"Where are your arms?" Simon asked causing the man crucified next to him puke the contents of his stomach out.
When he saw the man who had just vomited, there was dread in his eyes as he glanced at a particular place in the prison. Following the other guy's gaze, Simon's eyes went wide when he landed his sight on the thing.
There, on top of a fireplace skewered by daggers, were many pieces of what could be called meat. Looking at their expressions and the burning smell of meat, Simon immediately knew what had happened here.
All of the six people here were missing their limbs and their faces were as pale as a paper, some had already passed out from the shock while others had puked out the contents of their stomachs out.
There was no need to even ask what kind of horrible experience they had to go through. Bea after inflicting physical torture on them, forced the barbequed meat of their fellow teammates down their throats to break their last line of resistance.
Though Simon found it a little disturbing, he did not forgive them that easily.
"Do you know why you are in this condition?" Simon asked the man who had just asked for his forgiveness.
The man nodded his head and said in a hoarse voice "This is our punishment for intruding on your dungeon. Please forgive us, we know our mistakes, we will never do it again".
If the man could move, he would have already grovelled on the floor and banged his head to perform a kowtow.
Looking at how afraid these people were, Simon could see that Bea did a splendid job in breaking the will of these people. After Sable started begging, one by one all of the crucified people started doing the same with snot and tears on their faces.
They were much afraid of Bea and more so afraid of being subjected to the same cruel torturous experiments again.
"No, you are mistaken. Although I'm very angry at you guys for intruding my dungeon, I wouldn't torture you like this for that, at most I would kill you then and there. The reason that I am doing all of this is because of the forest spring spirits that you guys tried to kill and subdue" Simon said in a cold indifferent voice.
"W-We did not do it, it was all that bastard's fault" the one that spoke and pushed all the blame away was none other than the leader of this group who tried to use various means to defeat Simon but still failed in the end, Morgress.
Simon looked at the man and couldn't help but make a disgusted face. Even when everything was out and even after all of this, the man was trying to deny all the accusations. His attitude made Simon all the more disgusted of him.
"Even if you weren't the one that personally harmed the forest spring spirits, the subordinates that you sent to extract their spirit orbs were on your orders. Now too, the objective of your team diving in my dungeon was to get the forest spring spirits".
"The people of the forest spring spirit clan are now under my care which makes them my subordinates. It is natural for your to suffer when you are trying to take away something that belongs to me".
It was only now these adventurers understood why they were being tortured so brutally like that by that demon. It was not because his dungeon was intruded but because of the spirit orbs of the forest spring spirits they tried to get their hands on.
Perhaps because of the torture, the humiliation, the defeat or maybe because of all of it, the moment he heard the demon mention those incompetent subordinates of his, he forgot the situation he was in and started shouting and throwing curses hysterically.
"It is all that bastard's fault, if only he could do his job properly, we wouldn't have been in this mess. No, in the first place, I shouldn't have given him that job, I should have found someone more capable".
Simon did not know who was the person that Morgress was cursing so frantically but he could more or less make a guess. The twin lightning sword in his inventory was something that used to belong to that person after all.
Looking at how disgracefully the man acted, Simon lost all interest in them, now that he was done investigating and extracting all of the information out of them, he had no more use for these people.
He could simply kill them or keep them inside the prison so that they keep on producing DP for his dungeon. Although the second option sounded cruel, like livestock being kept alive only to be butchered later, these people did not deserve better.
The second option will keep on providing him with a steady amount of DP, one could imagine the points these elite level adventurers whose average level was above 470 would generate.
Nonetheless, it was a hassle to keep them alive and he wasn't much interested in the second option since his dungeon already had a marginal amount of DP and was producing more by the second. Even if he reared them as a DP generating livestock, it would be like adding a few buckets of water to a well.
What he was lacking right now wasn't DP but levels. In that case, it was much better for him to kill them and gain the experience points from them. Perhaps, it would also be best for them to die rather than be kept alive in that condition.
Simon turned around to face the exit, he snapped his fingers and multiple flame spears appeared behind him and pierced the heart of these mentally broken humans.
AHHHHHHHH… their screams resounded on this dark cavernous floor before like a dark symphony being snuffed out with the flames. Only their ashes remained after a while.
SHINE…
"?"
At this moment, something shined from the ashes of the adventurers. When Simon turned his gaze to see what was it exactly, he found a couple of space rings dropped on the floor. Needless to say, they belonged to these adventurers.
Although Simon had no interest in their belongings, he out of habit extended his hand and pulled their space rings towards him. Even if there was nothing special inside it, it was still his spoils of wars and the reimbursement for his troubles.
As Simon checked through the contents of each space ring, he found some decent artefacts around [C] tier and a few vials of elixirs and potions. The quality of which could hardly be compared with the ones he could buy from the [shop].
"No wonder that princess was so inquisitive when I took out my elixirs" Simon mused.
After sorting through five space rings, Simon still did not find anything that attracted his attention. When he just inserted his mana into the last space ring and was about to be done with, his brows suddenly locked together and he took out the contents of the ring outside.
An old parchment of paper, a scroll, a few weapons and a pouch of coins floated in the air.
Simon immediately lost interest in the weapons since all of them were [C] or [D] rank and instead focused his gaze on the two papers. The first thing that he grabbed was the scroll which was marked with many ancient runes and letters.
When he opened the scroll, he saw that it had many complex drawings and magic circles inscribed on it and a spatial ripple radiated out of the scroll.
"This should be the scroll of return that Irene mentioned" Simon observed, even without using [Analysis] he could tell that it was the scroll of return that the adventurers wanted to use to get away from here.
When he used the [Analysis] this was the result he got.
<strong> Scroll of Return Grade [1] Rank [C]-</strong> A scroll enchanted with the spatial laws of space magic. Only an alchemist with mastery over space magic, can create a scroll of return. It requires extreme concentration and understanding of space to chart out the complex runes on a scroll. It needs a fixed transit point and exit to work and cannot be changed once set.
Reading the information provided to him Simon kept the scroll of return in his inventory. Although, it was no use to him since its transit points were already set, the scroll was nevertheless something that had to do with space magic.
Simon who was extremely interested in space magic found it a waste to just throw it away. After he kept the scroll of return in his inventory, his gaze went towards the pouch filled with coins.
When he opened it, he was a little surprised to find that it was filled with platinum coins. At a glance, there were more than hundreds of them inside the pouch. This amount of sum was by no means small, if he took the amount to any auction he would easily be able to grab some good stuff.
It can be seen from this how rich the guild master of the seven swords was. Simon put the pouch in his space ring without any shame and fixed his gaze on the last item.
Honestly, the last time was quite peculiar and was different from all the other items inside the ring. It was a parchment of paper quite worn from the wear. It looked ancient and was missing another half.
When Simon observed the paper, he realised that it was some kind of map. The drawings in it was very old and some part of it had already dissipated. Simon tried to turn the map upside down, front and back nonetheless, it was still too confusing to say where this place marked on this map was.