Parallel Memory

"Follow me"

Professor Mia said as she took me out of the crowd. The people when they saw Professor Mia coming, made way for her to pass through.

After having calmed down, I had a clear vision of the surrounding which was filled with astonished people right now.

I quickly followed Professor Mia in fear that those people might start attacking. 

-THUD! -THUD!

After a few seconds.

"What did I see right now? Ice Enchantress was waiting for a boy? Th-This is…"

"HOT NEWS!!! I finally got the news that is guaranteed to be on the front page."

One of the girls excitedly screamed and jumped around. 

She is one of those aspiring youth who dreamed of catching cool news and making their article in the headline.

But the reality was that not every piece of news makes it to the headlines. It was very hard to get news that is not covered by others and is interesting.

She was casually strolling around when she spotted a beautiful woman surrounded by lots of people.

She, with her instinct as a journalist, knew something exciting was going on there. ( Not really. Anyone can tell what is happening with that huge crowd. )

At first glance, as a journalist, she recognized the woman standing in front of the Fountain of Tyche, The Ice Enchantress, the youngest human to achieve Rank-A , Mia Frostine.

She quickly took her camera out and took photos of Mia Frostine. Her appearance alone was worthy of being on the front page of the newspaper.

She believed those photos alone could make a headline. Ice Exhantress the most beautiful woman in the world was there in the Agora Town.

'Ice Enchantress spotted in Agora Town' could very well become the hot news in the newspaper.

But that was just her assumption. She knew it was not enough to get her news in the headlines. 

She waited patiently to find something interesting and it finally happened.

The Ice Enchantress was actually waiting for a man. This was big news.

She quickly took a couple of photos of Mia Frostine and the unknown man.

"This is it! This news will certainly make the headlines."

She was overly excited about finally submitting a piece of hot news to Edolas Time Now.

Several people were dumbfounded when they saw the scene in front of them.

"Who is that guy? I don't think I have ever seen him before."

"I don't think he is one of the heroes. He was really young to reach that rank. And he didn't have an air of being that strong."

"He might be an entertainer given his looks. He might be an aspiring young actor."

"Ice Enchantress, one of the most talented humans going out with a powerless actor? Ridiculous."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Given the age of the boy, it might be her student. Don't forget the Tournament of Academies is coming up and right around this time, they would train their students."

"Right. That must be it. He must be her student. Just look at how he greeted her. It was full of fear and respect."

The crowd started to realize the truth. Zero expression of fear has played a part in making them believe that he might be her student. He was young to be a student and Ice Enchantress is a professor, so it was a no-brainer for them to figure out who that boy could be.

However, those who like drama and are seeking out interesting news, like the girl, believed otherwise.

They believed or wanted to believe the boy to be the boyfriend of Ice Enchantress.

The reason was that the boy was unknown to many of them present there. If it was a talented student like Hiro and Zion, they would have instantly known it was a student and mentor for the Tournament of Academies.

But Ice Enchantress taking in an average student as her mentee would almost seem like a joke. What can a talented person know about how normal people train? She would kill the average student with her training session.

Many talented students at Ace Academy are already well known to the outside world. But they have never seen that boy and assumed he was not a student.

The pictures and videos of this incident had already been posted by the people present there. 

With TwitFlick, it didn't take long for it to reach millions of people in a minute.

Ignorant of such a thing happening, Zero followed Professor Mia to register for the dungeon.

Due to the reputation that Professor Mia held both individually and as a professor of Ace Academy, permission to use the dungeon was instantly granted.

On the way to The Lair of the Brutal Lion, Zero took the opportunity to ask the ones who were coming out of the dungeon for their maps. 

Zero would have already prepared such things if he had known which dungeon he was going in but Professor Mia didn't reveal it previously. So, now he needs to take advantage of this time to try to retrieve a map from other Explorers.

Professor Mia saw what Zero was doing and was glad to find Zero being cautious.

Confidence is good but one should always be careful.

Talented students always have the problem of overconfidence. They would forget to prepare resources, take maps and underestimate their enemy which all leads to an early demise.

No matter how insignificant, when venturing into the unknown, one should always try to gather some information.

Map was one of the essentially resource one would need for safe exploration of the dungeon.

Zero eventually managed to get one of the maps at the price of a thousand Ethan. While it might look low, a thousand Ethan for a map was really asking for too much.

However, Zero didn't hesitate to pay the money not only because he was rich but also because he failed to get maps from other Explorers and would not want to miss this opportunity.

After walking for quite a bit, we reached the location at which the portal to The Lair of the Brutal Lion was present.

Professor Mia showed her ID to the guards and was quickly allowed to proceed.

The guard showed a nervous expression after seeing the ID card of Professor Mia. 

The portal for the dungeon was at least twice the size of the Labyrinth of Goblins.

"You will have to conquer this dungeon in two days. If you can't, I have something special waiting for you. I will not intervene unless you are on the verge of dying."

Professor Mia emphasized the need to take the dungeon seriously even when she was there to protect him 

I entered the portal, and as always it felt similar to riding a high-speed roller coaster.

Though it seems that I am getting used to portals as I don't feel like puking this time.

-WHOOOOSSSH!

Opening my eyes to the place where I have landed, I could see the place akin to Madagascar. A place where it was hot with a desert-type ground with small bushes.

It felt like a place where various animals roam on Earth. Like in an African jungle or something.

-GROWL! -ROARRRR!

Various roars could be heard from a distance. Whether it is monsters fighting each other or Explorers hunting them, many sounds could be heard.

Professor Mia just stood there waiting for Zero to make his move. She was just going to stay far away observing how Zero conquers the dungeon.

The first thing Zero did was take out the map and look at the position of the boss.

"Alright!"

After getting the general idea on how to go about conquering the dungeon, he moved to the direction of the dungeon boss.

-SWISH!

Zero ran at a pace that would not exhaust him.

While running in the direction of the dungeon boss, Zero came across lots of trees.

However, the trees were covered in scars that had large claw marks, possibly from big monsters.

Frown appeared on the forehead of Zero as he entered the territory of some unknown monster. He could take another road but he would have to walk back quite a bit wasting time and this was also the shortest path.

As he examined the claw mark, he tried to determine which monster's territory it was.

"It must be the territory of Arzuros."

Arzuros, a beast well known to dwell in humid forest and mountain region. It was also the monster who preferred to mark their territory.

Arzuros has the appearance of a mixture of armadillo and bear. Its main power lies in its two vicious claws which can easily take out a tree in one shot.

Its rank is D and it is also the monster who likes to form groups, so you can expect to meet 5-10 Arzuros at times.

Zero sprinted at high-speed so that he could get out of this place before encountering Arzuros.

-SWISH!