After running for who knows how long, we eventually reached the deserts of Ignifera. As expected, there was only sand as far as the eye can see. No animals or monsters were roaming about and there was no sight of the unusual plants that these deserts would have. Well, that's assuming nothing is hiding in the sand so I'll need to keep my guard up, just in case. I thought to myself, frowning. At the very least, my reaction timing should be good enough to deal with such troublesome monsters. The combat professor I had always emphasized how important that was so the entire class went through specialized training for it and for a long time at that.

"Just so you know, Stella, the cloaks also have enchantments designed to protect its wearer from attacks. If you're unable to react in time when a monster appears, it'll block the incoming attack with an invisible magical wall," Vin remarked as I looked at him in surprise. "Don't forget that normal travelers use that too. For them, they'll definitely need it to survive, especially if they don't have any combat experience or magic."

"Well, that's reassuring. It makes the situation less stressful, that's for sure," Leo commented with a laugh. "Besides, it would be awkward if I lose a limb or something when we just barely started our journey. It would deal heavy damage to my pride as an adventurer..."

..."we just barely started our journey", huh? Upon hearing that, I couldn't help but feel both excited and nervous. We'll most likely travel around the world and see firsthand what it has to offer. There are so many things out there that I'm sure that this adventure will have lots of exciting moments. ...yet, I can't forget about the current circumstances. With how things are, I'll also probably see it fall apart in front of my own eyes too. ...or perhaps, just like how the Umbral kingdom became completely covered in darkness, it'll be destroyed before I can even reach it. At this rate, will we even be able to—?

All of a sudden, I felt someone's hand on my shoulder, stopping me from continuing that thought. I glanced at the person who did it and saw that it was Leo. He sent me a small sad smile and gently squeezed my shoulder as if silently trying to reassure me. ...guess he's basically trying to say "I understand how you feel but this isn't the time for despair" and "it hurts and it's scary but that's why we have to hurry up", isn't he? With a sigh, I returned the gesture with a smile of my own and quietly thanked him. The blonde pulled his hand away and beamed at me, back to his usual attitude.

Out of curiosity, I decided to check up on the archangel and saw that he was looking down at a map while biting his lip, a frustrated look on his face. ...I guess we're all feeling it, huh? Worried, I walked up to him and once I was close enough, I softly patted him on the back. The blue-haired male jolted and glanced at me in surprise. I nervously grinned at him as I pulled my hand away, mentally cursing myself for not calling out to him first.

Vin averted his eyes elsewhere, his cheeks red from embarrassment. "Seriously, don't catch me off-guard like that. I could've hit you by accident, you know," he grumbled out. "Honestly, give me a warning next time..."

"Heh, this is my first time seeing Vin acting like this~," Leo remarked as he walked towards us, grinning mischievously. "It almost makes me want to get a camera out and take a picture~."

Without hesitation, he turned to look at the angel and glared at him, his previous expression completely gone. "Do that and I'll kill you," Vin threatened, clearly radiating off murderous intent.

He immediately stopped and hurriedly waved his hands back and forth in front of him. "I-I was just kidding! There's no need to take it so seriously!" the male exclaimed with an anxious laugh. "Come on, let's relax and go back to focusing on the task at hand! A-alright...?"

The archangel stared at the blonde for a bit, then finally let out an exasperated sigh and turned his attention back to the map at hand. "Alright, ignoring everything that just happened, let's discuss where we'll need to go," he commented, frowning. "The nearest city to us is still a bit farther away unfortunately so we'll need to stop at an oasis and camp there. There's one at a reasonable distance so that's our aim for today."

"Makes sense. It's probably too dangerous to camp out elsewhere since there are probably monsters hiding in the sands," I said, then sighed. "That said, I didn't take the Monsterology class that the Academy offered since I never expected to travel outside of the Astrum kingdom. Because of that, I know nothing about the animals and the monsters that live in this area. At best, I can only make an educated guess..."

"Then that means it's time for me to shine! As someone aspiring to be an adventurer, I made sure to familiarize myself with that stuff as much as I can!" the angel exclaimed with a grin, earning our attention. "Let's see, if my memory serves right, there are indeed monsters that dwell inside the desert sands and some of them are pretty territorial. If we want to avoid the dangerous ones, we'll need to look out for the strange huge rocks that they made as markings. If we see one, we have to make sure we're far enough away from it so it doesn't notice us."

"Strange huge rocks that they made...?" I repeated, frowning. "That's already worrying in its own right, especially since we're in a place that emphasizes the fire aspect. Do they perhaps have magma inside them to make those...?"

Leo nodded his head, causing my frown to deepen even further. "They have two organs that allow them to naturally create that liquid inside of them and then convert the magma into rock. Though, some have another that allows them to utilize the magma in other ways, which varies from monster to monster," he explained. "If you two don't mind, I'd like to avoid them if possible. According to the book that I read, all of them are pretty strong and dangerous so..."

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"As long as they don't inconveniently block us from going forward. If they are, we'll have to dispose of them," Vin remarked with a sigh as he put away the map. "If that time comes, you two better be ready for it. Anyways, if you have any more to say, do it while we're trekking through the desert."

"I already said everything I wanted to say for now so don't worry! Time for us to traverse the desert!"

With that, we continued onward toward our destination with Vin leading the way. Though, instead of running, we decided to walk so we can conserve our energy for any sudden ambushes from lurking monsters. As we walked, Leo and I would sometimes look around out of curiosity and spot the strange plants and flowers unique to this place. They were usually huddled together and stood out amongst all the sand around, proudly standing there in defiance. There were sometimes animals near them but I couldn't see them well due to their natural camouflage. If it weren't for our current circumstances, I would walk up to the plants and animals to investigate them.

From time to time, we would stop so Vin could scope out the area with his silenced sniper rifle while Leo and I kept guard. Whenever he told us he found one of those huge stones, the angel would ask what it looks like and then tell him how far the territory of that specific monster will be. Using that information, the blue-haired male would shoot a magical bullet that would transform into a large metallic marker upon impact for us to utilize. There was a few times it wasn't far enough and what happened after depended on what kind of rock mark we saw.

If it was a jagged stone, a large tail with stone spikes appeared right under it and flung it high up into the air. As the marker fell, the monster intercepted it with its tail and destroyed it by impaling the object with one of its spikes. With a tall lumpy rock, a gigantic blazing sandworm with numerous sharp teeth jumped out of the sand and devoured it whole, then returned into hiding. For the black skinny marker, the metallic object was burned into smithereens by an alarmingly wide beam of flames from underneath it, the sand weirdly unaffected. The last one, which was a glittering sandy rock, resulted in the area turning into a large sandpit and once the metal fell inside it, the area gradually went back to how it was originally.

With all that, I can see why Leo was so keen on avoiding them. I thought to myself as I ate the traveling food I brought while we continued walking. All of them seem like a pain to fight against, especially since most of them were mostly hidden. If we were to deal with them though, we'll want to somehow get them out of the sand and make sure they can't go back in.

Before I could think any further though, Leo suddenly spoke up once he was done munching on his food, breaking the silence between the three of us. "You know, I'm surprised we haven't encountered any of the small fries lately. If it was in the Astrum kingdom, this peacefulness wouldn't be surprising but we're not..." he pointed out, causing both Vin and I to frown. "I wonder if someone took this route recently. Though, if they did, it seems their footprints already disappeared by the time we came over here."

"That's the only proof we have, sadly," I remarked with a sigh. "We can't use the big monsters as references because we have no idea how much there was originally before we arrived. I don't see any signs of combat or traces of magical energy either."

"Then at the very least, let's hope those people are friendly if that's the case," Vin said and the rest of us nodded our heads in agreement.

After that, it went back to the usual silence with Leo sometimes breaking it with some idle chat, motivated by boredom. As expected, there were still no monster ambushes whatsoever by the time we finally spotted the oasis. However, there were signs of people currently there with the same intention as us, especially since it was currently now night. There was also a red dragon with strange crystal protrusions on it near them, sleeping peacefully.

Frowning, Vin checked to see who they were by using his sniper rifle. "It seems they're all soldiers. Judging from how they're all acting, it seems that black-haired female soldier is the leader," he commented as he got up and desummoned his weapon away. "They were probably doing some patrol work and had to camp there, judging from that dragon over there."

"So they're the reason why we had no encounters, huh? Well, I suppose I should thank them for that," I said, then glanced at Vin and Leo. "So, what's the plan? Should we still go to the oasis or should we continue traversing the desert? I'm in favor of going down to the oasis so I can get information from them."

"I say the former. We need to get a grasp of how the situation currently is in the kingdom of Ignifera," the archangel replied. "Can't solve anything if we hardly have any information to work with. Besides, going with them might be faster than our current traveling method."

Leo stared at the soldiers in silence for a bit with a serious expression on his face before nodding his head. "Yeah, let's go. They seem friendly enough so I'll think we'll be fine," he stated as he turned to look at us, then cheerfully grins at us. "After all, some of them seemed to be fooling around, which seems like a good sign to me! It'd be more worrying if they were really serious!"

"Welp, since we're all in agreement, let's get going!" I declared and started walking towards the group of soldiers, the other two following close behind.

As I got closer to them, I couldn't deny that my heart was starting to beat fast. Did the situation get better or did it get worse? Perhaps it entered a stalemate? All I can do is hope for the best until I get the answer from them. Yet, a certain thought kept nagging at me, despite my efforts in trying to remain positive.

...we're not too late, right?