At the edge of the Eight Greed Kings desert, in the Blacktar Wastes, the entire Golden Aquarius caravan was huddled under the light shield. The emblem of the Golden Aquarius caravan was a golden Aquarius laid on its side, but what poured out from the Aquarius wasn't a stream of water—it was dazzling gold coins.
The Golden Aquarius caravan hailed from the merchants' alliance in the City Alliance. They'd traveled a long way, heading from north to south into the Eight Greed Kings desert. EeDechi felt a bit puzzled inside—what was a caravan doing venturing into the sand-swept desert?
The caravan had made plenty of preparations to cross the Eight Greed Kings desert, packing loads of drinking water and food, all hauled on the backs of over a dozen camels. They'd also hired an adventurer team called Burning Blade, plus a high-level traveling mage.
Burning Blade boasted three orichalcum-level adventurers and two mithril-level adventurers, with one of the orichalcum-level ones being a mage to boot. Burning Blade's fighting strength was top-notch among adventurers—after all, right below the highest adamantite rank came orichalcum.
But even with all that, the Golden Aquarius caravan got beaten back when they faced hordes of mud golems and the raging fury of Sandstorm Stalkers.
After taking heavy casualties and losing their supplies and cargo, the whole group hunkered down in this basin, barely hanging on thanks to a protective light shield conjured up by two high-level mages working together.
The light shield, thin as a soap bubble, trembled shakily, quivering every now and then as if it might shatter at any second. It was smeared with muddy marks, the filthy streaks linking up into several patches. These were the traces left from mud golems slamming into the light shield.
EeDechi gazed up at the mud golems outside the light shield, mulling over how to break out of this mess. The mud golems' fighting power probably wasn't that strong; the only hassle was that battling them might leave her covered head to toe in grimy mud, and then she'd have to bathe and change clothes, which was a real pain.
"Are you the new adventurers?" A burly man with bandages wrapped around his arm came over. Seeing EeDechi frowning in thought, he gave a helpless, bitter smile:
"Mud golems are a bitch to fight—they've got strong magic resistance and high immunity to physical damage. I'm orichalcum-level, and earlier, to protect the caravan, I ended up with a broken arm. Looks like you're pretty stumped too."
EeDechi shrugged, not committing either way, and kept staring at the mud golems rampaging like demons outside the light shield, along with the Sandstorm Stalkers swirling like yellow fog.
"Heh, still acting all cool and collected, but deep down you're probably freaking out, huh? Newbie, the adventurer gig ain't a walk in the park." A flippant, mocking voice rang out from the nearby crate.
This time, the speaker was a young archer perched on the crate, his right eye bound with gauze, and the metal badge on his chest marking him as an orichalcum-level adventurer.
He'd been hit by a Sandstorm Stalker before, and if the healing hadn't come in time, his eye would've been toast, so now he was seething with grudge. Spotting EeDechi and her crew stuck in the same bind, he couldn't resist rubbing it in with some schadenfreude.
"Brent, quit grinning like a fool. Once Quincy the mage's mana runs dry and the light shield shatters, we're all goners." A girl clutching a longsword sighed. She squatted by the crate, her face etched with hopeless gloom, like a death row inmate waiting for the blade to drop.
"I couldn't care less—I've savored every pleasure, played every game." The young guy named Brent wore a look like he was beyond giving a damn, smirking with clear malice: "Unlike that loser Tate, still a virgin. Shana, you're still a virgin, aren't you?"
Franco latched onto that keyword and zipped over to the girl squatting against the crate. He cupped her chin with one hand, his face all mock sorrow: "Such a beautiful and tough lady—if you die still untouched, that's a real tragedy. Mind if I lend a hand to fix that little regret?"
EeDechi booted him away with a flying kick: "Your head's full of pervy crap—get ready to fight."
"How're you planning to take them on?" Barrett asked with concern. "There's a ton of 'em."
"I can handle it solo. Worst case, I just scrub off extra mud in the bath." EeDechi cinched up the giant sword strapped to her back, pulled out the Constructs Storage Box from her spatial ring, and grinned at Barrett: "Besides, I've got this bad boy."
A brown magic flying carpet drifted lazily, ferrying EeDechi out through the light shield.
Brent the archer lounged on the crate, kicking his legs back and forth. He narrowed his unbandaged eye, peering up at EeDechi: "You really think you've got what it takes? Can't wait to see how you bite the dust."
Barrett couldn't stand the guy's flippant vibe: "Tsk tsk, no clue how a sleaze like you climbed to orichalcum-level. If you were on my team, I'd have tossed you as bait to a manticore ages ago."
"Shut your trap, you puny mithril." Brent looked down from his perch, eyeing the mithril metal badge on Barrett's chest with a sneer curling his lips. "You seem more experienced than me, but you're still stuck at mithril—bet you only kill goblins and kobolds, huh?"
"Wanna throw down?" Barrett shot back with a cold laugh. "I guarantee your other eye will need bandaging too."
"Bring it." Brent yanked off the bow from his back, dug an iron knuckle duster out of his spatial leather bag and slipped it on. "I'll show you right now why you're mithril and I'm orichalcum."
Brawls and squabbles among adventurers were as common as dirt. Brent hopped off the crate, his lanky arm swinging straight at Barrett with a decent boxing stance. Barrett shifted his feet slightly, dodging the punch to the side, then countered with a heavy haymaker right to Brent's gut.
Brent's face twisted in agony, and he stumbled back a couple steps, footing all messed up. Barrett pressed forward, landing a fierce straight punch square on Brent's unbandaged eye.
With a loud thud, Brent hit the ground flat on his back. The socket where he got hit was already turning black and blue, eyelid swollen huge, squishing his eye into a thin slit.
In the moment Brent went down, his gaze peeked through the puffy eyelid crack and caught sight outside the light shield: EeDechi slicing a mud golem's body clean in two with one swing.
Barrett nodded in satisfaction.
...
A mud golem charged at EeDechi, but she swung her sword up, chopping both its legs off neat and even. More mud golems rushed her, their thick legs thundering like elephants on the run, shaking the ground non-stop.
EeDechi glanced at the mud scraped onto her sword and frowned. After a quick think, she grabbed the Constructs Storage Box and summoned a stone golem.
The towering stone giant dropped from the sky, stomping two deep footprints into the earth, then clenched its elephant-sized stone fist and slammed it into the chest of the nearest mud golem to EeDechi.
A massive dent caved in the mud golem's chest, and it wobbled around like a drunk. The stone golem swung its long arm, adding two more heavy punches, and the mud golem crumbled instantly into a pile of half-dry, half-wet sludge.