She swallowed her tears for a moment, recalling the bitter memory of abandoning the character she had been leveling up day and night for a month from that one game she had played when she was young. She didn’t know anything and only raised her intellect and wisdom, thinking that she would become a smart warrior.
Noel rubbed his head gently against Sylvia’s shoulder, and then turned his head to bury his mouth in her neck.
“Hmm… Health? I’m the only one who needs to be strong, so Miss Sylvia needs to build up her stamina to handle my strength at night.”
“What? … Oh my, Mr. Noel, you’re really…”
Sylvia was dumbfounded for a moment, but she soon understood what he meant and blushed. Then, she clenched her fist and gave a light tap on Noel’s shoulder, smiling.
With a fresh smile that seemed like flowers blooming even in the desert, Noel wrapped his arms around her slender neck and kissed her on the lips.
The two were giggling as they exchanged nonsense when suddenly, a shadow fell over their heads. She looked up in dismay, but fortunately, it was Limbo, not Sevis.
“Brrr!”
Limbo looked at the two of them alternately, giving them a disgusted look. Its expression looked as if it was saying, “What kind of atmosphere is this?” It shook its head, stretched out its legs, made a seat between Noel and Sylvia, and sat down.
“Haha… Limbo must be bored.”
“No, Limbo seems to be in a sh*tty mood, or is it just me? Ohoh…”
Sylvia and Noel, sitting with Limbo between them, looked at each other and smiled awkwardly.
“We might as well camp out here today.”
Tired of killing monsters, they decided to spend the night in the desert. As they were resting for a while after the attack at the oasis, the desert evening, with a strong daily temperature difference, came to them.
“Gosh, it’s cold! Achoo!”
“Miss Sylvia, you’re going to catch a cold. Wait… I think there was a blanket here somewhere…”
As Sylvia trembled and sneezed, Sevis rummaged through the bag and pulled out a mink blanket and other items for the cold weather. The bag with infinite storage did not get heavy unless it exceeded the specified weight, so they shoved everything they could get their hands on inside it before departing from the mansion. She was in trouble because it was getting colder, but she was glad that there was a mink blanket among the stuff they packed.
They started getting hungry as they were spreading out their tents, so they lit a campfire in the wide-open space between the large rocks and had a quick dinner.
Sevis boiled warm soup on the campfire and distributed it to the group. They also shared some dry meat and bread. Limbo smacked its lips when it saw the meat, but Sylvia shook her head, thinking about animal health, and gave it an organic carrot. Limbo chewed on the organic carrot and gave her a sour look, but seeing Sylvia’s resolute face, it bit the carrot powerlessly.
Limbo, an herbivore sadly unable to eat meat, and Sylvia’s group sat around the campfire and filled their hungry stomachs. While eating, Sevis rubbed his sticky face with green cream applied and drooped his eyebrows.
“Do we really need to keep applying the green cream? My face is getting more and more itchy. It was a good idea to copy them… But now that there are no monsters, I think we can take it off for a while…”
Sylvia shook her head at his words and opened her mouth.
“No, we need to be one step ahead at all times. We can’t spend our hard-earned money on funerals.”
Sylvia, who had become brainwashed by the words Sevis emphasized multiple times, trembled when she said the word ‘funeral’.
‘That’s what I intentionally emphasized in case Miss Sylvia went with Mr. Noel to the dungeon just the two of them.’
Sevis sighed and touched his cheeks. Then, he looked down at his palm, which was colored green.
“That’s true, but… Are we going all the way to the central dungeon looking like this? Can’t I wash my face before going to sleep? What if I get a pimple? Ah… My flawless skin…”
Noel laughed and lowered his eyes with a noble look as Sevis covered his face with a desperate look. Sevis, who noticed Noel had a sneering look on his face, narrowed his eyes and looked at him.
“Mr. Noel, why are you laughing?”
“Ah, hm… I guess Mr. Sevis will get a pimple for not washing his face one day. Maybe because I’m a natural skin beauty, no matter what I do, I’ve never seen a pimple on my face… It’s amazing.”
“No matter what you do? So, was there an occasion when you didn’t wash your face for a few days? Gosh… Mr. Priest, you don’t seem like it, but you’re a bit dirty.”
When Sevis looked up and down at him, Noel smiled relaxedly and shrugged.
“What do you mean dirty? Let’s call it a blessing from God. I am God’s child, so…”
“Is someone a God-forsaken child?”
Noel’s relaxed smile disappeared as Sevis looked at him with an unpleasant gaze and stopped talking.
Zzzz! There was an invisible spark between the two men.
Sylvia could not understand why the two men were suddenly arguing about nothing. Sylvia swallowed the sandwich in her mouth in a hurry and intervened.
“That’s right, Sevis. Washing up is important. I thought we were going to the central dungeon today, but… It would be better if we washed our faces and disguised ourselves again tomorrow.”
Sevis’ face glowed at her words, and Noel’s face grew dark. It was a reasonable answer to say to wash their faces, but even if it was nonsense, he wanted her to take his side.
In fact, Noel continued to feel secretly jealous of Sevis for living with Sylvia, so he thought she was mean, but he had started a ridiculous quarrel without realizing it.
Noel, who had been praised for his wisdom and maturity before he reached adulthood while being educated as a priest, couldn’t help it. Jealousy makes people behave childishly, regardless of age or occupation.
His heart shook with sadness that Sylvia had chosen Sevis over him. Noel drooped his shoulders without realizing it and looked at Sylvia with sad eyes. Feeling his gaze, Sylvia looked back at Noel.
“What’s wrong, Mr. Noel?”
“Well… It’s nothing.”
‘As a priest, I shouldn’t be acting like this with a wolf-shifter that hasn’t even reached adulthood. Why am I being so childish?’
It had become a routine for him to control his emotions while living as a priest, so Noel swallowed the sorrow that had swelled without letting his ugly feelings show.
“Here, take a towel.”
The group, who had been given towels by Sevis and wrapped them around their necks, squat down by the water to wash their faces. As she put her hands together to draw water, Sylvia frowned at the strange feeling and looked across the oasis.
On the other side were trees with fruit hanging from them and piles of leaves, and upon further inspection, it seemed that someone had deliberately ripped the worm-eaten leaves from the trees. Sylvia stood up to take a closer look. There were signs that the ground around the trees had been stomped.
Sylvia looked around the oasis with sharp eyes and opened her mouth.
“Wait a minute, looking at it closely, this oasis… Someone must be growing crops here.”
As Sylvia pointed to the other side, Noel looked where her hand had pointed with his arms crossed.
“Hm, that’s right. I don’t think those are naturally grown plants. There are figs and rice, and over there is a jujube tree that looks like they were planted on purpose… There’s even a basket under the tree.”
“Do the crops have an owner?”
While Noel and Sylvia were talking seriously, Sevis, who was nodding next to them, glanced at the other side and shouted in surprise.
“No, you horse bastard! When did that horse bastard get under the tree?”
Crunch, crunch.
Limbo, who was by the water just a moment ago, was under the fruit tree on the other side and picking several fruits at once. Then he put a bunch of the fruits in his mouth and chewed them.
“Limbo, no! The crops seem to have an owner, so we may get into trouble if you eat thoughtlessly.”
Sylvia ran after him. Limbo was shaking the tree and continuing to destroy the fruit. She tried to get closer and stop it, but Limbo had already become a slave to the sweet fruit, and Sylvia’s restraint did not work.
“Limbo, limbo! … Ah, I have no other choice.”
Crack.
She had no choice but to slap Limbo in the mouth and make it spit out all the fruit. She only hit it slightly, but maybe because her strength stats were up, she heard its skull crack.
‘If you don’t understand what I’m saying, I’ll have to hit you.’
Thud, thud, thud.
Dropping all the fruit because of Sylvia’s fist, Limbo shook its head in disbelief and looked at her. She was someone it trusted, so it was in disbelief that she had hit it.
After a long time of hugging Limbo and soothing it, Sylvia explained the situation properly and gave it the organic carrots she had taken out of the bag. Limbo, with an aged face as if it had lived a long life, bit the carrot in its mouth powerlessly.
“I’m sorry for hitting you in the mouth, but I couldn’t help it because I thought you were going to ravage all the trees. You shouldn’t touch someone else’s things. Do you understand, Limbo?”
Limbo nodded at her words, dispirited. As Sylvia patted Limbo, Sevis sniffled and extended his arm towards the north.
“The owner… Sniff, sniff. It looks like there is a village within 30 minutes on horseback from here. Isn’t the owner of this field there?”
Weeeeeeeeeee!
At that moment, a rumbling sound that seemed to rip her ears apart echoed from all sides.