Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

"I believe that girl did all of this because of some puny favour she might have owed to that demon. After all, a being of her level would hate to owe someone. Now that she has repaid her debt, she is likely to go on her own path".

"You mean to say is that…" before Scott could complete his sentence, he heard the sea god's trident guild leader give orders to one of his nearby subordinates who was barely able to stay conscious after all that.

"The direction they are flying to, will eventually lead them to fortress Volkan. If that demon wants to go back to the Ghastly Winding Forest, he has to take this route. Contact those two, tell them to stop in the fortress city on their way, also tell them that we have found one of the perpetrators behind the tragedy that unfolded with Chuck".

The subordinate immediately understood what his guild master was planning and hurriedly left the coliseum to carry out his order.

-----

After leaving the capital behind and traversing the mountainous region for a while, the two finally stopped. Adalinda who was silently flying in the lead, finally turned around at this time and faced Simon whose body was continuously twitching and trembling, possibly from the repercussion of the skills that he forcible activated.

She first sighed at the condition he was rendered to before dropping down on the ground for a stop.

'I can't believe a demon who can't even defend himself would be a possessor of the fragment of Sin' Adalinda complained internally nonetheless, she did not continue with their journey.

"Seriously, you have no awareness. What would you have done had I not arrived at the capital on time?" she grumbled looking at the clueless demon.

"He probably would have used the return transit rock to teleport back to the forbidden trail ground right, Mister Simon?".

Adalinda's question was answered by another voice, Lucine appeared out of thin air startling the Demon Viscount.

"Why are you acting so surprised? Hmph, weren't you the one who lead my master here. It is all because of you that I have to cut my trip short".

'It is because of me? Weren't you the one that led your master to me first? If she didn't insist on bringing me along, all of this wouldn't have happened in the first place'.

Simon wanted to retort but right now his body was suffering through so much pain that he felt like if he opened his mouth, he would involuntarily scream out.

He bought a few elixirs of healing and quickly gulped them down; however, how could the repercussions from activating so many skills, igniting ancestral symbol and abusing his body go away that easily?

Simon knew that he would have to suffer like that for a couple of hours or possibly even a day.

"Enough bickering, since he is not feeling well, let him rest here," Adalinda said creating a barrier that separated them from the outside.

Knowing that he can rest here without worrying, Simon found a rock to sit down nearby and allowed his nerves to relax. The moment he did that, his body immediately erupted with more pain.

Seeing that, Adalinda glanced towards Lucine who pouted for a second before relenting to her glare.

'Hmph, he should suffer more. Why must I be the one to help him' though she thought that internally, Lucine still found a rock near Simon and sat beside him.

Simon's eyes were closed; nonetheless, he still felt the presence of Lucine approach him. She gently placed her hands on his back and an energy so vast and pure that it opened every pore in his body, flowed inside him swiftly dissipating the pain around his body.

Simon did not stop her from whatever she was doing, since he knew that she won't harm him. Even he didn't know where this confidence of his stemmed from.

"You might think that your body is suffering so much because of the repercussions from you activating all those skills and pushing your body to its limit. However, that is just partly the reason. The main cause of this severe pain is because your body was basked in holy magic for too long and some of it managed to seep inside your body".

"Your body is naturally now rejecting the holy energy and this is causing an internal clash in your mana lines. It would no doubt heal on its own if you give it some time but it will also leave some permanent damage" Lucine explained.

Her vast energy that he felt flowing inside his body, told Simon how precise her control over her mana was. Pouring one's own mana into another body sounded easier said than done, it needed an extreme amount of knowledge of the mana system, mana lines and an acute control over mana.

Even Simon did not know how to do it, since his control over mana was still very crude. Perhaps, her level of control was no inferior than Irene's.

Simon inferred, as he felt her energy do a full circulation around his body, the foreign energy that had seeped inside him unknowingly, slowly but surely dissipated. At the same time, the pain that his body was feeling, also subsided a little.

After helping him remove the holy energy from his body, Lucine snorted and grumpily walked away.

If she was mad at him, then why did she even help him? Simon found that he can no longer understand the reasoning of this woman.

Time passed by swiftly and before long Simon felt like his body was back to normal, he had also recovered 80% of his expended mana and most of his pain was gone.

Sun had already set by now, when he opened his eyes, he saw Lucine and Adalinda seated on a rock not far away from him, discussing something.

"Oh, so you woke up from your meditative state huh. Quite impressive of your body to recover from all of that in just eight hours" Adalinda said observing his body.

Eight hours? Simon was stunned, when he was in that state, he had lost the sense of time. He guessed that a couple of hours must have passed but he didn't expect more than 8 hours to go by just like that.

Seeing his surprise, Adalinda snorted "What did you expect? You not only activated all your augmenting skills without any regard but also ignited the ancestral symbols in your body? You would have to meditate for far longer if we didn't expel that holy energy from your body".

Simon widened his eyes, he didn't expect Adalinda to recognise the skill he had used back then. The [Ancestral Symbol Ignition] skill was one of his trump cards, naturally, he wouldn't feel too good after it was exposed.

"What's with that look of yours? Did you think it would be a secret after you used it in front of hundreds of thousands of people? Hmph, let me tell you one thing, you were lucky that this place was some remote corner of the central continent and many people aren't aware of it. Had it been the mainland, you would have to forget about leaving the place".

"I know I have said this many times but that skill of yours, don't go around flaunting that skill of yours around others until your level is high enough" Adalinda warned, she was exasperated by how low the common sense of this Demon Noble was.

Simon nodded, he knew that the latter had said all of that due to her concern for him.

"If you don't mind me asking, what is your ancestry, Mister Demon Viscount?" Lucine initiated a new conversation, staring intensely at him with her golden eyes.

Simon had a clueless look on his face for a second before he realised what she meant. He shook his head and answered truthfully.

"I am a demon that was born from the ample mana of this world, I do not have any demon ancestry".

When he finished his words and glanced back at them, he saw the dumbfounded look that was plastered on their face.

"This is unprecedented, a low-born demon being chosen by a fragment" Adalinda muttered in a voice that only she could hear. She was starting to think that the common sense did not even apply to this Demon Noble in front of him or maybe it was her who was going crazy.

He was an anomaly that cannot be judged. Lucine was of the same thought, she felt like from the moment she met him, he never failed to give her one surprise after another.

"SIGH… I feel like I would lose my own common sense if I probe anymore. Leaving that aside, I'm dying to know how did you attract the attention of those two people?" Adalinda asked with a tired look on her face.

"About that…" Simon was suddenly reminded of the reason behind the two old men wanting to capture him. He told the two in front of him the whole truth and how he was blamed for something he didn't commit.

"So that was how huh. I was right when I sensed the aura of a Demon earl around this part when I arrived here" Lucine confirmed.

Adalinda nodded her head and said, "He must have felt your presence and used you as a perfect scapegoat for whatever he wanted to accomplish here".

"Do you know who that demon is?" Simon asked. He was plotted against and almost captured. He didn't know what his future would be if he did get caught but he did know that it wouldn't be anything bright.

How could he just let it be? He wanted to find that demon to pay back this debt.

Adalinda shook her head, telling him that it would be difficult to know who that Demon Earl was just based on their aura.