TSOMFL 03

Chapter 3

The ability I just used was called the “Freezing Skill.”

Just as the name suggested, it was a technique that completely froze anything.

At that moment, it felt as though fresh air rushed into my chest.

The first ability I had ever used by my own will.

For the first time since I was born, I felt truly alive.

Meanwhile, one of the female priests who witnessed my actions trembled as she prayed.

“Oh, God Leventos, please protect us…”

Then the male priest beside her smacked her lightly.

“Hey, what are you doing right now? We need to capture Genuere first!”

As soon as he said that, all the priests remaining in the underground laboratory surrounded me at once.

Meanwhile, I looked down at my bare feet.

‘If my hands can do it… then what about my feet?’

Unlike the heroine, who drew mana from the air through the senses in her hands, my ability directly generated mana from the crystal engine beneath my heart.

Maybe it would work.

As a test, I stomped hard on the wooden floor.

Bang!

The moment my foot struck the ground, sparkling white mist spread in every direction from my toes.

Crackkk!

The wooden floor split apart as the white mist rushed toward the priests.

“W-Waaaah! Run!”

“Aaaah! Leventos!”

“Ugh! Uwaaaagh!”

The priests charging toward me failed to avoid the white mist racing across the floor.

Some collapsed.

Others froze solid while still standing upright.

And one by one, the remaining priests were completely frozen.

‘Phew.’

I raised my arm and wiped the cold sweat from my forehead.

Then, stepping past the frozen priests who could only blink silently, I approached the heavy iron door.

I quietly placed my hand against the metal surface, cold like the ice I created.

‘Now I can leave.’

Until I turned thirteen, I had never even thought about opening this door.

‘What kind of world will be waiting outside?’

For a moment, my heart swelled with excitement—

But I quickly faced reality.

‘This is underground beneath the temple, so there’s probably a staircase leading up into the temple.’

And if that happened, I would meet more priests.

They would try to catch me again.

‘I don’t care.’

I lifted my head and narrowed my eyes sharply.

‘No one can stop me anymore.’

At that moment—

“Mmph! Mmph!”

I turned around and saw the frozen priest with glasses moving his bluish lips.

Was my skill still incomplete?

I was sure I had frozen even his nose and mouth, but maybe it hadn’t frozen deeply enough.

The frozen priest struggled to open his icy mouth and spoke.

“That door… ngh! Even if you try…! You can’t open it without the key!”

Ignoring him, I grabbed the handle and pushed the door.

As he said, it was firmly locked.

“H-However… the key… is in my pocket…”

At his words, I grinned and slowly turned back toward him.

The priest’s eyes bent pitifully as he looked at me desperately.

“Genuere… let me go…. Your ability must still be incomplete…. If it’s you, you can break the ice freezing me….”

“……”

“Anyway… if I don’t help you… you can’t escape from here….”

Now he was trying to persuade me.

Honestly, I would be lying if I said I felt nothing.

After all, he was still one of the adults who had raised me.

But I tightly shut my eyes.

‘I absolutely can’t fall for this.’

Then I slowly walked toward the begging frozen priest.

“Yes. Good girl, Genuere…. Right?”

But instead of stopping beside him, I walked past him and opened the second drawer of a nearby desk.

Inside the drawer was the key.

The exact same key that fit the keyhole I had seen earlier.

‘Hoo…’

I grabbed the key tightly in my hand and spoke to the pale-faced priest.

“I’ve spent thirteen years living in this basement. Did you really think I wouldn’t know you always kept the key here?”

“…G-Genuere? W-Wait, don’t!”

He desperately struggled as if trying to reach toward me.

But his frozen arms could not move even a little.

I comforted my weakening heart, tightly closed my eyes again, and approached the iron door.

Then I pushed the key into the lock.

Click.

Creeeeak—

The heavy iron door slowly began to open.

At that moment, an unfamiliar fear suddenly washed over me.

‘Can I really leave this place?’

I had never even imagined doing something like this before.

But after remembering my past life, I finally realized something.

If I stayed here, I would only be used by others until I died.

Then I had to carve out my own fate.

‘I can do this!’

In my past life, I was someone who had been loved.

And now, I knew the future.

Before stepping outside, I looked back at the frozen priests standing like bowling pins throughout the laboratory and said,

“Spend the rest of your lives frozen there while regretting your sins.”

Blink. Blink.

After glaring coldly at the frozen priests, who could only blink stupidly, I stepped beyond the heavy iron door.

‘I did it.’

I escaped.

Entirely with my own power.

If I said I wasn’t still afraid, that would be a lie.

But for the first time in my thirteen years of life, I made a firm decision.

‘From now on…’

If there was a door blocking my life—

‘I’ll never allow it to stop me again.’

And so, for the first time since I was born, I stepped into the outside world.

I escaped the temple.

The first escape in my thirteen years of life.

‘Really?’

I escaped?

This easily?

I questioned it over and over inside my head.

But the moment I opened the temple’s front gate, the cold air brushing against my cheeks and the white breath rising from my mouth made it feel real.

Looking at the endless white field before me and the wide-open sky without a single cloud, I slowly whispered,

“…Yeah. I escaped.”

Then I lifted my head.

“Snow…”

Pure white snow covered the vast field.

I gently pressed my toes into the snow.

Crunch.

‘Cold.’

Suddenly, memories from another world faintly surfaced in my mind.

‘When it snowed, my friends and I used to make little snow ducks near the apartment garden.’

Remembering that, a small smile naturally appeared on my lips.

I raised my hand above my eyes and looked into the distance.

Far away, I could see a tall mountain peak.

‘They said there’s a huge lake if you walk toward those mountains.’

That was something the priest with glasses—whom I froze for the first time—used to tell me often.

“Genuere, are you curious about the outside world? But outside the door is dangerous. Snowstorms rage out there. Still, if you head toward the mountain peaks, there’s a beautiful lake there. Once this experiment safely ends, I’ll take you there for a picnic. So be a good girl, alright?”

I had always believed those words completely and eagerly waited for the day I could go on that picnic.

Now I knew they had all been lies meant to calm me down.

‘Still, maybe the part about the lake wasn’t a lie.’

Far away, I could see a large lake sparkling with ice.

I began walking toward it without hesitation.

The lake was completely frozen, though parts of the ice were cracked.

I lay down near the edge and peered into the broken section.

I wanted to see my face.

There had never been mirrors in the underground laboratory, so I only vaguely knew what I looked like.

I had only seen faint reflections in the glass tube.

But now, a fairly clear face reflected on the water’s surface.

A tiny dirty face.

“Eek… this is my face?”

Seriously, when was the last time I even washed up?

My messy hair and the black dirt covering my cheeks and nose made me look like I had crawled out of a chimney.

At that moment, anger burst out of me.

“Those bad priest uncles!”

They never even washed my face properly!

I scooped up some lake water and splashed it onto my face.

It felt refreshing and cool.

Of course, it was cold, but perhaps because I was an ice ability user, that level of cold didn’t bother me at all.

After scrubbing myself clean, I looked at my reflection again.

Snow-white silver hair.

Pale white skin.

And strangely beautiful emerald gemstone-like eyes.

Exactly the same appearance described for Genuere in the novel.

I quietly stared into my own eyes for a while before slowly becoming certain.

‘There’s no doubt.’

My name.

My appearance.

And the fact that I was a fake ability user created in the temple laboratory.

I truly was Genuere, the villainess from the novel.

‘The novel described Genuere tormenting the heroine while her emerald eyes shone like a madwoman’s.’

But maybe because I was still just a child, I only looked innocent and pure right now.

I sat down and hugged my knees while thinking deeply.

‘What should I do now?’

The quiet lake.

The bright blue sky.

The snowy field.

As I looked around, I sank into thought.

Honestly, since I had spent all thirteen years of my life trapped underground, deciding what to do for myself felt unfamiliar.

But my past life had been different.

I closed my eyes and recalled my memories.

‘When I was eighteen in my past life.’

Was it during high school?

There had been a career experience program connected to school, where I first tried wood carving at a sculptor’s small workshop.

‘I held a carving knife and carved a small wooden block.’

The other kids got bored quickly, but I stayed there until sunset, completely absorbed in carving.

‘And the sculpture I carved caught the sculptor’s attention and was even displayed in the workshop.’

One customer who visited the workshop even liked my piece enough to buy it.

The sense of achievement I felt back then—

And the excitement in my chest whenever I created something with my own hands—

I could still remember it vividly.

‘I want to do it again.’

I opened my eyes.

Then I tilted my head slightly while looking at my pale hands.

‘But right now… couldn’t I do it even better?’

Even though I was the villainess from the novel, I now had an ability.

An ability to create ice.

‘If I improve this power, I can make things even more beautiful than the sculptures from my past life.’

That’s right.

I should make ice sculptures.

I focused on my fingertips.

Soon, white mist rose softly, and a tiny ice teddy bear appeared.

It was shaped like the cute gummy bear candy I used to like in my past life.

‘Yeah.’

This was enough.

‘I’ll sharpen this ability and create sculptures that move people’s hearts.’

I tossed the tiny ice bear into my mouth and sucked on it like candy while smiling faintly.

It was freezing cold, but because I carried a crystal engine inside my heart, I couldn’t feel the cold at all.

Munch, munch.

Rolling the ice candy around in my mouth, I decided my next destination would be the small village near the lake.

The priests once mentioned that if you traveled south from the lake, there was a small village there.

‘I’ll go to the village and find ice sculptors. If I see how they live, maybe I can figure out how to survive too.’

According to the novel, there were craftsmen in this world who created sculptures using ice abilities.

‘Alright. Let’s go!’

Smiling brightly, I took a confident step forward, my heart filled with dreams and hope.

…And not long after that, I learned the bitterness of life.

Whoooooosh—

A fierce snowstorm raged around me.

I could barely see a single step ahead.

‘Aaaah!’

Directly facing the storm, I struggled to force one step after another forward.

Just a little while ago, the weather had been clear.

Then dark clouds rolled in, strong winds burst forth, and before I knew it, snow had piled up to my knees.

Even taking one step was difficult.

‘Forget the village.’

Right now, my only goal was the large tree barely visible through the storm about five meters away.

If I hid behind it, I could at least avoid the worst of the blizzard.

‘Come on! Just one more step!’

Finally, after one last step, I leaned weakly against the tree.

‘Haa…’

A sigh of relief escaped me.

And suddenly, tears welled up in my eyes.

My body slowly slid down the tree as I curled up behind it.

‘It’s not because I’m cold.’

Thanks to my ice ability, I resisted the cold well.

Even though I was barefoot and wearing thin clothes, the snowstorm hadn’t frozen or injured me.

But somehow—

I felt sad.

‘I just… feel sad.’

Like I was too weak.

‘When will this snowstorm stop?’

Sniffling quietly, I curled up even tighter.

How long had passed like that?

Eventually, the snowstorm began to weaken slightly.

Then I heard something strange nearby.

Grrrr—

It sounded like the cry of a beast, mixed with irregular crunching footsteps in the snow.

I turned my head toward the sound.

When the blizzard had been stronger, I hadn’t noticed, but nearby was a steep cliff where the ground suddenly dropped away.

Carefully, I approached and looked below.

The sound was coming from there.

I widened my eyes.

‘What is that?’

Below me, five or six huge wolves were running along the snowy mountain path.

Leading them was the largest wolf of all.

And riding on top of that wolf was a boy.

He was a fairly tall boy with dark blue hair.

Despite the raging snowstorm, he wore no shirt, exposing his firm muscles.

And in his hand was a long spear like a warrior’s.

Seeing him, I frowned.

‘…Isn’t he cold?’

(To be continued)