Reborn As The Minor Villain In A Romance Fantasy Novel - Chapter 149

Chapter 149: Trapped In Snow [I]
The ball of space still remained around them; however, the wood that surrounded them was gone leaving them exposed to see what had been left behind.

It was snow.

Endless, blinding snow.

This was called a Dungeon Shift, and it was one of the rarest, most terrifying phenomena an Awakener could experience mid-raid.

Most Awakeners only heard about it in Guild manuals, the kind written in bold red letters with warnings like “In case of Shift, prioritize survival.”

No one really expected to live through it.

A Dungeon Shift meant the dungeon’s core had mutated while you were inside it.

Its type, rank, and laws would change instantly.

Its landscape, monsters, and mana density would become something entirely new.

And worst of all… the exit would vanish until you cleared the new dungeon.

Luna shivered.

The field that had once been a calm stretch of ocean was now a frozen wasteland. The pirate ship was gone.

The horizon had vanished into a curtain of white. Even the sky itself had dimmed to a bruised gray.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the giants… their last recognizable landmarks were gone from their meditating positions.

“How did this even happen…?” Luna whispered. Her voice trembled as she looked down at the man in her arms.

Lucius’s body burned like a furnace; his temperature was far beyond normal.

When a Dungeon Shift happened, the mana radiation spiked thousands of times higher than normal.

It could melt weaker Awakeners alive, and the only reason they were still breathing was because Lucius had shielded them with everything he had… space energy, wood constructs, even his life force if she was guessing right.

‘He’s burning up… oh gods, I’m scared…’ Luna bit her lip, her visor fogging slightly from the heat radiating off him.

She didn’t care about her own safety anymore… just his.

“Is he okay?” Erika asked quietly. The woman’s breath misted in the air. If she was scared, she didn’t show it, but her trembling hands told the truth.

“He’s burning up,” Luna said through clenched teeth. “But he’ll be fine.”

Grimm approached, his usually loud steps now muffled by the snow. He was holding the broken remains of the P-40 drone, its head completely sheared off.

He handed it to Luna, who took it with both hands and stared at the cracked lens. It was beyond repair.

“Okay.” Erika exhaled sharply and looked around at the frozen landscape. “How do we get out of this?”

She reached forward and pressed her palm against the barrier Lucius had created.

The moment she did, it shattered like glass. A wall of freezing wind rushed in, cutting against their skin like knives.

“Shit!” Grimm cursed and held an arm up.

Erika’s jaw tightened. “We need to do what the guides say when there’s a Shift.”

“Which is?” Felix asked, his lips trembling as he tried to rub warmth into his arms.

Erika looked back at the group grimly. “Run for our lives.”

No one argued.

She grabbed Lucius by the arm, hoisting his half-conscious body up with a grunt.

The heat coming off him was intense… like carrying a furnace wrapped in human skin but she refused to let go.

“We need to find shelter,” she said. “A cave or somewhere solid. If we stay here, the storm’ll kill us before the monsters do.”

The group started moving.

The snow reached up to their knees, and their breaths came out in quick, shallow bursts.

Their pirate uniforms were still on them… long coats, belts, and boots but they did little against this kind of cold.

“Come on…” Raven muttered, his fists clenched. The fire affinity running through his veins should’ve kept him warm, but even he was starting to shiver. “We keep moving.”

The blizzard howled. Ice formed along their sleeves and lashes.

“I have something,” Luna muttered. Her voice barely carried over the wind. She raised her wrist and tapped a glowing interface on her gauntlet.

A pulse of orange light expanded outward from her suit, and a wave of artificial heat surrounded them.

Her invention worked… barely. The heat generator inside her suit hummed, spreading warmth around the group like a portable campfire.

The others sighed in relief, and even Raven smiled.

“Luna, you’re a lifesaver,” Grimm said.

“Don’t thank me yet,” she muttered. “The battery won’t last long.”

The group trudged forward through the snow. The world was so white it almost looked like they were walking inside a blank canvas.

Visibility was poor… ten meters at most and if they lost sight of each other, that would be it.

“Fuck… fuck… fuck…” Erika muttered under her breath, half to keep herself awake, half to keep her nerves from cracking.

Her right arm was stiff and her fingers were barely responding.

Then Grimm stopped. “Wait.”

Everyone froze.

He pointed ahead, squinting through the snow. “There! A cave!”

It was barely visible, a dark slit at the base of a distant mountain but it was shelter, and that was all that mattered.

Relief spread through the group like wildfire.

“Finally…” Matthias breathed.

But just as they started running toward it, Erika noticed something odd.

The snow ahead of them… was moving.

“Wait,” she whispered, squinting. “Snow doesn’t move like that—”

The snow burst upward.

Two wolves… lunged out of the blizzard.

Their eyes glowed blue and their bodies pulsed with frost mana.

“Monsters!” Erika shouted.

Raven moved first. A blur of red flame against the white world, he shot past Erika like a comet and slammed his fist into the first wolf’s head.

The skull shattered instantly, sending shards of frozen blood scattering through the snow.

Before the second could react, he stomped down with all his weight. There was a crunch, and then silence.

Steam rose from the two broken corpses.

Luna stared. “…Did you just one-punch wolves?”

Raven exhaled through his nose, brushing frost from his knuckles. “They were in the way.”

The others exchanged looks.

Even in the middle of this hell, the guy still found a way to act cool.

He crouched down beside the corpses and inspected them.

The wolves were strange… they were part flesh and part ice.

Their insides were like frozen jellyfish.

“I was just thinking…” Raven said, lifting one by the scruff of its neck. “We’re going to need food once we reach that cave.”

He looked up at them, utterly serious. “Wolf meat ought to be edible, wouldn’t it?”

Everyone stared at him.

“…You’re weird,” Erika finally said.

Grimm laughed, shaking his head. “Nah, he’s got a point. Let’s bring ’em.”

Felix hesitated. “Isn’t that, uh, dangerous? They might be poisonous—”

“Protein’s protein,” Raven said flatly, and slung both carcasses over his shoulders like sacks of rice.

…

They arrived at the cavern, and the opening was far bigger than they’d expected.

The snowstorm outside raged on, but within the mouth of the cave… the air felt less colder.

Luna tapped the side of her visor, scanning the area with her built-in sensors. The readings blinked back at her in blue light… no life signatures nearby.

‘No monsters,’ she thought with relief, but her relief didn’t last long.

Her visor’s readings glowed again, adjusting to the new dungeon parameters. The mana density was off the charts.

‘Wait… this isn’t C-rank anymore. It’s… B-rank?’

Her heart sank.

A B-rank dungeon meant death for an average team… and even for someone like Lucius, it would be dangerous.

“How are we supposed to survive this?” she muttered.

She looked down at Lucius, his body still burning with fever from mana exhaustion. “He saved us, and now…”

They entered deeper into the cave. The ground was slick with frost and each step crunching like thin glass beneath their boots.

The deeper they went, the darker it got, until only Luna’s faint orange light from her suit illuminated their path.

“This’ll do,” Erika said.

Her breath came out in white puffs. “We can’t stay near the entrance too long.”

Luna didn’t waste a second. She reached into her storage ring and pulled out a large folded blanket, shaking it open.

Everyone blinked at her.

“What?” she asked, arching a brow as she spread it over the flattest patch of rock she could find. “It was a gift.”

“Of course it was,” Grimm muttered under his breath, though he still helped her flatten it out.

They carefully placed Lucius down on the blanket. His breathing was shallow, but he was fine.

“Block the entrance,” Erika ordered.

Raven nodded and rolled up his sleeves. He found a huge boulder wedged near the wall and shoved it across the cave’s opening.

The moment it settled into place, the outside light vanished, plunging them into darkness.

The temperature rose slightly now that the cold was trapped outside.

Trisha moved closer and knelt beside him. “Let me see him,” she said quietly.

“You?” Erika raised an eyebrow.

“I used to work as a nurse before I awakened,” Trisha said as she pulled her gloves off. “If he’s really mana-exhausted, I might be able to help.”

Erika hesitated, then shifted aside. “Do what you can.”

Trisha leaned forward, placing one hand gently on Lucius’s chest and the other near his jawline.

Her fingers grazed over his abs as she felt for a heartbeat, pressing her ear to his chest to listen.

Luna’s eyes twitched. “…You could’ve just checked his pulse from his neck.”

Trisha ignored her, brow furrowed in concentration.

After a few seconds, she exhaled. “He’s alive, but he’s suffering from severe mana shortage.”

“Mana shortage?” Raven asked, sitting cross-legged nearby.

Trisha nodded. “Every awakened being has a certain amount of mana flowing through their system, even when they’re not fighting. It’s what keeps their organs functioning under magical strain. Normally, mana exhaustion doesn’t kill you… it just weakens you. But in his case…”

She swallowed. “He doesn’t have any mana left at all. His body’s trying to operate on nothing.”

“Then what do we do?” Erika asked immediately.

Trisha’s face flushed slightly.

She hesitated, her eyes darting from Lucius to Luna. “…We have to put mana back into him manually.”

“Manually?” Luna repeated, tilting her head. “You mean like mana infusion through the hands?”

Trisha’s cheeks turned pink. “Through his mouth.”

The silence that followed could’ve frozen the air itself.

“…Come again?” Grimm asked, blinking.

“It’s a standard emergency technique,” Trisha said quickly, hands up defensively. “If someone’s completely drained of mana, the fastest way to transfer it is through direct contact with the mouth. It ensures mana flow connects directly to the core pathway through the throat. It’s basic healing protocol!”

Raven raised an eyebrow. “Pretty convenient ‘protocol’.”

“It’s real!” she insisted. “But… it can be dangerous if done wrong. The person giving mana could over-transfer and faint.”

Everyone looked at Lucius’s motionless form, then at Trisha.

“Well?” Erika asked, folding her arms. “You’re the nurse. You do it.”

Trisha froze. “M-me?”

“Yeah. You brought it up.”

Trisha’s blush deepened to crimson. She rubbed her hands nervously on her thighs, trying to steady her breathing. “…I-I mean, I could, but… he’s our leader. It’d be unprofessional and besides Luna is his girlfriend.”