What a super lengthy conversation, just to ask:

“Can you go to those same ruins, and be our errand boy in collecting everything you find there?”

He didn’t exactly asked like that, but was what I understood. Suzuki was in ‘A’s’ and ‘U’s’, while I’m holding my temples to not facepalm. What? What explanation? Fine! I’ll say it. Or better, I’ll make a summary. Or a complete version, whatever.

First of all, these guys had an ancient civilization, as I had said before. That civilization, prior to the war between the clans/tribes, was the most advanced(on this world), creating a lot of artifacts(back on time, were artifacts, today, are considered relics).

And, after that war, since the titan sacrificed his life to end the conflict, all those Artifacts, got buried on the sands that we walk by today. Any relics found on the territory of the Dunes, belong ‘TO’ the dunes. Not even the empire can touch it. In fact, Goldguard don’t give a blast about the relics.

Anyway! With the Blood Moon, the amount of monsters appearing, increased, turning impossible for the task of archaeologists to search for the relics. In fact, more than 40% of the archaeologists died on the last stampede, which happened on the same time as we were on the empire.

Thankfully, most high ranked adventurers on the Dunes, helped in fighting the stampede off. And different from the Empire, where most idiots AND low-ranked wanted glory, the ones around here fought in formation, and less than 10 died. WOW!

Unfortunately, the amount of monsters close to the ruins, was still big to go back, and search the ruins. The good news, was that most were mobs, with rarely one or another being super strong. Bad news? Well, as with any mob type of monster, there’s lots of them. Like, a lot.

Goblins, Hobgoblins, Kaze-Goblins, Black-Bulls, Earth & Fire Elementals, Rock Worms, Rock Drakes, Insect-type monsters, Sand-Sharks, Wyverns(we saw some while coming to here), Desert Chimeras & Manticores, and the last 3 biggest and most dangerous threats(it had more?): Goliath, Sand-Whale, and the Desert Titan.

The last one got my attention, but the first 2? What are them?

“The Goliath, is a monster with rock spikes growing on its body. The more it eats, the more strong it gets. It’s one of the many monsters that can evolve in a fast pace. It can breathe fire, charge towards its enemies, jump and cause a fiery wave when landing, while having incredible resilience, and strength.”

“So it’s like a powerhouse?”

“Yes. The Sand-Whale… Well, it’s a worse threat in my opinion.”

“Why?” Suzuki asked, and the Sheikh answered.

“The ‘whale’, is actually a worm too.”

“Then why call it whale?” She asked.

“You seriously asked that?” I said while facepalming. “Cause of its size. Probably ginormous.”

“Yes, it is as he says. No magic can even scratch the surface of its skin. But…”

“Oh, that’s why!”

The attendant and Sheikh had a frown on their faces, while I was laughing. Suzuki got confused, while the girls had that clueless face, and like a light bulb suddenly blinked, they understood too.

“I’m lost. What did you understood?”

“It’s quite simple! The Sheikh, wants to control the Whale. And he can’t do that without one of the relics inside those ruins, can’t you?”

“Yes, it is as you say. But it’s for a good reason.”

“Urgh~! Cut it out, would ya? It’s plain in sight, that you want to use the whale to take your country back from the emperor. Although… Let me ask just out of curiosity: Where’s the territory of this Sand-Whale?”

With a map being brought, the attendant showed where, and I held my temples.

“Shock… Right where we’ll need to pass, huh?”

“Where?”

“We need to go north. And 90% of the territory of this whale IS north. Like it or not, we’ll need to deal with this problem. I would try to kill it, but if it’s too hard to pass through the outer skin, than I guess only nuclear weapons would be able to leave a scratch. Point! A scratch.”

“Are you sure?”

“Dunno. But I bet it’s the closest one I can think of.”

“What is a nuclear weapon?”

“Nah! Ah! No way in hell I’m going to talk about that! That led to a series of wars back on our world!”

“Our world?” The Sheikh asked to me. Did he thought I was an adventurer guiding Suzuki through the sands? HA!

“What? I’m from the other world too, you know.”

And the guy was agape. He did started talking with all respect, and the attendant said sorry and bowed for the bad attitude the knight had towards Lucy, Amara and Kasumi. It already happened, and people keeps saying sorry this or that. Gimme a break.

“Anyway! I’m not saying a word about Nuclear weapons. Besides, I have a bad feeling what they would do on a world full of mana, dunno why.”

“But if we can use that against the-”

“I said NO! Let me give you some of the little bad things that a nuclear weapon can do. Imagine a wasteland, not capable of cultivating any kind crops, any animal, and probably monsters too, wouldn’t be able to live there. AND last but not least! Any human that enters such area, will have some kind of Illness, that CANNOT! Be healed. I bet not even magic would be able to.”

“You sure?” Suzuki asked.

“Uhum. Do you know that some quantities of Radiation can cause cancer right? Well, what cancer does to our cells?”

“It kills. And the more we try to heal, it gets worse.”

“Now, imagine what would happen if someone have cancer, and keep using healing magic?”

“It’ll haste its own death. Damn.”

“You got the gist of it.”

At last, after talking just about the bad things about it, the Sheikh shook his head, and apologized for his insistence. But he still was curious about all of that.

ANYWAY! Next he explained about the Desert Titan.

“The Desert Titan, is a Seraphim Eagle. It is… I think it is bigger than the Sand-Whale. It has 3 pairs of wings, with a distinct Dark-Gray plumage on its back and sides, with a white plumage on its belly area. And in addition to all that, it is the holder of the Pride Sin.” So they knew huh?

“Okay. What we should watch out for? The most.”

“Hmmm… I bet it would be the Eagle, right?”

“Yes, Kenji-Dono. The Desert Titan is a monster with high intelligence, and… has unpredictable behavior. We tried to argue with it, but alas, the monster killed our mounts, and destroyed our wares, saying it does whatever it wants.”

“Pride, huh?”

“With that out of the way. Would you be willing to help us?”

“We don’t have much of a choice, do we? But why do I have the feeling that if we go all together, something bad will hap- Hm?”

“Kenji?” ““Kenji-Sama?””

Out of nowhere, I had a strange feeling. And my left eye, blinked a few times, and showed an image of some jewel. This was that strange jewel key that I got from that thug, way before I got Lucy. Why is… Oh!

I materialized into my hand, and reached to a window.

“Kenji? What happened?”

“Just something strange.”

And as soon as I extended my hand above my head, holding the jewel in my hands, the jewel made a red beam appear, pointing towards somewhere. Specifically, towards north. Are you saying that this key, opens something on those ruins?

“But how did that guy got his hands on this?”

“What is it?”

“Well, some time ago, I faced some bandits on my way to Caerleon town. There, I killed them, and got some kind of jewel/key, and simply stored. Now, however, it guided me towards what appears to be a ruin. Maybe a boss room, with tons of rewards, dunno.”

“Then it belong to us!”

“Well, too bad! I ain’t giving to you.”

The Sheikh said that all high and mighty, when I destroyed his expectations.

“I mean, you won’t be going there, but me.” And he understood. “However!” And his left started twitching. “Let’s make it a deal shall we?”

And we had another long conversation, about ‘proper’ reward. They tried to swindle me, with Platinum coins and all, but I simply rejected such stupid rewards. Other adventurers would be delighted, but not me.

‘But why? If you have that much money, you can buy anything!’ Except, some old relics.

“Well, let’s make it like this: 10% of everything I found there, will be mine. Or better, ours.”

“5%!”

“No deal then! Guess we’ll need to make a giant detour, huh? I can build a nice boat.”

With the Sheikh tossing more and more numbers at me, I started going up. 11% vs 7%, 13% vs 8%, and lastly, 20% vs 9%.

“Enough! 15%! That’s our final offer!”

“Okay. Let’s sign a contract then!”

The 2 brought a contract, and inscribed all of their words, cause they tried to swindle me a lot more on this. Even thinking that I wouldn’t read the contract. In the end, the contract became like this:

According to traditions of the Solari Dunes, I, Sheikh Kaddrad, agree with the B-ranked Adventurer, and Hero from another world, Kenji and Suzuki Mari, with a 15% of whatever is found on the ancient runes of the Solari will belong to them, while the other 85% will belong to the Solari itself. Anything found on site that will be of interest to the 2, will belong to them.

Any violation of this contract, will result into a penalty of several Platinum coins, only to the adventurer Kenji, and its companions.

With our signatures on the end, we finished everything.

“Well! Since we were traveling, we’ll be taking a fair rest for today, sightsee and all of that. For what I can see, you guys seem to have some kind of things that will help to enter the ruins, right?”

“Yes, we do. Although it is incomplete.”

“Why’s that?”

“One of our archaeologists, who is an adventurer as well, has gone there to find other transcriptions about the place. We were lucky to find a working relic, that can communicate in long distances with mana. But…”

“That person didn’t answered after some time.”

“We expect the worse.”

“Alright. That’s helpful. I think. Where is this?”

On the map, the attendant pointed towards northeast to where we were right now. There were ruins with some ancient language, and this person was supposed to send them back.

“How would they send the info back?”

“This relic allows that.”

“I see. Guess tomorrow will be a long day, huh?”

And so, we left those things for tomorrow. Me and the girls would sightsee, and check some nice things.

The dunes were, how do I say it, predictable. The first thing the girls wanted to see, were clothes, of course. Good thing I don’t have to carry things in plain sight. Viva Digi-Storage!

I said they could ask for anything, and they did. Lucy kept looking through collars and bracelets. Kasumi looked through some different clothing, being focused on tight pants, and coats. And of course! Amara was looking through those thin and revealing clothes. Can that be classified as clothes?

She did look through the ‘Normal’ clothes, at least. In the end, only Amara asked for clothes, including the revealing ones. Lucy said that I could make something better, and Kasumi too. Why don’t you just ask for them, geez.

Our sightseeing ended with, you know, food. There were some insects, which we simply ignored, those bulls we fought it before, lizard’s and snake meat, and some vegetables.

The bull meat, was delicious. The texture of the meat changes, depending the way you cook. If you fry(which they did with corn oil), makes the meat tender on the inside, and crunchy outside. If you cook it with cactus sap(yes, it’s edible), the meat gets slightly hard, but once on your mouth? It melts~

Apparently, the cactus sap makes the meat easy to transport, and lasts longer. The last way, you got it, it’s simply roasted on fire with salt and pepper. Although there’s some kind of red sauce with it. Of course, that’s ketchup. Some ‘Hero’ brought that here, I bet.

Nonetheless, the meat was delicious! We also ate the lizards and snake meat too. They came with a full course salad. Cactus, Desert Amaranth, Chia Sage, and Agave flowers. It wasn’t as delicious as the bull meat, but they were a good finish! Kinda chewy, but good enough! I’ll give an 8/10.

Next day, we were back at the castle in a complete different room. It had some papers, a large map, covering every single ruin of the desert, including ones that exploring was suspended due to the amount of monsters. Even one was thought to be a dungeon, since no monsters came out of it, and any that entered wouldn’t come out anymore.

There was a total of 3 ruins that needed to be explored yet. All the others, which were around more than 50 ruins, were explored already, but yet from time to time, some relic was found here and there.

Most of the ruins, the ones with a high mana quantity, did became dungeons, and one of the unexplored ones, was a dungeon as well.

“Okay. So, first things first. This archaeologist, we need to find it, and bring him back if it’s still alive. If not, find their belongings, and bring them back. Is that it?”

“Yes. After that, we can proceed to the 3 ruins unexplored. You don’t need to explore them completely, just go there, and bring anything back will be enough. Also, if you can deal with the reason why there’s so many monsters…”

“Yeah, that’s a good deal. Go there, find a relic to control the Sand-Whale, and then we’re set to the north. Sounds like a plan. Is it here that the archaeologist is?”

I put my finger on the map, and they nodded.

“Alright. We’ll be dividing ourselves into 2 groups then. Suzuki, Amara and Lucy will search through the area on the south of this ruins, and me and Kasumi will be looking through the north side.”

“Why Kasumi will go with you?!” Amara shouted.

“Cause she can be stealthy if we find a lot of enemies. You’ll be going with Suzuki and Lucy, cause Suzuki is only one person, and she can find herself in the middle of too many enemies. As for Lucy, she can scout ahead, and even take the 2 of you out of a pickle.”

“Sounds like a plan. We’ll be going now?”

“Uhum. Let’s set sail then.”

The path towards the ruins was hell. So many monsters, that I seriously asked myself if the Stampede was over, really. We faced some monsters, specifically, the Sand-Sharks, all the goblins, and some Rock Worms.

When we reached the ‘side’ of where we would be separating, each group followed towards their own directions.

“Sheesh, gotta say, I’m starting to get pissed with so many goblins.”

(What a strange thing those did.)

“Gagyaaaaa~”

By the way, the Kaze-Goblins, don’t have relation to wind, but to the word ‘Kamikaze’. Yeah, they had small bombs attached to their hands, and rushed to their targets, exploding when reaching them.

Thankfully, with my weapons at hand, the idiot goblins weren’t that hard to avoid. But it seriously made me just notice my shortcomings. With the amount of monsters appearing, and worse, some of them having a skin more hard then whatever it appeared before, the bullets from Satz and Schicksal killed 4 to 5 in sucession.

Gemetzel shells could kill at least double that, and even more when the Gambler activated. I made some grenades on the run, and fair enough, they helped a lot too. But something really made me angry…

“Gagyaaaaaa~!”

“AW! SHUT! UP!”

So many shocking screams of these things. And most of the monsters were all these stupid Kaze-Goblins. For each 10 monsters, 8 were them, while the other 2 would be a normal Goblin. We did found some other monsters, even some that the attendant didn’t mention: Harpies.

These, Harpies, had a different plumage pattern, and color. Yellow-ish feathers, with some black here and there. The beautiful appearance, but just like the other Harpies we killed from before, strange eyes, and sharp teeth.

“Thank god, there’s no nest to destroy.”

(But their numbers sure are big.)

After so many Goblins, for some variety, the Insect-type monsters appeared. Beetles, ants, fireflies, and even dragonflies. Yeah, fireflies, with the capability of shooting some kind of ball of light, that melted the pillar of the remaining building I was in.

Not only that, but only Gemetzel was able to make a dent on their carapaces. But, you know what made me even more angrier? Their Cores, were all C-Rank… Basically useless.

“I’m gonna have a meltdown…”

(Uhmmm… Hang in there?)

“I’m trying…”

Reaching a bigger building, that looked like a museum or something, we tried prying on the entrance, but no luck. With the amounts of rock and all barring the entrance, I had more luck in searching for another entrance.

On one of the sides, I saw a wooden door. Before reaching it, I turned around, and scanned the building. Turns out this IS a museum, and there’s life signs coming from the basement, and upper floors.

“How this became a ruin?”

When I was reaching the door, the wooden windows on the top floor broke, and some kind of growling came from there. Expecting something reaaaally bad, I jumped backwards, and soon… Skeletons came out?

Scan shown that these skeletons, are actually Earth Elementals. A bit different from the Earth Elemental I was expecting… The monsters had scythe like claws on their arms, and hooves on their feet. Their heads, had a single horn on the middle, and sharp teeth on their mouth.

“How can an Earth Elemental have- UOU!”

They simply jumped towards me, with their scythes sweeping right above where I was before. Kasumi loaded a fireball on one of them, while I discharged a whole clip of Satz, with bullets enhanced by Lightning… Which was basically ineffective.

“Ah, blast this!”

I took Zerstörer, and tossed. The charge glued on the monster’s head, and I pressed the transmitter’s button, killing 2 of these things in one go. Looking to Kasumi, she simply used a shadow, and pulled the ‘bones’ apart from each other. She’s getting good at it.

No cores, unluckily. And the bones became simply sand afterwards. Walking to the door and opening it, I descend a crude staircase.

“Time to do a little research.”

In the end of the staircase, we reach what looks to be a storeroom. It had some old and full of mold boxes, some rusty pieces of metal, on and on. Nothing really THAT interesting, if you compare it to the blood dots on the floor, limbs scattered through the room, and body remains around.

“Looks like I missed the party.”

For the amount of limbs, and body remains, I estimate to be 6 people dead. Cause of death? Monsters with chelicerae. Monsters with chelicerae, able to tear apart a body.

“Hmmm… ants, I bet. Probably those with really big jaws.”

We keep following ahead, with the help of Scan, and soon reached a really large room, spreading ahead of me. What got my attention though, was, well, the cocoons on the floor.

“I gotta a bad feeling about these.”

(What are them?)

“I don’t know. And honestly? I don’t want to get close to them. It give me the chills.”

If you watched an old Alien movie, then you know what I’m talking about. The differences I could point out, were the color of the cocoons, or better word, eggs, on the floor, and 2 small appendages like antennas on the top.

I kept moving forward, reaching the end of the hallway, where a statue of a guy, holding a sword, and the head of a gorgon. Needless, to say, no. This statue wasn’t Perseus, but actually someone else. Some guy that was summoned to this world, and killed a gorgon I’m sure. Hm?

I tilted my head sideways, looking behind the statue. There, a small spider, the size of a cardboard box, was fast on her feet, and rushed to a room on my left. She didn’t came back, and I was there, with a face of an idiot, confused with the situation.

“Oh…”

(Kenji-Sama?)

“I’ve seen enough scary movies, that this! Is the moment when the monster jumps out.”

And oh god, I hate when I’m right. When I turn around, all the eggs pops open, and from inside them, little spiders comes out of them.

“Well, I always wanted to work on pest control. And these are not spiders… They don’t have 8 legs, only 6.”

(I don’t think that’s the thing you should focus now, Kenji-Sama.)

“Eh, fair point.”

With Satz and Schicksal in hands, I unloaded all the bullets I had on these things. Maybe it was a waste, but I had a feeling that approaching these things wasn’t a good idea. And oh boy! I was right. One of these things tried to jump at me, and bite me with their… wait. You know those things I mentioned that looks like antennas? Yeah, those things can break rock like it’s foam.

And they can toss, literally, some kind of blob of acid from those things. After destroying them, I scanned them for good parts, receiving a summary of what they really are.

► Hatchling Spider-Ant ◄

A type of monster, that are born as natural predators.

Due to them being born in great numbers, sometimes, they prey on themselves, breaking open the eggs of their own species, and eating what’s inside.

Also due to them being way too weak, their carapaces are easy to break. With a simple stomp, they’ll die. Their adult counterparts are not like that.

“I don’t like where this is going.”

Some small cores, F-RANK! And I followed the path that the first one of these Spider-Ants took. I walked towards what looks to be a corridor, finding a… sledgehammer on the wall.

“Their carapaces are weak huh?”

I took the sledgehammer, which had a simple look to it. Iron solid head, with a small iron rod holding it. This will work. And when I glance up, and ahead, I see a much bigger version of the Hatchlings I just faced. The size of those children pools you can buy on the market.

Jumping backwards, I avoided the blob of acid, grabbing Gemetzel, and shot at the monster. Poor thing, cause the first shell was the Gambler. Another one of the big ones came running towards me on the ground, and I made the test, smashing the sledgehammer on its face. It killed easily.

“Nice!”

“Gyaaaaaaa~!”

“AAAAAAAH! PUT A SOCK ON IT!”

Killed another Kaze-Goblin, and followed ahead. Searching for this archaeologist.

“Hello~! Mister, Miss archaeologist~! Where ARE YOU~!”

“HeLP be! OOAAAAH~!”

Hearing the pleas of help, I rushed ahead, climbing some stairs, killing more spider-ants, and when I found something, I see paths and blood dots on the floor, like something was reaped apart, and dragged through the corridor.

Another staircase, this time leading to a basement, another corridor, and I started hearing a humming like sound, with some glow on the end of the corridor.

Reaching the end of the corridor, I found a crystal, attached to some kind of stick, and the arm, and remains of a person on the floor. Grabbing the crystal, I infuse some mana on it, and it activates, producing the voice of the Sheikh, and its attendant.

“Please! You got to send the inscriptions!”

“Hey, it’s me. The guy didn’t make it.”

“Oh… Did you find the relic he had?”

He didn’t asked that, did he? “You mean the relic you’re just using?”

“Oh! Right.” How can someone be so stupid? “It should have some inscriptions that weren’t deciphered yet. Can you send them to us?”

“Yeah, I can. Or better, I’ll be getting back there in a bit.”

“No! Send them to us!”

“I can’t. It’s not allowing me to.”

“It needs the signature of the person who was using it. Aaaah… Fine. Get back here, and we can decipher, and found where the relic to control the sand whale is.”

“See you in a bit. Well, I bet that this entire place is full of those Spider-Ants. HAMMER TIME!”

After that, I proceeded through the basement, killing all the monsters with the sledgehammer I found before. And reached the exit, where I found some more monsters, and the place where the 2 groups would reunite to get back to Xerssas.