CHAPTER 299: MONOTONOUS UNTIL IT’S NOT

Was she meant to be horrified or disgusted by what she had discovered?

Rather than either one, as Irene stared down at the frozen corpse of whoever had gotten stuck in that place, she found herself amazed.

Her eyes traced over the body which was mostly bone by that point. The decay of freezing and then thawing each year for however long it had been there was evident. However, the clothing and weapons on it were surprisingly well preserved.

Momentarily, she wondered if they had been trapped there, but it changed when she noticed that there was an axe through their chest. Her head snapped up and she found a hole in the door. If anything, it looked like the person had purposefully been put there. Their perpetrator pinned them to the door and locked them in.

It was a struggle she would never know the reasoning for, a person who had been lost to time.

Now that she had an answer to the ’how?’, she looked back down and wondered about the ’who.’

It was undoubtedly a man. Red hair braided on his head and a full beard that he was likely once proud of. The Sünstoian genes were strong.

She crouched as she looked at his hair.

There were a couple of braids on his head that went down the side. Strings tied them at the bottom. Lost to time was the color of those strings. They would have meant something at one point: either his family or what they were protecting against.

Had people missed him? Did they mourn this man?

Even his clothing told a tale of a time she never experienced. Even if it was only a few decades before, she could recognize patterns that she had only seen her grandmother and father wear. Everyone else wore clothing appropriate to the kingdom they were in.

Irene had an urge to find a few pieces of clothing she could bring with her from the chests in her grandmother’s house. There was a desire to see what Sunstoian people considered feminine, but she had a feeling it wasn’t fancy gowns that the south was known for in the nobility.

"I feel sorry for you," Irene told the corpse. "I can only bury you in the snow. Your chance of survival is long past, but mine is still here."

Using the very shovel that helped her get into that situation in the first place, she changed her path and walked towards the outer edge of this area of the village.

Sunstoian people didn’t bury their dead in coffins. Instead, they buried them completely uncovered in anything except clothing they might normally wear and furs that would decompose with them. The point was that they could all return to the earth. The best she could offer for now was the person decomposing further and turning into dust if they no longer had the protection of the storehouse surrounding them.

When she had a decently sized hole a few feet down in the snow, Irene went to the corpse, dreading having to drag him into the place she intended.

As expected, she started dragging him by his boots, but one of his ankles snapped in half and she found herself with a disembodied foot in her hands. Luckily, it was far past the time where there would be blood so it wasn’t as gruesome as it was mildly disturbing.

It seemed she would have to use his pant leg to drag him along instead. She lost a few pieces along the way, but by the time she was finished, at least he had a resting place. She buried him with the snow displaced and said a silent prayer, hoping he went safely to the afterlife or if he was sent to hell, he could fight his way to a better outcome.

"Goodbye, sir," she uttered and turned away.

It was time for her own self-preservation as she went ahead to the storeroom to see if the rotting corpse had done anything to the food inside.

It seemed that everything she wanted was on the far wall anyway. The items closest to the corpse were all jarred things that she didn’t trust as it was. They would remain there and she hoped no poor fool ever cracked them open, thinking it was a reasonable food source.

Just as in all the other storerooms, she found plenty of oats, hay, wild rice, and flour. However, this place had the addition of barley as well which would be a good alternate food source she knew was fortifying enough for a hearty meal.

"I’m missing chicken, cow, and fish about now," she said with a sigh. "The food at the Duke’s Tower is nicer than I could have ever dreamed. I must have been spoiled before not to realize."

However, she knew that she was lucky to have had meat with most meals so far as it was. Whenever she hadn’t be able to hunt, she found ways to make the meat last longer than it normally would have.

Those days, Irene realized she was certainly losing weight because of the eating habits she had been forced into. It didn’t matter though because she wasn’t starving by any means. She still had energy to go forward each day. It just seemed to be her reality for now. She would continue to look forward to heartier meals in the Duke’s Tower when she returned... however long it might be.

At least now she had a sense of satisfaction that she wasn’t going to starve. If she needed to come back a few times for more fodder, she certainly would.

With that, she felt it was alright to move on and explore the village rather than thinking of survival after she dropped the last of the food off at her home base where she checked on Sammy and gave him more food.

"We’ll be eating good for a while," she told the horse.

After that, Irene’s days were full of exploration and reading. She had a list of books that her grandmother deemed most important to take back to Chemois with her. As expected, they were well-preserved in large chests.

However, while she had the opportunity, the girl also wanted to read everything she couldn’t take with her. Whether it was merely to learn about her ancestors or understand her father’s culture better, she took in every bit of reading she possibly could.

Since she had learned to read the weather, she knew that there was an impending snowstorm and she was going to have to wait it out anyway. After that, she would have to set out for Chemois once again because if she didn’t return, people were going to start worrying. Even her father said that he would follow her eventually.

As the winds ran through the area after five days of being in the village, Irene went to the storehouse one last time to make sure they had supplies while they shut themselves into the house for a few more days. More fodder for Sammy, more oats for herself. She put bags of both over her shoulders and crunched through the snow, watching clouds build up in the distance and confirming the cyclical nature of the winter weather of the far north.

Irene was finally back to the house with all of her supplies, and she began melting more snow over the fire she had left burning—another thing she had to leave for occasionally was more wood. She went to pet Sammy and ensure he was doing alright. During that time, he was only able to run in the mornings, but it seemed like enough to keep his usual good temperament intact.

As the girl prepared herself the largest meal she would have that day, she jumped as the wind caused the door to shake.

"I suppose I should lay fur underneath the bottom edge so it doesn’t do that for the next few days," she explained to no one in particular.

Just as she said she would, she placed an extra fur there and was satisfied with the result for the time being.

Everything seemed as usual. She was in a monotonous schedule that many would find boring, but she had long since learned how to enjoy the solitude with all of the books she had been reading.

That night, she eventually went to bed with a book under her pillow. Going to sleep, she felt no different than usual.

At least until the world around her shook and she sat up straight in slight panic. The shaking was severe enough that even Sammy whinied.

However, Irene’s face was blank, and when she finally opened her eyes, a faint purple glow was seen.

Her movements were slow and clumsy as if she were sleepwalking.

She started pulling on clothing haphazardly. Her armor and outer coat weren’t tied up correctly but they were still on. She pulled a hood over her head before going to Sammy and taking him from his pen. There she strapped on his saddle which was undoubtedly crooked on his back.

She then dragged the horse to the door that she pulled open with much force. He seemed hesitant to follow her since her normally confident actions were slow and strange.

Without more supplies than that, Irene climbed on top of her horse and squeezed her knees to force him forward.

They were headed in the direction of the village she went to by mistake before.

"Hollviner," Irene uttered as she went.

The Sunstoian word for a close friend.