Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Perhaps because she did not care or because she was in a good mood, she truthfully answered his question.

"A week ago while I was getting bored roaming around the city, I suddenly sensed the coordinator not far from the capital. As I patiently waited there to see what they were planning with it, you people barged in and activated the coordinator".

There were several things he wanted to retort her about but before that "What do you mean by the Coordinator?" he enquired.

Lucine didn't seem amazed at his question. The knowledge about the coordinator was limited to a small number of people after all.

"The machine that you had activated in the basement, is called the coordinator".

Simon nodded his head, just as he was about to ask what the shattered dungeon core was doing sitting at the centre of this coordinator, Lucine stopped him from continuing further.

"I cannot tell you that but if you want to know you can search fro the answer yourself. Just know that knowing it will do you more harm than benefit".

After ending her explanation offhandedly, she looked at her surrounding with amazement and muttered in a voice only she could hear.

"This place, there is no mistaking it. To think that the prototype would work and create a portal that actually connected with one of the few islands lost in history. That thing is definitely here and it has resonated with that Demon".

She then gazed at Simon with an incredulous glint in her eyes. At this moment, the last person to enter the portal, finally woke up. Denzel opened his eyes only to find himself in a place covered with eternal snow. He only sighed in relief after seeing that he had his rapier buckled to his waist belt.

"Where are we?" he asked turning towards Simon only to widen his eyes in surprise at the unknown person beside him. Seeing them bicker back and forth, he couldn't help but wonder if they knew each other.

Simon opened his [Mental Map] skill to try and see where they actually were only to find that the skill was not working. For some reason, something was interfering with navigating skills.

He immediately thought about the hallucinating mist on his dungeon which similarly had such a function and could disrupt skills such as [Pathfinder], [Mental Map], [Echolocation] etc. With no lead to know where to go, Simon could only shake his head.

Walking around heedlessly in this endless snow and wasting their stamina, was more dangerous than staying still. However, it also wasn't like they could stay in this place forever. It might be his imagination or him being too cautious, but he felt like with every stroke from the snowflakes, his mana and physical abilities were decreasing.

"Eh?" Suddenly, the boy's body jolted as if he was electrocuted and his face had an incredulous look.

Seeing him like that Simon asked "What wrong? Did you find something?".

"No.. umm yes but how should I say it, it's just one of my skills reacting to something around here alerting me of danger" Denzel said confounded. No matter how he saw it, there was not even a single presence amidst this endless snow other than the three of them.

Simon fell into contemplation, he felt that something was wrong and now it was even confirmed by the boy. He did not know what skill was that; however, one thing was clear that they couldn't stay put in the place.

At this moment when the two of them started getting ready to move forward, Lucine who was pretending to be mute all this time, finally spoke.

"That boy is not wrong, it is the snow. You are getting danger alert because of this snow which is very slowly but gradually decreasing your battle prowess".

"What?!" Denzel erupted in shock whereas Simon narrowed his eyes. His intuition that was repeatedly warning him about this place, about this snow was right.

In any case, they couldn't stay here in this open field or else after a few hours, they wouldn't even have the strength remaining to walk. They must find a place where the snow can't reach them; however, looking at this endless snowy place, finding something like that could be said next to impossible especially when they can't even use their navigating skills.

Simon's eyes unwittingly shifted towards Lucine, this woman clearly knew about this place more than them.

Feeling the gaze of the other two on her, she gave an audible sigh before explaining.

"The place we are currently in is one of the forbidden grounds of this world filled with extreme dangers where it would not be surprising to lose your life at the slightest mistake. You cannot use navigating skills nor can you physically map the place out because of its vastness that is unless you destroy the formation that is creating this phenomenon".

Simon widened his eyes, from her words he could interpret that there was some kind of mechanism into play that is making the snow around them like that and if they wanted to proceed forward, they had to first deactivate or destroy that.

Although it sounded easy when voicing it out, it was bound to be exceedingly difficult. After all, a defensive mechanism that is capable of creating snow like that, would be hidden extremely carefully.

Nevertheless, they had no choice but to find the mechanism and deactivate it first or else this snowy place will be their burial grounds.

"How do we find it? Do we need to search this entire place?" the boy asked the question that even Simon had on his mind.

Lucine crossed her hands in front of her ample chest, her white hair like the snow fluttering with the wind as she surveyed her surroundings.

"A mechanism capable of covering this vast of an area, must take a lot of size. Even if it doesn't it is bound to leak some aura in a few dozen meters area around it. You just have to find that and destroy it before you succumb to the effects of this mechanism".

The two of them could only pray that the mechanism was huge in size, or else finding something small in this vast snow land would be next to impossible. They discussed among themselves which direction they would search before heading out to leave.

Before leaving, Denzel handed them three transmission Conch so that they could contact each other through it. Time was of essence and thus they hurriedly dispersed. 

After walking for a while Simon turned around to see Luvcine following him. "What do you want?" he asked.

"I had this question for a while but did something happen after we parted ways back in the Ghastly Winding Forest?" Although she asked it subtly, Simon was more than aware that the woman wanted to know if her master had come by or not.

How can Simon answer her so willingly when all of this trouble he got caught into up until now was because of her schemes and the technique she had taught him? While it is true that the technique had helped him out a lot, it had also brought him many troubles in the form of a little girl.

Since his facial expression was easy to read, Simon acted as if this was the first time he had heard about anything like that and denied her words saying nothing unusual happened after she left.

He tried his very best so as to not drop any hint of her master currently being in the capital city of Ellesmere and was in hot pursuit of her.

"Hnn~" the woman narrowed her eyes and made a nasal voice. Her behaviour was just like a wife who was sceptical of her husband who had returned late after his office.

"Is that so? Then what are you doing here and how did you change your appearance to a human?" her beautiful tangerine eyes that could mesmerise one's soul, focused on him.

Instead of feeling pleasant for having the attention of such a beauty, Simon was sweating profusely and was inwardly cursing the woman for being too suspicious. Nevertheless, he had his answers prepared and just had to iterate them.

"Well, it's because I heard from those humans diving inside my dungeon that there is going to be a tournament held at the capital city of the kingdom nearest to me. As for my appearance, I changed it using an item that I had found. I can't go roaming inside a human society with that appearance of my can I?".

They say that the best lie consists of some truth at least in some parts. Simon concocted a lie that was not far away from the truth, part of the reason he was here was because he knew he would find her here who was interested in this tournament.

The same went for his appearance which had indeed been altered by an item but he didn't dare to mention its name in fear of her recognising it. Maybe it was because his lie worked or perhaps she couldn't find any faults in his words, Lucine nodded her head and went off in a different direction than him in search of the mechanism.

Although if she wanted to, she could easily break through such restrictions which was the most easiest hurdle of this island. Nonetheless, she restrained from doing so as it would make the trials difficult for the other two.

Additionally, the portal was opened by the Demon which could only mean that the thing inside had recognised him as one of the worthy successors. Thus it was only natural for him to go through the trials.

WOOO~ the infrequent winds carrying along the falling snowflakes brushed past his body. This time, though the change was very minuscule, Simon still felt strength being seeped away from his body a little.