Chapter 53: About Mother

After the earlier little episode, Pela, now in a much better mood, continued walking slowly along the street with Venti.
She no longer felt the need to rack her brains for topics to discuss with Venti. Instead, she began earnestly sharing some tips on how to gather intelligence.

For Venti, these things were actually optional. After all, as long as the winds of the world hadn’t ceased, no secret could be hidden from him.
However, just because he could do something didn’t mean he wanted to.
If possible, Venti preferred not to use this ability.
Moreover, having more beautiful memories that belonged solely to "Venti" made this journey all the more precious.

As they walked and talked, they arrived at a somewhat deserted square. The Everwinter Monument stood at its center, reflecting a faint, eerie light.
Pela chose this moment to pause her teaching. Although Venti was clever and could remember the key points she mentioned, even extrapolating from them, overloading him with too much knowledge would be counterproductive.

Of course, the more important reason was—she also wanted to share a secret of her own with Venti.
As she gazed at the Everwinter Monument, the emotions in her heart grew particularly intense.

"Pela seems to really like this place. Wasn’t this where we first met too?"
Venti’s tone was light.
"That’s right. But back then, you were really bold..."
As she spoke, a hint of resentment crept into Pela’s expression.
"Singing such a forbidden song right in front of the administrative officials."
"Ehe. I was new here and didn’t know my way around!"
Venti simply smiled mischievously.
"True. If you had grown up in Beloborg, you probably wouldn’t be the way you are now."
Pela shook her head, feeling a sense of sorrow for the phenomena bred by this city that had been stagnant for far too long.

"Can you tell me why?"
"Why…? It’s not for any special reason. It’s just a feeling I have."
She adjusted her glasses, her tone tinged with regret.
"There used to be many fools like you, but at some point, people stopped having the desire to explore the outside world."
"..."
Venti maintained an appropriate silence, his gaze fixed on the Hero’s Wall supporting the Everwinter Monument. Pela’s eyes lingered on one of the names inscribed there.
The surname matched hers perfectly—a name worn by time but still standing firm, a relic of the past.

After a moment of gathering her emotions, Pela spoke in a voice only Venti could hear.
"Did you know, before Supreme Guardian Cocolia took office, the Architects never gave up on exploring beyond the walls—"
Her tone was unusually cold.
"What else is out there beyond the walls? Aside from snowstorms and the rift, are there any remnants of civilization or our fellow humans?
Driven by these questions, a group of curious scholars and explorers formed an expedition team.
They volunteered to explore the world beyond Beloborg and sought to find another home for humanity."

This was, in a way, a grand ambition.
"However, every step of the exploration beyond the walls was dangerous. Not only were there threats from rift erosion, but the unpredictable harsh weather on the snowfields and the setbacks encountered along the way claimed the lives of many who tried to venture out."
Pela’s narration felt as if she had lived through it herself, painting vivid images in the listener’s mind.
"Yet even so, people refused to give up. My mother, the great explorer Penya, was one of them—and the one who ventured the farthest."

Her eyes shone with pride at this moment, as if she had returned to her childhood, eagerly awaiting her mother’s return to hear stories of the outside world.
"She always said that if we could cross this snowfield, we would surely reach a new continent.
A place where the four seasons cycled, where plants didn’t need to grow in greenhouses, and where people spoke a language different from ours.
And I, whenever she returned, would ask if she had found such a place. She would always reply that she was one step closer than before."

At this point, Pela’s expression grew more complex.
"I never doubted that this was a lie my mother had woven. To my young self, my mother, who could venture into the outside world and travel to such distant places, was the most amazing person in the world. Someone like her would surely find a new habitable home for everyone.
So, back then, I often shared my mother’s views on the outside world with my friends.
Though they didn’t understand and often mocked me, I didn’t mind. I even thought they were jealous that I had such an incredible mother and were deliberately excluding me. It was also during that time that I developed a love for reading.
Stories always had more logic. Simply by arranging words, one could create grand adventures. With a bit of effort to learn to read and a little patience, one could gain much knowledge and solace from them.
When my mother found out, she supported my choice and entrusted me with her exploration journals. She hoped that one day I too could write the stories of my life.
Keeping this in mind, I devoted more time to my studies, hoping to one day join the expedition team and explore new lands with my mother. I even came up with a title for my future autobiography.

However, unlike my blind confidence in the expedition team, the intervals between my mother’s returns grew longer, and even when she came home, she rarely spoke of the outside world.
Back then, the expeditions beyond the walls were constantly met with setbacks for various reasons. The best they achieved was finding a frozen lake, but its ice layer was over ten meters thick.
Despite exhausting all means of exploration, the team could only conclude that no life could survive beneath it. Everyone was deeply disappointed.
Amidst this repeated disappointment, people gradually lost hope in the expedition team’s ability to achieve results. Some even began to see it as a waste of resources, and public opinion turned increasingly negative.
But for me at the time, these were just idle rumors that a single successful expedition by my mother could sweep away.

Until one day, my mother’s figure was absent from the returning team..."
She paused, her gaze sweeping over Venti’s now somber expression, as if witnessing her past self, before continuing her recollection.
"No matter where I looked, I couldn’t find her. Then, a grieving old woman stopped the convoy, asking where her child was. The leader of the team pointed to the very back, where a white cloth covered something.
He said: 'I’m sorry, ma’am. Mr. Alexei encountered an accident while scouting the correct path for the expedition. People will forever remember his sacrifice...'
The old woman was on the verge of breaking down, but she still asked if her son had contributed to humanity’s future.
The leader remained silent, leading the rest of the team away. The old woman wept uncontrollably, and I didn’t dare listen further.
Of course, it was more likely because among the bodies covered by the white cloth, there was a figure similar in build to my mother that frightened me. In my cowardice, I chose to run home.

That night, my mother didn’t return home, and my father didn’t come back until dawn, accompanied by a silent Silvermane Guard.
I hadn’t slept all night and asked him where my mother was. My father told me she had reached the new homeland of her dreams, but due to a once-in-a-century ice storm, she couldn’t return for now.
He also handed me my mother’s glasses, telling me they were a gift for when we met again..."

At this point, Pela ended her recollection, her gaze lingering wistfully on the name inscribed on the monument.
"From then on, I stopped paying attention to the expedition team, and my father never brought it up again.
It wasn’t until the year I enrolled at Beloborg Military Academy that I met a retired member of the expedition team. She was a teacher at our technical institute and had been a good friend of my mother’s.
She recognized me and told me that the incident had always been a regret for the expedition team, one they could never make up for in this lifetime...
After all, the scientific expedition team had been disbanded by the Supreme Guardian following the accident that halved their numbers. My mother, as one of the casualties of that period, had her name engraved here.
But what I felt most at the time wasn’t sorrow—it was a sense of incompleteness.
Among everything my mother left behind, it seemed only her name remained here.
The spirit of exploration, the dreams of reaching distant lands—all of it vanished the moment the scientific expedition team was disbanded.
Only words, and those who couldn’t forget the past, still remember this chapter of history lost to the snowstorms."