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The cries of the people at the front of the carriage were quickly succeeded by the sounds of wood shattering, metal clanking over metal, and growls of some large animals.

“You take the left?” I asked, and Danyar nodded.

“Be careful. Don’t use that skill in this crowd,” he said, before hopping off the cart.

Summoning the train could be a good last-minute solution, but it will scare the people even more.

The sound of a horn suddenly pierced the chaos. It flew over me, and the cart gently toppled back, as if hearing the sound too. The air dried, and the temperature rose by several degrees. I could feel the scorching grains of sand hit my legs and face as they got picked up by a sudden wind.

Visibility dropped, as sand stood in the air like a fine mist, but the sounds of battle and the animalistic groans only kept approaching.

I heard people yell something about the Demon King, and I readied myself to face his army as I wondered if Danyar would be okay.

A leopard leapt out of the mist. Except, it wasn’t quite a leopard. It was similar in size to its animal counterpart, but its legs were covered in scales and ended with yellow, lizard-like claws. Its spots were shades of orange, and its snout was long and narrow, like that of a greyhound. Small spikes grew from its forehead all the way down to its scaly tail.

It sniffed the air. Finding nothing of interest in the cart, it snapped its head towards me.

Thick, purple saliva foamed at its mouth, and pus ran down its long face from the base of its spikes.

It slowly circled around me, and just as I was about to punch it away, into the dunes, four more similar creatures emerged from the sandstorm. Their movements were eerily similar, identical even, as I realised when they leapt at me at the exact same time.

I jumped forth, grabbing the closest one by the skin of its neck, and swinging it to shield myself from the other three. I smashed it into the ground.

<Creature slain: blighted desert hound.>

< EXP: +250.>

< Split EXP? >

<Creature slain: blighted desert hound.>

<Creature slain: blighted desert hound.>

< EXP: +500.>

< Split EXP? >

By the looks of it, Danayr was facing those creatures as well.

I didn’t have time to deal with this now, as two of the three remaining hounds got up and started circling me again. The third jerked up, but I must have injured it too much with the impact, so it only spun its head, following the movement of the other two, but unable to fully replicate it, and spat fizzing purple bubbles onto the sand.

I quickly punched down one of the hounds before kicking the other away, into the sandstorm.

Three more notifications appeared and vanished.

When I spun around, trying to regain my bearings in this sandy mess, I realised that the cart behind me was not Alvos’s. The Caravan was still moving forth, despite everything, and a few others had gotten down from their carts to fight these monsters. I could barely make out the silhouettes of the other fighters, with only brief gushes of wind or flashes of cast spells illuminating their positions. All the animals pulling the carts seemed to be in a trance. They ignored the shouts and the beasts running in between their legs.

I had fully lost track of Danyar in the commotion as well. I knew he was still fighting though, as notifications of his defeats of those hounds appeared before me.

I ran forward, following the direction of the carts' flow. The air had become heavy, hot, and difficult to breathe. Each breath that I did manage to swallow tasted faintly of fresh paint.

Now is a good time to put talent points into constitution!

A vertical pole landed before me. It was covered in purple bulbs and was oozing that pus that I now attributed to blighted creatures. I gasped as I followed it upwards with my eyes and realised it was the leg of some giant, deformed, ant-like creature, partially concealed by the sandstorm.

Without hesitation, I sliced through its leg with the side of my palm.

A screech came from above. The sand suspended in the air seemed to absorb the sound, making it feel much further than it really was.

Perhaps the sandstorm was why, even despite my perception, I failed to notice just how fast the creature collapsed to the ground.

I yelled when it crushed me down, into the sand.

There was darkness.

The distant sound of people screaming. Of fighting.

“There! I’ve got you, stay - Oh, it’s you, Chiyo!”

It took me a second to regain my composure. I crawled up on my knees and spat out the sand mixed in with purple goo. I didn’t even want to think about what that thing had been made of.

When I raised my eyes, they widened in surprise. With one arm extended for me to grab, one on her hip, and two holding a heavy bow, Medina was grinning down at me.

“It’s you,” I exclaimed, pulling myself up with her help. “Medina! What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

“Well, I should be asking you what you -”

Two hounds leapt at her side by side from behind.

I grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her to the side and kicking down both hounds in a smooth kick that surprised even myself.

“Oh, we’re dancing then?” Medina grinned.

She raised her bow up into the sky. An arrow made of flames appeared in it, and she let go of the bowstring, sending it somewhere into the storm. A cry eerily similar to that of the giant long-legged ant that’d fallen over me came from the distance.

“Cover me,” She tugged on my shorts, pulling me next to her.

I punched down several more hounds, and she kept shooting into the sky. It seemed that with every wave of the blighted beasts attacking us, we were getting further and further away from the Caravan. But every time we tried to run back towards it, more of the hounds would appear and block the path.

I wasn’t keeping track in the moment, but I was pretty sure I’d leveled up twice just from the sheer number of hounds I’d taken down.

Medina and I leaned onto each other, back to back, as we both caught our breath.

“Are you a demon kin?”

“No, I’m a sentient mushroom, but I see how you made that mistake,” Medina joked in reply.

I pulled away and put a hand on her shoulder, grabbing her attention. She put a hand over mine, still catching her breath and not looking up.

“Are you sent by the Demon King? Everyone keeps saying that he’s the one who’s sending these monsters after us.”

Medina snapped her head up. The motion clearly caused her vision to go black, as she swayed from side to side for a few seconds.

The expression on her face hardened as she replied:

“Aquinas does no such thing. You shouldn’t believe those stupid rumours, Chiyo. Just think about it, it’s all in the -”

A growl cut her off.

A hound, at least three times the size of those we’d thought earlier, slowly walked towards us from the sand storm. The spikes growing along its body were almost as long as its legs, further elevating its height. They were a murky white, matching its eyes.

Medina shot it down before it could attempt anything.

“Now we’re even,” She nodded at me.

“Wait -”

She spun around and ran towards the Caravan. I was only able to follow her thanks to the bursts of fire created by her attacks. But there were always more hounds. So many of those monsters already lay dead on the ground, but more were always coming from the front of the Caravan.

A group of them sniffed out one of the food carts and leapt onto its roof.

“Pardon me,” I yelled, giving a heads up to the carts’ owners before jumping onto its roof myself and punching away the blighted beasts.

Someone called for help a few carts ahead, and I rushed there, kicking and punching my way through the small groups of monsters.

Before I knew it, the Caravan had left me behind.

Did the fight really go on for that long?

A giant wite-spiked hound ran at me, maw agape and ready to bite down my neck.

< Creature slain: blighted elder desert hound.>

< EXP: +350.>

< Share EXP?>

Or did the Caravan split up and stop?

That horn sound resonated through and around me again. More sand grains rose up, and the air became almost unbearably hot. I could feel it burn down my lungs, without doing any actual damage.

A soft weep came from above me, and I dodged out of the way of a bulb-covered leg. With the sand storm intensifying, it was impossible to see even the torso of that ant thing now, but what I did see was a flaming arrow piercing right at it.

“You seem to come around here often,” I yelled to Medina, who was no doubt somewhere nearby.

“I could say the same about you,” She popped out of the sand to my left, not quite where I’d expected her to be based on the trajectory of the shot. “Listen, you should really go; it’s getting dangerous.

“I can’t leave you here then!” I argued.

< Creature slain: blighted desert hound.>

Danyar was hopefully still next to the Caravan, and it wasn’t like I could find my way back now, without a row of carts to mark the way.

Medina smirked.

“What are you and your gauntlets gonna go against an elder mere-fourmillere, ei? Do you have any ranged spells?”

“I don’t! But I’m sure there’s something! Maybe I could scale its legs?”

“That’s a nice thought, darling -”

A sword pierced Medina’s chest.

Both she and I froze in disbelief.

Her eyes darted down as she tried to push herself off the blade. I reached for a healing potion, but the only thing that came out of my pocket was a bunch of broken glass covered in sticky goo and sprinkled with my own blood.

I ran towards her, but suddenly the two meters separating us became an endless wasteland, and by the time I reached her, she collapsed to the ground as a man in partial plate armour pulled back his sword.

“Are you alright? Did it hurt you?” he asked, with genuine concern in his tone.

I wasn’t listening. I fell to the ground and tried to stop the bleeding.

“Wait, are you one of them? Are you -”

I raised my hand in reflex, and his sword slinked against my gauntlet. Without meeting his eyes, I pushed myself upright and crushed his greatsword in my fist.

Then, I turned towards him. I tried to find the words, but nothing, not even insults, would come out.

He took a step back. I dashed forth and punched him in the stomach before he could run away. He fell down, grabbing his guts.

I considered knocking him out, but leaving him unconscious would mean certain death in this desert.

That cursed horn sounded again, but this time the sandstorm started settling down.

Alvos is a healer! He can help her!

I grabbed Medina, struggling to carry her. She was both too tall and had too many limbs to comfortably fit in my arms, and I tripped over my own feet and collapsed to the ground.

The Caravan was just in sight!

And I have more potions on my train!

“Medina, Medina, can you hear me?” I called out just as my train materialised. “I’ll - I’ll …”

She wasn’t replying.

---

I got to Alvos’s cart to find a bloodied Danyar waiting for me. Amandine was wrapping a bandage around a deep cut on his shoulder. He had bite marks on his arms, a black eye, and a deep cut on his left cheek, in addition to many small scratches and bruises from the fight.

When he saw me approach, he jumped off the cart’s front seat and rushed towards me.

“What happened?” He asked, grabbing me by the shoulders.

All I had the strength to do was collapse into his chest.

His heartbeat was regular, and for the briefest of moments, it drowned out the ambient ongoing chaos.

“Here,” I shoved a healing potion into his hand. Or I tried to at least. I missed twice, before he himself took it from me, repeating his question. “I need to talk to Alvos, sorry,” I replied instead of an explanation.

I wiped my eyes and stumbled towards the cart of one of the few people who’d shown me kindness in this world.