She remembered the location of the Winter Fruit Tree from the words of the old hunter.
They all did. It was one of the few stable sources of food in a world where edible things were rare and usually fought over.
The old man used to say, "If you ever get lost, follow the light. Winter Fruit Trees drink it like a child drinks soup. And if you find one? Don't shout, don't rush—watch."
So she did.
Every time she passed a tree along the way, she looked up and carefully scanned the canopy—searching for signs of breaks in the forest ceiling, spots where the light touched down.
Sometimes it was barely a glimmer, but in this world, that was all it took. A little moonlight was life. And life meant food.
Night was the hibernation period for cold beasts.
But that didn't mean they wouldn't wake up.
Monica had never seen a cold beast with her own eyes.
Not yet. But she remembered the fragmented descriptions—those conversations between Edward and the logging team late at night, voices low by the fire when they thought she was asleep.
"Six meters tall, at least."
"Its breath cracked my blade."
"We lost Aaron. He screamed once. That was it."
And most telling of all—the numbers.
Thirteen F-rank awakeners. An entire month. And all they brought back was the corpse of a juvenile Bone Rat.
One. A young one.
The kind that hunted in packs when mature.
It was enough to send shivers down her spine even in a place already drowning in cold.
Monica had to be careful. With her current strength, she'd stand no chance if she came face-to-face with one of them.
The system in her mind was quiet—no active missions, no guidance—and her stats were still low. This body had muscle memory, but it wasn't superhuman. Not yet.
Fortunately, there were no signs of danger along the way. No bloody tracks. No gutted tree hollows. The wind remained steady, and the snow never stopped falling.
After more than an hour of slow, cautious travel, Monica finally reached the open area.
The tree came into view before anything else.
Her breath caught.
There, in the center of the clearing, stood a towering ice tree—its smooth, pale-blue bark shining like polished crystal.
It had to be over forty meters tall, maybe more, and its wide branches spread like the arms of a frozen titan.
Silver leaves fluttered like coins in the air currents, each one edged in frost and shimmering faintly with that telltale bioluminescent hue.
And hanging from the limbs… the fruits.
Dozens. No—hundreds.
Bulbous, crystal-like pods gathered in large bunches, each the size of a large dates.
Semi-transparent with faint red-and-yellow cores, they glowed softly against the night's darkness, catching the light of the stars and snow like ornaments on a sacred tree.
Monica's heart swelled. Her lips curled into a rare smile.
"I'm so lucky," she whispered, her voice breathless. "This must be worth thousands of pounds."
Enough to feed everyone in the cave for weeks. Enough to trade with other camps.
But she didn't let herself get carried away.
She didn't rush forward, didn't sprint to collect the prize like an amateur.
Instead, she quietly circled to the side, choosing another Red Frost Tree nearby—less tall, more climbable—and began scaling it slowly, hands and feet moving in practiced rhythm.
The climb was tense. Every motion is deliberate.
She stopped several meters above the ground, adjusting her balance, and nestled into the upper branches where she could safely observe the Ice Tree's crown.
She waited.
Watched.
Her eyes moved across every limb, scanning for subtle movement. Birds? No. Squirrels? Also no.
The Winter Fruit Tree didn't attract many natural animals—well, there seems to be no natural animals that survived in such an extreme environment.
It was too cold, too open—but Monica wasn't watching for birds.
She was watching for signs of cold beasts.
The branches that are too clean. For piles of snow that didn't match the others, or for eyes in the dark.
One wrong step, and something could drop from above—or burst from beneath the snow.
Ten long minutes passed.
The tree was still.
The snow shifted only with the wind.
No claw marks. No shed fur. No broken branches that would indicate something large had made a nest in the tree.
Monica's breath steadied. Her heart slowed.
She first collected some ice from the branches next to her, shaped it into an ice ball, and hurled it toward a tree dozens of meters away.
The ice ball struck the tree, causing it to shake slightly without making much noise.
However, the vibration dislodged the icicles from the tree.
The sound of the icicles on the ground resonated clearly in the otherwise silent forest. Monica held her breath and cautiously observed the surrounding snow.
There was no moment. Safe. Or at least… safe enough.
She climbed back down and made her way to the Ice Tree, boots crunching softly.
She didn't go for the lowest-hanging fruit—those were too obvious, too easy to snatch.
Instead, she unhooked a small climbing spike from her satchel, jammed it into the trunk, and began her careful ascent again.
She'd start from the midsection—where the fruits were dense, but still accessible—and work downward.
Efficiency, speed, and stealth.
Get the fruit. Avoid attention.
With that in mind, Monica wasted no time.
She slipped through the wind-whipped clearing until she stood beneath a heavy cluster of crystal fruits.
Drawing her newly bound hand axe, she planted it at the narrow joint where branch met stem.
The blade—its frost‑resistant edge hungry for work—sliced through the frozen wood as easily as warm butter.
Crack.
The branch gave with less effort than expected. Whether it was her axe—enchanted with a frost-resistant edge—or the natural brittleness of the fruit stems, Monica didn't know. But she was grateful.
As the large bunch, heavy with frost-covered fruit, dropped toward the snow below, Monica reached out and caught it with both hands.
"Store," she thought.
A soft pulse shimmered in the air. The bunch vanished in a blink, and a translucent inventory panel blinked into view—light blue, semi-transparent, listing the collected fruits under [Winter Fruit - Unripe/Ripe].
In her mind, she saw the familiar blue hologram of her personal inventory pop into view.
One slot—now stocked with a stack of Winter Fruits—blinked brightly.
Three hundred to four hundred fruits per bunch… she counted, allowing herself the briefest flicker of satisfaction beneath her scarf.
Normally hunters took only the ripest handful, but Monica had two advantages: bound inventory space that could hold tens of items each, and the knowledge that even unripe fruits would ripen in storage.
Why leave anything behind?
She paused only to scan the silent forest, heart hammering in case a cold beast stirred.
When no movement answered her careful glance, she climbed up the Red Frost Tree once more, moving swiftly and smoothly.
Branch to branch, she repeated the process—axe in, chop through, catch the tumbling cluster, inventory fill.
Minutes stretched into an hour. Snow continued to drift, muffling sound, collecting like petals on the icy ground.
Every few moments, she'd pause, half‑hidden against a trunk, listening.
But nothing stirred. No distant howl. No snapping twig.
Another bunch—clean strike. Catch. Store.
The rhythm became familiar. Quick, efficient. She moved with silent urgency, making sure not to linger in one place too long.
Her hands grew numb, and once or twice she nearly lost her balance, but muscle memory and sheer will kept her grounded.
By the time the moon dipped low, Monica had harvested twenty‑three large bunches—each one vanishing into her pocket dimension with a soft chime.
Twenty‑three bunches now stored in three slots glowed with Winter Fruits, their counts totaling in the tens of thousands.
Enough to feed her camp for weeks, maybe even a month.
Exhaling a frosty breath, she set her axe aside and checked her inventory one more time, smiling at the comforting list of slot numbers filling up.
Her satchel felt weightless on her back; the system's magic shouldered every pound of fruit.
"Luckily, nothing unexpected happened," she whispered to herself, tucking the axe into its sheath.
The wind had picked up, and overhead the canopy rattled like dry bones.
Dark night was drawing near.
Securing her hood against the snow, Monica turned west—the path home already etched in her muscle memory.
With a final look at the glittering Ice Tree, she began the trek back, boots crunching in time with her racing thoughts.
Ahead lay the cave, the bonfire, and three hundred lives now resting on her success. And she would not fail them.
But before that, she had to make another stop to collect some wood.