Proofreader: M_W Miss Fierce

Leo and the others were toured around the entire Sandy Town by the enthusiastic Mayor Jong.

First, they visited the medium size farmland in the south. Just from the sky alone, they already saw the state of this farmland. The only word that can be used to describe the Sandy Town farmland was miserable.

Indeed, it was. Aside from a few greens that he can spot from a few tens or so of meters apart from each other, the other plants were practically wilted. Aside from that, the soil was showing an obvious sign of not being watered regularly as the grounds were already cracking due to the heat of the sun.

Though they could still see a few farmers from the Sand race were still trying their best to save this farmland, watering and putting some fertilizer on the plants.

But, even with that, when the time of harvest comes, he could already guess that they would only be able to harvest a few hundreds or so of what they have planted, which, considering the total numbers of inhabitants of the Sandy Town, is obviously not enough. No, it's very far from enough.

"This is the great farmland of the Sandy Town. This farm stretched for 10 kilometers, with tens of thousands of different plants that can grow in the desert planted yearly." Mayor Jong introduces.

All of a sudden, Mayor Jong frown as he said, "However, due to the war in Silver Kingdom, we were unable to buy enough supply of water for farming purposes and it is also impossible to hire some Mages who are good at using Water Element Magic spells since all of the Mages in Silver Kingdom are either busy fighting or evacuating," He paused to heave a long sigh and he continued, "To temporarily fix this problem, we can only order a few of our Mages to be in-charged of watering the farmland, which in turn, decreases our soldiers guarding the wall and causing a few blindspots where Magical Beast could exploit and hence they could secretly launch an attack inside of the Sandy Town."

"We have already lost a few hundreds of people because of that. And if this continues on, we will surely be forced to abandon the Sandy Town and look for a better place." Mayor Jong shook his head helplessly.

"Aren't the Sand race supposedly good in any desert environment? It was even stated in the book that if a team has someone from the Sand race with them, then exploring the desert wouldn't be a problem as they could easily find water underground." Leo can't help himself from asking.

Just like what the Sand race name implies, they were people that are experts when it comes to dessert. In fact, the majority of their people even live in deserts.

So, he was really curious as to how was the Sand race in the Sandy Town not able to do what they were said to be experts at.

"In the past, the Sandy Town had a bountiful supply of water as we have three underground rivers connected to our wells. But, as time goes on, the water of the river started decreasing and decreasing. From three rivers to two rivers, and then from two rivers to only one river. Until finally, those three rivers were emptied," Mayor Jong explained, "We tried looking for more water sources, but aside from some small caves with a few barrels worth of water inside, we were unable to find any more underground rivers."

"Apparently, there were actually only three rivers nearby us to be found and nothing more." Mayor Jong pointed at the north as he continued, "Our river came from that direction. So, we tried sending a few Mages through the underground river, hoping that we can find another source."

"What we found though was something very shocking," Mayor Jong's face turned solemn, "Out of the twenty people we have sent, specifically ten 3 Star Magical Knights and ten 4 Star Mages, only two people were able to return bearing with them a shocking discovery."

"The exact reason why the three rivers connected to our wells stopped supplying us the water wasn't because there was no longer any water, but rather it was actually because they have become a nest of Sandstone Mother Spider."

Leo and everyone's face darken the moment Mayor Jong mentioned the name Sandstone Mother Spider.

In the Magical Beast Spider species, the spiders are separated into different types. The ordinary Magical Beast Spiders, which are those in the No Star to 2 Star. Soldier Spiders, which are those in the 3 Star to 4 Star. Knight Spiders, which are those in the 5 Star to 7 Star. Mother Spiders, which are those in the 8 Star to 9 Star. And Lord Spiders, which are those that had broken through to Galaxy level.

The Spider Mother that Mayor Jong mentioned, just like what their names imply, are spiders that can give birth to tens of thousands of spider eggs every month. They are not only scaringly powerful but also have lots of spiders in their command. Those spiders are actually their forces in preparation to breaking through and becoming an official Lord Spider.

However, what's really shocking to what Mayor Jong had mentioned, what they have found was actually a nest of Sandstone Mother Spiders, meaning every spider in this nest was Mother Spiders and not just those weaker Sandstone Spiders.

Just one Mother Spider could already produce tens of thousands of spider eggs a month, not to mention a nest full of them.

They can't even hope to imagine just how many spider eggs they can produce every month. Hundreds of thousands maybe, or worst, millions of eggs every month.

Nevertheless, with those numbers alone, they'd surely be able to easily create a massive hoard of Sandstone Spiders in the Sun Desert.

"Those Sandstone Mother Spider used their webs to make a blockage in the water pathway leading towards the Sandy Town. Which is the main reason why no water flows in our wells anymore? They have hundreds of thousands of spider eggs surrounding the place," Mayor Jong paused as he turned to look at Leo, his eyes were dark, his forehead wrinkled, and his lips were trembling as he said, "What's even shocking is,-"

"A Sandstone Lord Spider lives in that place, am I correct?" Leo interrupted Mayor Jong to finish his words.

"Yes..." Mayor Jong weakly smiled.

A Sandstone Lord Spider was an official Galaxy level Magical Beast. They are expected already to have lots of lots of lots of Sandstone Spiders under their command, especially the Sandstone Lord Spider that Mayor Jong had mentioned about as it even has a nest full of Sandstone Mother Spider.

"That's indeed a big problem..." Leo also felt what Mayor Jong was feeling right this moment. As a ruler of a territory himself, he knows just how troublesome it was when it comes to problems related to Magical Beast. Fortunately, the Heart City was located in the center of Silver City, Blacksmoke City, Blue Coral City, and Southern Fortress, that's why even though there were a few times when Magical Beast caused his territory some trouble, he was still able to easily solve it. No, those 4 territories solved it for him since those problems also concerned them.

However, unlike his Heart City, the Sandy Town doesn't have anyone to rely on as they were only an independent allied territory. Though they have signed an alliance contract with the Silver royal family in the past, it was very easy to guess just from Mayor Jong's words alone that for them to ask for help they need to give some monetary benefits or some other kinds of valuable benefits, which, considering how poor the Sandy Town was, specifically even much more poorer than Heart City, they couldn't afford, especially if it's about a nest of Sandstone Mother Spider. Such a problem would definitely require the Silver Kingdom's Gold Division force in order to solve, which they would obviously not be stupid enough to do.

Actually, if it was really the Silver Kingdom... No, even the current Lionheart Kingdom, facing such a problem right now, they'd rather choose to sacrifice the territory, instead of eliminating the Sandstone Mother Spider's nest, considering it's just a mere town. It would be very stupid of them to sacrifice some soldiers when they could just simply rebuild another town.

Now that he mentioned about rebuilding another town; why won't Mayor Jong choose to do that instead, since doing so would be able to easily solve their problem? Well, maybe he has his own reason for not choosing to do that. He would try finding out about that latter.

"Although we want to fight them ourselves, as we, as Sand race, know clearly well of the best way to eliminate the Sandstone Mother Spider's nest, but see," Mayor Jong said as he pointed at their industrial area at the west.

During their talk, they have unknowingly already arrived at the west area of Sandy Town.

Mayor Jong explained, "We don't have enough supply to make weapons, armors, and even tools. We also don't have enough money to buy what we needed from the Silver Kingdom or those traveling merchants. So, what else can we do aside from just helplessly doing our best to survive using whatever means we can do as long as it doesn't break any laws, rules, morals, or principles of anyone."

Leo and everyone can't help admiring Mayor Jong after hearing those words from him. If it was anyone else, they would have said, "We will do anything to survive, even sacrificing a few of our own people!"

Now they can clearly see why Mayor Jong wasn't replaced by anyone ever since he became the Mayor of Sandy Town. This person was someone who really has a well-liked character aside from being a good Mayor.