" we finally reached at the citadel city, get ready boys we are going to be the wealthiest in all world." said a man looking in his early thirties with light dark skin tone wearing yellowish brown coloured clothes. Short brown hair and a shirt, pants and boots that described his profession of an archiologist.
" You better be right about this, or it would not be good for us , and better believe it that it will way wrose for you Bruce" said a guy with a cigar in his mouth , he was a huge guy almost 190 cm in height with more than 400 pounds in weight .
" That guy , you see him."said Bruce. "Who that old looking guy, walking with the kid." said Butcher.
" Yea that one I have heard from various people that he once was an adventurer who had travelled deepest parts of snow mountains. " said Bruce
" So, you are saying that if we want to go to snow mountains , a guide is needed. And here I thought you were the guide " said Butcher as he cracked his fingers and looked at Bruce.
" What do you expect from me to guide everyone even if I have never been there, and don't have a clew about it. said Bruce.
Butcher almost got lost for the words and said "That's fair.
" By the way , when did you found about the old guy being an adventurer. " asked Butcher
" Why do you think, I asked specifically adventurers to be the our escorting team." said Bruce in sarcastic tone.
Butcher gritted his teeth and said " Okay, you are the brain, how will we convince the old guy to lead us to the mountain." asked Butcher.
After thinking for some time they saw both old man and child on the edge of a slope that had the best veiw of the snow mountains.
They had seven more who were bandits in disguise of treasure hunters and archaeologists. This place was usually stayed quiet as rarely someone would visit this place. Specially in morning no one would come here leaving the city."
All of them surrounded both Martin and John without being noticed by them. Martin seeing people were coming in their from all sides he took his sharp sword and pointed towards the bandits and pushed John on his back"
" He has found us , go attack." said one of the bandit who was standing behind the tree.all bandits came out of hinding spots and made a circle around both of them.
Before Martin can ask for something two of the guys directly attacked him with their swords. Martin blocked both swords with a vertical slace. Martin looked at John and said " You should run towards city and get someone to help."
John looked at old man and knew what he said made sense so he tried to run towards the city. " Now go and capture the boy" said Bruce. " Why need to capture the kid?." asked Butcher.
" Because we can't leave any witness alive so he could not inform any one about us and we need him with us for black mailing the old man ." said Bruce.
'This will be my first battle after coming in this world or could be second battle from both worlds, but previous would not be considered a battle as I got killed without giving a fight. this place is filled with natural ice mana , even if I can't use it directly but I could use it to enhance my own ice spells.'
As he saw one bandit coming towards him, John closed his eyes for a second and murmured Snow blizzard. A strong winds started to form and rushed towards the bandit blurring the vision , also tiny snow flakes gashed through the bandit.
John thought he would finish it by the ice shards but when casted the spell another bandit used fire ball in continuous time until it destroyed both spells of John.
" You saw that , a five year old mage, if we sell him to a noble house. We will get a hefty amount of money." said Butcher.
" Okay new plan , you go and capture the boy but don't kill him." said Butcher
" Yeah , I know where to hold back " and walked towards the John
As John watched the big guy walking towards him used Ice shards spell. The big guy smilled and blocked every crystal shaped ice shards with his bare body.
" A child like you will never able to hurt me. quickly come with me, and I will not break your bones. Having a healthy condition might get you to a wealthy nobel household or you might got sold to a slave market." said Butcher as he grinned.
" You are just brut, and I don't like people like that. So.. " said John.
" So what ? " asked Butcher
" So I don't want to come with you." said John. A cold blizzard again started to form . " This wouldn't work against me." said Butcher and laughed out. Water directly splashes at the feets of the big guy and froze him to ground as it instantly became ice after being in contact with blizzard.
John used all of his mana to make a big ice shard and launched at the head of the Butcher. A loud thump was heard as Butcher fell backwards after gotten hit on hands as he had allready covered his face.
" Hahaha .. Hehhe.. you got knocked by a child, and you call yourself the Butcher." said Bruce.
Hearing it only oiled the rage of the big guy as he rushed towards the John and directly hitting him with great force knocking him down.
' John..." Screamed old Martin as he watched the scene.
'" You , big brut guy . You shouldn't have done that. Are you trying to kill him ?'" said in a panicked voice.
"I just have knocked him down, he is not you idiot. I didn't used mana to hit , so it's fine." said Butcher.
" What do you mean by that?" asked Bruce.
" He has very strong body for his age , almost like doesn't feel like a human being."
"Whatever you think." said in indifferent voice.
" Oh , the Old man has finally worn out. Perfect timing. Get the old man and child we are heading in towards snow mountains." said Bruce.
" Shouldn't we first interoget the old man about our expedition ?" asked Butcher.
" We can't do that here, do you want to the whole city to know that we are threatening a old man in their own area " said Bruce in annoyed voice.
In the snow mountains ,
" Hey you open the mouth of the old man." said Bruce.
The bandit standing beside the old man pulled the rug of clothe out of Martin so he could speak. "Why have you abducted us, I don't even have a someone to pay you a rensom." said old Martin.
" We have not abducted you so we can get few silver coins. We want you to guide us to the black gold mines." said Butcher.
Old Martin looked at fainted John and thought over for a minute and said, if you promise that you would not do anything to the child then I might lead you to mines."
" Hey , old man do you really think that you have any advantage over us , we will let both of you go alive only after you lead us to the fu****g mines." Said Bruce in intimidating voice.
" Okay I will do as you say, as long as you keep your words." said old Martin.
" Don't worry, we are not that much of bad guys, but what can we do ?, paused for a second and said, In this world no one cares about good people with empty pockets and everyone tries to get on good side of people with lot's of money even if they are evil." said Bruce after tightening the jaw and keeping the straight face.
Old Martin lead them towards the highest mountain from the zig zag mountain range formation. As they headed towards the mountain the thickness of snow increased by three folds all around them including trees, on hills and even on the ground as walking was becoming difficult.
" Are you sure you want to face rath of frost dragon just for some gold." asked old Martin trying last desperate attempt.
" You still think that frost dragon still exist and even if he does exist, do you think A dragon would stay for over a thousand years on same place. Only a fool will believe something like that." said Bruce and laughed out old man's warning.
A snow blizzard started as they headed towards the mountain, three of the bandits casted a spell envoloping everyone in the yellow barrier, protecting everyone from blizzard and also provide warmth.
As they ventured deeper , snow goblins and glacier wolves could be seen but none of them ambushed them. snow goblins almost looked same as forest goblin, the only difference they had are they wore fur clothes all over their bodies.
Glacier wolves were larger than dier wolves and had a colour of that milky white colour almost blending in the environment.
"Why are not they attacking us?, even after we have come in their territory." said old Martin in low voice
One of the bandits heard it said " here you see these device in our hands it is monster frequency device. It sends frequency on the same level as the monster that it facing making it believe that we are of the same race or non threatening to it."
Second bandit added "you all people live in this land which is surrounded by ice mountains, black forest and sea. It is very rare for other people to enter this backward land. You would not understand how much of that advance and bigger the outside is , unless you see it with your own eyes."
'If only ,I had this when I came last time.. it's only wishful thinking. Even with it I would not have able to put up a fight against that being.' thought old Martin.
'Why have i never thought to get out side of this land ?. Did I never over come my greed of getting reach that is why I never left this place behind. Or it feels like I am forgetting something .. but I can't remember it.'
" Hey why are you standing still there , move it. We don't have a all day for this" said Butcher.
" Yes , I was lost in thoughts." said old Martin and started to walk again. '
"Are you sure that he is not leading us to the wrong direction. said Butcher.
Bruce walking near by said " Relax , i am allready marking the route from the entrance so even if he leading us in circles, I would know it ." said Bruce with a all knowing smile.
Seeing this Butcher said " You better know what are you doing and don't smile like that again."
At the outer area of the Citadel city,
"So you are saying that they might have left towards the snow mountains." Cedar in calm voice. Ruth replied with a certainity, " Looking the aftermath of their battle, they must have ambushed them from behind the trees and overpowered them in minutes. There would be atleast three mages, one of which might know small area silance spell. "
" Looking at all this remainings of snow mana , it will be definitely John who had used ice spells against them." said Selena.
" How we will find them out, we don't even know anything about snow mountains. Atleast we will need a person that can guide us". said Aella.
" There is a no need to find a guide when we have the Ice queen." said Cedar in proud voice.
" You know me well honey" said in loving voice then turned into a serious tone as she continued " And I know what they want to find and where they are heading towards. We must reach them first, we are heading towards the Ojos del salado mountain right now."
"Jasmine you will come with us , everyone else will return home so if they might return you will receive them and will be able to tell us know in time so we could stop the search."
Cedar, Selena and Jasmine all three headed towards the snow mountains.