Chapter 110: Change

"..Alena, you're finally finished?" Aria turned to look at the girl and cared for her. The girl shook her head, her eyes still tightly shut in order to regain her clarity of vision.

"I'm not done yet. I can still feel constant changing inside my body. But as far as I know.. it's working really well, and I.. at least, I don't think I will die. Yeah, it should be so," Having escaped from a near death situation, Alena felt a huge amount of relief wash over her. She was also extremely thankful to Ilyin, because she knew that even though she did wrong towards the spirit, she ended helping her multiple times and saved her life.

The promises she made to Ilyin weren't false lies. She really did intend to work on Ilyin's progression if the spirit would cooperate with her and get stronger alongside with her fights. The spirit was currently in hibernation mode, as she didn't possess that much energy in the first place and the taxing processes had made her run out of energy.

Rallaka silently worked by their side as Aria performed a thorough check up of the child's condition. Once she made sure that everything was perfectly fine, they waited for Rallaka to finish his work and wanted to get out of the dungeon as soon as possible. Gin was waiting outside, too.

Rallaka took minutes to finish. After that, he began recovering from his intense focus and panned his view back to Aria, floating around her body as he spoke.

"We can get out of this place now , I've stored the energy inside me. The change won't happen immediately, so there's no point in staying here anymore. I have nothing that I can use out of this place," Rallaka said.

Hearing that, the other two nodded and began making their way out of the dungeon using the exit gate that had long appeared beside the main tree that stored the Queen Bee inside. Rallaka stayed back in Aria's summoning space, telling her that he was probably not going to respond for a while to process his change.

Jumping out of the gate, they met Gin on the other side. The man was still the same as ever, being stealthy and quite cheeky. His eyes flickered upon seeing the exiting presences.

"My, my. You finally got out. I thought that you already cleared up the dungeon long ago, did you not? I sensed the change in flow from the exterior, but you all didn't get out. I thought that something went wrong, but... hm, you have cleared the dungeon successfully, right?" Gin asked.

"Of course. If you were so doubtful, then why did you wait here? I would've left right after confirming that the dungeon was over," Aria answered, scoffing in discontentment.

"That's against my policies and my ethics. I gave you three hours, so I am going to stay here for three hours no matter if I see your faces or not in the end," Gin spoke calmly. Even a blind person would be able to tell that Aria did not like Gin.

She really couldn't figure out why. It wasn't because Gin held secrets. But it was because Aria felt a natural sense of danger emanating from the man. Sighing, she made sure to remember to make Alena find out more about the man, and why he was triggering her senses so much.

They parted ways, and the transaction was deemed complete. Aria and Alena drove back to the hotel where they came from before and returned to their room, where they immediately fell down to rest in. Their bodies were completely exhausted for different reasons, and there was no longer the running adrenaline to keep them going. None of the two woke up until it was the next day, and the sun was shining brightly upon the morning sky.

Aria woke up to the bright sunlight shining upon her face and grumbled in discomfort. She turned around, scrambling everywhere before she was finally able to regain control of her body and got up from the bed. She noticed that the day had changed, and that the little girl was nowhere in sight.

The hotel room was obviously a VIP type, and it was rather large and accommodating. There were several compartments that were divided by thick walls. Aria went to the other compartment and quickly found Alena huddled up by the extensive sofa that also functioned as a bed. The girl was still deep in her sleep, so Aria moved stealthily out of the room and prepared herself for the day without disturbing the child's resting period. She had suffered for far too much yesterday, and rest was everything she needed at this point to recover. She went to the bathroom with the desire to shower.

After getting out of the shower, Aria felt refreshed and returned to the compartment Alena was in. This time, the girl was already awake. Sensing Aria's arrival, the girl's eyes immediately darted towards her way and gave a light smile, acknowledging the older's presence.

"Good morning, big sister," Alena greeted.

Nodding, Aria replied. "Good morning. How are you feeling?"

"Rather.. strange. I know that large changes were made to my body, so it's a bit strange to think about. Especially.. my eyes, right? I don't mind since it doesn't look bad on me, but it will surely take some time to get used to knowing that I have these blue eyes now," Alena spoke. "Do I look scary, big sister?"

"No. Nowadays, don't they have contact lenses with the color of your eyes? You can just say that you're wearing one. Who would dare doubt you like that?" Aria replied.

"..You're right, big sister," Alena smiled as she got up from her sitting position and moved to the next compartment. WIthout saying another word, Alena went to prepare herself for the day and got out minutes later. She was back to her cheery self, as if nothing had happened the previous day. Aria was sure that the pain Alena felt would be that great that it would have long lasting effects on the normal person, but Alena was different.

"Then, what are you going to do next?" Aria asked nonchalantly as she snacked on some light food.

"Hmm... after that incident? Of course, I would like to try and open this tower of mine. That would be the best case scenario, I really want to learn to fight. However.. I can't say for sure. I might make you tag along with me for one more dungeon to confirm that my curse really won't affect me later on," Alena answered.

"The world started changing again, right? We should see news of enormous amounts of gates starting to appear soon.. but there is one thing that I'm still curious about. About the dungeon you are supposed to participate in. That A-ranked dungeon. You still remember about it, right?"

Aria nodded. Of course she remembered. That was the one reason she met up with Lichte and had to fight with a strong opponent. That was also the reason that perpetuated her journey to when a team member died right under her attention. It would be quite memorable for a long time.

"When is it going to be scheduled?" Aria asked as she brushed her teeth and opened the television screen. Indeed, the news were all covered with the dungeons' appearance. There were sights of many rampaging dungeons that caused heavy destruction over the lively city. This made several parts of the world completely barricaded for a temporary measure until the necessary Hunters come and take them down.

The reaction was too fast. It hadn't even been a complete day after the Tower was unlocked yet, but the result already fell upon the world like this. Aria frowned, thinking about the amount of casualties this must've made. Their preparations were far from enough since Aria didn't know that the trigger for the world's change was her stage advancement. She was too hasty in unlocking that stage although she would have no means of knowing the impact she brought.

"Judging from the predictions and the increasingly severe advancements... I think it should be in around two weeks or so," Alena replied, double checking with the information she had. "Remember, big sister. Even though these many dungeons have appeared, the one you're set to explore with those guys are still considered very special by the System. It's not exactly comparable to be called an S-stage, but you still have to be very careful. No matter how strong you are, if it's marked by the System, then something really off must be hidden inside that gate,"

"En, of course I understand. I have experienced the System's frankness first hand. I won't underestimate it, but... two weeks, huh? That's a relatively long time. I think we can advance a few levels before that event happens, right? Especially with these new dungeons, how many gates do you think you can acquire? If you can, make it all B-ranks to speed things up. C-ranked ones are fine too, though." Aria inquired.