A few days later.
The world was a blank sheet of white.
Heavy snow blanketed the forests and the plains.
Two figures and a large gray wolf trudged through the lonely, snowy woods.
Behind them, a long line of footprints stretched back into the deep thicket they'd come from.
"Hoo—" Alia pulled her fur-lined hood tighter. Her breath puffed into steaming clouds, and her cheeks were bright red from the cold.
Instinctively, she edged closer to Gauss walking ahead.
Gauss, out front, wasn't bundled up as thickly as she was.
But getting near him, she could feel a faint warmth, like he was a human space heater.
Gauss's eyes roamed the surroundings.
He was a little cold too—he just didn't say so; it wasn't beyond what he could handle.
Over the last few days, the reward from the thousand-kill milestone—+1 Strength and +1 Constitution—had shown its value.
With Strength 8 and Constitution 8—three whole points above a healthy human's baseline of 5—he could better endure harsh weather like extreme cold or heat.
More importantly, if you want to move freely in a fight, you can't dress too thickly or you'll lose mobility.
Chewing on jerky, he focused his mind on the Adventurer's Manual's Monster Index.
"Total Monster Kills: 1311."
The kill rate these last few days couldn't compare to the first two, since they'd been dealing with scattered small monster clusters, and this year's colder weather meant adventurers were less efficient than in years past.
Alia guessed most people's earnings would shrink a lot this year.
It didn't affect the two of them much—the first two days had already filled their pockets.
Heading out in this cold now was more, "We're here anyway; might as well earn what we can."
Even slowed, it was still a lot faster than taking those one-star starter jobs back in Grayrock.
Unfortunately, barring surprises, today would be the last day of the Winter hunt.
It was just too cold.
Many adventurers and camp followers had already said they wanted to return to town.
Gauss scrolled to the bottom of the Monster Index.
"Current common monster entries: 19."
After unlocking the 17th entry—Frost Snake—he'd only added Dire Wolf and Assassin Vine since then.
The former is a common camp follower and a winter regular.
The latter is an attacking plant that disguises itself as normal vines, then snares passing creatures.
Otherwise, he kept running into creatures he'd already logged, which made sense: the things he killed most—goblins, kobolds, and the like—are the most common in the wild, so repeats are inevitable.
On top of that, one region's biodiversity is limited; with deep winter setting in, many monsters migrate or go dormant, which makes filling the index harder.
But—today they shouldn't come back empty-handed.
Gauss pinched the palm-sized, inky-black raven feather in his hand.
It was the tip he'd dug up in camp yesterday; the target lay ahead.
"Caw, caw, caw!"
Echo's familiar call came from overhead, breaking Gauss's train of thought.
He wasn't annoyed—in fact, he smiled.
The raven's return meant it had found the target.
Fortunately, ravens are highly adaptable; even in harsh winter they stay active and comfortable.
Echo's help these days had saved them a lot of effort.
After Alia paid it with chunks of meat, a brief exchange produced intel on a nearby monster camp.
"If all goes well, let's head back to camp after lunch."
Seeing how poorly Alia handled the cold—cheeks flushed, yet still out here with him—Gauss felt a twinge of guilt.
Plenty of teams had already skipped going out this morning, planning to warm themselves by the fire and ride out the last day.
Gauss had wanted to tell Alia to stay and let him hunt the twentieth entry alone, but after thinking about it, for some reason he didn't say it.
Maybe he sensed that even if he did, she'd probably come anyway.
They were a team—advance and retreat together.
"Mm-hmm," Alia nodded.
Guided by the raven,
the two pressed on through the snow.
"Caw!"
When they were nearly there, Echo gave two low caws as a warning.
"Thanks," Gauss said, whether it understood or not, then climbed a slightly higher snow slope, eager to scout the camp ahead.
This was the twentieth index entry—and the second racial talent to follow—so even he couldn't quite suppress his anticipation.
It felt like a blind box.
Before you open it, the anticipation is always the strongest.
He narrowed his eyes, sighting through the sparse snow pines to a deliberately cleared patch below.
A bonfire roared there, its leaping flames pushing back the cold. Shadowy figures ringed it, drawn to the warmth yet wary of getting too close.
"As expected—" Gauss's eyes lit up. Among the shapes he clearly picked out the main target of this trip: ravenfolk—kin, perhaps, to Echo in some ancient age.
Ravenfolk are standard low-tier monsters: an upper body like a raven—black-feathered, clawed, and winged—set on a bipedal humanoid lower body.
They can glide short distances, but ordinary ravenfolk can't truly fly like birds.
Yesterday, an adventuring party had found raven feathers here, but since it was late, they wisely chose not to follow the trail to the lair.
This morning, deciding not to work the Emerald Forest at all, they simply passed the location on to Gauss.
"One, two, three… fifteen," Gauss counted silently.
Not many. While a ravenfolk is tougher than a basic goblin, fifteen of them posed no threat to the current Gauss; even Alia, without Ulfen, could handle them with some effort.
Numbers didn't matter much to him anymore.
He slid down the slope.
"Fifteen ravenfolk. We clear them out, eat lunch, and head back."
He sent the plan to Alia via Message.
"Alright. I'll back you up with Entangle."
"Yeah—same routine we've been practicing."
"Got it."
Alia whispered back and signed.
"Caw, caw, caw!"
A dry caw split the quiet gray sky, drawing the ravenfolk around the fire to look up.
"Caw!"
They tensed, then relaxed when they saw only a black raven circling overhead.
Ravens are common in winter, and with their similar bloodline, the ravenfolk held little wariness toward this flying "cousin."
They didn't notice a few dry green seeds—mixed into a couple clumps of gray-white bird droppings—fall with soft plops onto the ground not far from the bonfire.