Chapter 42
It was bright.
That was the simplest way to describe the expedition members’ first thought after safely surviving the strange events in the museum and arriving together on the twelfth floor.
Next came the scorching ground beneath their feet, the texture of sand, and the dry earthy smell unique to the desert.
A hot wind blew toward them from the distance.
Only then did their vision finally return to normal.
Even after that, they kept rubbing their eyes because the scenery before them was so unfamiliar.
It had been a long time since Yohan had seen land this bright as well.
For a moment, he covered his eyes with his right hand.
“Don’t tell me this place is…”
“A, a desert! A desert region! Th, this is amazing!”
Most people were surprised, though not as dramatically as Aren, who ran around everywhere and kicked the sand as if splashing water.
Albern worked with his expedition members to create a dark barrier in the air above them.
“Most of us aren’t used to light this bright… We’ll need shade.”
“Good idea.”
Then came the heat.
“I never thought there’d come a day when all this fur became a problem…”
“Covering yourself in thick Aura should help, Isabella.”
The general said that while suffering even more than she was.
Only after wrapping himself in a thick cloak and covering that with an even thicker layer of Aura did he finally release a relieved breath.
While the Were faction suffered badly from the heat, Dexter and the other scouts began searching for Zul-Bha-Sair, their destination on the twelfth floor.
“Well? Which direction does it look like?”
“Ah… Um… Within a ten kilometer radius… No, there doesn’t seem to be any city within fifteen kilometers!”
At Dexter’s words, Danforth grabbed his hair and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“If we keep standing around in a desert like this, we’ll all die from the heat. Let’s move first.”
“A, agreed…!”
Their feet sank deeply into the sand as the expedition began moving to the right.
After traveling more than five kilometers, they searched again.
Unfortunately, they found nothing.
They moved another five kilometers north and tried again.
Nothing changed.
“Haa… haa…”
“…How long have we been moving? One hour? Two?”
“Three hours.”
Danforth looked at Yohan, who still seemed relatively comfortable.
He asked,
“Seriously… How are you not even sweating?”
“Cold air comes out of my body.”
“……”
“If you’re jealous, make a contract with a god who can control cold.”
“…No thanks.”
They had still not found even the faintest shadow of a city.
The Dungeon did not stop there.
Another trial began appearing around them.
Magic beasts.
“Giant Horned Lizards!”
“There’s a group of Desert Scorpions too, Commander!”
“This isn’t a training ground! Stay alert! Don’t dry up and die in this desert!”
Normally they would have responded more smoothly.
But the intense heat made their movements clumsy.
TING! TIING!
“Their shells are too thick! We can’t pierce them! Everything is bouncing off!”
“Then attack the stomach!”
“But they’re defending that area from the beginning…!”
“We’ll handle it. We can use the tunnels they dug.”
Belvar led the dwarf soldiers into the underground holes to target the softer stomachs of the Giant Horned Lizards.
Meanwhile, Magic Missiles rained toward the Desert Scorpions.
Instead of hitting their targets, they only tore apart the sand.
“They can use organs inside their bodies to create mirages. If you attack only what you see, you’ll get hurt. Use wider area attacks…”
“I, I can tell you! I’m g, good at seeing through r, refraction effects!”
Following the paths Aren predicted, the soldiers launched attack magic together at Kalkelak and Albern’s signals.
BOOOOOOM!
At the same time, Belvar’s three Sand Needle spells and the soldiers’ spears pierced the stomach of a Giant Horned Lizard.
Danforth quickly wiped away the sweat falling from his face.
Then he checked whether more beasts were approaching.
Fortunately, he could not see or sense any additional enemies.
Only then did he release a relieved breath.
“Phew… Looks like it’s finally getting darker. We’ve got shade.”
He looked toward the sky after saying that.
The sun was still shining brightly.
Confused, Danforth looked higher.
Something was there.
A strange lifeform that released no mana at all had leaned its body forward and was staring down at Danforth and the expedition members.
BOOM!
BOOOOM!
BOOOOOOM!
“Haa, haa, how long are we supposed to keep running?!”
“…Until the desert ends?”
“That’s incredibly encouraging, damn it!”
Every time the creature slammed its long arms into the ground, the entire desert shook up and down.
It attacked not only the expedition members, but even the magic beasts that had attacked them earlier.
Its appearance resembled an enormous giant made entirely of sand.
The expedition members struggled through the soft ground.
Every time they barely escaped its attack range, the Sand Giant instantly closed the distance again.
When they could no longer dodge, they used defensive magic to block its fists.
But no matter how many barriers they layered together, each punch shattered them all in a single blow.
In the end, they were forced to give up both defense and counterattacking.
The Were maintained the lead using their superior physical abilities.
The elves followed closely behind by using Floating Magic and Acceleration Magic.
Isabella, whose stamina was weaker than the others of her race, ran beside the Sapien faction.
“Yohan! Even if nobody else can deal with it, you must know something! Do something about that thing, quickly!”
Despite Isabella’s desperate shout, Yohan firmly shook his head.
“That thing was never meant to be defeated. It’s closer to a natural disaster. Break it, melt it, devour it, unless you destroy its entire body at once, it’ll simply use the surrounding sand to rebuild itself. Running is the answer.”
“At this rate it’s going to catch us all! We’ll be wiped out!”
“Then I suppose that’ll be fate.”
“AAAAARGH! I seriously hate you!”
BOOM!
BANG!
The Sand Giant’s attacks grew stronger.
The distance continued shrinking.
The giant swung its fist toward Dexter, Isabella, and Yohan, who had fallen the farthest behind.
“…Tch.”
Yohan reluctantly prepared to summon an Incarnation and block the attack.
Then he sensed strange mana from the side and turned his head.
A mysterious cloaked creature was standing there.
Black energy flowed from its body as it gently swayed from side to side.
The moment the Sand Giant saw it, it released a scream as though hypnotized.
Then it charged directly toward the mysterious creature.
The strange being repeatedly appeared here and there in front of the giant, constantly attracting its attention.
Then it moved behind the giant and lured it away completely.
The Sand Giant carried hundreds of tons of sand in the opposite direction and slowly disappeared.
Only then did the expedition regroup.
“That creature was cursed by the Queen of Banshees and forced to live forever inside the sand. Because of that, whenever it sees a Banshee, it simply cannot control itself. Just like what happened now.”
The person speaking in a dark voice carried a staff containing an orb that released an ominous green glow.
Two people stood behind him in similar clothing.
From the way they held their hands together and looked at the man before them with respect, they appeared to be his disciples.
“Judging by your appearance, it seems you’re lost… Where were you headed? Zhilak? Tasun? Yoros? Or perhaps…”
“Zul-Bha-Sair.”
Yohan answered for everyone.
The man’s face immediately brightened.
“What a coincidence. We are also heading toward that city. There is something we need to recover there.”
The man introduced himself as Abnontha.
He examined the expedition members one by one.
Then he nodded as if reaching his own conclusion.
“Clothing completely unsuitable for the desert, and an alliance containing all four races… This is rather obvious. Are you from outside?”
“What if we are?”
“Nothing. I’m simply surprised. People like you are rarely seen here.”
Abnontha looked at the people sweating heavily and quickly changed the subject.
“At this rate, everyone will suffer heatstroke. Let us hurry. Zul-Bha-Sair is only around twenty five kilometers from here.”
After joining the dark mage Abnontha and his two disciples, not a single magic beast attacked them.
“Once a Sand Giant appears, every magic beast hides. That monster doesn’t distinguish friend from enemy.”
“Ohhh, I see!”
“That is why travelers like us, who know how to deal with the giant, actually wait for one to appear. It is much easier to deal with a single Sand Giant than to cross the desert while fighting dozens of different species of magic beasts.”
“Th, that makes sense!”
Abnontha was strangely friendly.
The less cautious expedition members, including Dexter and Aren, naturally gathered around him.
He even offered them several containers of drinking water.
However, the commanders refused, saying they could not accept food or water from someone whose intentions they did not know.
Only when they were around ten kilometers from the city did its faint shape begin appearing through the heat haze.
Everyone finally relaxed.
The commanders remained cautious.
However, Abnontha’s group was vastly outnumbered, and they had certainly helped the expedition on the surface.
So no one objected.
When conversation briefly died down, Abnontha approached Yohan, who had been walking alone.
“You appear to be the leader of those people. Am I correct?”
“Who knows.”
“That indifferent reaction tells me I’m correct. Are you heading to Zul-Bha-Sair because you want to reach the underground cities?”
“You said earlier that you had something to recover.”
Instead of answering, Yohan questioned Abnontha in return.
“Is it perhaps… a dead person?”
“Who knows. I don’t believe you need to know.”
Abnontha answered with the same words Yohan had used earlier.
“I don’t need to know.”
Yohan continued without caring.
“But if you revive someone who already belongs to the temple and claim the corpse for yourself, then the consequences could reach us too, since we traveled to the city with you. Wouldn’t it be better if nothing like that happened?”
“…You know quite a lot for an outsider. But there will be no such problem.”
Abnontha stretched his hand toward the city and lightly closed his fist.
“She has not even been officially declared dead yet. Of course, she will die soon. Even we could not cure her illness. But after death, things change. We simply need to finish everything before she is offered to the god.”
“……”
“Isn’t that right, Commander?”
After saying only that much, Abnontha returned to his disciples.
[I have a bad feeling about this.]
The goddess suddenly hid beneath Yohan’s collar while wiping sweat from her face.
Yohan silently agreed.
The gradually appearing city of Zul-Bha-Sair looked like a typical desert city.
However, the thick smoke rising from the highest spire felt extremely unnatural.
Even from this distance, the enormous city entrance looked like a maw sucking adventurers and survivors inside.
