The cloaked guy disappeared in the area for a while and then returned a couple of hours ter with a map of Talimor. I checked it to confirm the details of the areas that I had been, and it seemed accurate. I could see the marks of dozens of towns and around ten dungeons and byrinths.

  “The byrinth that I need you to guard is further east, very close to the mountains. There is a chance that some nasty people could show up there to cause trouble. They are from beyond the mountains. I can keep an eye on the people here approaching to get in your way, but not from those guys.”

  “Who are they?”

  “They can be Frost Giants or the ice elves. They aren’t numerous, but they can be troublesome.”

  I thought that they would be further north… if I remembered right, they should be from a pce called Gcialis End. Aside from that, I didn’t know anything about them. I wanted to ask this guy, but it felt troublesome revealing anything about me now.

  “Don’t look at me like that, friend. I am willing to give some information for free to those I work with. They have some organizations as well, but you only need to worry about the closest one, the eternal winter cult. They are dedicated to bringing about an era of eternal winter, believing that the world should be covered in ice and snow permanently. They see eternal winter as a means of purification and transformation. Their goal is to initiate a global winter that would reshape the world according to their vision. That byrinth has some dungeon monsters and whenever a dungeon breaks in that pce, the winters become harsher and it starts to snow even further south.”

  I knew that dungeons could affect the environment, but I didn’t think that the dungeon breaks could do that much. In any case, they seemed to be a bunch of nutcases in a different way… what was everyone going to eat if snow was everywhere?

  “It has been a while since they caused a dungeon break, like one hundred years, but you should be cautious.”

  “All right.”

  A byrinth filled with ice monsters would be useful to me… my specialty was basically explosive arrows, after all. Gcien wouldn’t be that useful, so she could carry Alissandra. Speaking of which, my goal here was to look for a pce for her, but that wasn’t possible… Thanks to the harpies’ actions and the recent conflict, Alissandra would probably be bullied, even if I found a family willing to take her in.

  Everyone thinks that harpies are violent by nature, but I wasn’t sure about that after seeing Alissandra and her mother. Perhaps it was an issue of environment. No one knew how their society worked, after all.

  ‘I guess my final option is Felyndor… they have some troublesome organizations too, but they should have welcomed the immigrants of the Skarnash Tribends. It was hard to imagine that they would chase them away when they could be a decent fighting force. If that truly had happened, then that nd would be the most diverse one, and that was probably the best option for Alissandra.

  “It is a good thing that you weren’t like me when I was your age… I had it a bit hard, but I think I would have turned worse if I were tossed from one pce to the other and everyone refused me for my appearance.”

  I didn’t want to think what kind of person Alissandra would turn into with that kind of background. This world was truly messed up…

  We headed to the location of the byrinth and it took only two days to reach it, since the wagon moved day and night. I took some naps along the way when Gcien pulled the vehicle, so I was mostly fine.

  “Anyway… I sure find ice dungeons and byrinths pretty often, huh?”

  My primary goal was to find monsters that could yield materials of value. The byrinth itself was secondary in importance to the creatures it had. Of course, I couldn’t completely ignore the risks of a pce like this. I understood the critical importance of keeping it under control. If left unchecked, a dungeon break could unleash chaos on the outside world, something I wasn’t eager to deal with. To prevent that, I needed to ensure that the bance within the byrinth was maintained.

  My focus wasn’t on exploration. It was purely practical. I was here to gather materials and ensure the byrinth didn’t spill its dangers outside its walls. Everything else was noise I could tune out.

  Regardless, the byrinth was indeed pretty close to the mountains. The entrance was a rge boulder covered in snow that seemed like it had fallen from the closest mountain. Around the entrance, one could see a giant lizard with wings with its mouth open and unleashing a snow storm from it… it was an ice dragon, probably the final guardian of the pce.

  ‘I should have asked that guy about this pce in more detail… this could be a demonic tier byrinth.’

  That would expin why the dungeon breaks would cause the environment to change so much. In any case, I checked the area for any signs of activity here… leaving this kind of pce unguarded truly wasn’t a good idea, but that showed how the people here were in a bind.

  “Look for the scent of people around, girl. Return to me as soon as you find anything.”

  “Awoo!”

  Gcien nodded when I let her leave the wagon. Soon enough, she moved to the entrance of the byrinth and stayed right there while looking at me… that was fast. It seemed that someone had indeed been here very recently.

  “Was it someone troublesome?”

  “Awoo?”

  “I guess it is hard to say if someone is bad or not, just by their scent. It isn’t like bad people dislike soap, after all.”

  In any case, checking the byrinth, at least for the css on the first floor, seemed like a good idea, but before that, I decided to put some arcane traps around the wagon. I could dismount the whole vehicle and then stay a while inside… another css granted by the final level of a one hundred floor byrinth would really come in handy, but I didn’t think that it was possible with Alissandra with me.

  Still, I could always resume my exploration ter. At the same time, I wondered if I should take her with me. This time, she would gain a combat css, and this would affect her future for sure this time around and she might be able to use the skills by accident.

  I couldn’t help but feel a bit of curiosity about Alissandra’s potential. I wondered just how far she could go, how much power she could accumute if she continued to grow and gain new csses at her age. The possibilities were intriguing, perhaps even limitless.

  But as fascinating as those questions were, they came with a troublesome issue. Alissandra wasn’t an experiment or a tool for me to satisfy my curiosity. Testing her future solely to see what might happen would reduce her to something less than she was.

  I couldn’t bring myself to cross that line. No matter how tempting the answers might be, they weren’t worth compromising my principles or treating her like an object of study. Her growth would be her journey, not a subject for my experiments. I decided to let my curiosity take a back seat to what truly mattered, respecting her as an individual and supporting her in her own choices.

  “Unlike with Gcien, I guess I can’t ask for your opinion on the matter, huh?”

  “Da-bu.”

  “I certainly can’t pretend to understand this…”

  Still, I could always go ahead and then check the csses before considering bringing her to the end of the first floor. Still, before that, I decided to feed her and then put her to sleep. It was that time for her and I would worry less that way as well.

  One hour ter, I was finally ready to explore the byrinth. Gcien was carrying the basket where Alissandra was sleeping in and following me from behind. When it came to guarding her, Gcien didn’t mind if she didn’t have to fight. She could use magic, but her ice magic would be useless here.

  “Hm?”

  When we got down to the first floor, I soon furrowed my eyebrows. Even on the first floor, the walls, the ceiling and the ground were already covered in a thick yer of light blue ice. I couldn’t see beyond it either.

  “Is it because of the dungeon breaks? This kind of appearance should only belong to the lower levels… Maybe it looks like this because this pce is close to breaking again.”

  If that was the case, then perhaps just guarding the entrance of the pce was a bad idea… but would my actions change anything?

  While I was thinking about that, from the ice, a pair of two monsters emerged. From beneath the ice, a crackling sound reverberated. My eyes moved to the source, and I saw it, a jagged fracture forming in the frozen ground.

  The first creature emerged, followed swiftly by another, and I froze in pce. They were lizards, yes, but not the sluggish, clumsy beasts I had imagined. No, these creatures were sleek, their bodies covered in glistening scales of icy blue, blending seamlessly with the environment. Their tails swished with grace, leaving faint trails in the frost.

  What struck me most, though, was their shape. Their elongated heads, filled with sharp, serrated teeth, their arched necks, and their powerful hind legs. These frost lizards looked like velociraptors, the kind I had only seen in books and stories.

  I stared, momentarily paralyzed by the realization. Their predatory eyes locked onto me, eyes like glimmering shards of ice that promised no mercy. My heart raced as I grasped the gravity of my situation. These weren’t mere lizards. They were cunning, deadly hunters, and I was now their prey.

  WritingMachineGun