While Aurora examined the large gate with curious eyes, Rejoke walked over to her, momentarily eyeing the dead yeti. But after a brief moment, he moved his gaze back on his alpha and walked up to her side.
His appearance did nothing to disturb Aurora's concentration, and she didn't even seem to notice him. Her focus was solely solely on the closed stone gate that led to seemingly nowhere.
'Why would it even be here? It seems so out of place.' She mutters internally, looking at the engravings along the gate's frame.
'Wait, is this-?' Suddenly, she seemed to notice something as she took a closer look at the strange symbols. They looked very familiar.
'Is this... Japanese?' Aurora questioned, not sure if the symbols truly were a part of the Japanese alphabet or not. After all, she didn't even speak Japanese, much less know the alphabet.
However, the symbols truly looked familiar, and she could remember them from some of the random memory fragments she had managed to recover after evolving.
'I think I really did see these somewhere. But even if it truly is Japanese, the real question is, what is it doing in this world?' She just didn't believe that some of the languages of this world were the same as those of the world she came from.
It would be too much of a coincidence to even be a coincidence. But this could also mean one thing: maybe she wasn't the only person who suddenly appeared in this world. Even if the idea was far-fetched, it gave her a sort of hope.
As Aurora took a few more steps forward, she reached out with her paw towards the Japanese-looking symbols. However, as soon as her paw touched the cold, stone frame, all the symbols on it lit up with a faint, light blue color.
Startled by the sudden change, Aurora jumped back and turned her guard up to the maximum. Rejoke did the same, even if he didn't know anything about the gate or the sudden appearance of the light symbols.
As all the symbols became lit, the stone gate creaked, and slowly, it slid open, revealing a pale blue vortex behind it. The vortex seemed to be made out of pure energy, and while it appeared to be constantly spinning, it didn't suck anything in, not even air.
'What—what is that?' As her eyes locked onto the swirling vortex, Aurora felt drawn. She had no idea what that vortex was, but something told her to go towards it.
'No, stop! Idiot, think first.' Quickly shaking her head, she regained her senses and looked at the light blue swirl with scrutinizing eyes.
'I have no idea what this thing is... but if it's somehow connected to my old world, I could maybe get some information regarding my appearance here.' She began to contemplate her next move, seriously considering whether or not she should inspect the vortex.
'I have a feeling that this thing's a portal.' She took a deep breath, her eyes briefly looking sideways at Rejoke, then back at the vortex.
After continuing to stare at it for a bit longer, Aurora walked towards the vortex. Her steps, however, weren't as steady as usual. They were filled with caution and wariness. Soon, she stopped right in front of the swirling energy.
'Only one way to find out.' And with one final deep breath, she took a step forward, only to burst into particles of blue light the next moment.
The onwatching Rejoke's eyes went wide in panic as he saw his alpha disappear, and without any hesitation, he dashed towards the vortex. With quick lunge, he went straight in, disappearing into light just like Aurora.
Meanwhile, the fox in question was looking around herself in panic as constantly moving blue energy surrounded her body. However, before she could even process what was happening, her vision soon shifted, and she found herself in a dark space.
'I'm having flashbacks right now.' Without waiting around to question what just happened, Aurora quickly used her Fire Creation and made a simple flame appear.
The light produced by the flame lit the surrounding space up right the next moment, revealing a similar sight.
'Yeah, I'm really having flashbacks right now.' Aurora muttered inwardly, gazing at the stone walls of a cave.
But just as she was about to take a step forward to look around a bit, she felt a change in the mana around her, causing her to quickly turn around and jump back.
The next moment, a similar vortex to the one she jumped in appeared in front of her, and from it, a large black wolf came out, looking around with a worried gaze.
'It's just you. I swear you'll give me a heart attack one day.' Aurora shook her head helplessly and walked towards Rejoke.
The wolf looked down at his alpha with relieved eyes, only to get slapped right away. Feeling confused and bewildered, he gave Aurora a confused glance, one that the small fox ignored completely.
Instead, she just jumped onto his back, moved the flame a little above Rejoke's head, and patted his back. Automatically and completely out of habit, the wolf found himself walking forward subconsciously.
Meanwhile, Aurora looked all around her curiously, trying to figure out where the vortex had taken them. The place looked like a perfectly normal cave, with nothing strange about it.
However, that soon changed as the two arrived in front of yet another gate. Just like the previous one, this one was also made out of stone, with various symbols tracing its frame.
'Let's see...' Jumping off Rejoke's back, Aurora made her way to the gate, reached out forward with her paw, and softly placed it on the stone gate.
Just like before, the symbols on the gate's frame lit up, and the gate itself soon started to open.
*Whoosh*
Strong gusts of wind blew out from behind the slowly-opening gate, immediately filling the cave with chulling air. Just then, the gate finally opened fully, revealing a vast field covered in white snow.
[You have entered the dungeon Tomb of the Frozen Hell.]
'This... a dungeon?' Aurora stared at the expansive snowy fields with astonished eyes. Though she had no idea what a dungeon was, she understood that this place wasn't anything normal.
However, even in the face of the unknown, she took a step forward and began to observe the place they found themselves in.
As far as she could see, there was snow, snow, and more snow. No matter where she looked, she couldn't find a single patch of grass on the field. There were no trees here either, only large spikes made out of pure ice. While it wasn't snowing, the snow didn't seem to be melting at all, even if the sun shined brightly at it.
'Wait a second, sun?' Only now did Aurora realize that something wasn't right. This place didn't seem to be out in the open; even the entrance to the dungeon was accessed through a cave.
It made no sense for this place to have sunlight. What's more is that this dungeon or whatever was massive. Though she didn't know exactly how big it was, Aurora couldn't even see the entirety of it, hinting at this place being really huge.
As Aurora continued to look around and stare at anything she found interesting, Rejoke followed her with calm steps. The wolf had no idea what was happening or where they were. But none of that really mattered to him. His alpha was clearly very interested in this place, so he would just make sure to follow her around.
He didn't need information or any sort of explanation. He would just follow his alpha wherever she went. After all, in his eyes, Aurora was someone with knowledge and understanding of everything.
As the two continued to make their way through the dungeon, Aurora made sure to analyze everything around her. Everything here seemed to hold some sort of mystery to it, and her brain worked to its maximum capacity to process everything it came into contact with.
There were many things Aurora noticed, be it the sun here that didn't feel the same as the sun she was used to or the strange ice the various ice spikes scattered around this place were made of.
However, there was one thing that stood out to her. The abundance of monsters, as well as the lack of magical beasts in here. All in all, in about the half an hour the two had spent here, she had managed to spot several dozen groups of monsters, yet no magical beasts.
How could Aurora tell the difference between a monster and a magical beast at a glance? Well, she couldn't. Not normally, at least.
One other thing about this dungeon is that the mana in this place is incredibly dense, much denser than in the outside world. Not only that, but it was very wild and not nearly as stable as it normally should be.
This had no effect on Aurora herself or Rejoke, for that matter, as their souls produced their own mana. However, it still served as an easy way for Aurora to make out the difference between a monster and a magical beast.
Monsters are creatures made purely out of mana. Even under normal reproduction, their bodies and souls are still made out of mana. Because of this, the monsters that were born out of the dungeon's chaotic mana had their aura feel just as chaotic and wild.
This aura change wouldn't happen with magical beasts, as unlike monsters, their bodies are organic, not products of the energy called mana.
'All the monsters here were probably either born normally or were created directly from the dungeon's mana. The chances of any magical beasts appearing here are very slim, only if they managed to get here from the outside.' Aurora reasoned as she stared at yet another group of monsters.
'This place is vast, so if we're supposed to look for anything specific, then it will take a long time unless we get lucky.' She sighed internally, slumping her head down a bit.
'Well, we have no way back anyway, so all that's left is to look.' Shaking her head softly, she once again faced forward with a steady gaze.
As the two walked more-or-less side-by-side, with Rejoke being a few steps behind, Aurora glanced up at the sky, seeing the strange sun slowly moving across the surprisingly clean sea devoid of clouds.
'I guess the sun might even set, meaning that this place probably has a moon as well.' Aurora commented internally, getting lost in her thoughts while she had nothing to do.
One thing was certain: while she had no idea how long they're going to be stuck in here, Aurora was still thrilled. This place filled her with a sense of mystery and excitement of a possible adventure.
She felt this place was special. She didn't know how or why, but she just knew that something about this dungeon wasn't exactly normal.
And her thoughts would soon prove true as the two would encounter many things they had never expected to see. Hidden dangers, powerful monsters, as well as juicy treasures—the possibilities were simply endless.
And unbeknownst to the two of them, someone was watching them this whole time with great interest as they made their way through the dungeon.
"When did place appear?" Someone asked in a tone devoid of any emotion, receiving a response right away.
[Unknown, I have not been the one to create this thing.]
"Hmm, their doing then?" The voice asked again, somehow sounding even more interested despite their voice not changing at all.
[Highly likely.]
"I see. Well, let's just watch for now." The person leaned back into their non-existent chair, continuing to float in empty space.
[Agreed.]