Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!

Chapter 146: Tyranny of cold

***Two hours earlier***

"This blessing will only last two and a half, maybe three hours," Leinei advised as she removed her hand from my shoulder. "As it starts to run out, you need to drop everything and run. For about five to ten minutes it will stop any tracking on you, but then…"

Leinei shook her head before moving on to the next person in line, casting her blessing of disguise while repeating the very same advice.

Soon, all twelve of us completed this one, final step, before moving towards the last line of the trees that marked the end of the forest and opened up to the plain.

Thanks to the magic storm, the grassland has now turned into a marsh, a swamp that started as close as just a few meters away from the forest, where the roots of the trees no longer reached.

And this mud… was exactly what would become my best friend for quite some time from now on.

"Everyone, I know it's going to be a pain, but this is our best shot at holding those humans back," I announced before falling down to my knees and then all fours, feeling the ground up with my hands. And once I found a softer spot where my hand pressed into the ground, squeezing cold water out of it…

I pressed myself down against the spot before starting to painfully slow crawl forward.

This, all on its own, was the worst part of my plan.

It wasn't the danger that we would be in with just a small group of twelve entering a human camp with a headcount easily crossing five thousand. It wasn't even the prospect of running away from the camp once our job was done, given how the very same mud that offered us protection right now would stall our attempts at escape.

And as I fell down onto the wet mud and crawled forth, my worst fears quickly came true.

It was cold, torturously cold. After just a few swings of my arms, as I pulled myself into the plain and outside of the protection of the trees, the water assaulted me from every possible angle, soon turning all my clothes pretty much obsolete.

'Keep going,' I told myself while slowing my crawl as much as I could and gritting my teeth to endure the unpleasant cold. And the worst part of crawling through this mud was… that I couldn't even move quick to use my burning muscles to warm myself up.

"Stay low, move slow," I spoke out as I allowed myself to raise my face from the mud, sending a short whisper through the area before planting my face back into the cold, wet ground.

We moved just a single inch at a time. Slow enough to appear static for anyone looking out to the field.

Inch by inch, we crawled forth. Inch by inch, the water penetrated deeper into whatever clothes we had, bringing with it the penetrating cold of the night.

'We are all going to get sick because of it, aren't we?' I thought, quickly losing my sense of time while constantly battling with myself not to speed up the process.

The only way for my plan to work was to enter the camp unnoticed. Only in this way we could take down some of the guards, take their clothes, and then waltz through the entire thing without catching anyone's attention.

And so, we continued to crawl, ignoring the cold, ignoring the exhaustion inherent to operating in the darkest time of the night. And as slow as it was, bit by bit, inch by inch, we got closer and closer to the camp…

Only to slow down our crawl proportionally to how close we got to the camp.

In the end, with only about a hundred meters left, I slightly raised my hand, a signal we agreed on in advance, and waited before I felt a tap on my right and then my left foot.

Crawling at the very front of the formation, I had no way of turning around to check on the others. Bringing my head up would be akin to giving all the guards that just happened to look our way a perfect target against the backdrop of the distant forest.

A shadow that any veteran would instantly recognize as a not natural one, even with the augmentation of Leinei's blessing.

Feeling the tap on my feet, I learned that the two companions of mine closest to me noticed the signal and stopped, ready to slowly crawl in place to take a turn. And when the second tap came, first from the left and then from the right, I started to turn myself, careful not to move any quicker than before.

In the end, just the task of turning from facing toward the camp to facing along its side took me well over three minutes. But with just a hundred meters separating us from the human guards, this was the fastest speed at which I was willing to move.

With the cold permeating through every fiber of my skin and slowly growing to be as familiar to me as my very soul, I finished my turn and raised my left arm, placing it just a bit ahead before slowly, slowly pulling my body along.

In the end, crawling up to the side of the human camp took us over ninety minutes. A hell of a long time for crossing less than half of a kilometer that separated the camp from the line of trees that marked where the plain ended and the forest began.

By now, cold shivers had become a norm, something I even used to save some of my strength whenever I pulled myself up. Instead, I would simply move my arm ahead and then wait for another sign of my body desperately trying to produce some heat. With my muscles rapidly tensing, my body would slide through the cold mud, igniting a single spark of heat…

That was instantly quelled by all the heat that surrounded me from every possible side. And with all the moisture around, all the hint of warmth of my flesh would get drained right away.

Coldness. Everpresent, replacing all the thoughts in my head.

Cold was all that existed in my state. Cold air struck my back like some sort of vicious executioner with a whip. The cold waters that turned this once nice plain into a swap entrapped me with the icy embrace, akin to what people had to feel upon their last breath.

Cold, cold, and cold. There was nothing else in this world but that cold.

And when a distant hint of a torchlight fell on my face, I suddenly found myself returning to my senses.

In my dazed state, I crawled all the way to the area designed as where we would move out from the mud. And as I slowly looked around while making sure not to move my head at all… I found out I'd actually passed the designated point, nearly crawling into the open and perfectly lit area just ahead!

"You are finally back to your senses," a slight, almost non-existent whisper reached my ear, along with someone giving my arm a tug.

The hand that grabbed me was shivering, proving that the celestials and divines weren't that much more resistant to the cold than I was.

"Anyone missing?" I whispered back, quickly crawling to some sort of box and pressing my back against it, singing praises for my idea when, for the first time in a long while, I've experienced something different than just the everpresent, icy coldness.

"All accounted for," a returning whisper calmed me down a little. "Ulma is ready to cast the charm."

We were literally meters away from the nearest human guards. And while the noise raised by all the people in the camp gave us some sort of leeway, we still all used extremely hushed and careful voices while limiting ourselves to as few words as we could.

"This patrol is too small," I instructed once I took a careful glance over the side of the box and spotted the two men leisurely walking around the camp's edge. But as I looked to the other side, I saw something that I could only attribute to the first appearance of good luck.

There was another patrol, one person stronger at that, coming from the other side!

"Get ready," I moved my hand just a little bit, committing the speed of both the duo and the trio to my memory before hiding back behind the box and picturing the scene in my mind.

I was still extremely cold, with my mind struggling to construct a simple simulation… But there was no way for me to just stand aside and warm myself at the nearest fire. Even as a human, my way of being or even clothing was simply too different from what I could see inside of the camp with the few glances I threw.

And so, I continued to count the seconds down, imagining how both of the patrols got closer and closer…

When they both reached the optimal distance, I waved my hand. And after a momentary surge of aura…

The footsteps of the patrols got closer, only for all five of the men to walk out of the camp and into the darkness where my small unit awaited.

"Stay silent," I ordered as I snuck towards the back of the nearest of the unsuspecting men, all weirdly charmed and nearly compelled to go and check out some random rock.

Not even seeing it happen but feeling my companions do the same, I pulled out the small, stone knife and made another step…

Before reaching out, rapidly covering the unfortunate guard's mouth and slicing his throat open only to force his chin up, so that the fountain of blood that followed wouldn't mark his clothes.

"First four, change," I ordered silently, pulling the body away to the same boxes where I hid before only to hurriedly start undoing the poor man's clothes and putting them on myself. "The rest of you, remember, you need to stay on our right!"