Chapter 201 The Strange King of Snow Mountain

[“It likes to attack lone tourists. When it comes into contact with a tourist, it will not do anything but take off its goggles and demand to make eye contact.”]

[“When someone looks at him, they will be hypnotized and feel their body warm. They will be unable to help but get closer to the Snow Mountain King. Once they do this, the Snow Mountain King will ask the tourist to follow him. No one knows where the Snow Mountain King will take them.”]

[“The King of Snow Mountains will not only hypnotize one person, but if it encounters lone tourists, it will continue to hypnotize them, expand its team, and take them back to its territory. As for what it will do, we don’t know. The only thing we know is that we have never seen those hypnotized tourists again.”]

[“If someone around you reminds you at this time, you can interrupt the Snow Mountain King’s hypnosis, because the Snow Mountain King’s hypnosis can only work on one person. What will happen when he faces several climbers? We haven’t received any information so far, but we haven’t seen any climbers go down the mountain.”]

[“Perhaps the legend that there are messengers from the spirit world leading the souls of the dead on the snowy mountains to the spirit world is passed down from someone who saw the Snow Mountain King hunting.”]

[“After those people disappeared, one to two hours later, we found their bodies near the snowy mountains. Without exception, they all died of hypothermia. However, that’s not all. After dozens of hours, these bodies turned into mummies, looking like they had been dead for a long time.”]

[Faced with the monster in the snowy mountains, our containment team is always trying to find ways to contain the Snow Mountain King. However, Mount Everest is like the Snow Mountain King's backyard. No matter how hard we try or how many advanced equipment we use, we can't find the Snow Mountain King. We even lost some members of the task force.]

[“After our hard work and exploration on the snowy mountain, we finally found a survivor who escaped from the Snow Mountain King. His name is L. We hope to learn more about the Snow Mountain King from him.”]

█████: Tell me what happened after you encountered the monster.

L: It was about 10:5, I don't think it was 6 minutes after leaving the summit. This is the hardest part of climbing. You reach the summit, you are so excited and proud of yourself, and feel that you have completed the hardest challenge of your life, and then you find that you have to do it again immediately or you will end up like the others who died. The others were - meters ahead of me - I fell behind for a while while adjusting my hood. That's when I saw it coming over the ridge.

█████: What was your first reaction when you saw it?
L: Surprised, to say the least. We were told no one else was climbing today. I thought he must have climbed up from the other side or been left behind by his partner. I should have waved to get his attention.

█████: What happened after you got its attention?
L: It looked at me, and then it started. I suddenly felt… happy? Relaxed? It was like the pain, sadness, and coldness had left me. I couldn't feel the blisters on my feet anymore, and I could feel the tip of my nose again. It was like I was back in ██████████ and was warming my feet in front of the fireplace, and it felt like I had forgotten all my troubles and I was enjoying a complete rest. But…

█████: …But?
L: Haven't you heard of the paradoxical undressing phenomenon? When your body starts to cool down, really cool down, your blood vessels dilate and you start to feel warmer. So you start to undress because you think you need to cool down - and then everyone knows what happens, you curl up naked in a snowbank and freeze to death. A friend of mine died this way in 98.

█████: So you feel like this is all an illusion.

L: Of course. So I tried to shrug it off, but I couldn't take my eyes off the guy, and it was crawling towards me. And then everything went haywire. █████: And then?

L: All feelings of warmth and comfort were gone. I was suddenly cold - colder than I'd ever felt before. Colder than I'd ever felt. I couldn't feel my fingers or my face. My lips were cracking. I tried to breathe and my lungs felt like they were full of water. My legs seemed to clamp down and I fell. My companions were about 30 meters away from me. I tried to yell to them but could only whisper. I watched as the man - the thing - kept coming.

█████: How long did it take for it to get to you?
L: An hour? I'm not sure. I can't check my watch and I can't feel anything. I tried to move my arms on the ground and it was my legs that moved instead. It looks like even if I recover now I won't be able to get back to camp before dusk. I'm beginning to think I'm really going to die on the mountain this time - but I feel even worse about that man. The closer it gets to me, the more I feel there's something in the back of my head - something repressed, and threatening, and worse, hatred.

█████: What happened after it reached you?
L: It grabbed me with its arms and pulled me in front of it. I looked straight into those goggles, those eyes…

█████: Goggles or eyes?

L: None. Both. I don't know. I can see things in there. I can't see them, but I can... feel them. Images and feelings in my mind. Anger, and happiness, and... confusion.

█████: Chaos?

L: I don't think it's used to people resisting it. It asked a question.

█████: It spoke?

L: Not words, not really. I could hear it, but not with my ears. I saw images of people - people sitting in the bathtub, lying by the campfire, sunning themselves on the beach. Warm, happy people. But I knew their faces. I'd seen their faces in books, in pictures, of people who had gone up the mountain and didn't come down. I saw Green Boots! The one who was still in the Death Zone. And I heard its questions.

█████: What's the problem?
L: "You rejected my gift?"

(L was very uneasy at this time and was silent for a while)
█████: Go on.

L: It was hard to feel what was happening... but I knew that this thing in front of me was a greater threat than any storm or any snowstorm. Moving my lips was harder than anything I've ever done... but I did it, and I told it "yes."

(End of this chapter)