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  The weather in Cirgo was unnaturally cold, colder than anyone could remember. Ice and snow piled up in every corner, and gusts of wind strong enough to rip off roof tiles howled through the houses.

  Not a single merchant walked the streets. No one dared risk their goods in such weather. Most people hid inside their homes, burning firewood and praying for the cold not to worsen. A few, those who had no other choice, ventured outside wrapped from head to toe, trudging through the frost with heavy steps.

  In the central square, a small group of zealots built makeshift barricades and chanted:

  “Divine punishment!” they cried, as if it were God who had sealed Cirgo under an eternal winter.

  And behind closed doors and shuttered windows, whispers spread like fire through powder.

  “It’s the White Devil…” they murmured. “It has to be her doing all of this…”

  “We’re suffering because of the princess. Someone has to do something.”

  That was the situation in Cirgo just two days after the expedition. The monster attacks had stopped. The labyrinth was now under the custody of Cirgo’s guard. No new leads on the masterminds, no progress in the investigation.

  The captured criminals remained in complete silence. Their loyalty was as firm as tempered ice; none of them revealed anything, not names, not motives, nor the identities of their accomplices.

  But that was no longer the greatest problem.

  The true disaster was the kingdom itself… and the way it was turning against its own royal family.

  Since childhood, Princess Serena Snowfall had been called the White Ice Devil. Now, more than ever, that name was gaining strength.

  Cirgo stood on the verge of a silent rebellion.

  Sentil knew this, knew it and feared it. Yes, the Royal Guard would support the crown until the end. But the people… half of them were furious with their living conditions. And everyone knew, without exception, who had turned Cirgo into what it had become.

  The cause was Serena Snowfall.

  She was the reason for the unending cold. The reason the crops died. The reason the kingdom remained frozen.

  Even so, people tried to live with dignity. They tried to smile. They tried to act normally. But hope, when pressed, turns into despair. And desperate people do desperate things.

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  Far from all that tension, Serena spent yet another day isolated in her room. The chamber was spacious, elegant… and completely frozen.

  Sitting by the window, she “looked” out toward her mother’s garden.

  Serena was blind, a fact everyone in the castle knew. But thanks to her unique skill, she saw through temperature, like a strange form of thermal vision. She didn't tell anyone, thinking they would feel less threatened by her.

  To her, the garden was nothing but a mass of bluish tones.

  When someone passed by, they became a reddish-orange silhouette against the frozen world she perceived.

  But nothing changed the truth: The garden, once green and vibrant, was now only dead grass and frozen flowers.

  Cirgo had always been a cold city… but it had never been eternal winter. In older times, trees bloomed and the squares were green. Everything changed the day the king’s youngest daughter was born.

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  Serena Snowfall, albino, like her brother and mother. But with something far different inside her.

  From birth, she carried a unique Class (S) skill: [Ice Rose].

  At first, despite its power, the ability was unstable and weak, Serena did not yet understand her own essence, and that prevented her from controlling what she carried.

  Rumors arose. Some claimed she had been possessed by a “snow lady.” Others believed it was a divine blessing.

  That was before the tragedy began.

  As Serena grew, her powers intensified until they escaped her control completely. Horses died from cold just by being near her. People were frozen white at the slightest touch of her mana. Whenever she grew upset, the entire kingdom faced snowstorms.

  All of this when she was only six years old.

  Now, at twenty, Serena carried just as much power as guilt.

  Her skin was pale as porcelain; her white hair flowed down her back like strands of snow. Her eyes, blue as an icy sky, with a faint green shimmer under certain light, almost never met anyone’s gaze.

  Her blue and black dress trailed across the floor as she returned to her bed. Each step was slow, soundless.

  She sat down, hugging her arms, and the familiar weight of melancholy settled over her like a veil.

  Serena knew, she knew everything she was causing. The cold. The fear. The hatred.

  She knew she was seen as a monster. Perhaps… not even wrongly.

  The barrier set around the castle was no longer enough. Her power leaked out, slipping beyond her control without permission. She tried to contain it, suppress it… but [Ice Rose] simply did not listen.

  She closed her eyes. Focused. Tried to reduce the temperature around her, just a little, just a few degrees.

  The thin layer of frost on the window began to recede… slowly…

  But in her head, spears of ice formed, aimed directly at her face.

  Serena gasped, frightened, and immediately lost control.

  The frost returned at once.

  Her own power defended her from everything, without permission… And it would not allow her to interfere with it.

  Whenever she tried anything, it responded with hostile intent, as if her power were a wild beast protecting its owner even from herself.

  She lay down on the bed, curling up as tightly as she could, hugging her legs.

  Her fingers trembled. Her breathing was heavy and trembling, like someone trying to hold back an old, suffocating sob.

  “Why…?” she whispered. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

  There was no anger. No rebellion. Only a deep, silent sorrow, one no one else could understand.

  Then she heard two soft knocks on her door. Two gentle, polite, perfectly normal taps. That was how it always happened when they brought her meals.

  To avoid being exposed to her presence, or to what her presence could do, the maids left the tray on the cart beside the door and left immediately.

  Serena waited a full minute, as she always did. Only then did she rise from the bed. The cold air followed her like a heavy cloak as she walked toward the door, her steps dragging, mechanical. She knew every inch of that path by heart.

  She pulled the handle with a lazy motion, a gesture repeated countless times.

  But something was wrong.

  Very wrong.

  Someone was there.

  It wasn’t just a tray on the cart. It was a person, standing directly in front of her, holding her meal with both hands.

  Serena froze where she stood. Her eyes widened, as if she had been caught committing a crime.

  She didn’t recognize the figure.

  The only things she registered were that he was shorter than she was… and that he wasn’t leaving.

  “Uh… I think this is for you,” the voice said, gentle, hesitant. “They left it here and didn’t knock.”

  The voice was strange.

  It carried warmth, but also a sincere confusion, as if existence itself were new to him. It was soft, almost childlike, yet not na?ve. In fact… it sounded like someone who had lived far too much already.

  Serena felt her throat dry. Her whole body went tense.

  “A-ah…” she breathed, barely audible.

  Then she instinctively slammed the door, too hard, and stumbled back, nearly falling. Her heart pounded. The cold around her began to vibrate, and she breathed like she had been running for minutes.

  She didn’t talk to strangers. She barely spoke to acquaintances. Her brother was an exception; her father, rarely. And the maids… always silent, always cautious, always fleeing after leaving her meal.

  But that wasn’t what terrified her.

  She had almost hurt someone. Again.

  One wrong intention, one stronger fright, and [Ice Rose] would have attacked, just as it always did.

  Serena clutched her chest, feeling her heart crushed by guilt.

  On the other side of the door, the person was still there. She heard a soft, repetitive sound: the visitor tapping the tip of a shoe against the floor, like someone waiting… or thinking.

  Serena winced internally.

  She didn’t want to seem rude. She didn’t want a new person to think she was cold, arrogant, frightening, like so many voices had called her.

  And also… a tiny, fragile part of her longed for a bit of attention. For someone who wasn’t scared of her. For a voice that didn’t tremble in her presence.

  So she took a deep breath. A very deep breath.

  ‘Come on… just sound normal… gentle… please, just that…’ she pleaded internally, hands shaking.

  She gathered what little courage she had, stood before the door, and with her heart pounding too loudly, opened her mouth to speak as kindly as she could…

  Even after nearly smashing someone’s face with the door.

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