Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Looking at his concerned face, Irene immediately understood his worries and calmly replied.

"I will look after the dungeon, you can go out and train without worrying. As for my level, I'm about to reach level 200 soon".

Hearing her reply, his mind was immediately put into ease but when the realisation of her last sentence struck him, he immediately became surprised. After their last trip from the Forest Spring Spirit village at the borders of the Ancient Treant territory, Irene had never left the dungeon. It wouldn't be surprising if her level had become stagnant for these past few months.

However, Irene herself said that she was soon about to reach level 200.

Seeing the surprise in his eyes Irene clarified further "Just like Cecilia, my powers are also sealed and as long as I continue to bask in the rich density of mystical energy, I will be able to slowly gain my powers back".

Simon nodded absentmindedly; it was the first time had seen Irene opening up a little bit about herself. It made sense, Irene was someone he had summoned from the bugged summon option of his [Main Menu] and everything related to her was a mystery.

He remembered when he analysed her status for the first time, most of her skills were displayed as sealed. It wasn't unusual for her powers to be sealed just like Cecilia.

Simon breathed a deep breath of air before suddenly remembering the scene from back then when Irene had suddenly lost control of her emotions. He could still vividly remember the huge and beautiful Ice phoenix shadow that appeared just like an illusion when her headache was about to worsen.

Even if it was just for an instant, the might and divine aura that it had released, was enough to overshadow this whole world. If Irene's powers were sealed just as she said, then there was no point for her to grind levels like him in the first place.

Although he did not understand how basking in the rich density of the mystical energy would help her unseal her powers back, he knew that Irene had something on her mind.

Now that the safety of the dungeon was not weighing at the back of his mind, Simon bid the two of them goodbye before promptly teleporting out of the dungeon. Without stopping for a second, he zipped through the sky and flew towards the western region of the forest.

The place where his dungeon was located was in the eastern region of the forest where the weakest of the monsters resided. It was quite far from the western part of the forest and even with his [High-Speed Flight], it took him a couple of hours to get there.

The destination he was heading for was the High Orcs territory, the area where he stopped his exploration the last time.

The [Mental Map] skill was quite helpful in that accord that it was able to map the territory out quite thoroughly. Simon just needed to follow his last trail and he would be back to the exact same place.

That being said, the High orcs had extremely keen noses and his scent would naturally not go unnoticed by them. He would pincered by their numbers the deeper he went and all sorts of garbled unintelligible words would come assaulting his ears.

The territory of the High orcs was as gloomy and dark as ever and by the time Simon had reached the area he stopped at the last time, he had already defeated four groups of high orcs that came following his scent.

"Huff'¦ huff'¦ I can feel that I am approaching deeper towards their territory" Simon took hurried breaths of air before regulating his breathing. The monsters that came attacking him were clearly stronger than the ones patrolling at the border of their territory, which meant that he was steadily marching deeper.

After resting in that spot for a while to recover his expended stamina and mana, he quickly increased his pace and marched deeper in search of strong enemies.

A few minutes passed than ten and before long an hour had passed. Simon wore a frown over his face as he intensely stared at his [Mental Map]. According to it, there was no mistake, he was steadily approaching closer towards the deepest part of their territory and yet he didn't even meet a single high orc coming his way.

He had also checked for traps that may have misled his sense of direction and made him march in circles. But it turns out that was not the case, the high orcs although sentient, weren't intelligent enough to set traps and arrays for their prey.

Which led Simon to only one conclusion and that was the high orcs were already occupied with something which had enough importance for them to completely ignore his presence.

The more he thought, the more curious he got and increased his speed in this freeway that was left open for him.  After about an hour or so, huge buildings and constructs that were crudely made, came into view.

The houses were so big that they easily reached up to a height of thirty meters each, demonstrating that the residents of the houses were no ordinary beings. The village was surrounded by tall fences and a huge gate made with various monster bones.

The settlement was still far from where Simon was but he still could still see several shadows gathering near the square at the centre of the village. The distance was too much for him to see what they currently doing however, from the vague shadows he could still make out they were currently increasing their force.

Intrigued, Simon wanted to know what exactly were they pre-occupied with to ignore his presence but if he approached any closer, their keen noses would be able to pick his scent and before long he would be surrounded by the hordes of them.

Although being besieged by them was his original goal for coming here in the first place, his inquisitive mind couldn't help but buzz at the thought of what their objective was.

There was no way he could approach closer to have a look without getting spotted by them'¦ as he was thinking just that, from the corner of his eyes, he spotted something.

The thing that caught his eyes or rather his nose was something that had a very disgusting odour and would make anyone scowl. Yes, it was none other than excrement of some monster. The smell was so horrible that Simon had the urge to immediately get away from it when suddenly, an idea struck him.

'If I can't hide my scent, why not cover it with something that is present everywhere' he looked at the excrement and thought internally. It would work as an excellent camouflage against these High Orcs who have a very keen nose and can pick up a foreign smell from miles.

Hesitating over his options for a while, Simon steeled his mind and decided to cover himself in it. Fortunately for him, the excrement had already dried up.

Smearing it all over his clothes, his whole body started giving off a rancid smell which made him cover his nose.

"Alright'¦ this should do the trick. Even with their nose, it would be difficult for them to pick my scent now" Saying that, he started increasing his speed and rushed towards the distant high orcs village.

After arriving at an elevation from where he could monitor them properly, he hid his presence behind a nearby tree. From this viewpoint, he could clearly see the figure and numbers of the high orcs gathering near the town square.

Another thing that he noticed was that the appearance of these high orcs was quite unusual than the ones he was used to seeing. The ones gathered inside the village had rugged crimson skin and were quite brawny and taller than the normal high orcs.

Unlike the ones patrolling the border, these ones looked very intelligent and were wearing various crudely made garbs over their bodies. Even their presence was on a completely different realm than the normal looking ones.

Feeling their presence, Simon couldn't help but feel excited as the blood within him started boiling. He couldn't help but wonder how much experience each of them would give him once he defeats them.

The result of Analysis told him that the monsters in front of him weren't just simple high orcs but a mutated species of them called Diluvian High Orc.

A mutated species is always stronger than its base species and are extremely powerful. The numbers of the Diluvian High Orcs gathering at the town square were in the fifties and each of their levels was above level 300.

Not only were they highly organised, but each of them were very intelligent. Unlike the high orcs he had met up until now whose language seemed unintelligible garbled words, the ones at the town were clearly conversing in a tone that even his skill [Language Comprehension] could pick up.

Simon concentrated on listening to the conversation of these Dulivian High Orcs to understand what their objective behind gathering such a huge force was.

"I wonder why the commander gave the order for all of us to gather here" One of the Diluvian High Orcs wearing a sturdy armour made of animal bones asked. He had a gigantic shield hung on his back which his brawny body carried with ease.

"It is because Sir Berigard has decided to move" Replied an Orc lining in front of him.

"You mean Sir Berigard who is one of three generals under our king and who is famous for his magic is coming here? Is this why the commander asked us to be at ready here?" Another Orc of similar warrior build said.