New Game Plus

Reflection

"...so?" I ask. She immediately trips on the spot and face plants herself into the sidewalk, which surprised nearby pedestrians. She gets up immediately and began running again as if nothing happened.

"So. What. I'm. Saying. Is. Take that stupid ribbon off your neck!" She yells at me as we're just about to leave the city.

Oh yeah, there was that, wasn't there? I completely forgot about this thing, it eventually became natural to me to see it. I grabbed the ribbon and tear it off with all my might. The entire ribbon suddenly becomes engulfed in black flames while the plastic gems burst. That was the effects of removing a cursed item forcefully.

Suddenly, my body felt light, as if several bricks that were on me was suddenly lifted off of my chest. I can feel my mana reserve increase greatly, and my running speed also increased. I slow down though, because I needed to maintain the same pace as Thoth, who was slower than me. She glared at me though, upon seeing my speed increase right after pulling off the ribbon.

"I hate your [New Game Plus], you know that, right?" I smile to myself upon hearing this, because it was amusing to see our roles turned around. I really hated the fact that as a [Demon Lord], her level was 5 times my own. For some reasons, demons had a higher level limit than the Humans did, which was an extremely irritating thing.

She stops talking to me until we reach the [Forest of Fire], our destination. Just like the name implied, there was a forest that was pretty much on fire. I'm surprised that the fire hasn't spread, but it seems like magic is containing it so it stays within the dungeon's area. It was a bit strange to see though, because what you can see is a giant field of fire, and it just stops right there like it's in an invisible box.

"This thing isn't as scary as I thought it'd look." Thoth breaks the silence and comments about it's appearance.

"...castle...scarier..." I reply.

"I know right? I designed the entire thing myself you know, it took me a whole decade to actually finish it." Just before she goes on a prideful speech about her castle, I stop her by sprinting towards the edge of the flaming forest. Using [Water Magic], I generate an aura of ice cold air around me, and I dive right into the fire.

After emerging from the other side of the flaming wall, I check the surrounding area of where I landed, making sure my ice spell, [White Zone], was working right, and it was. The fire around me didn't enter a five meter radius around me, as if I was in a giant, invisible ball that was unaffected by the terrain.

The spell, [White Zone], pretty much dropped the temperature heavily in the area around me, turning the atmosphere around me into one similar to a frozen tundra. This spell seemed to be more than enough to counteract this environment, because I was starting to feel a bit chilly despite standing in a flaming forest. For some reason, the flames within the forest weren't as wild as the flames at the border. There was no smoke as well, as if the fire was just on the trees as decoration.

I hear a yell from the direction I dived from, and a figure comes flying through the fire. It was Thoth, who took her time jumping through, I guess. Fortunately, she landed within my zone, so she wasn't suffering heat damage from the terrain. Though I think that I probably screwed up something already due to the glare she gave me after getting up.

"Why the hell did you jump through the fire!? Don't you know that there's an entrance to this thing!? If you didn't have something like this, you'd be dead just being inside of here in a few seconds! Exploring this dungeon is slow process, not something you should just go right into!" I feel like I heard this before in my [Adventurer Studies], but I stopped listening because I didn't really think that kind of information would've been necessary.