Since Rainbow, Remi, and Violet had died, they lost all of their skills. They retain their memories through death so they will be able to relearn old skills faster. But some skills require years of training or effort to obtain so dying and becoming an NPC core won’t be worth it. They will have to spend a week re-learning back their skills. But Rainbow will have to spend at least two weeks because she had many level one skills she wanted to regain. Everyone nicknamed her the level one skill master.

Stardust could use high-level items on his NPCs so they can retain skills through death. But he doesn’t have any at the moment. There was nothing in this desert that could be used to make them. Even if they found some higher-level resource, it would most likely need to be processed or refined into something better. An example of a high-level resource is high-class ruby rings. Or hunting down boss-type monsters for their high-class loot.

Lily was loving her new life as the revealed former traitor of the party. She was openly mean to everyone in the party except for her husband Stardust. Nobody in the party wanted to get along with her anymore other than Stardust and Rainbow. Despite Lily’s vile words against Rainbow, she still took care of her and even continued wiping her ass, but Lily wanted Stardust to do it but he refrained from doing so. Rainbow was too pure-hearted and believed that Lily would help the party survive. Lily was trying to push her relationship with Stardust to new heights but Stardust wanted to focus on survival first. It made Lily sad but she accepted it.

The party had to move to a new area as they kept on overhunting the local wildlife around them. They did hunt enough biomass to help Stardust regain his former adult body.

Another tent was made for a total of two. All eight members of the party could now sleep in tents during the nights. Lily, Stardust, and Rainbow shared one tent while Marla, Violet, Luna, and Queen shared the other. Remi was busy on the night watch and she only sleeps during the day-time.

Stardust had to keep his guard up during the night because Lily was… too eager. Rainbow was also very helpful to keep Lily off her master. Lily may die from her illness during the night so Stardust was always close by.

> ( Stardust)

The advance party shared with them all their new knowledge and experiences in Desert Area 2. Violet told everyone about the berries making your skin better and every girl was deeply interested. They all wanted to conquer the berry bush area. Stardust was perfectly okay with it as it was another food source and they won’t be exclusively meat-eaters anymore.

Two weeks had passed to properly train up all the NPCs before taking on Desert Area 2.

Lily’s health wasn’t improving either, despite Stardust doing his best to train Lily to have a stronger body. It wasn’t like Lily was sabotaging herself even though it would be nice to have Stardust take care of her frail body all the time. She genuinely wanted to get stronger so she can… become a more capable woman for Stardust.

All the NPCs who died regained their skills and even improved! The NPCs who didn’t die also improved their skills although higher levels were harder to obtain. Rainbow only had level 1 skills but she successfully regained them all. Instead of trying to train her skills to level 2, she was experimenting to find even more level 1 skills. Due to her nature of collecting level 1 skills, she gained [ Skill Mastery LVL 1]. A rare skill that lets you learn new or current skills faster! Everyone had a good laugh when she got that.

It was time for the advance party to venture into Desert Area 2 once again. This time better prepared for the challenges ahead.

All the girls were fired up for the second expedition, they all wanted the berries! The nice skin that they all desire must be obtained!

Marla shouted, “ YOOOOO IT’S TIME TO GET THE BERRIES!”

“ HELL YEAH!” cheered Luna. “ I want nice smooth skin, this desert is already making my skin rough and dry. “

Remi grinned, “ a nice smooth skin will help me assassinate my targets.”

“ Please make sure to give all the berries to me since I’m Stardust's wife now. I must be as beautiful as possible,” demanded Lily.

“ I’m sorry you have to see my ugly skin, my master Stardust,” apologized Rainbow. “ I will make sure to stay as beautiful as possible to not be an eyesore in your presence.”

Queen ordered, “ go get the berries you barbarians, my world-class skin can’t handle the shitty desert anymore.”

“ Hmm perhaps the berries will help Lily get a healthier body, “ wondered Stardust.

Violet was panicking for overhyping the berries. She wanted everyone to have a balanced diet and she needed an excuse to save herself if it doesn’t give the results that everyone expected.

( Violet) >

The advance party charged forward into Desert Area 2.

They were all running as fast as they could to the berry bushes even though Violet wanted them to slow down.

Luckily no desert wolves or giant centipedes swarm were interested in attacking them and they made it to the berry bushes safely. Several rabbits were eating and sleeping around this place as well. No predators were hunting the rabbits here because the bushes also give off a scent to ward them off. They don’t want all the rabbits carrying their seeds to die close to the other berry bushes as they too needed resources to survive. It was best for the rabbits to run off in another part of the desert before dying.

The party ignored the rabbits as they pocketed as many berries into the backpack as possible. While they were busy pocketing the berries, Marla, Remi and Rainbow were *munch* *munch* *munch* *munch* *munch* *munch* *munch* *munch* *munch* *munch* on their berry loot so it took them much longer to fill up their backpack. They cried with joy that they will finally have nice skin. Violet ate some too but not so much that it filled her entire stomach like the other girls.

On the run back, the apex predator of Desert Area 2 had shown itself, the huge desert tiger. The girls weren’t afraid and were determined to bring the berries back to the party so everyone can have nice skin like them!

“ Move it tiger!” shouted Marla. “ Everyone at the camp is depending on us to make their skin nicer!”

Marla was doing her best to distract the tiger with her shouting and attack poses while Remi sneaked up on the tiger. Rainbow and Violet were behind Marla, ready to support her with their poisonous attacks.

The tiger, “ ROAAAAAAAAAR” to stun the party members, each member having varying stun resistance with Marla breaking out of it in 1 second. Then it charged at Marla with its mighty paw. Marla retreated as Remi surprised shot her poisonous needles at the tiger’s eyes. The poisonous needles destroyed both of the tiger’s eyes as it roared in pain and fury, attacking everything around itself while the girls retreated. More ranged attacks from Remi and Violet as they kept shooting poisonous needles and arrows into its body, lowering the time it would take for the tiger to die.

The tiger thrashed around on the ground as it was dying from the poison. He was the mightiest creature in Desert Area 2. Desert wolves and giant desert centipedes stood no chance against him as he could easily smash all of them to death! Even the NPCs stood no chance against the tiger if they were to fight without poisonous weapons as the tiger greatly overpowers them. It was the first time in his life that the tiger was losing the fight. He never knew that such cowardly monsters would be able to use the poisonous needles from the monster cactus to kill him. They were all cowards that couldn’t even fight him with their raw strength and bare hands. In his death, he thought of himself as the winner of the battle.

“ Hah stupid tiger,” snorted Marla.

“ I didn’t expect us to beat the tiger…” said Remi. “ I guess he thought he was invincible and didn’t know we could use these poisonous needles. He’s pretty stupid compared to the other animals here.”

Marla decided, “ well we don’t have any room in our bags to carry the tiger biomass back to the camp. All the berries in our bags are more important.”

Rainbow added, “ since the tigers are easy to kill, we don’t have to worry about wasting this tiger.”

The 3 girls agreed with each other. In their minds, the smooth nice skin was more important than bringing this tiger back to create another strong NPC like Marla.

Unfortunately, the tigers were somewhat uncommon to encounter in Desert Area 2 and they may have to spend 5 days exploring to find another one.

( Violet) >

“ Wait everyone,” said Violet. “ The tiger biomass could be used to make another strong NPC like Marla. Or we could eat the tiger to diversify the meats that we already eat to gain a healthier body that can result in healthier skin.”

When the three of them heard about the possibility of making another NPC with the tiger biomass, they were about to make excuses like… the raw stat gain is random, personality and karma were also random and could be detrimental to the party. And how they can easily hunt more tigers later and that the berries to make the girl’s skin smooth was more important.

But when Violet added that it could make them have better skin, they agreed to carry off some tiger biomass. However, Marla, Remi, and Rainbow weren’t even giving up any of their berries! Only Violet emptied out her berry bag to carry off as much tiger biomass as possible. It wasn’t enough tiger biomass to make another NPC but it was still diversifying their diet. She sighed at their stubbornness.

There was still plenty of dead tiger biomass still left on the ground. If they wanted to carry off the dead tiger, then all 4 of them would have to give up all the berries and drag the heavy tiger back to their camp. The entire tiger biomass was needed to create an NPC and they weren’t going to give up the berries for that.

“I’m going to have such an amazing skin now,” cherished Marla. “ It will make my muscles work better.”

Remi wondered, “so I have to eat many different nutritious things to have better skin.”

“ Let’s trust in Violet everyone,” said Rainbow. “ I hope the tiger meat tastes good!”

Violet smiled at her party members. >

4 hours had passed before they finally arrived back at the camp. Since they were carrying a lot of berries, the running speed back was halved.

All the girls at the camp were ravishing the berries. Even the advance party kept on eating more berries. Violet warn everyone to not overeat them as it could be rather unhealthy but none of them were listening. They cried tears of joy that they will have the most perfect skin ever! Even though all of their bodies were well adapted to survive in the desert, their skins were rough and dry from the tough desert life so they all wanted smooth soft skin. It would be more easily achievable once they discover water to clean their bodies! All that dust and sand wasn’t good for the skin after all.

Once everyone had their fill of berries, none of them could move anymore and needed to rest except for Violet and Stardust.

Luna declared, “ berries will be added to every meal we eat!”

Everyone rejoiced as they will be able to maintain their beautiful skin!

Remi said, “ Since we can defeat the desert tigers. We should move the camp to the berry bushes for unlimited berries. Before we run out of berries.”

Everyone agreed except Violet and Stardust.

( Violet) >

Stardust countered, “ But the giant centipede swarm and the desert apes are still enemies we haven’t beaten yet. Perhaps another expedition to see if you four can handle them will be needed before we migrate to Desert Area 2.”

The rest of the girls were deeply sad and wanted to migrate to the berry bushland. They complained about losing their good skin as the berry supplies weren't going to last long. They eventually accepted that the advance party must overcome those enemies first.

So far, here are the enemies that the advance party can beat. The apex predator of Desert Area 2 which were the desert tigers was unironically the easiest to kill. The poisonous weapons were too powerful. If their foes don't run or hide but take their attacks head-on, they will lose.

***** Desert Area 2 Enemies *****

Desert Tiger - easily defeated

Desert Rat - can defeat

Desert Rabbit - can defeat

Desert Fox - can defeat

Desert Wolves - can defeat

Giant Centipede Swarm - Unknown?

Desert Apes - Unknown?

***** End *****