The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 5 - Sapphire Intermission 2 (Patreon)

Somewhere near Safe Zone 103

Sapphire casually walks through the trees as she freezes everything in sight, including the dozen or so anthrovespids. A problem that really needed to be dealt with.

Over her time on Aegis, she’s spent a lot of it exploring. But after she got tired of just doing that for weeks on end, she decided to see if there was any way she could help out Safe Zone 52. Since it was the Safe Zone her grandfather was partially in charge of, even if he’s not on Aegis right now.

Of course, that was without Sapphire talking to most of the Safe Zone and only speaking with the one currently in charge of the Safe Zone.

And at first it did feel a little different from how it was in the dungeon to be killing sapient creatures, since most of the monsters in the dungeon aren’t sapient. They can’t talk back, unlike these anthrovespids who mostly hiss and chitter back but still with an occasional word.

But in the end Sapphire realized it wasn’t all that much different from killing the monsters in the dungeon. Especially considering that anthrovespids in general are more like monsters than anything else, seeing as they simply kill anything that isn’t an anthrovespid so that they can eat them.

The biggest thing Sapphire realized after leaving the dungeon wasn’t even that though.

It was that the newly initialized people on Aegis are weak.

Sapphire lets out a light yawn as she continues walking through the forest towards the Safe Zone, only briefly pausing after making it to the outskirts of the forest when the Safe Zone itself enters her line of sight.

Creepy.

She can’t help but think this as she squints her eyes at the giant nest hanging from even larger trees around the Safe Zone, and at the various anthrovespids flying in and out on buzzing wings.

“Remember, if you have any trouble dealing with the Safe Zone then you can always ask-” a voice begins to enter Sapphire’s ear from a System Item crafted by the forgers of Safe Zone 52. One belonging to the mayor of the Safe Zone. A man who her Dad had mentioned was also the mayor of the city he had lived in before the Initialization began. But the voice cuts off as Sapphire transforms into her giant spider form and sends a massive flurry of eternal ice element straight at the Safe Zone, freezing the entire thing solid into a massive iceberg of eternal ice.

Then she nods her head once and turns back around while transforming back into her bipedal form and beginning to skip through the trees while whistling a tune her father often whistles. A rather slow but relaxing one that reminds her of the moonlight currently drifting down from the moon high above her.

I wish I remembered the name of the song…

Deciding that the name in the end doesn’t really matter, she continues whistling for a bit before suddenly remembering the mayor’s voice that had come over the System Item. So she taps the item that’s located around her right ear, tilting her head slightly as she asks, “Were you saying something old man?”

A brief round of stuttering comes from the device for a few seconds before his voice answers, “N-no, nothing’s wrong. Thank you for the help, Miss Adler.”

Sapphire feels herself smiling at the man’s usage of her father’s family name attached to her. Or rather, his human family name.

There wasn’t anyone for her to talk to back in the dungeon except for the other Competitors and the rather intimidating Executives that her dad always interacted with. And that annoying woman who obviously has feelings for her dad.

I can’t remember her name, but I don’t like her.

Sapphire keeps smiling as she skips through the snow, uncaring of the woman. Especially when she knows that her dad isn’t ever going to have any interest in the woman.

After skipping and whistling for a while, she pauses as she remembers that she should check the surroundings for any other anthrovespids. But after taking a few seconds to do that and failing to find any, she continues making her way back to Safe Zone 52 while asking over the item, “So is there anything else you need old man?”

“Nothing we should be bothering you with, Miss Adler,” the man says rather quickly, making Sapphire immediately hang up the call and begin whistling again while putting one of her hands in her pocket and raising the other to open a menu in front of her. Then she navigates to the livestreams and opens her dad’s livestream. Something she eventually realized she could do whenever she wanted, unlike the other Competitor’s livestreams.

Probably because of her and her dad’s bond.

And the first thing she sees after opening the livestream is the sight of her dad slaughtering a bunch of spiders. A sight that gives her pause for just a single second before she continues walking.

That floor theme doesn’t look like a pleasant place to be. Better him than me.

Despite those thoughts she still watches the screen intently, trying to gauge whether he needs her help or not.

Because if she thinks he needs her help on the floor theme, she won’t hesitate to return to the dungeon again.

She can always just come back when he doesn’t need her help after all.

Sapphire continues watching for a bit before eventually deciding that he doesn’t need her help. At least not for the early floors of the theme.

He will likely need her help for the boss, and maybe for some of the later mini bosses as well. But not for the first floor of the theme.

Come to think of it, this is a sponsorship theme, isn’t it?

She pauses for a second at that thought only to shrug and continue moving while still whistling that song, putting her other hand into her pocket after closing out of the livestream menu.

Might as well go check out the other Safe zones.

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