Finally, we can officially start this damned dungeon raid already (took us long enough)! After we got dressed, Miss Dola noticed the quality of my attire, complimenting the red coat with an It suits you. Miss Lionheart got ready soon after, although she groaned the most about getting out of bed. I understand where she’s coming from, but we gotta do what we gotta do, and there’s no other way around it. I noticed Sullivan steal some glances at her direction, but I didn’t think much of it. He’s probably staring at the cleavage her tank top only accentuated. Linus, being the Old Man that he was, took the longest to get out of bed. There was actually a point in which I thought he croaked in his sleep, to be honest (but don’t tell him that!)

After we got all our gear ready, we set off into the freezing wasteland that was the Northern Pole. I inquired about the location of the dungeon, shaking and shivering the whole way through, to which they simply glanced back and replied It’s another 30 minutes that way as they pointed to what my compass showed as East. F-F-F-F-Fuck…

“S-S-So,” I shivered, “anyone got any stories to get our minds off of the sheer cold?”

“Ooh! Ooh! Pick me!” Miss Dola raised her hand, “Okay, so this is a story about how I became an adventurer! Basically, my goal was to get rich from all these ultra-hard commissions and retire early! But don’t take me for an amateur, this is my 6th commission, and I’m doing just fine!”

“No one considered you an amateur,” I said, “but isn’t there a bit more to it other than money? Y’know like, the thrill of adventure?”

“Nah.” She brushed off my question, “I don’t really care all that much, unless I get a reward for making a huge find or something, I couldn’t really care less. I’m just in it for the money. Brown Iro and all that.” She offhandedly remarked.

“Oh right, now that you mention it, you’re the first Brown Iro I’ve met.” I commented, “So you’re aiming for an easy life, eh? ‘Finish school, get a job, marry, have kids and retire’ was the motto for your Iro I believe?”

“Wow, you really know your stuff, Lune! You’re making me blush” She complimented my knowledge, “But yeah, I don’t want anything grand in life, I just wanna skip the pleasantries and enjoy a quiet life, I guess. You can tick off the first two of those, but marriage, kids and retirement are still in the process of being done.”

“Well, I can’t really say I understand why you would just accept such a boring life, but I guess that’s because of our Iros differing. I wish you luck in satiating your desire.” I said sincerely.

“Ugh, you read Eldenfreud?” She scoffed, “God I hated that guy, his books were so morbid, too much for me. But thank you, Lune, I appreciate it.”

After walking for a while more, I asked Sullivan the same question, purely to see his stance on the matter. He was apprehensive to answer, before just quietly murmuring I’m looking for someone… and refusing to elaborate. I tried pressing him a bit more, since I have quite a vast portfolio of friends made, so maybe the person he’s looking for is someone I knew.

“I’m looking for… a girl.” He muttered once more, “You don’t know her, to be honest, neither do I.”

“How’s that work? Are you indebted to someone who knows her or something?” I asked earnestly.

“Jeez, get the picture already!” He raised his voice, “I’m looking for… a soulmate.” He lightly blushed.

It took all my mental strength to not burst out with laughter. You’re risking your life daily to find a girlfriend!? And in the middle of the North Pole, no less! Pfft-! I can’t with this guy, can he be any more of a laughing stock? I knew he was a douche, but to be this much of a scum is something new to even me, the leader of a Gang! I internally critiqued him, all the while maintaining my composure on the outside, as I at least had the decency to not out him in front of everyone.

“Did you say something, Sully?” Miss Lionheart tilted her head.

“Uhh…!” He flubbered a bit more, realizing she might’ve heard him.

“We were just talking about why we joined the ITA.” I said in his stead, “He’s got quite the cool story behind it, but never mind him. Miss Lionheart, what’s your story?”

I decided outing him or being sarcastic would only harm the party’s unity, so I tried my best to sincerely talk him up some in front of the other party members as I tossed the ball to her.

“Oh my, well that sure takes me back.” She calmly remarked, “If I remember correctly, I was just following along with my boyfriend’s whims at the time. I was very young, and very naïve, so I would listen to anything he would tell me.”

“Oh, I see…” Sullivan slumped his shoulders, “Where’s this boyfriend now though, sounds quite irresponsible to leave your girlfriend alone on the other side of the world, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, he died during a commission against a Minotaurus.” She stated without a care in the world, “But don’t worry, he wasn’t the brightest fellow.”

Everyone expressed their condolences to her with a sad gaze, except for Sullivan who donned a hopeful expression while doing so. Dude…

“How about you, Lune?” Miss Dola asked back, “Do you have any reason for joining the ITA?”

“To be honest, I wish I didn’t. I only joined because I needed a passport, but it was always my dream to travel to and document every country in the world one day. I’d like to be to future generations what the great Schnell Douglas was to me.” I said with a nostalgic expression, “I started off in Trivis Numerica, exploring with my childhood friend Edward and my other friend Anna. Together we helped spread Anna’s grandfather’s restaurant brand across the entire country.”

“I remember this one! You told this whole story to me when we first met!” Linus joined in on the conversation.

“Yep! It’s been a few years since we’ve parted ways from Anna, as she stayed behind to spread the brand to an international scale. Me and Ed on the other hand went to explore Great Hiana, and there we became Generals of the largest gang in the country. Wow, saying it out loud like this kind of makes it hard to believe, eh?” I stopped my recollection of the previously transpired events as I realized they stopped listening, thinking I’m hyperbolizing the content.

“Don’t worry, Lune, I’ll vouch for you.” Linus said as he turned to the other party members, ”Kiddos, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. This boy is in fact the leader who unified the entire Great Hiana underworld in a single year. The gang he commands is known as ARA, I believe?”

I thanked him for being on my side all this time, but it also made me feel double the shame of jumping to conclusions and attacking him back during the party’s first meeting. To think so much goodwill and kindness could be packed in a single Old Man…

“Well, here we are.” Sullivan stopped the conversation as he pointed to a large, luxurious-looking shrine, “Shaid’s Temple, otherwise known as the Dungeon we were commissioned to explore.”

“Finally!” I screamed out in joy, “Finally some shelter from this damned freezing winter land! My fingers were starting to get numb from the cold!”

“Yeah…” they looked at me with a sorry expression, “It actually isn’t at all warmer in there than it is out here. In fact, due to the moistness of the walls, it might actually be colder.”

FUCK!

***

Making our way inside, we find that the entrance in and of itself was like the first trial, in that the large stone door was tightly closed shut. We tried budging it open, they said, but to no avail. No matter, I’m sure there’s a way in, we just gotta use our brains a bit.

“Look, there’s a little hole up there where we could probably squeeze through.” I said after looking around the premises a bit.

“Yeah,” Sullivan said, pointing to Miss Dola, “maybe Marina could or something, but no one else.”

“That’s good enough, Miss Dola, I’ll boost you up.” I said, cupping my hands and leaning against the wall under the hole.

“No way!” she immediately protested, “What will I do in there alone?!?”

“Find a way to open the door from the inside, duh.” I said, as if reciting common knowledge, “This is like the first chapter of Schnell’s handbook.”

“Come on, dearie, you’re our only hope.” Miss Lionheart tried convincing her as well, “All the boys are too big to fit, and certainly, thanks to my assets I can’t either.” She said, fondling her chest.

This seemed to aggravate Miss Dola quite a bit, so she did it purely out of spite. Now this might just be because I got used to Cecily’s lightness, or just the fact we all wore heavy coats, but I could barely lift Miss Dola (even with my strength training!)

She hopped up and entered the hole no problem, though. From the other side we could hear a thump and an Ow! before she gave us the okay and tried feeling up the walls for any lever to open the doors.

“Found something!” She said with joy, “But I can’t really make out what it is with these gloves, I’ll have to take them off and feel it up like that.”

I guess she has guts, after all. I’d never take my gloves off at this temperature, I’d rather die!

“Argh! I can’t recognize it from touch after all!” She said, “Throw me a torch or something!”

After we lit a torch (with a match), I tossed it over to her, to which we heard a loud scream. After asking what happened, fearing the worst, we actually got the best outcome.

“W-What I was holding was… a human skull.” She assured us of her safety, ”It just scared me a bit, that’s all. But at least I can now see a lever thanks to the torch.”

After those words, we heard a lot of gears turning, mechanisms moving, and the shrine door opening. As such, we promptly entered to reconvene with the helpful Miss Dola. We congratulated her for her bravery in doing what she did, but I think all she wanted was to wash her hands…

Officially entering the dungeon, what we found in front of us was another puzzle. This was a simple one, three stone blocks, and a clear indented pathway suggesting we had to move them to their designated spots in order to progress further. It’s something I’d read about in almost every chapter of Schnell’s handbook, to the point where he actually jokingly started referring to them as…

“The Annoying Block Puzzle!” Sullivan shouted out, finishing my thought, “I always wanted to try these. Lune, you know what I’m getting at, help me out with these!”

“With pleasure!” I said, taking off my coat as I rolled up my sleeves to get ready for work.

The process was way more tedious than we had originally thought, though, as some of the pathways converged, leading to us realizing we had to maneuver the blocks in a specific way, so as not to put a block in the wrong spot. But this was nothing for the Schnell appreciators! We expected this to be the case, and since we read up on a lot of Schnell’s encounters with this very puzzle, we solved it in just about 10 minutes. The others sort of just sat down and waited for us to finish, since they couldn’t even follow what was happening.

“Umm, pardon my impudence, O’ Great Bookworms…” Miss Dola raised her hand, “But how do you even understand this puzzle layout?”

“That one’s simple!” Sullivan explained, “The key is to imagine the layout from a top down Point of View, which makes the entire puzzle a cakewalk!”

“I do believe that tip was first mentioned in chapter 16 of Schnell’s ‘Journey to The Archipelago’ handbook, Mister Streiks?” I asked him with my most formal tone.

“Indeed it was, Mister Grimheart. You’ve a very keen eye for these things, good on you!” He answered back in a similar tone.

“Jeez,” Miss Dola groaned, “to think you’d forget all your previous quarrels in the blink of an eye purely because of this Schnell shmuck.”

Both of us immediately stopped what we were doing and turned to face her, making the loudest gasp we deemed appropriate. We immediately shouted You take that back! at her, since insulting Schnell was blasphemous in our presence. She laughed out loud a bit, since we both said the same thing at the same time, noting how similar the two of us actually are.

“We’re not!” Sullivan said first, “He’s got a wife, and a daughter on top of that! What’ve I got? Nothing!”

Well now I feel kind of bad for almost making fun of him. I guess this must’ve been eating away at him for quite some time. I heard finding a lover by a certain age was commonplace in some religions, so maybe that was the case? This is why I just say I’m a Pantheist and/or tell anyone who asks that I’m not interested in religion. I like all the stories of each God, but I don’t like the rules and restrictions they each enforce. I guess I’ve no other choice but to be his wingman when we get back home, then. I’ve decided, this cool of a man deserves a woman, damn it!

After we all cheered him up a bit with words of encouragement, we finally brought him back to his old, prideful and confident self. As I was about to head further inside the dungeon through the door that opened after we completed the puzzle, Old Man Linus hesitated for a bit.

“I think we’ve done enough for today.” He said, “Let’s head back home and rest for now. We’ll continue tomorrow, no need to rush.”

“There is no way to close the door leading out of the Shrine,” I refuted, “This is a race against the clock, we’ll get buried by the snow if we don’t finish this up in one fell swoop. And if we wait for tomorrow, then the Shrine will just get buried and we won’t be able to enter anymore.”

They all seemed rather alarmed at my observation, so they had to grit their teeth and, despite their worried expressions, follow me into the second floor.