Chapter 19
She will freeze and die as she is buried in the snow.
It was just right.
At least it won’t be painful. There was nothing bad in that kind of ending. She blinked her drowsy eyes.
Unlike the cold air that seems to freeze even her breath, her breath was hot like iron heated by fire. The snowflakes that touched her cheek melted away. Her eyes kept closing. Ariste closed her eyes and went to sleep, as she prayed for peace for her next life.
It was then… “Grrr…”
The cry of the menacing beast made her open her eyes. At that moment all accidents were temporarily stopped.
When she lifted her eyelids with pain, what she saw was the wild yellow eyes of the beast. A wolf the size of a house was staring at her from the front.
When did it come as close as me? She couldn’t even feel it. The wolves move quickly, so it was always a threat to the hunters. It comes silently and attacks its target in an instant. Its overwhelming size and strength were something that could not be overcome by anyone, so most of the lives were lost when it went to attack by surprise.
Often, she has seen wolves that had been hunted by the village. The dead wolf was so big and overbearing.
She just thought vaguely. Since there was no way to go into the deep forest, which was a hunting area, she thought, of course she would have no encounter with wolves.
But it seemed to me that it was rushing by smelling the scent of blood. The wolf’s sense of smell was sensitive enough to smell blood from a distance. So the blood shed by humans nearby would be sweet like sugar.
“…away…”

A small voice came out as the sound of breath flowed out. Far from being a wolf, her voice was so soft that it was difficult to hear even with her own ears.
“…go…”
She mumbled once again. This time, as if answering, the wolf grunted at her.
The air around has changed. The blizzard started to strike and the surroundings were hard to see. While being distracted by a large wolf, she did not notice the existence that had just approached the fallen beast.
From where Ariste was sitting, a huge shadow fell. Swish~
Suddenly, the scene in front of her changed. The shadow, which she thought was quite far away, swallowed her all over.
Shh.
The man pushed the wolf’s body aside with his boots, and stood where the wolf was lying earlier.
Her head remained lowered, and from her point of view, the only thing she could see was the man’s upper knees and thighs. Then she raised her head without any hesitation.
But horror that she had never felt before engulfed her whole body.
What was held in the man’s hand was a rifle for hunting. As if the previous firing was his own, faint smoke was rising from the muzzle.
The smell of gunpowder mixed with the smell of cold air and fishy blood stimulated the sensitive sense of smell. There was no pain in her ankle, which seemed to have already been cut off. The same was true for her calf.
Her gaze fixed only at the gun he was holding. Step.
She heard the sound of snow crushing in the man’s boots. The heat of his muzzle drew a thin line over his eye. He approached where Ariste was sitting slowly, neither rushing nor slow.

She had nowhere to run. The spirit that had faded away a while ago was revived and turned toward the man in front of him.
She’d rather die with that. She was tired of running, although it was scary. She wanted to stop now.
‘Why do I always have to run?’