Alfreda was baffled by the way Arlo shamelessly asked for money in return for her pouch. She did begrudgingly pay up because she was currently too weak to fight him, but she gave him the glare of death throughout the transaction.
"If I was at full power right now, I'd easily show him his place" thought Alfreda with a frustrated expression.
"What's with that face??? I gave you the pouch back, right??? By the way, once we're out, I need to take some stuff out of the pouch if that alright with you"
Alfreda calmed down and asked again if they wanted to close the dungeon, they all agreed and Alfreda lead the way. They followed Alfreda around the hills of junk items and after a short journey, they instantly saw what looked like a Grimoire on a pedestal. A forcefield around it seemed to push away any junk items that tried to get near it. Alfreda went ahead and said "don't worry, the forcefield won't push us away, let's go in"
"The Grimoire on the pedestal belonged to envy, so I'll take it for research. Don't worry Carlos, I'll pay an extra bucket of gold for it"
Arlo questioned in his head why Alfreda wanted that Grimoire so much, but he was too happy with the bucket of gold to ask further.
"Anyway if we take the book off it's pedestal, I believe the dungeon will begin to collapse, but the forcefield around it will last long enough for us to survive" said Alfreda with a slightly unsure expression.
They believed her and went inside the barrier without question and it didn't push them away, just like she said. Alfreda asked them once again if they're finished before she closed the dungeon and they confirmed for the last time that they were. After that, she placed both hands on the Grimoire and lifted it up above her head. The forcefield remained as she said and the dungeon began violently rumbling and shaking soon after. Sandstone began falling on top of them, but the forcefield blocked and repelled anything that went near it. All they saw was a screen of sand around them, so they couldn't recognize anything else going on. After a few minutes the rumbling stopped and wind blew away the screen of sand. Once they were able to see again, all they saw was an endless ocean of sand and a sun shining brightly.
The towering pyramid that could block the sun had disappeared just like that, with no trace indicating it was ever there, not even an outline on the sand where it used to be placed over. They were all in awe after witnessing such a scene, except Alice, she was sobbing. They were confused about Alice's reaction, but she explained herself without being asked.
"The pyramid *Sniffle* disappeared *Sniffle* with the bodies of our dead friends. They *Sniffle* didn't even get a proper funeral"
Alfreda understood where she was coming from and tried to comfort her (Arlo pretended to understand and comfort her. He became satisfied with the knowledge of mimicking he had obtained from this scenario).
Alice cheered up after a bit of comforting and thanked them, Alfreda started a new topic a moment afterwards.
"which way do you guys want to head??? North to go back to the city of illumination or Southwest to the orange stone gorge??? I'd suggest we go Southwest, since it'll only take a week and a few days instead of a month to arrive, but I'm okay either way"
Arlo thought about it a bit and Alice seemed to pick the same choice as Arlo
"If we head Southwest then we'll get there sooner and we'll be able to investigate as well, it'll be like killing two birds with one stone"
"Whereas going north won't give me much in return, so I think the choice is obvious"
After those thoughts, he answered Alfreda without hesitation.
"I'd like to go Southwest as well"
Alice agreed with Arlo and Alfreda began slightly grinning from joy of their decision before getting out her compass and leading the way.
Around evening on the first day, Arlo approached Alfreda and asked her something. She knew it was serious by the tone of his voice, so she listened intently.
"So um... What I'd like as payment for escorting you to orange stone gorge is well.... I'd like you to teach me how to cook!!" Said Arlo while fiddling his thumbs around.
Arlo wanted to keep his promise to the abyssal voice so that he wouldn't get a penalty. He thought about asking Alfreda for gold instead, but he had to heavily force himself to resist.
"Pfft. Bwahaha, is that all you wanted to ask??? I thought I'd be something more serious. I'll teach you how to cook if that's what you want in return, but I think Alice has more talent in that field. So it would be more beneficial to ask her, right??"
What Alfreda said made more sense to Arlo, since he could ask Alfreda for a different reward that way, so he took his leave and asked Alice to teach him instead.
"Hey Alice, I need your help with something only you can do"
Alice's eyes started to sparkle and her expression changed into a joyful one. Her heart started pounding intensely, almost giving her a heart attack and she started shaking from excitement.
"Brother needs my help?!?!? I'll help no matter what, if it's something I can only do!!!" Said Alice with her chest puffed up proudly and an expression of determination.
Arlo explained that he wanted to learn how to cook while stumbling on his words, she held back laughter because she thought it would be something serious, but she was a bit relived that it was just about cooking. She obliged to his request and she asked Arlo for a few things.
"Alright, so if we want to start, we'll have to gather the ingredients first. We'll need to hunt for desert monsters and ask Alfie to bless the food. She might also have some vegetables in her infinity pouch, so we'll ask her for that as well"
They went to Alfreda first and she pulled out more than they imagined, she gave them various spices and golden eggs (That's what they call potatoes in this world).
"She even had golden eggs?!?!?! Doesn't even look like it has warts yet" said Alice with an amazed expression.
Arlo didn't get why she would be so excited about those weird 'golden eggs', but he was very eager to see what they were going to cook up.