[324] Second outing (2)
Upon arriving at Amy’s room, Sirone caught her breath in front of the door.
In the meantime, I listened to the sound inside, but I didn’t feel anything special.
I knocked on the door with my fist and finally heard the rustle of the blanket.
After clearing her voice, Sirone sent a message.
“I am Sirone. I’ll go in.”
The sound of the blanket moving disappeared like a lie.
After waiting for a long time without an answer, Sirone spoke again.
“If you don’t open it, I will open it and go in.”
There was a clunky sound of something falling from the bed, followed by ferocious thumping footsteps.
The door burst open, revealing Amy’s blushing face.
“What is it! Why did you come all of a sudden and make a fuss!”
“I was worried because he said he was sick. But doesn’t it hurt?”
Amy sighed.
It was a fact that he had already figured out a long time ago that stupid lies don’t work on Sirone.
Amy stepped back as if to invite her in and turned to the bed.
“I thought there was some misunderstanding, but it wasn’t that I was avoiding people, I just wanted to rest. I’m trying to organize my thoughts.”
“Yes, I know.”
Sirone burst out laughing and closed the door.
Shakora, who was reading the newspaper, raised the corner of her mouth when she heard the door slam shut in Amy’s room.
“You have passed the 1st gateway.”
Isis also shrugged her shoulders in surprise and headed to the second floor with her car.
Normally, I would sit in Amy’s room and chat with Sirone, but this time, I left the room after serving refreshments.
This meant that he would delegate full authority to Sirone.
Sitting across from Amy across the table, Sirone burst out laughing when she saw the teacup.
It was because of the memory of Amy spraying tea in her face half a year ago.
Amy was thinking the same thing.
However, it was a dark history for her, so she erased it from her mind and raised her teacup.
“So what’s up today? You’re not trying to take me to a strange place again like last time, are you? I want to take a break this vacation.”
“Yeah, that’s why you came. to give you a rest.”
Amy asked with an incomprehensible face.
“Are you going to let me rest? how?”
“Go on a date with me.”
“Puuuuuuu!”
The tea water in Amy’s mouth came out like mist and wet Sirone’s face.
It was supposed to stop in moderation, but the water baptism did not stop until everything in the mouth came out.
Sirone slowly opened her eyes and spoke in a low voice.
“This… I think this is the second one.”
Amy, blushing, licked her lips and stood up.
“What are you saying! You fool!”
She wiped her mouth with a tissue on the top of the cabinet, then pulled out a few more and threw them at Sirone.
Sirone rubbed his face and said.
“Every winter they hold a festival in the Leth Mountains. I usually wanted to go, but if I had an idea, I thought we would go together.”
It was definitely a surprise. To think that Sirone, a model student recognized by the world, would like to go out to play.
“Are you talking about the old castle? The remains of the Ice Queen. there i know I’ve never been there because I was busy.”
“huh. Let’s change our mood for about 2 nights and 3 days. To be honest, I haven’t been motivated lately, so I needed to recharge. There won’t be anything dangerous this time, so let’s go and have fun.”
Amy rested her chin and thought. The problem that bothered me the most was that it was a 2-night, 3-day trip.
“You and me without friends? Where are you going to sleep?”
“I just need to find a place to stay. We can have discussions at night.”
“Aha…”
Amy was speechless.
In short, it was a story about using one shot, but since he said it so confidently, it was an atmosphere that made it impossible to doubt.
“Are you…”
Amy was about to say something, but shook her head.
To be sure, if I brought up a strange story for no reason, it seemed that it would only scratch and boil.
“why? Is there anything that’s stuck? I think…”
“No. wait outside I’ll get ready and go. If you tell Dad you’re going there, he’ll have a carriage waiting for you.”
“Okay, I’ll be waiting for you downstairs.”
When Sirone came out earlier than expected, Shakora and Isis looked at each other questioningly.
However, after hearing Sirone’s words, he immediately agreed.
“Oh, the ruins of the Ice Queen…”
Shacora recalled memories of her youth.
When he was dating Isis, he also took the ice queen’s ruins as a date course.
“It’s a beautiful place. romantic.”
“Yeah, I heard that. But they said it would take some time to look back.”
Shakora chuckled.
“That’s not even the charm. That you can’t come back in one day. ok let’s go I’ll wait for the wagon. If we leave now, we will be able to arrive tomorrow morning.”
Sirone let out a sigh of relief.
From a parent’s point of view, it is worrying to send their daughter only with a man. But Shakora went a step further and offered advice.
“When you arrive at the old castle, look for an accommodation called the Snow Crystal. Because my wife and I lived there. You will be able to make good memories.”
Isis looked back at her husband with an absurd expression.
Her lips twitched as if she was about to say something, but she missed the timing as Amy came out of the room.
“Let’s go to Sirone. Dad, I’ll go to the winter festival.”
Amy, wearing a red winter coat with rabbit fur, said as she descended the stairs.
Smoke was still billowing from her tousled hair, no matter how quickly she rolled it.
Isis, who knew that she wasn’t the type to decorate normally, was quite surprised by her daughter’s transformation.
Sirone also looked at Amy, who was much more mature than she had seen at school, for a moment, stunned.
Then I came to my senses and said hello to my parents.
“Then I will go.”
“Yes, be careful.”
It took more than 10 hours to reach Les Mountains, so I had to run diligently from now on to arrive in the morning.
When Sirone and Amy left the mansion, Isis raised her eyes narrowly and argued with her husband.
“Snow crystals?”
“why? What is it like there?”
“Are you saying that now? Have you forgotten how we even got married? Because I was seduced by you then and there…!”
“haha! Was it? Anyway, you were nice too.”
Isis put her hands on her hips and snorted. Apparently, Shakora didn’t know the seriousness of the situation.
“What are you thinking?”
“If you are going to use shock therapy, you better do it properly. When blood rushes to your head and then comes down, you wake up.”
“and then? What if it doesn’t come down?”
“It’s a matter for Amy to decide anyway. If you’re eighteen, you’re an adult. It’s nothing else, it’s your body, so you do it on your own.”
Isis shook her head.
The red face, a characteristic of the Karmis family, expresses the best talent in whatever field it chooses. Therefore, the family has created a family tradition that emphasizes human free will, away from restraint and discipline.
If you let your talent flow, you will make a family no matter what you choose.
The greatest strength of the Karmis family was the lax spectrum, where members of the family were engaged in almost all occupations.
The moment discipline and oppression enter, talent is blocked.
Shakora, who knows this better than anyone else, has been grazing Amy since she was a child, so at one point she strayed.
However, if this was Hong’s history, Isis had no choice but to accept it.
“Are you sure you can take care of yourself? If you talk about it later or say something to Amy, I’ll get really mad at you.”
“Getting behind? Why am I doing that?”
Shakora opened the newspaper hard and got into a reading position. The thought of her daughter had long since been erased from her mind.
“Sirone should do it.”
* * *
Heaven Northern Hemisphere.
permafrost tundra.
In Heaven they call it Optrus.
It was an electromagnetic net pattern that had been floating on the cold winds of the north for eons.
The fact that the pattern of information exchange is close to infinite means that it is a divine being in a sense.
But Optrus could not become a god.
To the Optrus that arose in the tundra, the environment of heaven was a boring and dull space without stimulation.
There is no learning without stimulation.
It was the same logic as if a baby abandoned in the mountain would become a beast if he did not leave the mountain for the rest of his life.
That is why Optrus has lived for a long time repeating meaningless and simple information exchange.
Then one day, a crack went to the maze’s construction.
Small changes that organisms cannot even feel.
However, for Optrus, it was as thrilling as birth and extinction and a huge stimulus.
An aurora spread over the tundra due to the huge magnetic field emitted by Optrus.
A 3-second crack in the labyrinth’s space-time.
Optrus broke through the gap and escaped to a new world.
The first destination was Les Mountains.
The electronic network that composes it quickly absorbs and learns unfamiliar environments like the brain of a newborn child.
The place where Optrus could get the most information was the castle site located halfway up the Les Mountains.
Numerous humans were running around, and everyone was spreading information like an explosion.
At a level that even he was not aware of, Optrus absorbed all information according to his instincts.
Electromagnetic networks were blazing in an infinite pattern, breaking new ground.
* * *
Arriving at the Leth Mountains around dawn, Sirone and Amy ate a meal at a food stall before arriving at the ticket booth at the old castle ruins.
The entrance to the ticket office was also crowded with tourists.
After waiting in line and buying a ticket, Sirone opened her eyes wide at the spectacle unfolding in front of her.
“Wow….”
The old castle site was completely repaired with ice as material, not stone or soil.
As the sun’s light caused a diffuse reflection, everything reflected in my eyes sparkled like a diamond.
Even the spirited Amy’s face flushed red in front of the scenery she was seeing.
Sirone was satisfied.
Even when he was taken to the Galliant Ruins, he was embarrassed because things went wrong from the start. Wasn’t it not enough to fight to the death with the parrot mercenary group and follow him to heaven and pass the ordeal?
In order to make up for the hardships at the time, I promised myself that I would have a pleasant trip this time.
“Let’s go. It’s gonna be fun.”
Sirone and Amy moved along the snowy field.
The rainbow bridge connecting the towers, the railings along the battlements, and the stairs inside the castle were all made of ice.
‘This is why it’s called a winter festival.’
Since the structure would collapse if the temperature rose, the site had to be closed even in early spring.
Eventually, when summer arrives, the ice melts and disappears, leaving only the dreary remnants of the castle.
As if the memory of a winter day was a midsummer night’s dream.
“Sirone, let’s try that.”
Amy pointed to a food stall. They were selling ice snacks, a specialty of the winter festival.
Sirone put the cold ice snack in her mouth and chewed it. Strawberry syrup was mixed with Beksul and frozen.
“Now, I bought something to eat. Where should I look back?”
“Of course, we should go see the Ice Queen first.”
Amy took Sirone and headed for the castle.
The main castle was the least lost among the historical sites. It was a 120-pyeong hall with stairs on both sides, but the stairs on the left collapsed a long time ago and were repaired by carving ice.
Wouldn’t it be strange if it was warm enough that the ice wouldn’t melt? It was definitely warmer than outside as people gathered there.
Sirone and Amy entered the corridor on the 1.5th floor connecting the stairs on both sides. Where the central balustrade jutted out into the hall was the Ice Queen.
Sirone approached the Ice Queen. A beautiful woman stood with her eyes closed inside a huge block of ice.
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