"...Winter and Frost Speech, huh."
Annan murmured to himself, slightly startled.
He suddenly remembered... he seemed to have heard the surname "Frost Speech" somewhere before.
That’s right, he remembered now.
It was the first time Annan met Skeleton Lord, and when Skeleton Lord introduced himself... he had told Annan, "Sooner or later, you will be of the ’Frost Speech’."
...Could it be that he would also transform into a dragon in the future?
So, that’s why his grandmother spoke to him in Dragon Speech...
So after fulfilling his grandmother’s request, [Heart of Winter] would evolve into [Bounty of Winter]... was that what it meant to turn from Winter to Frost Speech?
"I wonder if Bofis knows Dragon Speech..."
"—Annan is definitely human."
On the other side, Xitan Pulan answered with unwavering certainty.
That air of assertion even made Bofis waver slightly, "Is, is that so..."
"Yes, without a doubt,"
Xitan Pulan nodded affirmatively.
—Because he did not trigger my non-human radar.
Concerned about her own image of a cool and elegant lady, Xitan Pulan did not voice this thought directly.
She paused briefly, changing the subject somewhat: "Let’s not talk about this, let’s discuss the important matter..."
"The important matter?"
Bofis tilted her head, "Are you talking about visiting the place where the holy bones were stored?"
"I am quite interested in that, but what’s even more important is the ’Frostspeaker’s Permafrost Blood’."
Xitan Pulan clearly understood the priority. They were here to obtain materials for Annan and even triggered a side mission... This obviously should be completed first.
And as for the holy bones, they were clearly a key item related to the main plot later on.
She wouldn’t trigger that mission until her own strength had reached a certain level.
In situations where all her actions could have irreversible effects on everyone... Xitan Pulan believed that this was the kind of caution everyone should have.
"I need to bring back what my friend needs first..."
Xitan Pulan sighed, explaining further, "Not only is Annan my friend, but he is also my boss.
"To be able to come and get you next time, I at least have to complete the task my boss entrusted me with."
Bofis agreed readily.
She paused for a moment, then added, "But both these things... they’re actually in the same place."
"The Silverstone Curse Cellar."
Bofis answered quietly, "The city’s only Curse Cellar."
"What is a Curse Cellar?"
"It’s where curse energy is transformed and stored..."
She looked towards the huge void outside the city, her expression complex, without saying much more.
She just said in a low voice, "It was once the largest structure here... and now it is the city’s greatest scar."
Meanwhile, the child in the public nightmare had just finished a stage of practice.
He breathed a sigh of relief, glancing involuntarily at the dazzlingly huge device.
Ah, I still care about it a bit after all...
What exactly is that thing?
It was a gigantic structure at least thirty or forty stories high, which would be considered towering even in a modern city.
And it wasn’t built like a residential building with a straightforward boxy design.
From the outside, it looked somewhat like a massive snail shell, turned upside down with the opening planted in the ground.
The sky had already darkened.
But the city was far from pitch-black.
From the hills outside the city, he could see it quite clearly—
Neon lights of various colors were lighting up in sequence within the elves’ city.
The child could barely make out that one end of those "streetlights" connected to the ground was narrow and short, only reaching as high as the elves’ knees, and even finer than their calves.
Above these solitary "poles" was a hollow container, large enough to encase a person and resembling glass on the outside. Inside it swelled a glowing monochrome liquid, gushing in from below.
These "streetlights," shaped like grilled sausages, shone with a steady, mild light—pink, red, blue, or purple—casting strange hues on the passersby.
Although the city’s foot traffic was relatively sparse, the elves did not return home with the night’s arrival. On the contrary, the child even saw the number of pedestrians gradually increasing.
If there could be an issue in this exceptionally cybernetic scene, it could only be that massive snail-like device incessantly drawing some substance from underground.
What kind of energy was it extracting?
Just one such "power station" was capable of supplying a city’s everyday needs...
Noticing the child’s gaze, Bofis, who had accompanied him, tilted her head and hopped around to face him, "Do you still want to check out the Curse Cellar?"
So they called the power plant the Curse Cellar?
The child didn’t know what Julian intended to do at the Curse Cellar; he merely nodded in silence.
"Maybe now’s a good time, you know?"
Bofis blinked, speaking cheerfully, "The workers inside the Curse Cellar should have finished their shift by now.
"How about... we go on an adventure? You’ve learned the Sky Strike Technique, after all! As long as we get back here before mom returns, she’ll never know we left!"
"But your mom... What exactly did the teacher go to do?"
The child followed up Bofis’s suggestion, "What if she hasn’t gone far and comes back suddenly?"
"...That’s unlikely, right?"
Bofis, upon hearing the child’s words, became worried and uncertain, "She left in such a hurry, even leaving us behind... I think... probably...
"...she won’t be coming back soon, right?"
Because she left us here in haste, she surely didn’t go far and will be back soon.
You’re still too young...
The child silently mused to himself.
But his acting skills had significantly improved with the training over this period. He was no longer just a lucky guy anymore...
So he showed a hesitant expression on his face: "So then...?"
After a moment of silence, the somewhat restless Bofis made up her mind, "If mom finds out, just say I was the one who took you!"
The child readily agreed, nodding his head.
"—Let’s go! Time to play, no more training!"
Miss Bofis pulled his hand, leading the way as she cheered.
Such a familiar tone...
It even made the child somewhat nostalgic.
Back in his childhood days, his childhood sweetheart would use this same tone to draw him away from homework to play video games at her house during the holidays.
This led to him spending the last two days of every vacation holed up at home, endlessly copying...
It was only much later that the child found out every time his childhood sweetheart called him to play, she had already completed her own homework...
For a moment, he felt somewhat lost in this communal nightmare, not quite wanting to awake.
Such wonderful times...
...Is this really a nightmare?