, her throat tightened, but she forced the air through anyway.

Then she moved.

A crack split the silence — the sound of her boots grinding off the fractured ground as she launched forward. The wind rippled around her, dust scattering under the pressure of her speed. Her rapier darted ahead in a flash of silver.

But it struck only air.

Snow had shifted to the side effortlessly, her gaze followed Gretel's strike , unimpressed .

"You're faster than I expected," she merely said.

Gretel didn't answer. She pivoted sharply on her heel, dragging her blade in a low arc that sliced toward Snow's midsection. The Mortifer stepped backward, her movements graceful.

Steel hissed through the air again and again.

"Do you want to know why they deserved to die?" Snow asked suddenly, her tone maddeningly calm as she tilted her head to avoid another thrust. Her words didn't even rise or falter.

Gretel's rapier came down again, but her breath stuttered. Snow stepped aside and continued speaking.

"They hid beneath false kindness," she said. "Pretended at virtue while rotting inside. You call them innocent villagers—" she slipped past another attack "—but what you truly mean is helpless victims."

"Shut up!" Gretel shouted, voice cracking, striking with renewed force — the silver blur of her blade cutting arcs of light between them.

Snow leaned back, letting the edge graze the air just before her chin.

"I see their kind for what they are," she continued evenly. "Selfish, complacent. They would take and take, and when the world burns, they weep and ask why the fire found them."

"Shut your damn mouth!" Gretel screamed again, her heart hammering. She thrust again — faster — her hand trembling from the force behind it. But Snow wasn't there. A sidestep, a turn — Snow's tail coats brushed Gretel's shoulder as she passed, and the Mortifer's voice came.

"You need not be so angry," Snow murmured. "I only gave them what they'd already invited."

Gretel's fury spiked, her body trembling with a heat she could barely contain. She could feel her control slipping — the tightness of her grip, the edge of her breath, the cracks forming in her resolve.

"You killed innocent people!" Gretel hissed, spinning around to face her, her rapier trembling in her grasp. "You trying to justify yourself tells me you're too cowardly to admit it's just pleasure."

Snow's expression didn't change. "Pleasure?" she echoed softly. "You think there's joy in this?"

She moved then — her first true motion forward. Her hand rose, palm open, and the air seemed to shiver around it. Gretel barely saw the step before Snow's leg whipped upward, a perfect arc.

The kick struck her clean across the ribs.

The impact knocked the air from Gretel's lungs. For a heartbeat she felt weightless — then the world inverted. Her body flew backward, colliding with the ground hard enough to send dust spiraling.

Pain erupted through her side, sharp and breathless. She gasped, trying to pull air back into her lungs, her rapier tumbling from her grasp and clattering somewhere out of reach.

Snow lowered her leg calmly, exhaling as though nothing of importance had happened.

"You fight like someone who's never learned to let go," she said. "So desperate to prove that your ideals mean something. But ideals crumble the moment they're touched by blood. This is merely clarity. Their deaths, clairity. My justice, clairity."

Gretel coughed, her body shaking as she pushed herself onto one elbow. "You think that excuses this?" she rasped. "You think this is somehow clarity?"

"I think it requires cruelty," Snow replied simply. She looked down at her. "Mercy is the language of the weak. The world has no place for those who cling to it."

For a moment, the silence returned. Only Gretel's strained breathing filled it — harsh and shallow. Her gaze fell, unwillingly, to the ground beside her.

A body. One of the villagers — an old woman. The same one who had given Shuten a place to stay, a kind woman. Her eyes now stared blankly upward, the same kind features slack in death.

Something inside Gretel's chest broke.

Snow's voice cut through her grief.

"You see? She smiled at you, didn't she? Pretended to care. But had you been the one bleeding in the street, would she have avenged you? Or would she have prayed from afar, waiting for someone else to do it? That is their nature. To sit idly."

Gretel's trembling hand reached for her rapier, fingers brushing the hilt.

"I don't care what excuses you make," she whispered, voice trembling. "I don't care what kind of twisted bullshit helps you sleep. You don't get to decide who deserves to live."

Snow regarded her in silence for a moment.

"But," Snow murmured, "I already have."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.