The Dark and Cold Labyrinth

Two people approached the grand mountains near the borders of the Kingdom of Sapin and the Kingdom of Darv. Those two people were no other than Jaron of the Legendary Party and Arthur Leywin. Right after they left the guild, Arthur immediately packed his belongings such as warm clothing and a few other necessities and prepared for his journey in the snowy mountains.

Sylvie, Arthur's bond, was transformed into her true form of a dragon. Jaron, meanwhile, was flying next to her casually, careful not to overtake her.

"Arthur, do you think you can handle augmenting yourself against this cold?" asked Jaron and Arthur nodded.

"Yeah, I think I can augment myself. Surprisingly, my Beast Will helps me fend off this cold weather.." Sylvia's beast will had some passive benefits too, without actually activating it. Such as resistance to low and high temperatures…

"Hm, is that so? Well we will see." Jaron uttered and looked forward in search of something.

Since they were flying hundreds of meters above the ground, it was hard to clearly see small objects, but it was easy to spot large amounts of mist covering one of the tallest mountains forward. It was covering mountains like cream on dessert, what was beyond it, was impossible to see even for Jaron.

"We are close, start descending." stated Jaron as he started descending on the ground.

"Isn't it better to just fly, there's mist there?" questioned Arthur receiving a shake from Jaron.

"We are civilized people, we have to enter through the door." answered Jaron and both of them swiftly landed on the snowy ground.

"Well, it's really cold…" mumbled Arthur after stepping on the thirty-centimeter-high snow.

"It only gets colder from here." warned Jaron and took a confident step forward.

Sylvie transformed into her fox form and snuggled inside Arthur's warm coat. And damn Jaron was right, when he warned them about temperature only going down, just a few hundreds meters later Arthur began trembling.

'Damn that's too cold!' Arthur yelled in his mind. Jaron, after seeing how hard Arthur trembled, placed his hand on him and covered him in a layer of fire mana without hurting him.

"It should last long, so don't worry about getting cold anytime soon." stated Jaron, Arthur was surprised as he felt comfortably warm right after the touch.

'Such control over fire…' Arthur couldn't help but be in awe of Jaron's demonstration of mana control.

Walking through the icy-cold mist was confusing for Arthur, he didn't know how to orientate in this environment. Nonetheless, he followed Jaron's silhouette, that he could barely see, even though he was just half a meter away from him.

"How can we find your party member here?'" Arthur had to shout on top of his lung, for Jaron to hear.

"Just walk against the wind." Jaron told Arthur using sound magic, making a sort of connection to communicate easier.

"How did such a blizzard even appear here, especially near the desert of Darv?" questioned Arthur. For everyone, not only for him, this was truly bizarre for there to be a blizzard on the previously deserted mountains all of a sudden.

"Ash's spell failed to work as intended. So he salvaged what he could from it and transformed this place into a base." said Jaron, Arthur meanwhile sweatdropped.

What monstrous spell's failure could result in this?

"Here it is." voiced Jaron as he spotted an ice door in the pile of snow.

Arthur approached the door and when he tried to open it his hands almost froze, if not for Jaron's augmentation.

"Don't be hasty, this castle is protected from intruders, anything that touches its walls is frozen." Jaron commented and closed the distance between them.

"How are we going to enter then?" questioned Arthur.

"Ash should open doors for us, he probably already sensed us since we are in his domain." Explained Jaron.

"It doesn't look like it…" muttered Arthur at still closed ice-doors, so Jaron decided to sense Ash himself.

"He knows we are here..." Jaron muttered, annoyed that Ash refused to open the door for them.

Placing his hand over the door he concentrated for a few seconds, fire affinity mana flowing to his hand.

And an instant later the once magnificent oce door was reduced to a puddle of bubbling water.

"Hey, didn't you say we have to enter a more civilized way?" retorted Arthur, seeing how Jaron just melted the door.

"Don't worry, the castle will repair itself."Jaron reassured Arthur as he stepped inside of the passageway.

"Okay then." Arthur mumbled, following him inside.

The inside of the castle looked like something out of a fairy tale, bluish-white ice was used to create a masterpiece with such precision that it left Arthur speechless. Of course, Jaron wasn't fazed, as he had already been here multiple times.

"Beautiful…" Arthur commented absentmindedly.

Jaron only nodded in acknowledgment.

It didn't take long for Ash to start moving towards them.

"He's nearing us." Jaron warned, and Arthur stiffened as he stopped gaping.

Footsteps echoed around the halls, making it difficult to discern the origin of the sound.

They only increased in intensity as immense pressure began pushing Arthur down, yet he relented.

Soon a man appeared from the hallway right in front of them.

A brown knee-length coat over a black shirt, and a pair of jeans was the only thing he wore.

His black hair, shaved at the sides, curled down his angular face, a snarl etched on it.

"Who is this?" Ash asked without even glancing at Arthur, his voice was cold.

"Can't you notice any similarities?" questioned Jaron.

Ash glanced at Arthur, before he closed the distance between them and took a closer look. Arthur in a cold environment was sweating hard, the pressure on him was immense but when Ash widened his eyes it all disappeared as if it was never there.

"Don't tell m-" Jaron didn't let Ash finish his words.

"Yes."

"You destroyed my doors again." He pointed out dryly.

Jaron shrugged, "You wouldn't open them."

"Maybe if you had informed me beforehand…" he sighed in response.

"It was a rather recent decision," he reasoned.

"Very well then, follow me." he beckoned them as he turned back towards the hallway he came from.

"Save your explanations until I make some coffee."

Arthur just gulped at him, still afraid.

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"So," Ash began, handing them cups full of the black liquid, "What brought you two here? The ki-"

"Arthur here was warned by someone about a war in the near future, an intercontinental war." Jaron interrupted, not wanting to let Arthur know of his secret project just yet.

Ash's eyes flickered with confusion for a moment before he decided to play along, "That explains why the three kingdoms suddenly united."

"That's not all, apparently Dicathen is doomed to lose unless we reform our former party."

Ash sighed wearily, "I knew this day would come… but, can we really reconcile? Fayden is somewhere in the beast glades if the rumors I've heard about the beasts decreasing are to be believed, and Vonde is god knows where doing his own thing."

"We have to try." Jaron insisted.

"It could take us years," he warned.

"I'm prepared for that, are you?" Jaron countered.

Ash scoffed, "Of course I am, but you don't know how Vonde would react to seeing me, or worse Fayden considering his hatred towards him."

"Um," Arthur interrupted, "What exactly happened between you guys?"

"You're better off not knowing, kid." Ash replied a bit too hastily.

"Maybe after we reform the party, we could recount our past to you." Jaron tried to reassure him in his usual monotone voice.

Arthur nodded in response.

"Back to the question, what happens if he reacts violently?" Ash enquired.

"As Fayden would say, 'we'll burn that bridge when we get there.'"

Ash chuckled, "That sounds like him."

'That isn't how the saying goes…' Arthur thought.

"Fine then, let me pack up and we'll leave. Something tells me I won't be returning for quite a while." Ash got up abruptly.

"Wait, just like that?" Arthur blurted, expecting this to be harder.

Ash shrugged, "I have been expecting this for a while, besides the two of us have kept in contact for a while now, working on something. I find no reason to doubt him."

It took Ash a few minutes before he returned, a backpack hanging from one of his shoulders, "Well then, let's go."

Jaron nodded and stood up, Arthur following him.

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After leaving the misty mountains they went directly to Beast Glades, this time Jaron had to carry Arthur on his back, because Sylvie wasn't fast enough to keep up with two adventurers.

"When does your semester begin, Arthur?" Jaron suddenly asked on the way as he flew beside Ash.

"In a few days, why?"

"Hmm… You need your education. As soon as your school starts, we split up alright?" Jaron proposed.

"Director Goodsky can cover up for me, this is way more important than the Academy." retorted Arthur, but met with the cold glare of Ash.

"Don't look for excuses to skip school, little boy. We can solve things on our own too." stated Ash making Arthur irritated at the words 'little boy.'

"No Arthur will be with us until the academy begins." ended Jaron, Arthur couldn't argue after this.

Arthur, Ash, and Jaron didn't have to pass through teleportation gates to get into territory of Beast Glades, they just flew there right from Ash's ice-castle which was pretty close to their destination.

Arthur was impressed at the two Legendary Adventurers, just their traveling pace was high. Flying without getting tired and in less than an hour reaching the Beast Glades on their own. After successfully reaching Beast Glades, they had to set up camp, unlike two adults, Arthur wasn't a monster so he had to rest from the journey.

From there, they began their research, investigating as much of the dense forests and dungeons they could.

While corpses of mana beasts were littered throughout the forests, they were missing their cores indicating it was an adventurer, or someone else interested in their cores.

Every once in a while they would find a beast with gray skin, red eyes and tiny horns. Jaron and Ash didn't need to sense their mana cores, if they still had them, that is, to know that they were mutated and chaotic.

No helpful information was found though, everything they found out for now was already known to them.

Unfortunately, they had to halt their search midway due to Arthur having to return to Xyrus to attend the academy.

"Don't worry about looking for the others, with luck we will find them by the time you finish your schooling," surprisingly Ash patted his shoulder, "but just in case you do manage to notice either of them, this is how they look like."

Ash proceeded to give Arthur a quick rundown of how Vonde and Fayden looked. As Arthur returned to the Helstea manor,

"So, splitting up?" Ash sighed before turning around to face Jaron.

Jaron nodded, "I can go to look for Vonde, while you go looking for Fayden, that is most logical."

Upon a confused grunt from Ash, Jaron explained, "Vonde might not show himself to you, considering your rocky relationship with him."

Ash shook his head, "No, I need to mend my relationship with him."

"But it will take us longer that way." Jaron protested.

"You said you were prepared for it. Besides, if you manage to find Fayden before me, both of you can come to help me look for Vonde." Ash persisted.

Jaron sighed, relenting, "Fine, I forgot how stubborn you were."

"Hey!" Ash playfully nudged him.

"Am I wrong?"

He only grumbled in response as the two of them parted ways.

Both of them had no idea of the pair of gleaming red eyes that was watching them from afar.

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