The scorpion had not come back.

Which is quite strange. It usually comes back when most creatures go to sleep, chittering at them before resting. But it had been gone for quite while now, and they weren't sure whether was it alive or dead nor could they figure out if it was a sign of something bad or good.

It was uncertainty, and they found that they do not like uncertainty.

However, there was little they could do in their immobile state, so they went back to sorting through their memories and organizing them. Someone had to, considering the fact that there were over thousands of them, fragmented, and unorganized, another thing that irks them.

Memories of a guardsman, someone who enforced order and protected the public from what they could gather, were sorted with others that were similar to it, adventurers, soldiers, etc.

Hmm...How vexing. It would seem that some of the memories have become too distorted and corrupted to be viewed and sorted with the others. Just looking at them brings them immense pain.

Seeing no use in keeping them, they moved to delete them—

They let out a shrill scream, their eye darting all over the place, bloodshot as the voices of dozens of souls trapped within screaming in pain, crying out for someone to save them, and praying for the gods to end their misery for they were in so much pain.

Then it stops.

They pants, gasping for air that they didn't need, and feeling relief that the pain finally ended. That relief soon turned into annoyance as they glowered at the fact that they didn't know why the memories had acted this way and whoever dared do this to them.

Even more annoying was that some of the memories had begun whispering to them. They shushed the memories, and the memories grew angry, refusing to be quieted, now shouting at them, demanding to be free.

Like they knew how.

...

And the scorpion still hasn't come back.

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"Haha!"

Hans howled with laughter as he hammered his claw into an acid spitter, pushing it back before it retaliated by whipping him with its tail. He shrugged it off and was met with an acid bath from the acid spitter, it barely stings as he separated its head from its body with a punch.

You have slain [Acid Spitter] - Lv. 9!

You Have Leveled Up! [Sandstream Scorpion - Lv. 10 —> Lv. 11]!

"Ha! How was that?"

I give it a 7.5 out of 10.

"Now that seems a bit low, at least give an 8 out of 10, man," Hans grouched as he shoved the acid spitter's decapitated corpse into his mouth. It didn't taste good but it was at least something to eat and didn't taste like shit.

Tasted like chicken because of course it did, everything tastes like chicken it seems. Even in this godforsaken world. It was also rubbery as fuck too.

Hans gulped down the last bit of his meal before moving on. The day had just begun after all, and there was a whole of monsters to be killed. Lucky for him, they were everywhere.

Heh, speaking of monsters, there was a group of them just standing there

One, two, three, four...Four jackalopes just huddled around a dead acid spitter, munching on it like a school of piranhas, leaving no flesh on its bones. Heck, they were even eating the bones!

Unfortunately for them, their meal was going to be interrupted by him. Hans moved to dash his way toward them before he felt something was off...Narrowing his eyes, Hans turned to face the source of this uneasiness only to be met with his entire vision being covered by something pink and sticky wrapping around his body.

Acting instinctively, Hans jabbed his stinger into whatever was wrapping him and found himself free but covered in saliva. Which he found absolutely disgusting, shuddering in disgust, and the voice seemed to agree with it cursing and yelling.

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The voice quieted down when he turns to see who or what it was that interrupted his attempts at rabbiting hunting. What he saw was a familiar face, the long tongue camel.

Ugh. It was even more ugly than he thought it was. Its many eyes seemingly bulged out of their sockets, and its tongue wasn't able to fully fit into its mouth, just dangling out of its mouth, coated in sticky saliva. It looks like the deformed offspring of a camel and a frog.

Looks like an even deformed pug.

It stares at him with its many eyes, seemingly in a daze, before launching its tongue at him again. Hans sighs and ducks underneath it before slashing at the appendage with his tail.

However, to his surprise, the camel whips its tongue around, slamming into him. Hans moved to free himself but found himself moving sluggishly with the saliva sticking to him. It was like trying to swim through molasses.

He could still move, albeit slow as fuck. He lunged forward only to be launched back, he only needed one limb free, but time wasn't on his side as the camel was currently pulling its tongue back in. Hans had his stinger coat itself in venom in an attempt to make it more slippery.

It worked, although not how he expected. He was now able to move his tail more freely but that was because the saliva was sticking the venom now instead of him which left the tongue itself vulnerable. Hans once again coated his stinger in venom before stabbing it as deep as he could into the tongue.

This had a noticeable effect on the camel as it let a groan of pain before secreting more saliva out of its mouth, only instead of sticking to him, it seemed to make him more slippery and slide right off its tongue.

Disgusting, absolutely disgusting!

Hans landed with a thud before quickly scrambling to his feet and dashing out of the camel's sight as it stomped its front legs at where he was. He maneuvers around its legs and dashes, slamming his claws into one of its legs.

The camel buckled as it let out a loud grunt, only to buckle even further when Hans began throwing a flurry of punches at its legs at an even faster pace. He only stopped when the camel stomped forward as he avoided getting crushed, not before leaving a small cut on its leg.

Dashing out between the camel's legs, Hans jumps, avoiding getting snatched by its tongue before sprinting back to its leg. He landed one final hit before its back left leg cracked and went limp.

[Crushing Blows - Lv. 3] Leveled Up!

Letting out a loud groan, the camel snaps its head toward him, tongue whipping forward, extending with drool and saliva flying everywhere. Hans dashes out of its way, then suddenly the tongue expends, sending saliva, some of them, impacting him and sending him to the ground, covering saliva, stuck.

How the fuck are you this disgusting of a creature? Why did nature make you?

Hans freed himself with a whirl of his tail, coated in venom, before making another dash toward its legs, weaving through the globs of saliva flying toward him. He ducked as the tongue sailed by his head and one final dash sent him where he wanted to be as he slammed his fists into the camel's legs before dashing out before he could gets trampled.

Dodging another attack from the camel's tongue, he made even more cuts on its legs, cutting deeper with each attempt. Globs of saliva impacted him as he moved to dodge getting crushed, pinning down his legs and claws.

Hans snarled and freed himself with swings of his tail and threw himself at the camel once more.

----------------------------------------

"So...Why the fuck are we heading into the desert, again?"

Darly groaned. "We're not heading into the desert, we're already in the desert." Paring glared at him while Sales was nervously fiddling with his thumbs as he made himself as small as possible.

"You know what I mean, Darly." Paring gestured toward the massive flesh wall that loomed before them, casting an ominous shadow over them. "Why the fuck are we heading into that cesspool of monsters."

Gods above was he itching for a smoke. "We're heading there because the higher-ups want to know why the monsters over there are acting up and we've been granted the privilege of doing so." Darly sighed. "Look I'm not happy about this either, but we're not only the ones sent here okay? We got backups."

"And where are they?"

He shrugged. "Don't know. They should've been here an hour ago." Paring clearly wanted to say more but stopped and went back to polishing her knife, trying to pass the time.

A gnawing silence filled the air as the three waited for their supposed backups to arrive to no avail. Then...all of a sudden, Sales let out a squawk of surprise, catching everyone's attention.

Paring looked at Sales with worry as she began looking around, alert, knife in hand. Darly narrowed his eyes as his fingers itched toward his weapons before saying, "What's wrong Sales?"

Sales just look at him, even more, nervous than usual. "I think our backups just arrived and I feel even less safe now." He then pointed in a specific direction. Daryl’s eyes followed where he was pointing to see something that made him wish that he hadn't woken up this morning and had just gone back to sleep.

Walking toward them was a group of people, most in chains and manacles, the others were knights dressed in dark armor, and on their helmets were faces etched into them, frozen in expressions of sadness, and rage.

"Fuck."

Daryl didn't know who out of them said that, but he couldn't help but agree, considering their "backups" were prisoners and their guards, not just any guards, judging by their armor, they were [Execution Knights]. Which means those prisoners were some of the most violent, evil bastards there were.

Fuck.

----------------------------------------

You have slain [Drooling Camel] - Lv. 12!

You Have Leveled Up! [Sandstream Scorpion - Lv. 11 —> Lv. 12]!

You Have Leveled Up! [Sandstream Scorpion - Lv. 12 —> Lv. 13]!

[Crushing Blows - Lv. 4] Leveled Up!

"Fuck yeah!"