Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Irene muttered under her breath, turned towards Simon and extended her hand.

Getting the clue, Simon took her hand and brought her near the bonfire for a dance.

"Just so you know, I have never danced before this. So it might be…" Irene said averting her eyes.

"Don't worry, their dance is not as difficult as you think" Simon assured. He placed his hand over her willowy waist and locked his other arm with hers. Just like how Cecilia had taught him, they started dancing.

And although Irene said that she never danced before this, her poise was graceful and her steps elegant. Coupled with the fact that one had the charms of a devil while the other was a celestial beauty, they quickly stole everyone's breath.

Their dance was so mesmerising that every watching eye was locked onto them and their mouth gaped open from the scene.

"You are quite good for someone who said that they have never danced before this. Did you enjoy it?" Simon spoke coming to a break after a while.

"Well, I never said that I was bad" Irene responded with a flushed red face. This was the first time she had danced with someone. not to mention with the opposite sex no less.

At this moment she looked so beautiful that one might even have difficulty tearing their gaze away from her.

CLAP… CLAP… CLAP… Came the loud applause of the crowd. At some unknown point in time, all the other couples had stopped dancing and were watching them intently.

Irene turned around and walked away, leaving behind a few short words "Thank you for the gift".

Simon smiled, she didn't reply to the latter half of his question; nevertheless, from her behaviour, he could tell that she did enjoy it.

On one corner of the town square, Bea was brooding intensely causing cracks to appear on her plate.

"How long do you plan on continuing that, get over it. Our Master and Miss Irene.. they truly are a good match" Annette spoke standing beside her.

"B-But… Unnngh!!" Bea pouted, before she could say anything, Alice beside her finished her cake and waltzed towards where Simon was saying "After Princess Cecilia and Miss Irene, it is my turn".

"Huh? Wait… I shall be the one to dance first" Bea hurriedly tagged along followed by Emma and Bianca.

"Sigh" Annette sighed and followed her sister to ask for a dance with their master. Like that, Simon had to dance with all the five Valkyries before he could take a break.

It turned out that the birthday party he had thrown for Cecilia, was super popular with everyone. The party went on for quite a few hours before everyone turned to their homes.

Simon did not teleport to the white palace and instead chose to stay in the bamboo house made for him at the insistence of everyone. As there was no way to tell the passage of time inside a dungeon, one had to follow their instincts and rest when they feel tired.

Simon was a demon noble, he did not have much need for sleep unlike the forest spring spirits. But perhaps because it was a long time ago that he took a nap, he quickly fell asleep as soon as he turned to the bed.

How long was he asleep? Simon couldn't tell… all he could say was he was drifting endlessly to somewhere without his control. Before he knew it, he was in a vast white space with no end or beginning.

The place was completely empty and other than him, there was nothing there. Simon quickly recalled where this place was, when he was tackling the trial in the ancient treants territory set by Aldebaran, this was where he ended up after he lost consciousness on the ninth step.

[TEEEEE]...

Just like that time, the weird noise rang out within the empty space calling him towards it.

Simon followed the sound and soon he appeared in front of the object that was releasing an intense amount of light and was so hot that it felt like the core of the sun.

Needless to say, Simon couldn't approach closer to it because of the heat. Nonetheless, his ability to resist heat was on a whole different level after his flame magic evolved to the advanced level. He was much closer to the object in terms of distance, than the last time he was here.

Still, there was a few meters distance between them that no matter how much he tried, he couldn't cover. It was not the problem of heat, it was as if his feet were invisibly stuck to the ground unable to proceed any further.

​ Simon sighed, looked at the object and spoke "You brought me here again this time too didn't you? What are you? And for what reason did you call me?".

It might look odd that he was talking with an object; however, make no mistake, it was no ordinary object and was capable of communicating with Simon.

[TEEEEE] just like always, it communicated with a ringing sound. Simon who got adept at that language the last time he came here, tried to understand what it was telling him.

"What!?... You want to show me something?" He muttered in confusion. Before he could ask what it wanted to show him, the vast white space he was in, disappeared. His vision blurred and the scenes around him changed.

When he tried to look around to see where he was now, he saw an enormous tower piercing the very dome of sky. It was so majestic, grand looking and impactful that it was incomparable to the tower of his dungeon.

Nonetheless, what amazed Simon was not the tower but the destruction that was around it. The land around here for thousands of miles along with the very space here was devastated to the point that it was unrepairable. The sky was fragmented with black holes appearing everywhere.

Even the ginormous mighty tower was damaged with a portion of its walls collapsed.

As Simon was surveying the place his eyes suddenly went towards two shadowy figures standing high up in the sky without a foothold. Facing them, were eight figures who were shrouded in a mysterious light except for one.

When Simon saw that figure that was not shrouded in a light, his eyes opened wide and a look of disbelief appeared on his face. He was so perturbed that his mind had gone blank instantly.

The reason for his shock was the eighth figure that was not shrouded in light. It was a familiar figure, one that was very close to him.

"Cecilia?!!" Simon couldn't help but yell out in shock. Yes, one of the figures standing nobly in the air, was none other than his little sister Cecilia.

More accurately, that someone looked very much like Cecilia, but it wasn't her. Those emerald green hair, fairly like beautiful face, butterfly wings and those mysterious speckles of light that always followed her.

Her every feature matched with Cecilia, just that they were more taller, mature and grown up than the current little girl that he knew of.

It couldn't be a mistake, the similarities were just too uncanny.

Who was that someone that looked like Cecilia? Who were those other seven shrouded figures around her and who were the two shadowy figures that they were facing?

What kind of dream was this? Simon had more questions than answers. He felt a burst of pain assault his head and before he knew it, he passed out.

HUFF… HUFF...HUFF… the next time he opened his eyes, he was back in his bed inside the bamboo house on the forest spring village.

"What was that dream… Haa… Haa" Simon mumbled, his body was drenched with sweat and he was out of breath like he was having some nightmare. He couldn't understand the dream that he had just now.

That mysterious white space and those figures, everything felt so real that he couldn't discount it as a dream. Especially, the figure of Cecilia, it brought back those words that he heard from Aldebaran about Cecilia being a reincarnation of one of the Eight Emmisarries.

No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't arrive at any other explanation.

That light and that dream, why did he have it now? Unable to calm his mind, Simon got up from his bed and went out for a stroll. Unknowingly, he had arrived in front of the spirit tree who was sleeping soundly like an infant at this moment.

According to Irene, one of the abilities of the spirit tree was to glimpse into the future, Simon thought that his peculiar dream had something to do with it. However, it looked like he was wrong, the spirit tree wasn't involved in his dream.

And he didn't know why, but a part of him told him that it wasn't a future nor any dream but something that had already occurred, a distant past.

Simon had a splitting headache every time that he tried to recall the scenes for some unknown reason. It was very different from the time when he witnessed the Historia in the forbidden trials, the dream he had today was very real, like a memory he had experienced himself.

"Why did you suddenly walk out of the house?" bringing along a cold gust of wind, Irene appeared behind Simon all of a sudden.

The woman's senses were too sharp, even though he made no noise while coming out of the house, Irene was still able to perceive him.

"No reason particularly, since I couldn't sleep, I just thought to take a walk" Simon tried to sound as convincing as possible. Even if he discussed the dream he just had with Irene, it would only be worrying her needlessly thus he decided to cover it up with an excuse.