"Welcome to the Circle of the Wise!"
A group of people of varying ages and backgrounds raised their clay cups cheerfully toward the firelight.
"Thank you... truly, thank you," Nia whispered, feeling her eyes become teary again.
She sniffled, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve.
After her demonstration for the Mountain Lord, Orin had assisted Nia in drawing hot water from the cavern’s reservoirs to wash the grime off both herself and her sleeping brother.
Afterward, she had been given a set of wolf-pelt clothes.
When Renn had finally been settled into a bed of thick furs, Nia had followed Orin into this private hall.
Here, the ’thinkers’ of the mountain had prepared a small welcoming feast for her...
This was the first time Nia had ever seen so many people like herself in one place.
If these ’outcasts’ had been imprisoned here or forced to serve Frodo as slaves, they would never be able to laugh so freely or reveal such light-hearted smiles.
In contrast to those who thought differently in the neutral camps, who were often hunted down by Shamans or cast out into the snow for being ’demon-touched’, finding a sanctuary that actually valued intelligence over brute strength was a miracle...
Since Kael’s Blood-Walkers had attacked the river, a full moon cycle of suffering and fleeing had followed.
But now, surrounded by the warm fire of the Circle, she could finally let her mind relax.
At the same time, she also realized how ’magical’ a banquet hosted by a group of geniuses could become.
A crippled man named Bael was roasting a goat over the fire, but he wasn’t turning the spit by hand.
Instead, a system of wooden gears and braided ropes attached to a dripping water-trough was slowly, turning the meat to perfection without anyone touching it!
Near the back wall, Silas was using a mammoth tusk to speak to a scout in a different tunnel, his voice traveling through the rock like a whispering ghost.
Meanwhile, the elderly healer, Vash, didn’t use a fire to heat her tea.
Instead, she dropped a handful of strange stones into a clay pot of river water.
Within seconds, the water bubbled and boiled entirely on its own, releasing a cloud of steam.
Nia watched in awe.
With Orin introducing the members to her one after another, she was able to remember each of their names.
In the Circle, there were mature minds like Vash and Bael, and there were also the younge prodigies like Orin and the logistics managers.
But no matter what their obsession was, none of them treated her as a cursed stranger or a useless mouth to feed.
After the banquet concluded and the fires were banked low, she wished the thinkers a good night and returned to her new sleeping alcove.
Although young Renn possessed no special intelligence or unique skills, Frodo had not ordered the siblings to be separated.
"Sister?" Renn opened his eyes.
"You are awake!" Nia felt an immediate surge of delight in her chest, rushing to the bedside and dropping to her knees. "How is your throat? How are you feeling?"
Renn blinked, looking like a boy who had only been asleep for a long time, showing no trace of the Black Frost sickness or the pain it had brought to his body.
With his eyes still a little cloudy, he opened his mouth and muttered, "I feel so hungry."
"Wait..." Nia hurriedly took a pouch from her belt and untied it.
This pouch of pemmican had been given to her by Vash earlier. "I have food for you."
Sitting on the edge of the furs and watching Renn devour the dense ration, she felt so gratified that she began to pat the little boy’s hair.
Renn had only just survived his eighth winter, and now, with their parents gone, she was the only thing he could rely on in this world.
After eating two large handfuls of the pemmican, he became more sober.
Curiously looking around the walls of the alcove, he asked, "Where are we? The gorge didn’t have warm caves like this."
"This is the Mammoth Mountain. We survived the trail. We reached our destination."
"We are inside the mountain?" He touched his cheek, looking confused. "But wasn’t I... cursed? Why would the Mountain Lord let sick people into his warm caves?"
"You are right, that would normally be impossible," Nia replied.
Seeing the blank expression on her brother’s face, she couldn’t help but laugh. "However, the Lord’s healers have already driven the sickness from your blood."
Afterward, she gave him a brief summary of what happened in the lodges outside.
"And from now on, the Lord says we can stay here."
"Healers?" Renn asked, tilting his head. "Are they cursed people, like you, sister?"
"Yes, they are like me. Furthermore, everyone here is incredibly kind," Nia poked his nose. "Especially the boy who carried you, Orin."
"Oh. But you always told me that warlords hate people who act weird. Why would this Lord be willing to feed us?"
Taken aback by the blunt question, Nia coughed twice. "This... occasionally there is a Lord who is different from the rest."
While licking the last crumbs of fat from his fingers, Renn asked, "Does that mean you have to work as his slave? Like the women in the River Clans who had to scrape the bloody hides and carry the heavy rocks until their backs broke?"
"What nonsense are you talking about," Nia said, grasping her younger brother’s cheeks. "I am a thinker! It is only natural that I help the Lord with my mind, not my back. As for being a slave, who told you that?"
"Mother..." he sadly whispered, looking down. "She said that is what happens to girls who can’t hunt."
Hearing him mention their mother, Nia’s face suddenly darkened.
She wasn’t worried about Renn’s theory...
She could clearly see that aside from simple inquiries about her survival, the only thing that truly sparked the boy-leader’s interest was her ability to chemically separate the epoxy.
It was glaringly evident that Frodo cared far more about a person’s practical utility than using them as simple manual labor.
But, when thinking about her own unique ability, Nia felt worried and sick at heart.
She knew that survival required creating things: forging spears, building traps, sewing furs.
But her specific obsession was useless for creating...
Her father had been a master trap-maker, meaning their tent was always filled with braided sinew and treated leathers.
But on the day Nia realized her mind was different, she had ruined his best fishing net.
She had boiled the waterproof mammoth-bladder in a mixture of white ash and hot water, just to see how the fat would react.
It had separated entirely, turning into a slippery foam and a puddle of ruined oil.
After the event, her parents had severely rebuked her.
They didn’t cast her out, but they warned her to hide her curiosity, disguising herself as a normal girl.
At first, Nia was full of curiosity about the hidden properties of the earth, often hiding near the river to separate clays and saps.
But she discovered that her ’skill’ was purely destructive.
She could not build a spear; she could only break the glue holding the spearhead down. She could not weave a basket; she could only rot the fibers by separating their moisture.
In short, her ability was only good for destroying what others had produced.
If she wanted to be a warrior, she was too weak.
If she wanted to be a builder, she lacked the strength to lift the logs.
As a thinker, she couldn’t think of any use for breaking things into powders and oils.
It felt like her intelligence was on the lowest possible level of usefulness...
Coming to this conclusion, she had been anxious for a long time.
If the brilliant Boy-Lord also eventually realized her trick was useless for survival, would he cast her and Renn back out into the snow?
She blew out the animal-fat lamp on the table, took her brother into her arms, closed her eyes, and awaited the judgment of a new day.