Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

"Let me go, unbind me"…

In such a situation, all they could do was bark. "If you want us to release you, then tell us he location of the underground cellar. Tell us where you kept the hostages?".

Facing Alvara's question, Arnet simply snorted. However when she saw Annette and the dark and dreary eyes of Emma beside her, a terrified expression appeared on her face and she immediately confessed everything.

"Please don't kill me, I will tell you everything. The place where the hostages to rein in the adventures of tower town, is a few kilometres away from here. Under the largest rock formation, there is a hidden passage artificially created that leads to the place"

"However, it is just one of the cellars being used to keep the hostages. I don't know the location of the rest…"

Cynthia and the others calmly heard what she had to say. To make sure that she wasn't lying or that it wasn't another trap, the same question was also posed to the other members of the Blades of Ascension who were caught alive.

The result was, she was telling the truth. All of the members of the Blades of Ascension gave the same answer. What's more from the man that was caught by Annette, they also found out the location of another cellar, making it two locations that they knew about.

"Near the Yellow Placid Lake huh? If I'm not wrong, isn't that place in the northern region of the forest?" the adventurers discussed.

"Great, we found two locations, let's go there and destroy the place. Let's save everyone they kept hostages as soon as possible".

The adventurers who were familiar with the geography of the Ghastly Winding Forest were already making teams to go and raid the place.

Just as the momentum reached its peak, Blake who had been contemplating the information quietly in his head, stepped forward and stopped the adventurers.

"Wait, don't jump the gun. Listen to me first, the Yellow Placid Lake in question isn't any ordinary place. Putting aside the fact that it is in the northern region of the forest, which is filled with stronger monsters, it is one of the territory of the Three overlords of the Ghastly Winding Forest".

Three Overlords of the north, just hearing the name, changed the expression on every adventurer's face. Their excited faces quickly turned ashen and all their energy seemed to have left their body.

Being experienced adventurers they were aware of the term the Three Overlords represented. These were three powerful monsters that resided within the northern region of the forest.

They were not only powerful but were also very intelligent having conquered their own territories by pushing the other monsters out.

All these reasons make them an extremely dangerous monsters for adventurers to face inside the Ghastly Winding Forest other than the Seven Kings.

"About that, you don't have to worry about it".

A calm voice interjected. All eyes turned towards Annette.

"What do you mean?" Blake inquired.

"It's exactly what I mean, you don't have to worry about the overlord of the lake" Annette repeated.

The overlords of the Ghastly Winding forest had all been subdued and taken inside the dungeon by her master. They were no longer the overlords of the forest.

'Yellow Placid Lake huh… isn't that where that crocodile came from?' she wandered inside her head.

Blake looked at Annette with a clueless look for a while before suddenly a thought crossed him.

"Ah, I see. Why didn't I think of it before? The Yellow Placid Lake is as dangerous to them as it is to us. Incidentally, this also makes the perfect place to hide the hostages. If the criminal organisations got rid of the overlord of the lake, they could just use the place for themselves since no sane-minded adventurer would ever dare to venture out there".

Blake's mumbling also woke the other up. Now that they thought about it, it made sense. Why else the criminal organisation would use the place if they hadn't gotten rid of the potential risk themselves?

Just the name Three Overlords evoked enough fear and alarm in the adventurers that it made them subconsciously ignore such places. Making it the perfect place to hide the hostages.

"Great, if there is no overlord there, we can win. Let's go save everyone"

With the threat of the overlord gone, the adventurers were once again filled with fighting intent.

They quickly divided themselves into three groups, one would stay here and monitor the overall situation while the other two teams would lead the raid. the underground cellar here, the other would go save the ones that are kept near the lake.

It was decided that Blake would lead one team while the other would be led by Alvara the guard captain.

"Your Highness, once again thank you for your help" Blake bowed his head towards Cynthia before moving on to ask a peculiar question.

"By the way your Highness, what would happen of the members of the Blades of Ascension? Why did you give them to those people?".

The reason why it was a peculiar question was because before the adventurers set out to raid the locations, Cynthia made it clear that they wouldn't kill the members of the Blades of Ascension now that their use was over.

Instead, they would be given to the group of demi humans. Needless to say, keeping a powerful enemy alive naturally evoked many concerns. However, since it was the elite group of demi humans who were given the task, they did not say anything.

After all, they were the ones to defeat the members of Blades of Ascension in the first place. However that said, it still weighed on the mind of others.

"You don't have to be concerned about it. They are not ordinary people, naturally, they have their own means"

Cynthia did not explain much either. She knew what was going to happen to these people after seeing the precedence of Marcus. Nevertheless, she was not in a position to divulge the secrets, especially when it came to 'His' people.

Getting the cue, Blake tactfully retreated. Since the raid was a surprise attack, there were no powerful guards stationed in the two locations. The raid teams would soon return with the hostages.

However, before that, the team which remained behind which included Cynthia, the old assassin Bert and Annette and the others, were responsible for finding a base from where they could operate from.

Needless to say, with so many people on their side and the hostages that were freed, they cannot simply return to the tower town. They need to find a base outside the town.

"Bert, go scout the place. Look for areas that are well hidden and have ample space" Cynthia ordered.

"Your Highness, you don't have to worry about finding a base. We can just use any area of the forest, Maybell here can make that place as impenetrable as an iron fortress while also hiding it from any outside perception" Annette suggested gesturing at Maybell.

"Is something like this possible?"

Cynthia was amazed, her eyes looked at the girl. No matter how she looked at her, she only seemed like a child. However, it was this child that had seemingly extraordinary power that was beyond her understanding.

"She has the power, Cynthia leave it to them" The Guardian Beast Leo spoke inside her mind.

Even it couldn't perceive the true depth of power these seemingly ordinary children had. However, based on the fact that they could command those powerful demi humans it could tell that they were even more powerful or had enough status to do so.

Cynthia nodded and agreed to leave the task to them.

.

.

Five days later, near a river bank located at the southern borders, hordes of monsters could be seen drinking water here. All kinds of species were present from high level predators to low level prey.

In one corner of the place, a large inconspicuous formation was laid down, disconnecting the area and hiding it from the outside world. An invisible dome like film covered the area, making it impossible to peer inside.

The place was used by Cynthia and the adventurers as their base of operation and to shelter the hostages.

Tents were erected all over the place to shelter the people. Inside one such huge tent, all the leaders of the adventurers, Cynthia and her group were gathered. In addition to them, there were also the group of Annette and the demi human directly under the twins.

All of them were currently discussing something intensely.

"Our activities these past few days have been found out by the criminal organisations. They have started placing heavy guards to stop us from releasing the hostages"…

"There were too many high level warriors in the last location, we were almost wiped out if not for the timely aid from Her Highness' people"…

"That is not all, the whole town is in an uproar. From the spies we placed there, I got to know that we are being hunted all over the forest. Blake and the other's faces are already on the wanted list"

"Yesterday I saw a few people scouting this area. Thankfully we have the formation isolating us. However, I believe it won't stop there, soon more and more scouts will come looking for us"…

"This is a serious problem. What should we do? There are still a few locations holding people as hostages?".

The atmosphere inside the tent was heated. After the first raid five days ago, the resistance forces under Cynthia's lead, raided many other locations that were holding the families of the adventurers.