Across from him, the Tsaritsa stared at him with an equally frigid gaze.
This insolent fellow had barged into her palace without so much as a greeting.
When she questioned him, he hadn’t uttered a single word, turned around, sprinted in a wide circle around the palace, and returned with broom shavings stuck to his left boot.
What was the meaning of this?
No wonder the other Harbingers under her command called him a lunatic.
“Daigan, what did you just go do?” the Tsaritsa asked, suppressing her irritation beneath a calm facade.
Daigan was busy rummaging through his inventory, trying to see if he could throw the Gnosis onto the throne to complete the quest.
“Did you obtain the Gnosis?!” Seeing him ignore her, the Tsaritsa snapped angrily.
Her voice echoed through the vast, cavernous hall, sounding stark and jarring.
Still, there was no response.
“Heh…”
If anyone else had been present, they would have been stunned to see the habitually stoic Her Imperial Majesty display a radiant smile before Daigan, much like an ordinary person.
It was still uncontrolled.
As expected, he was a useless pawn after all.
Just as the Tsaritsa was about to give up on him—
“Found it.”
A glittering chess piece was swiftly pulled out from beneath Daigan’s cloak.
“Hmm?
Why does it feel…” Daigan looked at the empty throne before him.
He wasn’t sure if it was an illusion, but just now…
a shadowy figure seemed to have flashed across it for a split second.
“Well done,” a cold, ethereal voice resounded through the empty hall.
Looking at the purple chess piece respectfully presented before her, the Tsaritsa praised him without hesitation.
Even in the face of her praise, Daigan maintained a cold face and offered no response, though she had long grown accustomed to this.
Looking at the Gnosis once held by the Electro Archon, the anger that had just flared up in her chest vanished without a trace.
“Heh, to retrieve the Electro Gnosis in a matter of days…
your efficiency remains as swift as ever, Daigan.
I thought you returned this time simply to admire the scenery of my palace.”
Facing this Harbinger who cared nothing for fame, status, or wealth, her voice rarely lacked a fraction of its inherent authority and polite detachment.
If he required nothing…
Then this was all she could forcefully bestow upon him.
The Tsaritsa extended her hand elegantly, preparing to take the offered gift from Daigan’s hand.
Meanwhile, Daigan looked at the prompt indicating the quest was still incomplete and knitted his brows slightly.
*Let’s try this.*
With a slight bend of his arm and a flick of his wrist, the purple Gnosis traced a graceful arc through the air, landing softly on the ground with a crisp clatter.
[Prompt: Host is in extreme cold.
Please light a campfire to keep warm.]
Daigan looked down in confusion at the blue gauge slowly filling up beneath his vision.
Wasn’t this Sheer Cold meter something that only appeared in special extreme-cold environments?
Why was it inside the palace, too?
The Tsaritsa’s hand froze midair, the smile on her face yet to fade.
Looking at Daigan close before her, she spoke word by word, “Fool, are you tired of living?”
Under the Tsaritsa’s gaze of absolute death, Daigan hunched his shoulders, breathed out a puff of warm air, rubbed his hands together, and flushed slightly.
“Cold.”
“You actually know what cold is?”
Seeing Daigan soften his stance, the Tsaritsa waved her hand.
The ice pillars packing the palace finally ceased their slow growth.
The longest among them was glinting with a frigid sheen, its tip resting right against Daigan’s neck.
*What’s going on?*
Looking at the figure on the throne that kept stuttering like a broken 3D model, Daigan’s mind was filled with confusion.
Ever since a moment ago, he had felt a vague, invisible sense of pressure emanating from the direction of the throne.
This was the first time he had ever experienced such a sensation in this world.
And now a Sheer Cold meter had even spawned.
Could this place be one of those special hazard zones where players couldn’t linger for long?
Looking at the progress bar that stubbornly displayed [Quest Incomplete], Daigan thought to himself, *Should I just leave?
Standing here is a complete waste of time.*
Watching Daigan rub his hands and shiver with a flushed face, the Tsaritsa’s anger dissipated slightly.
She pointed at the Gnosis that had bounced down the steps to the bottom floor and commanded, “Go pick up the Gnosis.”
Daigan gave the quest objective one final look, then walked over to pick the dropped Gnosis back up.
After all, loot left on the ground for too long would despawn.
[Quest item retrieved.]
If he didn’t warm up soon, he would start losing HP.
This Gnosis was probably meant to be handed over during a cutscene.
At any rate, the organization he had joined held meetings every few days—there would be plenty of chances in the future.
And so, holding the Gnosis, Daigan turned and walked toward the exit.
“What are you doing?”
“Cold.”
The air seemed to freeze.
The Tsaritsa stared with a frigid expression as Daigan gradually approached the palace doors.
Just as Daigan’s hand was about to touch the door handle, an overwhelming wave of ice-blue frost swept over the hall.
An unimaginable chill instantly enveloped Daigan’s entire body.
His footsteps halted, locking him in place.
The next second, the Gnosis he had just put away began to tremble violently in his hand.
In Daigan’s vision, the data corresponding to the Gnosis flickered wildly.
Through his increasingly frosty vision, he saw the purple-and-gold Gnosis slip from his grasp, floating up into midair.
A blurry, slender figure forged of ice and snow slowly condensed from the direction of the throne, walking toward him step by step.
*What the hell…*
She still didn’t possess a complete physical form, remaining merely a vague outline, but the suffocating pressure she exerted made Daigan’s spine tingle slightly, even through his cognitive filter layer.
A cold, ethereal voice sounded clearly beside his ear: “Because I told you to pick it up, you picked it up and immediately tried to walk off?”
The Tsaritsa extended a hand sculpted from frost and snow, gently grasping the Gnosis.
The purple-gold lightning and the pure white ice crystals mirrored each other, forming a striking, impactful visual in his sight.
“What a dull-witted fool.”
The Tsaritsa’s voice no longer sounded from all directions, but clearly rang out from within that silhouetted outline.
Daigan’s ears buzzed softly, as if someone were speaking right against his ear.
“The next target is the Dendro Gnosis.”
Her words were concise and powerful, carrying an unquestionable tone of command.
“In three days, at the council hall, we shall discuss the plan.”
Having said this, the figure composed of snow and ice scattered into the air once more, as though it had never existed.
Only the Gnosis was no longer in Daigan’s inventory.
Daigan stood where he was, looking down at his empty hands.
[Ding!
Quest completed!] [Obtained EXP: 10,000] [Obtained Mora: 50,000,000] [Level Up!
Current Level: 86]
A string of system notifications flashed across his vision.
After a long time of grinding levels combined with this sudden surge of EXP, Daigan had finally leveled up again.
He turned around and looked back at the throne, which remained as empty as ever.
“System, what was that just now?”
[Detected an upcoming council meeting within the Fatui.
Please attend the meeting.] [Meeting Time: In 3 days] [Meeting Location: Zapolyarny Palace]
The system gave no direct answer, merely issuing a new quest.
“Screw you.
You’re even nagging me about something three days from now?
I don’t feel like running back and forth—fast-forward time.”
[Adjusting time forward by three days.]
And so, Daigan sat down on a chair, closed his eyes, and rested his mind.
Sitting upon the throne, the Tsaritsa, who was inspecting the Gnosis, lowered her gaze and swept a subtle glance toward Daigan.
…
*BOOM!*
With a loud crash, a massive hole blew open in the ornate wall of Zapolyarny Palace.
Daigan was hurled out, chair and all.
Fortunately, before the howling blizzard could invade the hall, the wall was seamlessly repaired by a layer of frost.