“Yeah. Talk.”

  The grave robbers’ leader lifted his head.

  Between his tangled hair, beads of sweat on his forehead had frozen.

  He steadied his breathing and spoke low.

  “At first… I didn’t mean to take it this far.”

  Monero frowned.

  “And that’s supposed to excuse you?”

  The leader let out a short laugh.

  “No. It’s not an excuse. It’s the situation.”

  He slowly raised a hand.

  Rynel stayed on guard, but the leader’s fingertips were stiff with cold.

  Monero narrowed his eyes.

  Rynel kept his gaze fixed, listening in silence.

  “At first it was just a report.

  My superior’s orders felt wrong…

  and I could smell something being hidden behind them.”

  The leader took a deep breath.

  “So, by internal procedure, we gathered circumstances ourselves.

  At first we had evidence. We were confident.”

  He gave a bitter little smile.

  “But the funny part is…

  the one we reported was a high-ranking official inside the guild.”

  Monero’s eyebrow twitched.

  “After that… everything happened at once.”

  The leader muttered.

  “They charged us with ridiculous crimes. Framed us.

  The evidence was forged. The records were fabricated.”

  He lowered his eyes.

  “The guild wanted to protect its rotten core,

  so it threw away a few nobodies like us.”

  “So…”

  Monero said low.

  “That’s why you left the guild.”

  “…We didn’t leave.”

  The leader swallowed his voice for a moment.

  “We were kicked out.”

  For a beat, the leader stopped speaking.

  His breath scattered into the air.

  “No one recognized us.

  Back then, just showing a guild mark would get you welcomed…”

  He let out a dry laugh.

  “Now, even if you’re just standing at a door in ragged clothes,

  people look at you like you’re a thief.”

  Monero listened without speaking.

  His gaze drifted just a little to the side.

  “We…” the leader continued slowly.

  “We just wanted a warm place,

  to sleep properly,

  without a knife in our backs.”

  His voice sank low, but heavy.

  “And more than anything…

  those kids who followed me.

  They’re all people I brought out, saying I’d take responsibility.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Monero closed his eyes for a moment.

  His lips tightened slightly.

  The leader looked up.

  His eyes were faintly red.

  “That statue…

  if we sold just that one,

  we could’ve lived for a while.

  That was it. Just that.”

  His gaze dropped again.

  “We didn’t want to hurt anyone.

  We were just… too cold. Too tired.”

  Monero lowered his eyes for a moment.

  He knew he should stay cold in his position, but something scraped up from deep inside.

  He turned his head and said quietly.

  “Kind of pathetic.”

  In that instant—

  Thump.

  The ground shifted softly.

  Rynel raised a hand in silence.

  The snow of the plain surged up like a flowing tide, wrapping the leader’s legs.

  Snow hardened up his arms and torso, locking him in place.

  It climbed to beneath his chin.

  He couldn’t move.

  “……Rynel?”

  Monero asked, eyes widening.

  “You didn’t look like you were going to—”

  Rynel said quietly.

  “The snow told me.”

  “…The snow?”

  “Yeah.”

  Rynel pressed the toe of his boot into the snow.

  “On a plain like this, your movement carries straight through.

  Balance, weight distribution, even the tiniest tremor.”

  He stared the leader down and added,

  “A liar’s feet get unstable.

  Right now, your center kept shifting back.

  You were preparing to run.”

  The leader’s expression stiffened.

  “…Well. Caught.”

  Rynel lowered his arm.

  The snow rose higher, sealing the leader’s waist completely.

  “Cheap tricks won’t work.”

  Monero gave a crooked grin.

  “What, that’s all it was?

  I almost bought it.”

  The leader curled his mouth in a mocking smile.

  He shrugged one shoulder, keeping a calm face even with snow binding him at the waist.

  “Mages are all annoying…

  eyes that see straight through the truth.”

  He narrowed his eyes and added,

  “Which is exactly why I can’t trust you.”

  The sharpness returned to his gaze.

  Even bound, he still looked like someone aiming for something.

  Then, very briefly—clearly—he said,

  “…We’re only the beginning.”

  A cold silence ran through the snowfall.

  Breaking it, a sharp shout tore in from far away.

  “What happened!”

  A man at the front, axe in hand, shouted as he cut across the snow.

  Villagers with torches hurried behind him.

  “Over there… are those the bastards…!?”

  Someone pointed at the grave robbers sprawled on the snow.

  After a brief confusion, hands moved quickly.

  One by one, the grave robbers were bound and loaded onto prepared sleds.

  The leader stayed expressionless,

  but his hands and feet were tied colder than the snow itself.

  The fight was over, and the snowfall soon eased.

  Monero brushed off the remaining powder and rose slowly.

  In his hand was the magic cloth bundle, with the shrunken statue inside.

  Without a word, he lifted it and held it out to Rynel.

  “Rynel. Hand it to the chief yourself.”

  Short. Calm.

  But it carried a lot.

  Rynel looked down at the bundle.

  It wasn’t just a chunk of stone.

  It was a symbol packed tight with collapsed time, twisted memory, and the village’s pride.

  After a moment of silence, he nodded slowly.

  “……It needs to go back to where it belongs.”

  Around the statue, the snow settled little by little.

  No more light leaked from Rynel’s bracelet.

  Everything seemed to hold its breath, quiet.

  At last, the village regained its peace.

  The grave robbers were taken away for trial,

  and the dragon statue was fixed firmly back in its original place.

  And—

  Aira fully recovered.

  Color had returned to her cheeks,

  and she was skipping over the snow, laughing and trading jokes with the other kids.

  “You got hit! Now you’re an ice monster!”

  “Aw, Aira-noona, you’re too fast again!”

  Laughter burst out, and the children’s footprints stamped tight patterns into the snow.

  The adults watched from a distance,

  then let out sighs of relief, one after another.

  Monero spoke quietly.

  “Aira… she’s completely back to normal.”

  Rynel nodded.

  “Yeah. With this… we can relax, at least for now.”

  For a while, they watched the kids in silence.

  Aira beamed, hugging a snowball to her chest.

  That smile spread like sunlight pushing back a long winter.

  ◇

  A few days later, early morning.

  When the snow eased and the roads opened,

  Rynel and Monero finished preparing to leave.

  At the edge of the village,

  the children lined up, waving.

  Aira was there too.

  Bright smile. Healthy face.

  Her hands, in gloves, clasped together warmly.

  “Are you really going?”

  the youngest child asked.

  Rynel knelt and lowered himself to the child’s eye level.

  “Yeah. But…”

  He smiled gently, wrapping the child’s hand.

  “Maybe we’ll come back someday.”

  “Then… will you tell us new adventure stories?”

  “Of course.”

  Rynel nodded.

  “And then, I want to hear your story too.”

  “M-My… story?”

  “Yeah.

  Someone growing up in this village

  could become the hero of another legend.”

  The child’s eyes went round.

  The other children held their breath too.

  Then a familiar voice called out.

  “Rynel.”

  He turned.

  The old man was approaching, a worn book in his hands.

  “I heard from the chief. About your bracelet.”

  Rynel’s eyes widened slightly.

  The old man carefully held the book out.

  “Back when I was an adventurer,

  I traveled village to village and wrote down the legends I heard about a red gem.

  This is that book.”

  The cover was worn, but the spine was tightly bound.

  Rynel accepted it carefully.

  “Why… are you giving this to me?”

  The old man nodded with a smile.

  “The chief said

  your bracelet isn’t just a simple magical tool.

  He thinks it holds something deeper.”

  Rynel cracked the book open.

  Pages filled with tight handwriting.

  Old tales, forgotten legends, and unfamiliar names.

  “Some of it is what I saw with my own eyes.

  Some is what I picked up over drinks.

  Truth and lies will be mixed together…

  but there’ll be a clue in there.”

  The old man narrowed his eyes and said,

  “Someone who’ll believe enough to read these stories,

  and someone who can carry them onward…

  I figured that should be a young man like you.”

  Rynel looked down at the book again.

  Then he bowed his head slowly.

  “……I’ll find the meaning.”

  “I promise.”

  “Good.”

  The old man patted his back.

  “Write the next story for them.

  For the children of this village.”

  At that, the children rushed in again and surrounded Rynel.

  “When you figure out what’s in the book, tell us too!”

  “I want more adventure stories!”

  “Hyung, are you going to become the hero of a legend too?”

  Monero laughed.

  “At this point, he already is.”

  Rynel lowered his head quietly.

  “…Thank you. Really.”

  The children waved and shouted.

  “Bye, Rynel-hyung!”

  “Come back for sure!”

  “Next time I’ll tell you my adventure story!”

  Rynel bowed his head and smiled.

  “Yeah. It’s a promise.”

  At that, Kiriem—the oldest of the kids—held out a finger.

  “Promises… you have to hook fingers.”

  Rynel quietly pulled off his glove and hooked the child’s small finger.

  “I’ll come back. For sure.”

  The other kids all stuck out their fingers at once.

  “Me too!”

  “Me too!”

  “Hyung, you promised all of us!”

  Monero snorted a laugh at the side.

  “At this rate, you’ve made a contract with every kid in the village.”

  “More contracts are better.”

  Rynel smiled.

  Monero winked.

  “Yeah. Keep that contract.”

  The old man watched them in silence, then said,

  “Snow covers everything, but memory remains.

  This farewell will become another meeting someday.”

  Snowflakes drifted softly.

  Rynel took a deep breath.

  Then he looked at each child and said,

  “Someday, one of you will start a legend.

  You’ll follow dragon footprints, cross the forest, and fly through the sky.”

  The children’s eyes glittered.

  “And then,

  tell me that story too.”

  He waved, and took a step out onto the snowy plain.

  The children kept waving for a long time.

  The red gem didn’t shine.

  But inside it, a quiet ember remained—

  waiting for the next story.

  ◇

  In a room where the stove fire flickered,

  the children sat around the hearth and opened a storybook.

  One of them asked softly.

  “Mom… was the dragon real?”

  The woman looked out the window quietly.

  Toward the sky—toward the direction where the dragon had vanished.

  “…It was.

  And someday, it might come again.”

  The children stared out the window without a word.

  Then, far along the mountain ridge,

  a red shadow cut through the white snow and passed across the sky.

  Like a legend that still wasn’t finished.

  Snow covers everything, but memory remains.