Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Simon was in no state of mind to pay attention to the actions of these bandits as he was too caught up in his own thoughts. Just a few seconds ago when he had defeated the two bandits, a notification rang out and a window displaying a pleasant message popped up in front of his eyes.

[You have levelled up].

Simon stared at the message with a blank expression, it was not long since he levelled using the mana crystals and after that, he did not have any opportunity to hunt monsters, dive inside the pond, or use the remaining mana crystals to increase his level.

Naturally, he had quite the gap to reach the next level. Each increase in level after reaching level 300, was very tedious and hard and one needed to constantly defeat strong beings to even see minor changes.

However, these past few days other than hunting some weak monsters and the battle grizzly, Simon did not deliberately hunt strong monsters to level. So how come he levelled up so abruptly?

The only answer he could think of was the experience that the two bandits had provided him after being defeated.

These bandits weren't strong and were only around level 150 and only a handful few were above level 200 not including the bandit leader. Was the experience provided by the humans after being defeated different than ordinary bloodline monsters?

While he did fought with Laris a human adventurer, it was a battle with his life on the line. Other than being superior in terms of pure stats, he was lacking in every aspect. At that time due to being under the influence of the pride fragment, he did not have enough presence of mind to pay attention to his level. 

He couldn't come up with an answer but what he did know was that defeating the two bandits had allowed him to gain enough experience to level up. Simon couldn't imagine what would happen if he were to defeat these fifty or so bandits.

An excitement and a nature that had been deeply suppressed by him, fully flared up at that moment.

An opportunity to level up like that doesn't come that often. The enemy were bandits that have committed many heinous crimes and whose bodies were leaking with bloodlust, he naturally had no reason barring him to take them down. Especially when their target was the convoy he was travelling with.

His eyes were back to their crimson colour and a feeling to trample on his enemies rose within his heart. Other than the bandit leader who was around level 298, the rest of the group were of no concern to Simon.

His Demon Viscount body with its high Defence and Endurance, would easily be able to endure through any of their attacks. This meant that he could let loose without worrying much.

"Let's get this party going shall we" the black-robed young man said flashing a wicked smile.

The three moons hung up high in the sky and lit the place with their beautiful moonlight. However, this part of the forest was still covered with darkness due to the looming clouds that had arrived who knows when and the thick canopies of the trees.

<br/>A distant mountain that was covered with many tall trees and was a thousand meters big, stood mightily across the forest. However, the peculiar thing about this mountain was that there were many small and big tunnels craftily covered with bushes and foliage to hide them from view.

If one followed any one of these tunnels, they would be led to a wide underground space that is or was the hideout of one of the four brigand leaders.

No, it was not deserted, on the contrary, it was still being occupied up until a couple of minutes ago. Then why it WAS a hideout of one of the four brigand leaders? The answer could be found at the scene that lay inside of that very mountain.

Many corpses littered the place everywhere, their blood dying the ground a shade of black. These corpses were none other than the bodies of the bandits who had encircled and attacked Simon.

Currently, the place was completely silent with a nauseating smell that had spread everywhere. A young man could be seen sitting on a wooden cargo that did not have a trace of blood smeared on it. His clothes were a little tattered and burnt, scars and cuts covered his body nonetheless, they couldn't hide the brilliant shine of his eyes and his excited smile.

Even when a gory seen laid out in front of, the man seemed unaffected.

"With a span of few hours, I levelled up a total of ten times. This speed can be considered quite scary compared to the slow growth I had been having inside the Ghastly Winding Forest for the past few weeks".

This experience today had told Simon how important it was to roam around and not be holed up in a place. While it may be true that the Ghastly Winding Forest is the best place for him to train and level up due to the strong and overflowing presence of the monsters, it was precisely because the level of monsters there was quite high that Simon was having difficulty defeating them.

Now that he knew that humans too gave him experience when defeated, he couldn't get this feeling out of him. After this experimentation, Simon was clear that humans and monsters each provided a different amount of experience that is mystical energy when defeated.

An ordinary bloodline low-level monsters provided way less mystical energy to him when defeated than an average human who had trained their skills ardously and had gone through a few class changes.

This theory of his might be flawed and he needed to defeat a few more evolved monsters and humans with more class changes to truly make a correct comparison. But for now, Simon was quite happy with the gains that he had.

"Hmm? What was that silvery light that flew out from this small conch" grasping a small conch which had complicated patterns that looked like runes inscribed on it, Simon spoke out his thoughts.

He remembered that in between his fight with the Bandit leader, the person had suddenly taken out this conch when he saw that he couldn't gain an edge. After taking out this conch the man spoke a few words before the conch lighted up with a silvery light that swiftly disappeared into space.

The fight with the bandit leader was quite boring compared to the time when he fought with Laris the adventurer. Since the bandit leader did not have a battle rich experience and a good weapon like the latter, Simon did not feel the excitement and the only thing that caught his eyes during the battle was this silvery light that flew out of the item that was currently on his hand.

While he pose the question in a low voice and did not expect an answer from anyone, a small voice that had a tinge of anger rang out to clear his doubts.

"That light was a voice transmission that flew out from that transponder shell. It is most likely that bandit used this to send some message to someone" Adalinda folded bother her arms across her chest and said.

Sensing her sudden presence behind, Simon freaked out for a second. The feeling of her presence evading his senses, was something he wouldn't get used to.

"You scared me there for a second. When did you appear?" he inquired.

"Hmph, I was already here before you started massacring these bandits. If I don't want to, nobody here can sense my presence. There is no need for you to get surprised each and every time. But that is not important… how dare you ruin my fun?" Adalinda asked in a foul mood.

The sudden question startled Simon and he couldn't help but utter an "Eh?".

The little girl's ponytail waved like two whips when she saw that he did not even realise what his actions meant.

"Kuhh… seriously why did you have to go and kill everybody? I was so waiting for them to conduct their ambush on the campsite. Now you have done it and destroyed all of my fun".

"What?"

This time, Simon rolled his eyes at Adalinda. What did she mean by ruined by fun? Was she already aware of the presence of these bandits hiding inside this underground space?  Didn't it mean that she was looking forward to convoy and these bandits clashing with one another? And all of that was just because she was bored.

His face showed a dreadful appearance when he thought how devious the plans of this little girl who had an innocent angel-like face was. Simon smiled bitterly unable to even laugh or cry.

Adalinda kept on throwing him a hateful glance when suddenly, she revealed a gloating smile towards him and mockingly asked.

"Do you know what the content of the message passed by that bandit was before he died at your hands?". 

He simply shook his head, his eyes looked at Adalinda questioningly since he knew that she was aware of something to have asked this question.

"Kfufu… you deserve this for foiling my plan. Next time I'll prepare myself to enjoy the show thoroughly" the little girl laughed at his blank expression.

Simon did not mind, from her words he was at least able to understand that the bandit leader deemed it necessary to send a message to someone during his last moments. That alone gave him some idea.

He could guess that this group wasn't the only bandits around and there were more of them. Guessing from how Adalinda was acting, it seems that his action here has been reported to the other bandits and they would more likely be aware of him if they met the next time.