Dungeon of Pride, Laplace



'What should I do? Should I just let our forces fight it among themselves and focus on recovering my mana. No, that would be foolish, once I lose my forces the other seven kings would surely use this opportunity to attack me.

The demon doesn't look like he has any immediate intention of attacking? Is he delaying purposefully even while knowing that the more time passes the more I will be able to recover? What is he after?'

While a spiral of thoughts was running inside Melinda's mind, Simon suddenly decided to initiate a conversation.

"Right… Queen of the Harpies, although it may be a little late to ask, but may I inquire what sort of deal did you have with the king of the ogres?".

Hearing his question, Melinda narrowed her eyes. Even though he asked a question his attitude seemed like he was unconcerned whether he got any answer or not.

'Why did he suddenly ask me that question? Does he perhaps know about our deal? No, that cannot be only Gil-Garna and I know about it'.

"Why do you want to know about it? No, what I should be asking is how did you even find out about us working together?" Melinda replied the demon's question with her own question.

"Haha, are you still asking me that?".

It was as he had said, halfway through her question she realised the answer herself. Wasn't there something among the subordinates of the demon that had a strong detection warding ability and could go invisible?

If it was those unusual things that forced her to use her [Limitless Seeking Evil Eyes], it wasn't impossible for him to spy on them. No, he might have been doing just that from the start.

Melinda recalled how she had felt a peculiar gaze on her moments before the demon and his subordinates arrived on the mountaintop. If it was possible for these things to even evade her, wouldn't it be easy for the demon to spy on them anywhere any time?

It was only now that Melinda realised that there was no mole in their alliance, the demon had simply used his unusual golems to spy on them.

Wait a minute, if he was spying on us all along, then doesn't it mean that he knows everything about our plans and also about the existence of that thing?

"It looks like you finally realised it. Thanks to the Revenant Crows spying on you all, I know all about the plans you guys created. Additionally, I also know that you got the seed of Six Nether Flower from the Ogre King in exchange for joining his alliance".

It was as the demon had said, the condition she made to Gil-Garna as payment for joining his alliance, was indeed the Six Nether Flower. However, the Ogre King had already used it on himself. What he gave her in return though was the seed of the Six Nether Flower. 

Although not as precious as the flower itself, the seed was also quite a treasure. As such, Melinda agreed on joining the alliance. 

"You might be wondering why am I telling you all that? It's simple, I heard quite an interesting fact about the Six Nether Flower not long ago. It is said that a Six Nether Flower once absorbed, cannot have a seed. I wonder how the ogre king got that seed?" Simon revealed a wicked smile as he spoke.

"What nonsense are you spouting?" Melinda spat not believing anything that the demon said.

"Hehe, I'm not spouting nonsense. Think about it yourself, I heard that the Six Nether Flower is very important for the Seven Kings so much so that even having multiple of it wouldn't be enough. A seed of the Six Nether Flower has the possibility of growing into a new flower. why would the ogre king hand you such a treasure when he himself is in need of it? Don't you find it strange?" 

"What's your point?" Melinda did not know why she was even bothering to listen to the demon when he had nothing but constantly annoy her since the moment he arrived here.

Nevertheless, once she heard him mentioning the seed of the Six Nether Flower, she couldn't help but perk her ears and listen. Melinda had the same suspicions as the demon which is why, she even checked the seed going as far as to activate [Eight Inner Eyes] leading her to her current exhaustion.

However, even after using one of her most powerful Evil Eyes, she found no fault with it. The seed of the Six Nether Flower was authentic. But why was it that she was having this weird sense of unease as if she had missed something? 

"Well, just hear me out. I heard from someone who has extensive knowledge about these things having lived a long long time after all, that the Six Nether Flower can have a seed in two occurrences"

"First through pollination; however, for that to happen, there needs to be two or more flowers of the same kind. You should already be aware of how rare a Six Nether Flower is. Forget two, even finding one in this entire Ghastly Winding Forest is nigh impossible. And even if by some miracle you do find it, without the Dryards to facilitate the process of pollination of a treasure like the Six Nether Flower, there will never be a seed"

"I believe the Queen of the Harpies is already aware of that. What you might not know however is that a seed can also form another way. Although this way is rather unusual. The second occurrence is when someone tries to absorb the Six Nether Flower and fails to assimilate with it completely".

"The remaining essence of the flower condenses to become a seed. However, that seed does not even possess one tenth of the original energy of that flower and will never grow into a flower itself".

After explaining till here, Simon took a break to sense the chaotic aura of the queen of harpies before continuing with a smile.

"In short, the seed that the ogre king gave you in return for you joining the alliance, is not an actual seed but the residual essence energy of the Six Nether flower that he had already absorbed. Even if you try to grow it, there is no point".

"This…"

Melinda wanted to deny the demon's words; however, her rational mind was telling her that it was the truth. It made sense that even her [Eight Inner Eyes] was unable to find any falsity in it after all, it was the seed of the six nether flower. Just that it was not the one that can grow her a flower.

Melinda at this moment had quite the expression on her face. All this time she believed that she was the one benefitting from joining this alliance. It was only now that she realised that she had been played with.'Gil-Garna!!' at the same moment, anger boiled inside her.

'This much should be enough' Sensing her change, Simon thought internally. There was a reason why he had been playing the role of a rascal. It was due to the information he heard from Aldebaran.

A user of the Evil Eyes to activate its power, must always remain calm and collected. If you can disturb their mental stability, you can easily triumph against them.

His mannerless behaviour and the fact that he revealed the truth behind the seed of the Six Nether Flower, was precisely to target the weakness of his opponent.

At first, he thought that he could use this information to sow discord between the two Seven Kings and when they are duking it among themselves, he would sweep in and reap all the benefits.

However, he gave up on that idea after finding out that the Queen of the Harpies had severely exhausted herself. Given such an opportunity. How could Simon, a Demon Noble who followed his desires, not utilise this opportunity?

This was a chance for him to subdue one of the seven kings at once, he was not about to let it go to waste.

"Master?!" Seeing Simon walk towards the queen of the harpies, Annette called out.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing" Saying that Simon immediately rushed towards the dazed Queen while brandishing his sword.

"?" Melinda who felt a terrifying power emanate from the sword, hurriedly flapped her wings and dodged at the very last second.

As expected of the Queen of Harpies, her speed was so tremendously fast that Simon had difficulty keeping her in his vision. No matter how many attacks he sent towards her, his sword wasn't able to touch even her feathers.

Although that was the case, Melinda was in the same situation. Even if she dodged the demon's attacks, she was unable to attack him because of the sword. Her instincts alerted her of immense danger every time she was about to clash with that dingy burnt sword.

"Tch… don't get ahead of yourself. Even exhausted, I'm still one of the Seven Kings of this forest" Melinda screamed, made a sword with her [Reinforced Feathers] and charged towards him.

'Too fast!!' Simon was unable to keep up with her movements. In the blink of an eye, she was already out of his range.

'Don't try to see it with your eyes, let your body feel it. Spread your senses and let your instincts do the work'

At this moment, Irene's voice resounded in his head. He recalled the beginning of his hellish days of training where he was blindfolded and his powers severely suppressed by Irene.

Simon was made to stand underneath a giant tree with enormous logs connected to its branches. The training was to dodge the logs. It sounded simple; however, it wasn't. 

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