Chapter 04
“Forget what I just said. I don’t care about Winter’s face at all. Even if Winter looked like some dough she kneaded and tossed aside, it wouldn’t matter to me.”
<…….>
“…?”
Winter didn’t respond to Tiya’s words.
Tiya wondered if she had upset Winter by asking to see her face, watching for a reaction.
<Ah, so you’ve finally said everything.>
As if she hadn’t even heard Tiya, Winter finally spoke.
<Have you ever heard that the Vladijev family is blessed by the Great Spirit?
It was a sudden, out-of-place question, but Tiya, ever the attentive listener, nodded and pointed to the massive tapestry adorning one corner of the room.
“Of course! That’s the Great Spirit!”
A silver fish ascending a raging current.
The symbol of the Vladijev family, the Great Spirit that the first head of the family had tamed.
Yet no one knew its true nature.
<That Great Spirit… is the Spirit of Time.>
Until Winter spoke, no one had claimed to know.
“The Spirit of Time?”
A spirit that tells the time? Tiya tilted her head, confused.
<Yes. I am the last head of the Vladijev family, from the future, guided by the Spirit of Time.
Most of Winter’s words made no sense to Tiya. But one thing struck her as completely absurd, and she pointed it out.
“The last head?”
<In twelve years, the Vladijev family will be annihilated.>
“…?”
Tiya’s wide, bright eyes swirled with confusion. She was eight years old now, so in twelve years… that would make her…
She tried to count on her fingers, but alas, she had only ten.
Spinning her head in concentration until a small wrinkle formed on her chin, she declared confidently:
“I’ll be… twelve hundred and eight years old…!”
<Twenty.>
“That’s what I meant. So when I turn twenty, the family… will be annihilated… annihilated?”
Realization of the word “annihilation” made her eyes widen, then narrow in horror.
Tiya might not have been great at maths, but she knew the Vladijev family was extraordinary.
The Frost Fortress, the northern stronghold of the Empire.
Her grandmother, a living legend and war hero.
The northern knights, the strongest order of the continent, masters of spirit manipulation.
“Winter… no one would believe a lie like that.”
Tiya nudged Winter with her elbow, insisting she speak sensibly.
“Uh?”
Her body passed through Winter, tilting forward uncontrollably, as if being sucked downward into nothing.
Tiya squeezed her eyes shut, flailing her arms and legs, screaming.
<Ahhhhh!>
Yet after a long moment, when no pain came, she peeked through her lashes.
<…Ahh?>
A clear blue sky, a white fortress, and flags bearing the Vladijev emblem fluttering in the wind.
<This… is Frost Fortress?>
Tiya had somehow arrived atop the northern fortress she longed for.
Stepping forward absentmindedly, she felt unusually light.
Looking down, she gasped.
<Wow! I’m flying!>
Her feet hovered inches above the ground, her body semi-transparent—just like Winter!
Excitedly bouncing in the air, she soon noticed that the fortress felt… different.
Glancing beyond the walls, she froze.
A moat flowing with blood, shattered towers, and waves of barbarians trampling the snowy landscape like a black tide.
This was already the heart of battle.
<Grandma! Sasha! The knights!>
She searched for the adults, but no one remained.
Then, in the distance, she saw a familiar back.
At the broken section of the walls.
Arrows lodged in it, battered and scarred—but unmistakably…
<Winter?>
Tiya ran toward the fragile figure, seemingly ready to collapse at any moment.
Winter, standing above the battlefield, lifted her hand. The family ring on her index finger glowed faintly.
Then, in a cracked, weary voice, she spoke.
“By contract, I summon you.”
A small voice powerless against the screams of the battlefield.
Yet in that instant, the world’s time stopped.
Only Winter, Tiya, and…
【You know that the contract might not be fulfilled as desired.】
The black silverfish drifted around Winter, escaping the ring’s bounds.
Instinctively, Tiya understood.
‘That’s the Great Spirit of Time….’
“It doesn’t matter. Take me three years into the past.”
The moment Winter spoke, a single scale from the spirit fell, dry and brittle like a dead leaf.
Without hesitation, Winter took it and held it in her mouth.
Her rigid stance collapsed.
Tiya, having just reached the fortress wall, reached out—but her hands grasped nothing.
<Winter! Are you okay? Does it hurt a lot?>
Even Tiya’s voice did not reach her.
Winter clawed at the stone floor in pain, struggling to lift her head.
【The contract is complete.】
Crunch.
Tiya felt as if something inside her had shattered.
“Gasp.”
It was as if someone had grabbed her heart and twisted it. She staggered backward, unable to breathe properly.
Boom!
Tiya awoke in her room at the Vladijev estate in the Empire, gasping for air.
Winter hovered nearby, hand on her chest, seemingly concerned.
“Th-that was just….”
<…You saw.>
Tiya realized what she had witnessed was not a dream or illusion—it was Winter’s memory.
She slowly raised her torso.
The pain had vanished, but her heart still pounded.
The destroyed Frost Fortress, the blood-soaked land, and the family ring Winter had worn—all pointed to one undeniable truth.
<There was a massive barbarian invasion. And they were equipped with the Empire’s modern weapons, unlike their usual raids. At that time, the North wasn’t the same as you know it.>
Winter’s dry voice recounted the past and Tiya’s yet-to-come future.
A deadly plague, called the Mark of the Reaper, would sweep the North, taking years to develop a cure.
Once it broke out, the Empire would quarantine the region, and many lives would be lost in isolation.
The normally quiet barbarians seized the opportunity to strike.
<Though I, a collateral branch, took the headship after the death of the Vladijev direct line, it was too late to reverse the disaster.>
The thought of the entire Vladijev bloodline dying made Tiya’s heart race uncontrollably.
Yet Winter did not stop speaking.
<Then, as you have seen, I made a contract with the Spirit of Time as a last resort to go back to the past—but…>
Suddenly, Winter extended her hand toward Tiya.
It seemed as if she were urging Tiya to stand, and Tiya instinctively reached out.
But, as in Winter’s memory, her hands grasped nothing.
No matter how hard she tried, Winter’s hand could hold nothing.
<As you can see, it failed. With this body, you cannot change the future. But…>
Winter looked down at Tiya.
Though her eyes were hidden behind the veil, Tiya instinctively felt that Winter’s gaze met hers.
<If someone can see me and hear my voice, then the story changes.>
