They made her a witch and blamed all the terrible calamities on the witch. That was Snow’s conjecture, and the reality wasn’t much different.

But now she understood. Whether or not the imperial family promoted her as a witch, in the end, Freia was truly the cause of the One Year Calamity. Though no one realized it until her last breath in that miserable prison, she was indeed a saint.

Snow’s and her souls were the same. If so, she must have had the power to control the weather as well. It was unclear why this power had never manifested during her lifetime. It was also unclear why divine revelation hadn’t come as it had when Snow was born. But Freia was definitely a saint.

In her final moment, she truly cursed everything. She died in the most miserable and wretched way. At that moment, her emotions exploded. The remnants of her emotions, her resentment, did not disappear after her death but wandered throughout the empire.

The saint’s miracle of moving the weather finally affected the empire then, leading to calamity.

Just like now, when the entire empire had become a wasteland.

Snow stared out the window with a blank expression. She still couldn’t see even a step ahead. Everything was her fault. In the end, both the One Year Calamity and the calamity now returning were all caused by her.

“What was I trying to protect?”

Snow laughed. Hot tears flowed. She recalled her past self saying she would save people in the coldest and lowest places. It was laughable. In the end, the one who had hurt and injured the most people was herself.

She truly was not a saint. She was a witch.

“Snow. It’s not Snow’s fault. No one is to blame.”

Arianne’s pleading, who knew nothing, could no longer move Snow’s heart.

“Arianne. I don’t deserve to be here.”

Snow said in a tired voice. Arianne, feeling sorry for Snow, sniffled on her behalf. Snow felt even more sorry for Arianne.

Arianne had devoted her entire life to her. Arianne, who had been just a young girl when she received Snow as a newborn, was now approaching forty. What she had raised all her life was not a saint. It was painful to think that Arianne’s life had become meaningless because of her.

She was a being that shouldn’t be in the temple. She was no saint. Even if her birth truly was the goddess’s will.

A saint should be someone who saves and embraces people. If she had caused people to get hurt, she could never be a saint. She was already closer to a witch, Snow thought.

The window suddenly flung open though no one had touched it. Arianne covered her face with her sleeve and was pushed back toward the wall as the blizzard swept into the room.

“Arianne. I’m sorry.”

It was Snow’s tender and gentle voice that Arianne knew well.

“I’m sorry.” She said once more.

Arianne lowered her sleeve. She tried hard to open her eyes properly while facing the blizzard head-on. Everything in front of her was pure white, and she couldn’t see anything.

She felt a strange sensation. She soon realized why.

Snow had disappeared.

06. Blizzard

The empire’s name, Akelan, was named after the imperial territory “Akelan,” which had been directly ruled by the emperor for generations. Though there were many large and small countries belonging to the empire, none could compare to the capital, Akelan. Akelan was a very prosperous city. People crowded everywhere you went. Of course, the current situation, with a blizzard raging so fiercely that one couldn’t see a step ahead, was an exception.

The capital’s population was already saturated. Buildings where people lived were packed densely everywhere. Finding empty land in the capital Akelan was as rare as a honorary noble without a fief having an audience with His Imperial Majesty.

Yet there was one place, right in the middle of the capital, that stood conspicuously empty. It was a plot of land large enough to easily build two or three luxurious mansions.

Soil mixed with soot blew hazily in the fierce blizzard. While the entire empire was heavily covered in white snow, strangely, only this vacant lot maintained its original appearance, with snow fragments merely whirling in the air without accumulating on the ground.

So people were all the more convinced that this calamity had been brought by the witch. Half-burned wooden pillars, faded with time, were scattered here and there. Normally, ash-mixed soil is fertile and plants grow well in it, but there was no trace of life to be found on the dry, barren soil, no matter how hard one looked.

It was the vacant lot that remained after the mansion where the witch had lived was burned down. People considered the lot ominous and no one approached it. Occasionally, thoughtless children would discover the rare open space in the capital and play ball there. Adults would call them back and scold them. Anyone who stayed too long in that lot might be cursed.

So naturally, no one approached that vacant lot. Moreover, with such a fierce blizzard raging, not only around that area but everywhere else, no one could be seen.

It was a vacant lot where no one was present.

Suddenly, a person appeared in the midst of the raging blizzard. It was a girl with snow-white hair and silver eyes. She raised her head and looked up at the sky with empty eyes.

It was as if the black smoke mixed with ash that had risen hazily to the sky was rising again. It had already been over 20 years. But to her, it felt like something she had experienced just days ago. She stepped onto the desolate vacant lot, crossing the snow-covered ground.

The Nigritia mansion, which had stood tall and proud, daring to face the imperial palace on equal terms, was now gone. The cold Duke of Nigritia who never spared her a glance was also gone, and young lord Ian, who had been her only ally from beginning to end, was gone too.

“Ian Nigritia.”

Snow spoke aloud. It was an unfamiliar yet nostalgic resonance. She lowered her body and felt the ground.

Here it is. This was the exact spot. The place where dozens of swords had simultaneously pierced Ian’s body.

Snow fell to her knees.

“Brother.”

Her pronunciation was blurred by tears. The memory of his last moment, smiling brightly while bleeding, suddenly came to mind, and it drove her mad. Around her as she sat down, white and black snow flowers were sprouting abundantly.

She also remembered exactly where the body of her father, Duke Nigritia, had been lying ingloriously. The bodies of the Duke and the young lord were not properly taken care of. They were left abandoned in place, allowing crows to devour them completely, and then the remaining bones were thrown away anywhere.

When she had learned about it as a mere terrifying historical fact, she had only felt nauseous, but now it was different. They were her family. Though she had never received a warm touch from them, he was her father, and needless to say, her one and only beloved brother.

She grabbed a handful of ash-mixed soil from the place where Ian Nigritia had fallen. And as she was about to turn away, she turned back again and grabbed another handful of soil from where Duke Nigritia’s body had lain. With a handful of soil in each hand, she trudged into the snow.

“Wheeee—”

The blizzard raged momentarily. Afterward, all that remained on the white street was the howling sound of the wind.

Simultaneously, a strong blizzard raged on some nameless hill. The next moment, Snow, Freia, no, Snow was standing there. The sky, the air, the snow-buried ground, and she who stood upon it were all cold and white, but inside she was rotting black.

Every time Snow exhaled, white vapor puffed out. She walked on the snow-covered hill with a sunken expression. Though the blizzard still raged fiercely, not only her clothes but not even a single strand of her hair fluttered; everything remained calm. The snow was deep enough to sink up to one’s knees, but she walked lightly over it as if treading on solid ground.

That hill was where Freia had climbed with Ian every year on her birthday, and where Freia had climbed with Ian every year on the anniversary of their mother’s death. It was the hill where her mother’s ashes had been scattered.

Snow raised her hand holding the dry soil to shoulder height. As she gradually opened her fist, the powdery soil was helplessly scattered by the fierce wind. Soon, the soil in Snow’s hand disappeared without a trace. Only a rough sensation remained on her palm.

“May you rest in peace now.”

Snow was about to say “in the embrace of Goddess Amir,” but swallowed the latter part. It was because she no longer knew what the goddess’s will was. The goddess was clearly not just an observing entity. But Snow thought she might not be an entirely benevolent being either.

Snow suddenly turned her gaze and discovered a person half-buried in the snow. She hurriedly ran toward them. With her small hands, she frantically removed the snow piled on the cold body. While clearing the snow, she urgently called out:

“Hey, hey! Wake up!”

But the fallen person didn’t move at all. The body was like ice. It was an old woman who looked about the same age as High Priest Verdus. Her clothes were inappropriately old and thin for the weather. The pale face that had been buried in the snow was now fully revealed. She wasn’t breathing. Snow finally realized that the old woman had already died.

It felt as if she had been hit on the head with a stone. Her breathing became rapid.

“Hah, hah”

Snow gasped for breath as she hurriedly ran up to the top of the hill. Her body kept leaning forward.

Her mind became distant and then returned to normal several times. She staggered and had to steady herself with her hands on the ground a few times. Like someone truly out of her mind, she climbed the hill.

Though it wasn’t a particularly high hill, strangely, she could see the entire empire in detail as if she had climbed to the top of the sky. Snow even forgot that such a thing couldn’t normally happen. She surveyed the world as if it were natural.

The old woman Snow had just seen wasn’t the only one who had frozen to death in the sudden calamity and bitter cold. It was obvious. People who didn’t have money to buy warm clothes and food wouldn’t have money to buy houses either.

Those who had been wandering the streets, sustaining their lives through begging, were dying helplessly in the suddenly arrived bitter cold.