The Butterfly That Crossed Time and Space? Volume 4: The Guest on the Iceberg

  Guest on the iceberg

  "What's that thing?"

  The rooftop platform of the former Governor's Mansion, now the headquarters of the Continental Congress, which had been deserted for a long time with only rats and cockroaches holding meetings, suddenly became overcrowded. Members of the Continental Congress, officers from two legions, bureaucrats from government agencies, their secretaries, servants, and orderlies, as well as many reporters from newspapers, all squeezed in, totaling over 200 people, almost collapsing the old roof.

  A large crowd of people crowded on the platform, looking out to sea with binoculars at a huge object in the distance. The thing was about 50 meters high and over a mile long, stranded motionless on the surface of the sea more than a mile away from the harbor. In the early spring sunlight, it reflected dazzling white light, even though it was still far away, making people holding binoculars unable to open their eyes.

  This is an iceberg that drifted from the North Pole.

  The Arctic region of this world is a sea covered with huge ice caps, and massive glaciers extend from the frozen ocean to the surrounding land. In the spring and summer seasons every year, relatively warm weather causes melting and cracking at the southern edge of the glacier or ice cap. At the junction of the Arctic ice zone and the sea, the end of the glacier or ice cap will break off into the sea due to this, becoming huge icebergs drifting with the wind and ocean currents.

  These icebergs are generally larger than those found in most cities, and usually only drift in high-latitude seas. However, some of them may be unlucky enough to be carried by winds and currents to the warm waters of the south, where they eventually melt away. But most of the icebergs that drift southward are located far out at sea, and it is rare to see them near land. Even some of the old-timers in Emon Harbour who have lived there for over 300 years claim never to have seen such a thing.

  Of course, if it were just an ordinary iceberg, it wouldn't be worth the fuss of the continental conference's bigwigs. Even if it blocked the entrance and exit channels of Emon Port, the ships in the port had already been burned to ashes in the war, and new ones hadn't been launched yet, so whether it was blocked or not didn't matter much anyway.

  "Who the hell built a house on an iceberg? Hmm, it seems to be made of iron sheeting." President Zena observed the unexpected visitor drifting in through her telescope. Her expression was quite bizarre. "And there's even the Empire's six-pointed star national flag on top! What is going on here? I've never heard anything about the Empire developing colonies in the Arctic!"

  Unfortunately, no one was able to answer her questions because everyone on the rooftop was arguing about the pile of debris on the iceberg and couldn't come to a unified conclusion. One guy with painting talent even pulled out his sketchbook and started drawing on the spot.

  At this time, several attendants timely brought tea and snacks, and the gentlemen of the Continental Congress immediately demonstrated their glorious tradition of habitual digression. The original "Port Iceberg Research Conference" quickly became a boring tea party. Under the warm sunshine, the elegant gentlemen and ladies held red tea in their hands, chatting about irrelevant topics against the iceberg, with reporters occasionally asking questions. However, this was of no help in solving the current practical problems.

  "Colonel Taylor, can you make out what those ruins are on the iceberg? I mean, could you try using some scouting magic or something?" After finding that no one knew anything about the structure on the iceberg, Chairman Zena had to turn to the power of magic for help.

  "I'm sorry, but from this distance, I really can't see anything. However, there seems to be a trace of magical fluctuations on the ruins. It's possible that there are magical items left behind, but it could also be the remnants of a magical battle." Ferri used magic to investigate, but due to the great distance, he didn't get much useful information.

  Zena furrowed her brow, after all, who would like something mysterious to appear on their own turf? She thought for a moment and then gave orders to Fili.

  "Colonel Taylor, get a reconnaissance team together as soon as possible. Climb up onto the iceberg and see what's there."

  "Yes!"

  Although the weather has warmed up recently, the sea ice near Emon Port has not completely melted, and the sea is covered with fragmented floating ice that can cut through the hull of a ship at any time. If you want to row a small boat through such waters, it's undoubtedly challenging your limits. Although shuttling between the icy seas looks very heroic, Fili lacks confidence in his own and his subordinates' motor nerves, so he naturally wouldn't choose such a risky mode of transportation.

  Since the sea route is not feasible, Feili decided to fly over from the air. However, this means that no one can follow him on an adventure - other mages don't remember how to cast flight spells today. As for Old Black Dragon Holmes, it's even more impossible. This old waste was starved in the hands of the Elf Army and after defecting, he had been eating excessively for several days, resulting in severe diarrhea and gastrointestinal discomfort, and has lost his dragon form. Now he can't even crawl, let alone fly.

  Just then, Mr. Vinnie, the great Druid, popped out of nowhere. He seemed to be very interested in the polar bears trapped on the iceberg and wanted to "educate" them to "voluntarily" join his own unlucky bear team. For this reason, Mr. Vinnie carried Grena and carried his special large iron stick, rushing over excitedly.

  Fei Li was worried that in case of danger, he would lose his meat shield. Seeing the high-quality meat shield being delivered to his doorstep, it's only natural that he wouldn't refuse. However, he soon regretted it.

  "Wah wah wah wah!"

  "Mr. Vinnie said, please slow down a bit, he's almost unable to keep up!"

  Mr. Vinnie, as a master of magic, naturally still knows how to fly, but... the way Grand Druid flies is really too weird! This isn't flying at all! It's basically just dog paddling in mid-air!

  Fili gazed at the large druid with a black line on his face, carrying a heavy iron rod on his back and Griselda riding on his neck, twisting his massive body in mid-air with an infinitely close to zero speed. No matter how you look at it, it's a serious overload and unlicensed driving appearance, no wonder he has never seen him flying in the sky before.

  From the port to the iceberg was just over a mile away, this fatty twisted his butt in the sky for a full minute. Unexpectedly, he didn't arrive. Instead, Phil's flight technique was about to be consumed clean, and it seemed like he was about to fall. Under duress, he couldn't wait for the meat shield and went ahead himself.

  This building

  The surface was not flat, with sharp ice pillars and dark pits standing everywhere. The bears crouched between the ice pillars, staring blankly at Fili descending from the sky, each one of them having lost all their fur and were emaciated to the point of being unrecognizable. It seemed that they hadn't eaten or drunk well for a while. However, Fili still didn't dare to let his guard down, fearing being swallowed by the bears' mouths, he activated the elastic boots on his feet and directly jumped forward, stepping on the top of the ice pillars, quickly arriving at his destination.

  In the center of the iceberg, there is a platform that has been artificially cleared. On it stands the ruins of a tower. It's called a tower, but in reality, it's just a large, cone-shaped metal chimney cobbled together with iron sheets. At the bottom, there is only a brick foundation. Now, this tower has collapsed onto the platform and has been crushed by nearby fallen ice pillars into a triangular piece of metal sheeting. Countless pieces of clothing, books, instruments, and glassware are scattered all over the platform, but no human remains have been found, nor any food, hopefully not in the stomachs of those few polar bears.

  Although the tower itself was completely destroyed, the flagpole in front of it was intact, with a tattered and worn-out six-pointed star flag of the Ryell Empire still fluttering high above. It was unknown how long it had been hanging there.

  "This is an abandoned Arctic research base." Fili muttered, rummaging through the scattered debris around him, finding that most of it was still quite new. Not some ancient relic, which quickly shattered his "ancient treasure" dream.

  However, although there were no evil dragons or kings' treasures here, among these miscellaneous items were many magical items, including some high-end goods that even Phil couldn't produce. He was delighted to collect these spoils of war and stuffed them all into his spatial ring.

  "So many magic lamps! And, there's even a spatial ring! Good heavens, so many gems! Which rich wizard's brain has gone haywire? They've actually built their mage tower on an iceberg?"

  Fei Li was completely baffled by this, but it didn't stop him from continuing to scavenge for ownerless items scattered everywhere. Soon, the valuable goods on the platform were almost completely cleaned up. He then moved on to his new target and arrived at the base of the tower building that only had half a floor left. Here, a deep passageway entrance was clearly visible among the rubble and broken tiles.

  "Actually set up an anti-magic array here?" As soon as he walked into the bottom of the tower, Feili felt a sense of discomfort and immediately discovered the reason. He wanted to find out where the anti-magic array was located in order to destroy it, but found that it was actually carved under a thick layer of ice, unable to do anything for the time being. After hesitating for a long time, he still couldn't resist the temptation of possible treasures inside, and resolutely drilled into the tunnel, starting to explore.

  The passage was not very long, but it was exceptionally low. Ferry had to use his hands and feet, stumbling all the way down. Because he was in an anti-magic array, illumination spells could not be used, and he was forced to move forward in the dark. What's more, this passageway excavated in the ice layer was extremely slippery, and he fell several times, finally rolling around on the smooth ice with a rumbling sound.

  With a "thud", Feili rolled into a spacious ice cave, and his head hit the hard ceramic tile, hurting so much that he saw stars, almost fainting.

  Wait, tiles? He scrambled up and felt the smooth and hard ground, then knocked a few more times to confirm his judgment. Then he was about to lift his head to observe his surroundings when he was dazzled by a strong light that made him unable to open his eyes.

  It wasn't until a while later that Phil's eyes finally adjusted, and when he looked in the direction of the light source, he was shocked to the point of being speechless.

  That was a person, to be precise, it was a man's corpse.

  This man was short and fat, with a head of disheveled white hair, and looked like an unscrupulous tavern owner or a cunning black-hearted businessman.

  However, on the clothes rack next to him was a extremely delicate and gorgeous light yellow silk robe with golden trim that shone brightly in the sunlight. Blue, red, and green gems were intricately arranged into complex patterns on the robe, and a huge pearl was embedded at the chest area, emitting dazzling multicolored light. The earlier light had come from this very pearl.

  Ferris was astonished by his clothes.

  "This is indeed the attire of a great wizard of the Nisrael Empire! This is actually a wizard tower of a great wizard!"

  However, the fat old man who looked like a great wizard was in a rather precarious situation. He was lying naked in a huge glass bathtub, with a towel on his head, seemingly enjoying the pleasure of bathing. Unfortunately, the water in the bathtub had long since frozen into hard ice cubes, and even the towel on his head was frozen stiff. As a result, he was completely locked in the ice, unable to move, with only his head exposed, looking extremely comical.

  "I've heard that great wizards are often a bit eccentric, but I never thought anyone would like to be buried in an ice-filled bathtub!"

  Fili sighed for a moment, then carefully searched the ice cave again, and found that the ceiling's icy surface was engraved with complex anti-magic arrays, and even used refined gold and secret silver to inlay the lines of the array. At first glance, it was obviously high-end goods, no wonder it could still take effect for so long a time.

  Although the ice cave's walls and floor were adorned with colorful tiles, making it look very pretty, except for a glass bathtub and a large wizard robe on a clothes rack, the entire ice cave was empty, with only a few magical lamps on the ceiling that unfortunately were too high to be reached by Phil who couldn't use magic. Similarly, he also had no way of destroying the anti-magic array on the ceiling to restore his ability to use magic.

  "This is the great wizard's tomb? The burial goods are too few! Never mind, having a piece of clothing is good enough."

  He muttered to himself as he walked towards the clothes rack, planning to take away this magnificent long gown. The Great Wizard was the ultimate dream of any wizard, and even if one couldn't become one, it would be great to have a taste of wearing a Great Wizard's gown, especially with so many precious gems on it!

  Unfortunately, just at this moment, a chilling voice suddenly echoed in the silent ice cave, scaring Phil to slip and fall on the ground.

  "Hey, you young fellow over there, whoever you are, I command you in the name of the Imperial Great Wizard to get me out of this accursed iceberg!"