Epic of Caterpillar

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An elf with red hair suddenly greeted us! She was also wearing a very nasty maid outfit, and she seemed to be confused about where she was, even now. However, the moment she looked at me, she quickly realized who I was.

"Wait… Right! Kireina?!" She asked.

"Fiere!" I said in surprise.

She was the loyal maid of Elfina, Fiere. Although rather unwillingly, she ended turning into one of our companions as we traveled across the world with everyone else. She was always stuck to Elfina, so seeing her without her was shocking.

"Wait, where's Elfina?!"

"Wait, where's Elfina?!"

The two of us ended asking the same thing at the same time.

"Huh? Didn't you find her?!"

"Huh? Didn't you find her?!"

And then, we ended talking at the same time once more.

Ariant, Eriant, and their grandmother were looking at the two of us acting like clowns while feeling slightly surprised. I guess I had really given out a strong impression, so when they saw me acting all goofy they really got a bit surprised.

"Okay, okay, let's calm down." I said, sighing a bit. "Fiere do you remember anything?"

"Ah… no…" Fiere sighed.

"Actually." The grandmother of the twins interrupted us. "Just before she saw you, little girl, she didn't seem to have any memory!"

"What?! So you lost your memories?" I asked.

"I did?! I… Well, I remember everything now. I guess I just needed to look at someone I knew." Sighed Fiere.

Wow… What if she had never meet us again? Would she had lived an entire life here with this people and completely forget about everything else? It would had been one hell of a spin-off.

"Ah, well… I guess we can relax a bit and talk this over." I sighed. "But in resume, after the Desert King attacked us, we were swallowed by a Sandstorm and we ended getting separated. I've contacted Sol and Luminous so far using [Fartalk], Luminous is coming here in a few hours, Sol is… somewhere, inside a dungeon I think, and he hasn't answered me today… And Elfina? I have no idea." I sighed.

"Lady Elfina…" Fiere sighed, looking all sorrowful. "Ah… I can't believe we ended facing such a powerful monster in our way into the Ankh Desert, it was truly unexpected."

"Desert Kings are tricky monsters." Said Ariant.

"However, we can easily spot where's one from afar." Said Eriant.

"I guess you were not able to do that because you're outsiders from the Fertile Lands. In the Ankh Desert, you either learn how to survive or die." Sighed their grandmother.

"You can spot that thing?!" Asked Fiere.

"Isn't it super stealthy though? And it appeared out of nowhere…" I said.

"Yeah, you can… you see, Desert Kings always have a special Gravity Domain around their territories. Whenever something gets closer, like a net, they pull it closer to swallow it." The Grandmother Desert Elf said. "However, usually, their abdomen is resting over the sand, so you can see it from the distance, they have slowly changed so their abdomen looks like a big rock though."

"Eh? A big rock…" I said, quickly remembering that before we were attacked, there was indeed a very big rock.

"Ah… There was indeed a big rock there. God damn it, did we really got fucked over by this?!" I cried, feeling completely dispirited.

"Oh my, aren't you too young to go swearing like that?" The grandmother desert elf said.

"I am actually quite old…" I sighed. "I am… well, can't your twins tell you?"

"Sure, let's all talk together in dinner then! I've got some meat and bread saved…" Said the old yet young-looking lady. "And due to this celebratory day, we can even use the wine I got saved as well!"

"But grandmother, that's…!" Ariant said.

"Shouldn't you be saving that food?!" Asked Eriant.

"No, no, we got guests here. And we wont a big battle as well, let's celebrate." Said the lady. She was very gentle-hearted and her smile was honestly soothing to our hearts.

"Thanks."

I had the food to give, but I also kind of wanted to receive her gratitude and eat the small food she had to offer. This was like her own gift in a way, a way to show us her heart. Even when they're starving themselves, they're nice enough to offer a guest some food.

The meat was dried "Desert Hog" meat that they had hunted some time ago, and the bread was made out of seeds of a plant named "Duranze" which grows in the desert and has big and fat seeds which they turn into powder, add water, and turn into a very hard bread.

The wine was actually quite tasty and good as well, I guess this was the food of the people of the desert…

"I see, so you were summoned by this girl… Elfina, right?" Arianne said. She was the grandmother, her name Arianne. "And you defeated various Demon Lords, and you're on your way to the… Demon King?! You're insane?!"

"We are not… We are quite confident we are going to beat his ass." I said pridefully. "Of course, we might need to level up a bit more. After all, I want to kill some Desert Kings first to see how strong I've grown. I suppose that would be a nice telling if I can defeat him as I am now."

"I see… You're completely insane." Said Arianne.

"Please take us seriously, we got the means to do what we want to do, when we are a group, we are very strong. Also all Demon Lords are A Rank in power if not higher, Kireina has been defeating them when she was even weaker. Her powers are able to surpass even Ranks." Said Fiere. "That Desert King merely… caught us off guard."

"Huh…" Arianne seemed very skeptic. But her twins quickly told her about what I had done and everything else, alongside telling her that the army of monsters outside was all mine.

"Y-You are our savior?! S-Sorry for my rudeness!" She quickly apologized.

Well, she really changed quickly, huh…

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