After using some dead desert ape biomass to revive Lily and restore kid Stardust to his adult form. The camp was still littered with 76 dead desert apes. All of them were poisoned so they wouldn’t be edible anymore. But Stardust could still use that biomass to create more NPCs. All the girls in the party were greatly excited about having a new member! They all hoped that she will become beneficial to the party.

Stardust approached a dead pile of desert apes. Female clothes were added to the pile. He placed his hand on it. “ Create NPC!”

***** NPC 9 Scarlett *****

Base Attribute: Desert Ape ( Average base stat given)

Stats:

- Physical Power: 170

- Physical Speed: 170

- Physical Defense: 170

- Magical Power: 0

- Magical Speed: 0

- Magical Defense: 20

Resistances:

- Heat Resistance LVL 5

Skills: none

Karma: -75 ( Very Evil)

Loyalty: -95%

***** End *****

> ( Stardust)

All eyes were beaming onto the beautiful girl before them.

Lily smiled at her husband, “ is she loyal to you?”

Everyone turned to look at Stardust with eyes of curiosity. Scarlett quickly realized her existence and what was happening. She quickly spoke to take over the conversation and to avoid being found out by the party. “ Of course I am! Why wouldn’t I be!”

“ Yep, she has a positive loyalty factor towards me,” lied Stardust.

( Lily) >

They all gave their welcome to the new girl. First, they gave her food to eat in which she delightfully chowed down on. Then all the girls were asking her about what she wanted to do.

Marla asked, “ aren’t you going to create more NPCs? We still have a lot of dead ape biomass here. We can quickly expand and grow our power!”

Stardust was quite hesitant as creating more NPCs could bring more problems instead of alleviating their power. It was much easier to conquer one problem girl at a time before multiplying your troubles if he created many more. Also, it takes resources and time to train an NPC to become stronger. Marla was the only one with the full plated bone armor because all the collected bones were spent on her as she was the strongest. So allocating their resources across many NPCs wasn’t the best idea. As one strong NPC could take down five weaker NPCs.

A bigger group would require more resources to function and the girls were quite wasteful in using animal pelts to wipe their ass. If they kept adding more members, they would need to become more nomadic and hunt down even more animals, skin more animals into pelt, just to wipe their asses clean. They would waste more time traveling, instead of setting down for a while to properly train up their skills. But adding 3 or 4 more NPCs wouldn’t hurt the current group.

It wasn’t like there was a need to create more NPCs anyways. Marla was quickly becoming formidable and unstoppable in Desert Area 2. Just her alone is enough to overpower any enemies in Desert Area 2. The deadly wind-mage from earlier was an exception. Since then Marla swore to train even harder to raise her strength and speed so she could easily dodge his attacks and strike him down.

“ I won’t. We need to focus on increasing our power and escaping this shitty desert. I don’t want to raise more NPCs in these shitty conditions either. A smaller group would be much easier to manage as resources aren’t plentiful enough for a large group,” explained Stardust.

“ That’s true!” said Marla. “ But what if we have several more girls just like me? Wouldn’t we become a super strong group?”

Violet agreed, “ we still have plenty more resources to care for another 3 or 4 NPCs. This new area has more food so it shouldn’t be a problem. Unless…”

“It’s not that he doesn’t want to,” grinned Scarlett with a sinister face. “ It’s probably because of me.”

Everyone became alert at Scarlett’s dangerous threat. All the girls separated from Scarlett with the offensive NPCs surrounding her. Lily went in front of her husband while pointing a poisonous bone dagger at her. “ My husband! We should kill this trash and you should re-roll better NPCs.”

“ None of us would hold it against you master Stardust,” agreed Remi. “ All traitors will be killed without mercy.”

The rest of the girls had mixed stances about it. They wanted to give Scarlett a chance to prove herself but if she was truly that dangerous and couldn’t be reformed like Lily. They would be okay with Stardust killing her off as well.

“ No!” exclaimed Rainbow. “ Scarlett was only created ten minutes ago. Why would you want to do such a terrible thing! We need to give her a chance to live!”

Stardust walked over to Scarlett while stopping the girls from attacking her. “ I have no intentions of ever getting rid of any of my NPCs. All of my randomized NPCs are precious to me. Even if they have negative karma and loyalty, I wouldn’t abandon them.”

“ Why is master Stardust such an irrational person,” sighed Violet. She knew it was pointless to stop his idiocy and silently accepted his decision in her heart as Stardust didn’t guide them to doom yet.

“ You hear that everyone?” laughed Scarlett. “ I will be allowed to live in this group. Please treat me well!”

“ What are your intentions!” demanded Lily.

“ My intentions are simple. I want to destroy and break everything. Chaos should reign supreme. My goal in this party is to successfully dismantle it entirely. By the end of everything, all of you will have died by my hands,” grinned Scarlett with delight.

This Scarlett girl was worse than Lily. Even though Lily would not hesitate to get rid of girls that wanted to love Stardust. Scarlett would go even further and have all of them killed for no reason. All the girls were now displaying animosity towards Scarlett and wanted her dead except for Rainbow. Rainbow was too much of a saint to allow Scarlett to die without committing any crimes first.

“ YOU FUCKING BITCH! IM GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU RIGHT NOW!” screamed Lily as she charged forward. Stardust stopped Lily from stabbing Scarlett. “ MY HUSBAND THIS BITCH DOESN’T DESERVE TO LIVE ANYMORE!”

“ Please hear me out Lily,” pleaded Stardust.

Lily tossed away her poisonous dagger and hugged Stardust tightly. “ Okay, I will!” Her rage was instantly quelled by her loving husband. But she still gave Scarlett some harsh glares that she would secretly end her life without Stardust being able to hate or fault her.

“ Scarlett now that I understand your intentions. I want you to destroy our enemies instead and not our allies. If you help us earnestly, you will be able to grow much more powerful and destroy even more powerful enemies. We may even grow so powerful that we could topple down powerful nations.”

“ That’s not a bad tradeoff!” beamed Scarlett. “ If that is true then… I will support everyone and help our group reach new heights!”

Everyone reluctantly accepted Stardust’s decision and although there was a mini-celebration. Only Stardust and Rainbow paid any attention to Scarlett. No more NPCs were created as the girls all fear that the next NPCs could become a terrible calamity like Scarlett.

( Scarlett) >

( Lily) >

Rainbow was the only girl willing to get along with Scarlett. She showed her around the camp and explained many things to her. Because Rainbow had many level one skills, she could freely teach Scarlett anything as the other girls didn’t want to train her.

Stardust walked towards Lily and whispered, “ I know you didn’t mean to but you promised me that you wouldn’t call them bitches anymore right?”

“ I’m sorry! I only meant that for your NPCs that are loyal and grateful towards you. But I won’t ever use such a foul word again. It would only dwindle my beauty,” replied Lily.

Stardust nodded. He placed Lily on his back as they collected some berries for everyone to eat.

The rest of the girls reluctantly accepted Stardust’s decisions once again. But Luna was extremely worried about it. Marla assured her, “ don’t worry Luna. I will be able to protect everyone from the dangers of Scarlett.”

The rotting smell of the desert apes was quickly becoming unbearable. It was starting to attract other desert carnivores and scavengers to the area. It was time to leave this rotten battle-torn area. Luna and Queen were struggling the hardest to not vomit from this overwhelming hot stench of rotting desert apes.

Violet wondered, “ I realized there weren’t any carnivores in the berry bushland, are the berry bushes somehow repelling them with their scent? And could we somehow utilized that to our advantage?”

Everyone was amazed at Violet’s potential discovery. It would create a potential safe zone for them if they moved to an area without berry bushes by planting them.

They gathered up as many resources as they can before heading off to a new cleaner area. Scarlett happily helped as she carried as many berries as she could. Although the party is now 9 members strong. Scarlett was adding unnecessary stress and tension to the party. They recently suffered a deadly battle with Alabaster and now they couldn’t relax with Scarlett around.

The group traveled for a few hours before settling upon a different area of the berry bushland. Then, they set up tents. A 3rd tent was made for Scarlett and Rainbow.

Lily used to be a mean girl towards every girl in the party. But since the Alabaster incident and her new goal of eradicating all humans. She needed the abilities of her husband’s NPCs to help her. They were now seen as her husband’s precious pawn pieces. Lily was going to polish them well so they could be effectively used.

Many small lizards and poisonous scorpions were roaming around. But they weren’t a threat to the party. They were easily killed by Marla’s bone sword or by Remi’s poisonous needle shots. While the berry bushes repelled the bigger carnivores away, these small critters weren’t affected. The large rabbits were still as plentiful as before, peacefully eating the berries.

Luna, Queen, and Violet were walking together to forage the new desert plants in the area. They were still close to the camp so they could easily retreat if danger approaches them.

They had already collected three types of grass in Desert Area 1 that Luna named, Tasty Grass as it could improve the flavor and aroma of the meat. String Grass which the long fibers twisted together could make a mini rope. And Rope Grass that Violet discovered its fibers were much stronger and flexible. It improved upon her bow and everything else that needed a rope to tie things together with.

Luna was crouching on the ground while examining the various plants found in Desert Area 2. She hoped that these new plants weren’t poisonous and that she may accidentally kill herself. Luna picked up the purple grassy-looking plant, examining it, before putting it into her bag. She was going to have Lily taste test all of these new plants and find out if there was another usage for the plant. The four new plants that they collected were a purple plant, yellow plant, blue plant, and red plant. No official names were given to them other than their color.

Queen was beside Luna gathering up these new plants. She wanted to crush up these new plants and mixed them with rabbit blood to create some ink. Then she was going to draw a map on a big animal pelt. A map of the explored areas would be nice to have.

Violet was here to protect them with her bow as well as to studied the new plants. She wanted to find more usage for these plants other than eating them. Because she required high accuracy and precision when shooting arrows afar, she gained the [ Hawk Eye LVL 1] skill.

After thirty minutes of collecting the four different plants, they began walking to the camp.

Queen asked, “ Violet isn’t there a way to convince Stardust to get rid of Scarlett?”

“ Probably not unless…”

“ unless?”

“ You don’t have any skills right Queen?”

“ I don’t… manual labor is beneath me.”

“ Then are you willing to die so we can frame Scarlett for murdering you? You don’t risk losing skills from dying so you would be the perfect girl for the role. Don’t worry we can revive you afterward. Stardust will finally understand to not let a girl like Scarlett live,” said Violet.

“ No…”

“ But Violet,” interjected Luna. “ Isn’t that lying to everyone? What if the plan fails and Stardust found out we schemed against her?”

“ True,” agreed Violet. “ It’s my answer for Queen for the best and quickest way of getting rid of Scarlett. If it succeeds, we wouldn’t have to worry about Scarlett anymore. Even if we fail, we will all take responsibility together and there is no way for Stardust to get rid of multiple girls. Scarlett is a double-edged sword to the party. For now, we should keep our guard up against her because I’m sure she will betray us one day.”

Luna and Queen nodded in fear.

“ Don’t worry, Remi will watch her during the night. And the rest of us can watch her during the day,” added Violet.

They got back to the camp.

Luna skewered the new plants she collected and roasted them over the fire. Both raw and cooked versions of the plants will be tested. She was going to have Lily taste-test these to find out if they were poisonous or edible but she refused. Lily wasn’t going to risk dying because she didn’t want a chance of losing her only god skill. So Queen had to taste test the new plants. Only the cooked red plant tasted decent while the rest tasted horrible. The purple plant gave Queen food poisoning and Stardust had to heal her.

Queen ground up one of the plants in a bone bowl. The bowl was an animal skull with its hole sealed up. Although she could use rabbit blood itself as an ink to write with, she wanted a better and darker ink to write with. After it was mashed up to the best of her ability, she mixed in rabbit blood and experimented with the new ink she had created. The best ink so far was to ground up all the four different plants together mixed with rabbit blood to produce a very dark brown color ink. A narrow bone piece was used to dip the ink and write with on the animal pelt. She was very satisfied with her result.

Queen was able to draw a crude map of all the explored areas that they have been in. She remembered everything perfectly because she despised manual labor and refuses to do them. In other words, she sat around the camp all day doing mostly nothing. Which gave her an incredible amount of free time to think about things. Any mental work was easily handled by her. She was also trying to inventory their resources and allocate them effectively. Any resource wastage would be caught by Queen. Over-hunting animals would only cause them to lose food faster due to rot if they don’t eat them in time.

Despite Queen making a crude map, she did not get the map-making skill because map-making is beneath her. And she would have to create more maps with better details to get the skill. It could happen because none of the barbarians in her party were civilized enough to make a map. If an NPC was created that can make a map, Queen would give up trying to make the map and let them handle it instead.

Everyone was happy with the results that Luna and Queen brought to the party. The supporting NPCs weren’t all that useless!

The only useless drain on the party so far was still Lily. She wanted to prove her worth soon as she doesn’t want Stardust to think of her as a hindrance.

It was the first night since the creation of Scarlett. The rest of the party were sleeping in their tents while Remi kept watch.

Tent 1

- Stardust

- Lily

- Violet

Tent 2

- Marla

- Luna

- Queen

Tent 3

- Rainbow

- Scarlett

Night Watch

- Remi

Lily woke up in the middle of the night. She broke free from Stardust’s loving embrace, careful to not wake him up. She peeked out of the tent and walked out. She was walking towards Scarlett’s tent. Lily was planning to use [ Evil God’s Happiness LVL 1] on Scarlett without anyone finding out that she did it.

Remi was busy carving out another bone dagger by the dimly lit fire. “ What are you doing Lily?”

“ Oh don’t worry about me! I just need to take a number 1.” Lily walked towards the berry bush.

“... I will come with you. There are still poisonous scorpions running around. I have been killing all of them when they got close to the tents. Since you’re master Stardust’s wife, I shouldn’t allow you to suffer in the unsuspecting darkness.”

“ Alright then, but I won’t stray too far from the camp,” replied Lily. >

Lily and Remi walked together behind a bush for Lily to do her business. Yet Remi not once had taken her eyes off Lily while carefully watching over the camp. Lily walked back to the tent and waited ten more minutes before coming out again.

“ Sorry Remi I need to take a number one again. You don’t have to follow me this time,” said Lily.

“ Don’t be,” said Remi. “ You’re master Stardust’s precious wife so how could I not protect you?”

Lily once again went to the same bush and pretended to do her business and Remi was carefully watching her from the distance. Lily noticed a poisonous scorpion was heading her way in the darkness yet she didn’t even move away from it. A needle was shot out and pierced the head of the scorpion from the darkness, Remi was quick to defend her. After pretending to finish her business, Lily went back inside her tent.

Lily repeated this five more times with ten minutes in between. Without fail, Remi would keep stalking Lily every time she left her tent! Her plan to use [ Evil God’s Happiness LVL 1] on Scarlett secretly was being thwarted off by Remi.

( Remi) >

Lily got out of her tent for the 7th time. Remi returned to stalking her once more. As Lily was approached Scarlett’s tent. Remi asked her, “ if you’re thinking of murdering Scarlett. You can forget it. Even though I don’t like her myself, I will follow Stardust’s decision and stop you from doing so.”

“ I won’t kill her,” replied Lily. “ Go and make more bone daggers. I just want to talk with her.”

Remi ignored her request, and together they went inside Scarlett’s tent.

Inside the dark tent, Scarlett was wide awake and sat there pointing a poisonous dagger at them. “ I see… so the party decided to kill me off.”

Lily said, “ no way! My husband wants you to work with us. There is no way we would do such a terrible thing. I want to be good friends with you!”

“ Get out,” warned Scarlett. “ I especially don’t want you coming closer to me.” She placed the poisonous dagger against the neck of the sleeping Rainbow. “ Or else I will kill this girl.”

Remi prepared her poisonous needles, ready to kill Scarlett if she does indeed kills rainbow.

“ Scarlett don’t do it,” pleaded Lily with innocent eyes. “ Okay let’s try talking tomorrow then.” Lily left her tent. >

Remi soon left after Lily. She was going to report this to master Stardust.