As the time point of the original work drew nearer, Will felt increasingly that he had time-traveled to this world from the future.
It was probably like this…
Phenomena and events described in the original work would have precursors appear at his current time point, before they happened and “turned out that way.”
For example…
The current…
“Little Will, look! It’s an ice sculpture! It looks like it was made by molding water slimes and then freezing them.”
Shuna, holding the head of a classic dungeon dragon statue in her right hand, gave him a peace sign.
—The eighth floor of the Moonlit Ice Extreme Dungeon.
Inside a cave that resembled a grotto, they walked slowly among various ice sculptures.
“Wow… so cold, let me poke it.”
“Are you sure it’s ice? Is that… a rock golem over there?”
Shuna pointed towards the end of the street further away.
“Okay, okay… Wait! Aren’t we here to clear the dungeon?!”
“Mainly… hmm… here… it doesn’t quite feel like clearing a dungeon. Heh, let’s just play around like them.”
As soon as Shuna finished speaking, she ran forward.
It was the fifth day since they arrived in Yamik City.
Finally, after waking up at four o’clock and muttering, “Have you seen Yamik City at 4 AM?”, they obtained tickets to enter the first ten floors.
The fact that tickets were so scarce made Will want to pull out his Green Card and yell, “I’m the son of Carver Hysterm!” and walk in—then he realized he hadn’t brought it.
But…
These first ten floors of “Moonlit Ice Extreme”…
Were completely different from what he had imagined…
Fighting ice-attribute slimes.
Exchanging blows with ice-attribute ice compresses.
Sparring with ice-attribute Colombus.
Completely different!
“Mom, I want to see that—”
“I say, since we’re here, stop holding your financial report book and have some fun.”
“Wow, it’s so cool, we can take a break.”
—There were tourists everywhere!
Although the number of people was compressed and it wasn’t too crowded—for a dungeon, this was already abnormal.
Rather than a dungeon adventure, it was more like…
A summer tourist attraction with ice sculptures?
Even Shuna, who was usually very interested in fighting and clearing dungeons, started admiring the scenery upon entering.
The peaceful first ten floors might only have an elite monster on the tenth floor to tell you that’s the end, but everywhere else was like a summer ice sculpture exhibition meticulously planned by the dungeon for people to cool off.
A year later, such things would become the norm through the “Hysterm Family,” who would become the main driving force behind popularizing and industrializing dungeons to reach more common people.
What they were seeing now was a part of that future transformation, but the Hysterm Family had not yet developed to that level.
Will walked past the ice sculptures, his fingers brushing against the cold carvings.
Touching them, it felt like the temperature of a human body wouldn’t melt them, and there were no water marks on the surface.
Although they were indeed made of “ice” and were cool, they felt like large, cold crystals, especially with the colorful rainbow light reflecting off the surface.
Interestingly, perhaps because it was “inside the dungeon,” there were no restrictions on touching like at other exhibitions.
People could freely touch them—satisfying everyone’s curiosity.
This certainly wasn’t a landscape created by people from the Adventurer’s Guild.
So…
Will guessed that it was created by the “Empress” of this dungeon, the one known as the “Queen of Ice.”
Each dungeon’s “Emperor” indeed had their own style, just as described in the original work. And this style would be reflected in their respective dungeons.
Will continued to examine the ice sculptures made from frozen water slimes.
Especially the slime textures inside, which weren’t clearly visible until they were frozen like this.
Speaking of which, from a “story” perspective, he and the slimes inside should be considered nemeses, right?
Suddenly, as he was touching an ice sculpture, his palm was covered by another slender hand.
“Shuna?”
He looked up, and in that instant, Shuna’s hand directly grasped his palm, which was touching the ice sculpture.
“Little Will~ I found a very beautiful view over there, come with me, come with me!”
“Wait, you’re actually looking at the scenery… But what kind of scenery can there be in a dungeon…”
“You’ll know what ‘Moonlit Ice Extreme’ is when you see it.”
Will followed Shuna towards the bright part of the cave, her hand held tightly in his, like an older sister afraid of losing her little brother.
Although no matter what…
He wasn’t exactly a little brother who needed looking after, was he?
He really wasn’t, was he?
That direction seemed to be the end of the eighth floor, where the door leading to the ninth floor would appear.
However, most of the people who came in were still enjoying the beauty of the ice sculptures, and not many seemed to have left the grotto yet.
“Come—look—”
As they were about to exit the cave, Shuna pulled hard, pulling Will out of the cave entrance without any cushioning.
“This is…”
Before Will was a vast ice lake, the view suddenly opened up. Above the lake, the sky was blurred, spreading out like…
Pale green aurora.
Its presence here made anyone looking up dizzy.
Within the aurora, the full moon was also particularly striking.
Even the ice lake at their feet reflected the aurora above.
If it weren’t for the fact that this dungeon was truly so “peaceful” like a tourist destination, Will might have thought that this ice lake, with the aurora above and its reflection below, would be a battleground for a powerful elite monster.
But…
Shuna jumped down one step and landed lightly on the ice lake.
She turned around, smiling happily.
There was nothing now.
Only a quiet ice lake.
“How is it? Isn’t it beautiful? You probably can’t see this kind of scenery in the outside world, right?”
“Mmm…”
Whether in his previous world or his current one, Will had never seen an aurora.
Moonlit Ice Extreme.
So that was the origin of the name, the character “极” (jí) from “极地” (jí dì – polar region).
It’s just…
If this name implies the “aurora” above and the “coldness” found only in polar regions,
The origin of the name and the scenery before him made Will realize once again that this was indeed a “story.”
Because here, it didn’t seem like they had reached the point of exploring the poles of a “planet,” yet the name and the scenery appeared here.
It might be described as a “dungeon miracle,” but for Will, who came from outside the story, it felt more like the “fictionality of a story.”
As Will looked down at the aurora on the lake, he suddenly noticed his vision becoming blurry.
“Huh? My glasses…”
“I’m getting angry now?”
While Will was lost in thought, Shuna stepped back up and took his glasses.
His myopia was quite severe, likely a genetic inheritance.
After she took his glasses, the aurora on the lake blurred into a mass.
The aurora itself already made the sky seem blurry, and now the aurora before him was even more so.
“Wh… Why are you angry? Did I do something wrong? Lady Shuna~?”
Will could tell that Shuna’s anger was feigned, so he didn’t reach out to snatch his glasses from her hand.
However…
In his blurry vision, looking at Shuna, he could only see her legs in black stockings and the absolute territory exposed by her shorts.
Frankly, there was a hazy sensuality to it.
“Little Will occasionally gets that ‘I’m observing very objectively’ expression.”
“So…”
“I’m angry!”
