"But what about Krista and Daz…" Eren tried to argue.
"I know. We'll send a search party first thing in the morning," a female instructor said.
"Chen Si has already gone to rescue them," Mikasa said, clenching her fists.
"What?" The female instructor froze.
"He's the trainee with the best overall performance at the moment," a male instructor whispered beside her.
"Damn it. I can only try to notify the rescue team to hurry," the female instructor said reluctantly. She was unwilling to lose someone as talented as Chen Si.
The snowstorm grew fiercer—strong enough to blow an ordinary child off their feet.
Chen Si ran through the forest nonstop. The temperature was so low that the electricity in his body, which he used to maintain warmth, was draining bit by bit.
Damn it… where are they?
He glanced back at the faint firelight of the camp, calculating the possible routes.
He kept searching, but soon realized how foolish it was—how could one person possibly find someone in a forest like this? The thought of Historia dying in the blizzard made him grit his teeth. He activated what little electricity he had left. Arcs of lightning wrapped around his legs.
His speed surged. After running for more than ten minutes, he was panting heavily when he finally spotted a faint flicker of firelight.
"Daz… are you still awake? Hang in there…" he heard Historia's weak voice call out.
"Krista!" Chen Si rushed toward her, gasping for breath.
"Ch… Chen Si…" Krista stared at him in shock.
"Why did you come back? Weren't you in the first group to leave?" she asked in confusion.
"You idiot. If I hadn't come, were you planning to just die out here?" he scolded angrily.
"I… I wasn't," Krista said stubbornly.
"Krista, why don't you value your own life? Stop living only for others. No one has the right to control your thoughts," Chen Si said firmly.
Tears shimmered in her eyes. Frost was forming in her hair. Chen Si hurriedly lifted Krista onto his back and dragged Daz as he began moving back toward camp.
The blizzard intensified. Visibility dropped to nothing. The electricity maintaining his body temperature was nearly gone.
Damn it… am I some kind of saint? What does Daz's life have to do with me? Am I really going to become the first transmigrator to die in a natural disaster?
He roared inwardly in frustration.
"Are we… not going to make it back? I'm sorry… I dragged you into this…" Krista's tears streamed down her face, quickly freezing into tiny crystals. Her body was growing stiff from the cold.
"Don't worry. I'll make sure you get back alive and unharmed. Historia, remember what I said? I cherish you. If you died… I'd be heartbroken."
With a bitter smile, he transferred what little electricity he had left into her body.
He spotted an abandoned wooden cabin on the mountainside. Feeling his own temperature plummet, he struggled toward it with Historia on his back.
Suddenly—
A rumble thundered from the mountaintop.
Damn it. An avalanche.
His body was already stiff. Krista had fallen unconscious.
In the final second before the snow engulfed them, Chen Si poured every last bit of electricity he could muster into Krista.
"Live on, Krista! Carry my hope with you!" he shouted with everything he had.
Her eyelashes trembled.
Then the snow swallowed them whole.
Chen Si didn't know whether he was an idiot. He never imagined he would one day die because of a girl. He remembered something he once told his roommate in his previous life:
"Lao He, being lovestruck will only get you killed over a woman."
He didn't understand why he had done this. As a transmigrator, dying to save what was essentially an "NPC" felt absurd.
But if one lived a whole life without changing anything at all… wasn't that even more tragic?
With regret and reluctant acceptance, a faint relieved smile curved on his lips.
His heart stopped.
A few minutes later, color gradually returned to Krista's face. The electricity inside her body began repairing her frozen cells, restoring her temperature.
After a moment, she opened her eyes.
"Chen Si! Chen Si!" she cried, frantically digging through the snow with her bare hands. Her fingers turned red. Large tears fell onto the snow, glittering like crystals under the moonlight.
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry, Chen Si! Don't die! Please!"
At last, she uncovered one of his legs and dragged him free. Struggling under his weight, she carried him toward the nearby cabin.
His words echoed in her mind:
"I'll make sure you get back alive… I cherish you."
"Live on, Krista! Carry my hope."
Inside the cabin, she desperately tried to revive him—pressing on his chest, calling his name, refusing to give up.
Ten minutes passed.
Suddenly—
A spark flickered inside Chen Si's heart.
Arcs of electricity spread through his body. Warmth slowly returned. Historia felt his heartbeat beneath her hands.
He opened his eyes.
"Miss, taking advantage of me while I'm unconscious isn't very nice," he joked weakly.
"It's… it's so good you're alive! If you had died… I wouldn't know how to go on…" Krista threw herself into his arms, sobbing.
He held her tightly, sending a gentle current into her body to keep her warm.
"Chen Si… my real name is Historia Reiss. I didn't mean to hide it…"
"It's alright, Krista," he said softly.
Under the quiet moonlight and the lingering aftermath of the storm, the two shared a moment of warmth and closeness, clinging to each other as if afraid to lose one another again.
Outside, the snow lay silent beneath the night sky.
The next day, Mikasa arrived with several instructors to conduct the rescue. It was said that she had nearly fought two instructors in her fury, and only Eren and Armin's desperate attempts to stop her prevented her from charging into the storm alone during the night.
Mikasa was the first to reach the cabin.
And what she saw inside made her glare so sharply that Chen Si jolted awake under the weight of it…