The next day, I woke up before Charna, who had slept in her own separate room, and grabbed a bite to eat with the 24/7 food service.

The hotel immediately brought stacks of pancakes and strips of bacon for me to devour right before I went to work out.

Going for a light jog before hitting the intense stuff really helped me to digest the food, but on my light jog, I saw that the town was pretty barren.

I mean, it was supposed to be peak rush hour, but there were only a few cars and people walking along the sidewalks.

In fact, I was in a trance so heavy last night that I didn't realize this either.

When I arrived back, I was greeted by Auntie Charna, who had made an excellent and well-smelling lunch that made my stomach immediately begin to rumble.

I could barely keep my eyes off of it as I sat down and grabbed my utensils from out of their neatly wrapped package of napkins.

"How is it?" Auntie asked as I dug into the food before me, but I could barely respond as my cheeks were stuffed with food.

"You eat like your mother," She chuckled.

"Really?"

The entire breakfast basically went like this, with me answering some of her vague questions in between mouthfuls of food.

Once Auntie and I had cleaned up everything on the table, we relaxed just a bit before heading out and going toward the very edge of the town we were currently residing in.

The barren town only got more barren until it was practically a ghost town upon reaching the wall, which not only surprised me once again but also my aunt, who looked to be a bit confused as she stared up at the towering wall of stone.

"Seems people don't trust it as much nowadays… well, it's not like I care," She chuckled before gesturing for me to follow as we walked towards an opening in the stone wall.

From inside, it spiraled upwards until another opening allowed us to walk on the wall from the very top and let me see the town from above.

"Turn around," Auntie silently whispered, and before I could even swivel my head, I felt a chill shoot down my spine.

All my instincts screamed at me not to turn around, yet surprisingly… I listened and just froze in place, letting out a long sigh.

"What's wrong? Scared?" My aunt softly chuckled before placing her hand atop my head and lightly rubbing it.

"Mhm…"

My aunt ducked forward to see if I was really telling the truth, and upon seeing how my eyes had dilated, and my muscles were practically frozen, she softly smiled.

"If I'm gonna be honest, it's best you know of this. You wanted to assist your mother, right? Ease her life? Well, you haven't done much of that," She seemingly tried to taunt me before twirling around me and bending down to my eye level. "So, how about you start with this… since this is one of the main reasons our organization exists…."

"And if I don't want to? If I changed my mind about helping my mother?"

My aunt's soft smile didn't change, but her pitch-black eyes induced more fear than anything I had ever experienced.

It felt as if a scythe had wrapped around my neck, and death itself was stalking me from behind, its icy grip of death ready to catch my soul upon release.

She didn't intend to respond and instead awaited my own response.

"I was just kidding… geez…." I shakily sighed before slowly turning around and feeling a blast of cold wind slap me in the face, nearly knocking me over.

If my aunt hadn't caught me, I might have even flown off the wall and tumbled to the bottom, approaching near death.

And after shielding my eyes from the residual gales pounding away at my forearms, I opened up my squeezed eyelids and looked forward.

It was horrifying. Absolutely terrifying and even though there wasn't much of a smell, my brain sparked, creating the stench of death within my nose.

I couldn't rip my eyes away no matter how I tried as I stared at a battlefield coated with corpses, blood, rusted weapons, and broken mechs.

"You… had to use mechs?"

"Well, all the dungeon runners had died. If it weren't for the mechs, this wall wouldn't be standing any longer," my aunt explained in a cheery tone, but I felt nothing cheery about this place.

"Let's go… I don't want to see this any longer,"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait… you don't even know your role in this fight. We're not on the side of humanity," My aunt's voice suddenly darkened, and as her cold hand grasped my shoulder, I felt myself nearly faint. "We're intending to destroy everything here… and these goddamn heroes keep getting in our way."

Her grip on my shoulder tightened, and I winced in pain, allowing the woman to see that she was hurting me and quickly let go.

"Heroes? Like the renowned heroes who discovered practically all dungeon-related things in this world?"

"Smart girl… and our objective is to kill them, eradicate them, erase their souls from existence. We can't just let them die, no… no, no, no, no, no, no… we have to make sure their existence no longer exists from the record books of this world." Her whispering voice slowly trailed away from my ear before quickly returning. "Do you know of the great Primordial Hero of Ice?"

"N-No…" I squeaked.

"Exactly… that's exactly what I mean. Erase them from everything. Everyone… and if they refuse, guess what we do?"

There was a long pause before I could crack open my lips again. "Kill them?"

"No~ of course not~!" She suddenly announced in a more cheerful tone before wrapping her arm around the back of my neck. "We eradicate them. Each and every one of them…."

"You're horrible… you're all horrible people."

"Oh, I don't want to hear that from you… Empress of the Ice Plane. Tyrannical Ruler of Ice Monsters. The Ice Empress who tortured our sweet little sister… your mother until she nearly broke… so, don't speak of horrible beings when you're the very definition of it… kid."

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