Harvesting The Witch Queen - Chapter 298: The Cold Out There

Chapter 298: The Cold Out There

The cold was no plaisanterie. 

It was freezing out there and Jack was not used to anything of the sort. Thankfully for him, he went out there wearing his full set of Minotaur knight armour. Nothing else. 

He ventured outside the frozen castle on his own, proud and brave. 

The snowstorm was only picking up. He knew nothing about snowstorms, other than they were dangerous, and while he didn’t know much about it, he could tell that it was only beginning. We were just at the beginning of this dangerous blizzard. He had only made a few steps outside the castle and it was clear that he was already behind. Time was running against him and he knew in his heart that his investigation in the snow wouldn’t be that expansive. 

In the far distance, the Minotaur knight heard a hollow howling… It echoed in the wind and reached his ears…

Something was lurking around… 

The Autumn Knight made a few more steps in the thick snow and he wouldn’t need to make that many more to get somewhere and find something because deep in the horizon he noticed something pretty strange. Up on a snowhill, Jack noticed the silhouette of a woman perched on top of a rocky mountain, observing him in the snow. Was he seeing right? Was he truly being watched? Nothing was too clear at first because everywhere where he looked, he thought for sure he could see shapes—he thought for sure he saw silhouettes in the snow. 

The more time he spent in this snowy landscape outside the frozen castle the more the knight was losing track of what he was supposed to do in the first place—investigating and searching this menace that everyone had felt and heard earlier… Well, other than the wind and the snow flying beside his ears, he didn’t hear anything else… He didn’t hear anything suspicious no more…

But with that being said…

I still have a weird feeling… I am feeling watched… he thought, mostly referring to those strange shapes up on these snow hills. He had no idea if any of those were real or if they were only strange shapes in the snow and not people staring at him from a distance, but as his body temperature continued dropping more and more, he hoped that he wouldn’t find out too soon about it…  

Then, another how came with the wind, distracting him and urging him to turn around to see where that howl was coming from, turning toward the source of that horrid and alarming sound… 

… But when Jack finally turned around, he was met with a terrible sight—a ghostly and frozen apparition stood before him in the tundra! He hated to admit it, but he recognized that ghastly and womanly apparition in the snow…

… It was the hourglass lady!       

Could it truly be her?

How could she possibly be back after everything that happened? He, September, April, and June—the three of them defeated her, so she couldn’t be back right? 

“You’re pretty far from your Autumn province, Minotaur knight—let me guess, your little vacation in the Summer province wasn’t exactly enough for you, so you had to venture into this Winterland, as well?” The hourglass woman spoke to him and her voice proved once and for a while that it was, indeed, her and not only a womanly figure that resembled her.

It was her.  

“How are you still alive?” Jack confronted her, not interested in stepping back from this fight.

“Many tried, but none succeeded—what makes you think that you could?”

“...” Jack had no answer for her. He didn’t have enough information. 

“Now, what am I going to do with you?” The hourglass lady asked him with a sensual tone in her voice.

“I won’t allow you to lift a finger on me.” 

“Oh, but I do not want to hurt you—I want something else…” 

“Too bad, I’m already taken,” Jack had no problem telling her that he was already taken, whether he meant September specifically by that or the entire entity that constituted the wondrous ladies of the coven, he wasn’t shy to tell her that he wasn’t available and there was nothing wrong with that.    

“That remains to be seen…” The sensual hourglass woman said this one last thing to him before her phantasmal image disappeared. She vanished and she was replaced by a pair of ice golems that were summoned out of the snowy tundra—taking him by surprise when he was led to believe that he was battling her in the first place. This was not what happened, at all. The hourglass lady went away and the two ice golems rushed at the Minotaur knight! 

Damn! 

Caught off-guard, he wasn’t able to move anywhere near fast enough to avoid the attack. The pair of frozen golems hit him hard with their icy fists! 

Thankfully for him, he was still wearing his full set of armour, but even his armour became heavily damaged rather fast. He was able to take some of the damage that they inflicted on him, resisting and enduring this painful assault long enough, so he could then fight back…  

He was fine with that. 

Jack was used to having to go through a lot only to survive. He was used to having to endure misery and pain. Honestly, it was fine with him, especially if this meant that he was going to get out on top in the end… 

That’s it… Give me everything you’ve got… he thought to himself as the pair of ice golems continued hitting him with their frozen and deadly spikes that they had for arms. He was looking back and he used his left arm to shield himself.

When the timing was finally right and his enemies slowed down a bit, he knew that his time had come and he swung his huge battle axe around and… 

Slash! 

Slash! 

He slashed the two icy golems in half, defeating them both in only two slashes! 

This still rendered Jack quite exhausted by the end of it with him going out of breath.

“That’s done…” 

Jack turned around and headed back for December’s castle…