Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

The royal court magician laughed at those sophistries of words. With his age and experience, he had come into contact with hundreds if not thousands of said nobles trying to use their eloquent tongue against him.

How could he not see through the hidden intention behind the words of King Henry? The other party might already be aware of their objectives thus there was no need for Vouves to mix his words.

"Your Majesty must have already received a report from the Adventurer's Association. We are here to participate in the upcoming tournament of your kingdom".

King Henry narrowed his eyes a little, he was already aware of their motive behind coming here but hearing it from their own mouth made him realise once again how incredible the first price reward that the Adventurer's Association offered was.

The royal family of Ellesmere interacted with the delegates of the Sanguine Empire before leaving a few parting words and allowing them to rest.

"Our soldiers are looking for prince Denzel all around the city. The moment we find him, we will bring him here". 

King Henry took heavy steps as he walked out of the room, his expression grave. Behind him followed Cynthia and Alstin his two children who were similarly not saying anything, understanding the gravity of the situation.

The motive behind the Sanguine Empire sending its two greatest prodigies here in this kingdom was to achieve two objectives at the same time. First was to get their hands on the reward that the association was providing and the second could be said as a show of force.

They wanted to show the surrounding kingdoms the power of their younger generation and establish a diplomatic situation with them.

"What should we do father?" Alstin asked in a somewhat apprehensive tone.

"Sigh.. what can we even do at this moment? The proposal was accepted by the headquarters of the Adventurer's Association themselves. Now I can only hope for your third brother to do his best" King Henry shifted his gaze in a certain direction of the palace.

Soldiers wearing the armour engraved with the insignia of the royal family ran across the city and searched it's every nook and cranny; nonetheless, prince Denzel was nowhere to be found.

The person in question for which the whole city was being disturbed was currently trailing two men who were making their way across the mountain range overlooking the city.

To escape the detection of the soldiers around the city, he even deliberately changed his clothes to a more casual one. What was same was that he still wore his black navy hat and strapped his rapier around his waist.

Simon who was also following the two men together with the boy, was looking at his surroundings with a hint of confusion. The two men after leaving the restaurant followed a particular path that led deeper towards the alleyway of the slum district before dropping down inside a large unused manhole.

They followed the path the two men took closely and after winding long hours, a path opened up that led outside of the city directly.

The discovery of such a route that evaded all the patrolling and detection of the soldiers and even the protective barrier of this city, stunned Simon. He was sure now that the two people definitely had something to do with the underside of this society.

At the same time, the feeling that he shouldn't involve himself with them was getting stronger and stronger. However, his curiosity to know who that demon they were talking about, ruled his other various emotions.

During their long hours of trailing, the two men used various crisscrossing paths and methods to throw off any pursuers following them.

After finding that there was no presence following behind them, they finally decided to drop their guards a little and started rushing off in a certain direction.

Simon who was hiding behind a thicket, used the item Ice Phoenix's Sigh given by Irene to erase his presence to a minimal.

"[One Sword]" He heard a silent mumbling and then looked at the little boy whose aura had become very thin, if not for the fact that the person was still visible to him, he would have thought that the boy had disappeared entirely.

Denzel opened his eyes and let go of his sword that he was clutching in his hand. He then eyed Simon and said, "As I thought, mister is not normal. To be able to erase your presence to such an extent, other than my master, I have never seen anyone capable of doing it".

After a brief moment, they started tracking the two men once again for hours and just when the sun was about to go down, they halted their steps in front of a cabin located at the deepest ridges of the mountain.

The cabin was so well hidden that they would have entirely missed it had they not followed those two people closely.

The two shady men stepped towards the cabin and at that moment, Simon noticed that their figure undulated for a second before their whole body disappeared.

They hurriedly approached the cabin and stepped forward just like the two men; however, no peculiarities happened and their bodies were still there. Simon looked at the cabin in front of him and silently opened its door only to find a dusty place that have not been in use for a while.

'What was going on?' thinking that there was something that they had missed, Simon thoroughly checked the place upside down trying to find if there was any hidden entrances or such. But no matter how long they searched they couldn't find anything unusual.

"This can't be… where did they go?" Denzel flopped himself on the ground tired after relentlessly searching the place upside-down to no avail.

Simon was similarly also frowning, he had seen them stepping towards the cabin and suddenly disappearing. If there was no hidden entrance then how to explain the situation earlier? There must be an explanation.

Just when those people stepped near the cabin, their body suddenly started… undulating!

'That's right, if we want to enter we need to find how did they do that' Simon deliberated. He walked outside the room and surveyed the cabin intensely.

Seeing him behave as if he solved something, the boy propped himself up and asked "What wrong mister? Did you find something?".

Nodding his head Simon replied, "Search for a hidden teleportation item or formation around. Those two people must have used that to teleport somewhere".

"Oh!" the boy nodded and did as he was told.

The sudden disappearance and undulation that he had seen earlier was definitely the signs of space magic involved. Although he was not sure, he had seen a similar scene before where the orc general had used the space magic which distorted and created a ripple around the space to teleport himself and his subordinates away.

During his travel with Adalinda, Simon got a certain understanding of the space magic and he would even try to learn it in his spare time. Thus he knew a thing or two about space magic and that's how he could tell that the space magic was involved here or else there was no way to explain the sudden disappearance of those two people.

After spending some time thoroughly inspecting the place, they finally found an area engraved with peculiar runes hidden by dried up leaves.

This was the exact same spot that the two men had stood on before their bodies started undulating and they disappeared. They followed the previous example and stood themselves in between the formation.

However, even after a while, nothing happened and the scenery around them remained the same. The boy who had no knowledge about space magic, poked the formation as if trying to invoke some sort of reaction from it.

'Hmm, even putting mana onto it is not working than does that mean that there is some criteria involved to pass through it?' Simon thought as he tried to recall how easily the two men passed.

'Does the formation require them to have space magic? No if that was the case those two wouldn't have taken such a long and winding way instead of just using space magic to teleport here'.

Just when they were pondering what to do, the formation lit up and one of the men in off white robes that they were following, came out of it.

The moment Eleven saw two strangers in front of the cabin which should be well hidden, he first became stunned then alert and finally killing intent overflowed from his body.

Simon and the boy named Denzel were the same, they didn't expect to see one of the two men that they were following, come out of the formation.

"Who are you two and how did you reach this place?" Eleven asked taking out a longbow from his space ring. He tugged on the bowstring and an invisible arrow made of mana, immediately formed which he used to point at the two of them.

The pressure that flowed out of his body, was enough to stop the rustling of the trees and halt the blowing wind.

Simon observed the man using [Analysis] which showed his level to be above 400. 

A level 402 [Nightfall Ranger] was currently pointing his arrow towards them and Simon who was considering his options, was stunned to see the boy make the first move.

SHIING… even before one could blink their eyes, the boy had unsheathed his rapier and charged towards the opponent with a ridiculous amount of speed that one wouldn't expect from a boy of his age.

Even though Denzel did not use any wind or electro magic to augument his speed, his swiftness was comparable to or even excelled those that do.