Solo Leveling: Ragnarok - Chapter 122

“No way! It’s Sirka!”

A chorus of cheerful voices came from all around.

“Sirka!”

“Sirka is back!”

Upon hearing that the missing guardian elf had suddenly returned safe and sound, hordes of ice elves popped out from various places in the village to welcome her. Their excitement was brief, however. The moment they spotted the outsider with her, they assumed battle-ready stances with vicious looks on their faces.

“An intruder!”

“It’s an outsider!”

“There’s an intruder in the village!”

Instantly, bows, arrows, and sharpened daggers were pointed at Suho. Sirka jumped in front of him, waving her hands urgently about. “No, don’t fight! He’s not an intruder. Look closely, he’s Cha Cha’s son!”

“What?”

“Cha Cha?”

“Her son?”

They all looked puzzled as they stared at Suho’s face. Some realization seemed to wash over them, making their eyes go wide.

“No… Wait…”

“No way! This can’t be real!”

The wary ice elves quickly turned toward the ice statue at the village entrance, their eyes flicking between it and Suho’s face. Their mouths were agape.

“Incredible! He really does look like Cha Cha!”

“He’s got her eyes!”

“And her nose!”

“Even her smell!”

“What was her son’s name again? Sung Sung?”

“You dolts! She said his name was Sung Suho!”

“Sirka, is he really Cha Cha’s son? Where did you find him?”

The razor-sharp tension immediately dissipated, replaced with a celebratory mood. In fact, the elves seemed so friendly that all the preparations Suho made before entering the Glacier Dungeon suddenly felt quite unnecessary.

While Sirka was bragging about how she had “found” Suho, he remained calm and studied each of the ice elves. They all seem young, he thought. Their lifespans were probably different from those of humans, but judging from their appearances, none of them seemed to be older than their early to late teens. Not one looked a year older than twenty.

There are no older adults among them. That wasn’t the only peculiar detail, either. They’re weaker than I thought, Suho mused.

An odd look came over Beru’s face as he whispered, “The ice elf warriors that I knew of were mostly A-rank magic beasts—B-rank at the lowest. But these are…”

“B-rank at the highest. Some of them are even D-rank. None are A-rank at all.”

“Yes. They are far too weak.”

Sirka overheard them and nodded. “That shouldn’t be a surprise. The talented warriors of our tribe were all called out during the war, where they perished. All of us at the village now were those that were too young back then, or simply too weak.”

Wars between the Rulers and the Monarchs had been waged since time immemorial. This place had once been ruled by the Monarch of Frost, King of the Snow Folk, who had conscripted any ice elves useful enough in battle to be dragged out to war. Of course, it was a great honor to be the Monarch’s soldier, and for any warrior, dying in battle was the ideal way to go out.

Those who were left in the village had also been given a role, one that was no less important than that of the warriors. They were to nurture the next generation, training them until they were fit to join the next battle and continue the never-ending war.

“That’s who we are. The children born during the war.” Then young children, they were now old enough to wield bows, arrows, and daggers, ready to take after their parents and become warriors in their own right.

Suho spotted a contradiction. “But you said weak individuals were left behind too, right? They can’t all have been children. Where did they go?”

“It wasn’t always like this. Most of the tribe’s adults died the day the spirits of the Echo Forest ran wild. There is only one who is still alive.”

The Echo Forest. Suho’s eyes naturally moved over to the ice sculpture of his mother. Cha Haein was depicted in dynamic combat, daggers in both hands and her hair streaming behind her as she performed some kind of sword dance. Behind her was a great dragon, seemingly guarding her with its wings spread wide apart. As an art major, Suho wondered how they had managed to construct such an elaborate statue from ice at all.

“My mother uses daggers?” he asked.

“Yes. We lent her some of our own, since she said she had no weapons. And that was when Cha Cha became our savior.” Sirka told them how Cha Haein had dropped in one day, flying through a snowstorm on the back of a black dragon. When she arrived at this frozen forest, the ice elves who were living here at the time were facing a grave danger. “For some reason, the spirits of the Echo Forest had all poured out and were racing toward our village.”

***

[Echo Forest]

The forest was a holy ground for the ice elves. It was said that no one who stepped inside would be able to reemerge.

There had once been a different name for this place—the Forest of Trials. At that time, it was a place where ice elves that had come of age underwent a “warrior’s trial” to be acknowledged as brave fighters. Even those trials, however, were conducted on the outskirts of the forest, since nobody dared to go deeper inside. If they did, they would be entranced by the spirits and driven mad.

“Driven mad by the spirits?” Suho asked.

“Yes. The spirits of the forest have no defined corporeal form. That makes them even more fearsome, since they can become just about anything. It’s very tough to tell if what they look like is their real form.”

“That’s… kind of hard to wrap my head around.”

While Suho listened to Sirka’s explanation, the other elves still seemed quite animated. They had been busy readying a small welcome party for the hunter.

“Party’s on tonight!”

“A welcome for Sung Sung!”

“Stop calling him that! His name is Sung Suho!”

Their initial ferociousness was gone, and their young faces were now full of cheer. One elf had begun chiseling an ice sculpture of Suho, while another brought out some very precious fruit for him.

Beru stepped in to meddle in the preparations. “Now, now! The Young Monarch enjoys meat! But what about me? Do you have any mana stones I can consume?”

Sirka, meanwhile, continued her story. “The thing is, the spirits of the Echo Forest never leave their home.” The forest where the ice elves lived was located right next to the Echo Forest. As long as the elves did not encroach upon the neighboring territory, the spirits posed no threat whatsoever.

“Or so we thought… until that day.” The sky above the frozen forest was torn apart out of the blue as a dimensional breach opened. That may have been the reason the spirits suddenly went wild. They left the forest and began to attack any ice elves on sight. As all the capable warriors had left the village, it was a calamity for the young elves that remained.

“It’s already been a few years since then,” Sirka said. “We were much weaker than we are now.”

“And my mother saved you?”

“Yes. Cha Cha was incredible.” Sirka told Suho how she appeared suddenly and asked the elves to lend her a sword. As soon as a dagger had been placed in each of her hands, she jumped into action.

“The skill… It was called ‘Sword Dance,’” Sirka muttered, recalling what Haein had told her. The woman’s movements had sped up in a sort of dance, her daggers tracing fanciful trajectories around her. The way she’d danced, elegantly cutting down the spirits, had been a marvelous and overwhelming sight.

The ice elves had initially wanted to name her “Dancer” after seeing her beautiful moves, but she had rejected that name, saying it was too embarrassing. Another name was created for her.

“And so, we began to call her Dragon Maiden.”

“And… She didn’t find that embarrassing?” Suho asked.

“Kaisel liked it, so she allowed it. Somewhat begrudgingly” And true to Haein’s nickname, the black dragon always accompanied her in her battles.

Noticing that Suho didn’t seem familiar with the dragon, Beru quickly appeared to clarify. “Young Monarch, Kaisel was no ordinary dragon. He was once known as Kaisellin, the mount that belonged to the Monarch of White Flames, Baran. He was an S-rank magic beast, by the way.”

“S-rank?” Suho said, his eyes widening. Not only had his mother apparently become an S-rank hunter, but she had ridden an S-rank magic beast. This was not the peaceful woman he remembered from home.

“In any case, it was Cha Cha and Kaisel who sent the attacking spirits running back to the Echo Forest. Cha Cha stayed with us for a while, teaching us to fight with the sword.”

“You learned to fight from my mother?”

“Yes. The adults who’d been taking care of us until then were all killed by the spirits. Cha Cha protected us, since we had no idea when the spirits might attack again.”

This was why Cha Haein was known as the savior of the ice elves. She’d been so serious about their safety that she’d even taught the surviving children how to fight.

“Cha Cha is a mother to all of us,” Sirka said with a broad grin.

Suho sensed wistfulness in her face. “And now my mother is…”

“Well, as I told you on the way here, she recently rode into the Echo Forest on Kaisel’s back, saying there was an odd smell coming from there. She hasn’t yet returned.”

“An odd smell?” Suho asked.

“Hmm… How should I put it? Cha Cha was sensitive to the smell of mana, just like us ice elves.” Sirka sniffed at Suho as she said these words. “Suho, you smell very nice. That’s how I knew straight away that you were her son.”

Haein had apparently told the ice elves many stories about her family during her stay with them. “Cha Cha told us that her son smells lovely, just like his father,” Sirka continued. “She told us that if her husband was to come for her while she was in the Echo Forest, he wasn’t to go on alone. He should listen to her message first.”

“What message?”

A serious look came over the elf’s face. “She said she has located the place where the ‘gray snow’ falls.”