Ch.130Chapter 130

The incident of Wendigo’s neck being grotesquely twisted did not become an unfortunate rumor among the Hrimtur.

This was thanks to the Hrimtur who witnessed the scene first going to Angrboda, Voltorn’s wife and the idol of the tribe’s women.

She brought the women who had troubled Wendigo to his tent and apologized.

“They’ve caused you trouble while you’re working hard for my daughter.”

“B-but Angrboda…”

“I’m telling you his neck really twisted! Just like a freshly caught deer, his neck went sideways and—mmph!?”

The Hrimtur women tried to rebel against Angrboda’s tyranny(?) of dismissing the truth. However, their resistance was easily thwarted when one friend covered their mouths.

The Hrimtur who desperately silenced her friends whispered to them urgently.

“Please, read the room and shut up, you idiots. Are your eyes just for decoration?”

She gritted her teeth and gestured to the side with her eyes.

Her friends’ eyes naturally followed her gaze…

“Eek!”

“My, why are you so startled?”

Angrboda was quietly furious with a surprisingly calm expression. Her eyes were smiling, but her seemingly gentle pupils were emitting sharp glares.

The Hrimtur women, now understanding their friend’s warning, hiccupped and shrank back.

They realized that truth be damned, if they made a mistake, their faces would be smashed by Angrboda, the tribe’s strongest female warrior.

Angrboda tilted her head as she looked at the women staring up at her like frightened rabbits.

“Instead of looking at me, you should be apologizing, shouldn’t you?”

The women who met Angrboda’s eyes panicked and quickly threw themselves to the ground in deep apology.

“W-we’re sorry!”

“It was dark, we must have seen things!”

“If you want, I can apologize with my body…”

Smack!

When one woman still hadn’t come to her senses and blurted out nonsense, Angrboda gave her a sharp reprimand.

Wendigo looked at the woman with her face planted on the ground, squirming, and felt uncomfortable. Apart from causing a commotion, he thought they hadn’t actually been mistaken.

His neck and shoulders were quite stiff, too much to claim it was just from sitting for too long.

Wendigo cleared his throat and waved his hand.

“I’m fine, but I’d appreciate if everyone would leave. I also have something to discuss with Angrboda.”

“Thank you for forgiving the children’s rudeness. Everyone, please leave now. And don’t spread any strange rumors, understood?”

“Yes!”

With Angrboda’s permission, the women moved quickly, dragging their unconscious—not dead—friend out of the tent.

Outside, they could hear the woman who had fainted complaining to her friends about her face being scraped on the ground, making both Angrboda and Wendigo chuckle.

“It’s a good tribe. I can feel the affection between friends and neighbors—you and Voltorn must have put in considerable effort.”

“It’s nothing. It was already a good tribe when I was young. Though… I won’t deny it’s gotten better since then.”

Angrboda took pride in how the tribe had improved.

While it hadn’t been a bad tribe in the past, the level of warriors and the tribe’s prosperity were thanks to her and Voltorn’s efforts.

Angrboda reminisced about her younger days when she and Voltorn worked together for the tribe’s prosperity.

However, she only briefly enjoyed the nostalgia of those pleasant times without getting deeply lost in it. She had an intuition that whatever Wendigo had to say wouldn’t be good news.

Revealing the cold gaze hidden behind her smile, Angrboda asked Wendigo.

“I’d like it to be good news, but I suppose that’s not the case?”

“That’s right. To be honest, things might get more troublesome than expected.”

“Bad news never fails to exceed expectations. If it’s something important, let’s discuss it over dinner with the family later.”

“Dinner… I’m not sure discussing heavy matters during a meal would be good for the family.”

Would it really be okay to talk about armored spiders hiding in their living grounds while eating?

Seeing Wendigo’s negative attitude, Angrboda smiled and shook her head.

“I don’t know about other races, but for the Hrimtur, dinner is essentially battle. Mealtime is actually the best time to discuss harsh matters.”

“Really?”

“Of course. At least during meals, no matter how angry someone gets, they still need to eat, so they won’t run away.”

“……”

Was Angrboda’s statement a joke or the truth?

Unable to discern her true meaning, Wendigo closed his mouth and followed Angrboda out of the tent.

* * *

Invited to dinner, Wendigo shared the evening meal with Gulmarg, Angrid, and the chief couple.

Lifting the tent flap, Angrid, who had arrived at Voltorn’s tent first, spotted Wendigo waiting for the food and waved enthusiastically.

“Wendigo! Did you find anything in the snowfield?”

“I found some clues… but you two look terrible.”

Wendigo stared in disbelief at Gulmarg and Angrid, who were covered in armored spider blood.

While Wendigo had been possessing animals to investigate the snowfield, the two had been roaming the forest and snowfield, slaughtering every armored spider they could find.

Angrid, seemingly satisfied with the hunt she had always dreamed of sharing with her lover, smiled broadly.

“Hehehe… Impressive, right? I went hunting with Gulmarg and it was fantastic. Especially the moment when I held its front legs with my chain while Gulmarg crushed its head—that was the best.”

“Angrid, your restraining technique was artful. Your spear throwing was amazing too. You never missed once.”

“Oh, come on… It was all thanks to Gulmarg driving the armored spiders so well!”

Embarrassed by Gulmarg’s praise, Angrid nudged his solar plexus with her elbow.

The sound was quite dull, but Gulmarg suppressed his rising cough and accepted Angrid’s love.

Wendigo watched them with a blank expression.

‘I can see they’re a good match… but they’re more cringeworthy than I expected.’

They say time isn’t important when falling in love, but Angrid and Gulmarg’s love was certainly rapid.

The main reason was that they were each other’s ideal types… but still, the cringe factor was unavoidable for onlookers.

And Voltorn, Angrid’s father, felt the same way. Seeing his daughter creating a lovey-dovey atmosphere with her husband, Voltorn spoke to Angrid with a stern expression.

“Ahem! Angrid, it’s fine to like your husband, but go wash up first.”

“Tch, I heard that when you first met mom, you kissed her while covered in blood.”

“Pfft!?”

Caught off guard by the exposure of his embarrassing youthful memories, Voltorn sputtered out the drink he had just sipped.

Having always tried to show only his cool side to his daughter, he had never told her such embarrassing stories.

Coughing, Voltorn asked Angrid.

“W-who told you that?”

“Aunt Larisa told me. She said when you were young, you and mom were really hot—”

“Angrid? Stop teasing your father and go wash up~”

“Mom!”

Just before Voltorn’s embarrassing love story could be fully revealed, Angrboda appeared carrying a huge tray loaded with food.

As she set down the food, which generously used whale and mammoth bones and meat, Angrboda whispered to her daughter.

“Your husband is also covered in blood, so go wash together. I’ll prepare food separately for you, so take your time.”

“!”

Understanding her mother’s wisdom, Angrid smiled brightly, grabbed Gulmarg’s hand, and ran out of the tent.

Voltorn stared at the tent entrance with an uncomfortable expression and muttered.

“They haven’t even had their wedding ceremony yet…”

“Do you remember how we did it before we were married?”

“Ahem!”

When Angrboda asked with a mischievous expression, Voltorn coughed roughly and averted his gaze.

Wendigo looked at Voltorn in disbelief.

Despite what he said, hadn’t he loved even more passionately than his daughter?

“W-Wendigo. Angrboda tells me you have something urgent to discuss. Shall we talk while we eat?”

“Well… sure.”

It wouldn’t be polite to dig too deeply into someone else’s love life anyway.

Wendigo spooned up some stew and talked about what he had seen.

The existence of armored spiders hiding in the vast snowfield, how they hid in the snow to hunt prey and drag it underground, and the number of spiders doing this…

Voltorn chewed on mammoth meat resembling boiled pork with a serious expression.

“Suspicious. This is nothing like the armored spiders we know.”

“I agree. The situation might be more serious than we thought. Oh, could you pass me that stew over there?”

‘It’s a bit funny how she eats so heartily while discussing something so serious.’

Wendigo inwardly chuckled as he handed the bowl full of stew to Angrboda.

While eating the stew, Angrboda spoke worriedly.

“We should warn the warriors to be careful when they go hunting. And to retreat if the ground feels solid.”

“We might need to consider not sending them to the snowfield at all. Wendigo, could you possibly investigate beneath the snow?”

“Hmm…”

Scooping a large spoonful of caviar into his mouth, Wendigo savored the taste while pondering.

To understand exactly why the armored spiders had changed, they certainly needed to examine beneath the snow, but he couldn’t think of a good method.

If it had been the forest, he could have used roots for exploration…

“Squeak squeak!”

“Oh my… the forest has more food than the snowfield, but the problem is there are more mice.”

When a mouse appeared from somewhere, Voltorn picked up a small lump of fat from his bowl and offered it to the creature.

The mouse happily took the fat and began gnawing on it…

Watching this, Wendigo had a thought flash through his mind.

“I think I might be able to investigate beneath the snow.”

“Is that true! To be honest, I wasn’t expecting that much… I’m impressed.”

“I thought it would be difficult too, so don’t worry about it.”

Wendigo wiggled his fingernail toward the mouse. Responding to the call, the mouse ran over and climbed onto his extended nail.

“It seems I’ll need your help.”

“Squeak? Squeak squeak!”

At Wendigo’s request, the mouse tilted its head and chirped brightly.