Inside the desert Junk woke up, rubbed his eyes and then removed the loli resting on his chest. By doing so, upon being placed on the sandy ground Pom woke up as well.

After having another desert rabbit for breakfast, curtesy of Pom’s water manipulation drowning the rabbit, they went out further in search of a landmark that could be used to infer their location.

They also hoped for the other possibility of finding a local, who could inform them of their coordinates, after getting abruptly displaced by the silly portal.

Junk also wanted to return home, even if the prisoner girls wanted to kill him, they were still cute catgirls that did not deserve to be tortured by hunger. He realised that his view was probably biased but he didn’t care.

Later they found more brutally murdered and completely devoured monster corpses. Whatever did this must have been a big hungry glutton.

After a long time of travelling, in what felt like forever through the desert, using water magic to supply drinking water to sate their thirst, they came upon a settlement.

Upon approach they were surprisingly greeted by a dwarf. Well, Pom was. Junk was surprised in another way, the one greeting was a darker skinned human girl. Judging by the knowledge of a European dude, and the turban on her head, she seemed to be of Arabian descent.
Junk greeted back happy to see another human again. He did not know there were humans in the old Continent.

“Greetings dwarf.” The orange haired loli rose her hand in greeting.

The dark-skinned girl was stunned. The real dwarf here was the loli. Her amusement getting the better of her, she chuckled, feeling that the small cat ear wearing little girl and what seemed to be her older brother, who had cat ears on his hood, were quite cute and unusual.

Now taking a better look at the bigger brother, he appeared to be very lean and muscular. On a further note, he was also very handsome. Her attention left the small girl and focused on Junk, a blush decorating her chocolate coloured cheeks.

The real dwarf admonished his little sister, telling her that the other was a human not a dwarf. The so called little sister tilted her head.

“What are humans?”

The dwarf petted her head and laughed.

“You silly joker…”

He whispered into her ear: “I’ll explain later.”

“Hello there, we are kinda lost…”

The dwarf rubbed the back of his head awkwardly with his other hand.

The girl responded.

“I’m Nahla. And this is Sandy Garden village.”

She gestured behind her.

A wind blew, her turban shifted in the breeze.

“We rarely get travellers around here. Never as cute as you…”

She blushed a bit more, her turban hiding her face.

Cats were respected around these parts, some even went as far as treating them as gods. But then there were many warriors and hunters from bigger cities who in turn only liked dogs, training them to be loyal and follow them in the hunt.

The new realm rarely saw animals like dogs and cats in the wild. It was filled with dangerous predators, and those of the smaller variety were able to hide themselves. Only those trained against stealth, or those with certain characteristics could find such and train them as pets.

“Um… so this desert… Does it have a name?”

The girl gave him a look, what kind of man brought his little sister into the desert and then even didn’t know its name.

“It’s called Gabura desert. It spans a third of the continent. How did you even survive out there?”

“Stuff happened and before we realized we were here…”

“Next you are going to say you are broke?”

“Yeah…”

The elder now acting as his little sister tugged his sleeve. She took out her pouch and shook it.

Judging by the sound, it seemed it was full of coin.

“Oh, we aren’t broke. Forgot my little sister was rich. Silly me.”

He laughed, completely confusing Nahla.

“Anyway, only the Adventurer’s Inn accepts money. Anything else and you will need to exchange using goods or services.”

The girl called Nahla explained, after welcoming them to the village and trying to pet the small sister, got rejected then had to go back to work.

Judging by the saber hanging at her waist she seemed to be an adventurer. She also had a necklace made of teeth. Before she left, she pointed them to the Adventurer’s Inn.

There they saw a map of a continent. Junk at first thought he would be able to get a direction on how to go back, but it seemed the map was a fake. Pom then said that this wasn’t a map of the old Continent.

Still lost there was no way but to continue their search. The Gabura desert seemed to span for an incredible size across the continent. Pom thought about it and vaguely remembered seeing a similar map somewhere. But she could not recall any details.

They registered at the Adventurer’s Inn, when Junk decided he had to do some quests, not content with leeching off Pom. The Inn strangely had a similar design that was present in every larger village. The only difference was that this one was desert themed.

The quest board was made from three giant bones struck into the hardened desert ground. The bones held up the board with posted quests.
Junk received a card with his picture, name and rank. He was starting at F-rank. He had a nagging feeling that the Adventurer’s guild had a great influence. It seemed that even in this village in the middle of some giant desert, the guild had its presence.

Junk took a look at the quest board. The F rank requests were plenty, some were rat extermination and some others taking care of snake infestations. E-rank was similar with just larger nests to exterminate. Looking at the D-rank section there was a mention of desert goblins, who sometimes raided travellers, a big cobra hunt and a search request for a flying turtle.

The C rank quests included escort services, extermination of larger monsters requiring a party, and water patrols. Whatever those were. As for quests of B rank and above there was only a single one of B-rank. It required slaying a desert kraken and judging by the state of the posted paper, it was posted long ago.

The requests paid well. He took an F-rank quest, hunting some rats. He had the right spell for the job.

Travelling to the location with Pom hanging around since there was nothing else to do but tag along with Junk in the desert.

They came before a house made of clay. It was a bit rundown and the red or more like orange coloured walls were in a bad condition. The building was half buried with sand and in the what seemed like a basement, some half rotten food was hanging out. There was a rat tail moving around and poking out of the pile.

Junk casted a spell, now with one more cast remaining for the day, he conjured his water cat. The previously summoned one, which got left behind had timed out and faded with the other day over. He could finally summon this new cat with no problem, because he could have only one summoned at a time.

The water cat made of hot water nudged itself against Junk’s leg. It was expressing how much it missed him since he disappeared. Junk gave it a scratch on the ear, with the loli salty that she did not get it as well. Then Junk directed the cat towards the pile, telling it to hunt the rats.

The rats not sensing the water cat that caused its water to turn almost invisible, even see-through, were slashed with a claw made of water. Junk and even Pom was surprised, they had no idea the cat could use water blade. Pom was at first disappointed that her disciple didn’t learn water blade as a first spell.

Now, she speculated the duration-based water summon could unleash an almost infinite amount of water blades, which depended on the summoner’s understanding of water. The small smug cat she hated with a passion, was full of surprises.

Junk after seeing the cat massacre the rats, was giving it headpats, for a job well executed. Seeing the cat’s efficiency and it only requiring a few scratches behind the ear to get the cat to work, as well as it being a summon that wouldn’t tire, Junk went back to the Inn with Pom, cashed in the reward, then grabbed a handful of F-rank rat quests.

Soon he rose to E-rank and obtained a bag of coins of his own. It was full of bronze coins, and 10 silvers, handing a silver to the inn keep, he paid his half for the room.

There was no reason to get a separate room since they trusted each other, and already slept together back in the castle. While farming the rats Junk’s cat also got more skilled at using water blade. It could now cast it with both front legs, effectively doubling the damage.
When the dwarf went to collect the well-earned bounty together with the loli elder, they noticed a commotion. A crowd of adventurers was shouting in amazement and making catcalls. In the middle of the crowd was the turban wearing dark skinned girl called Nahla.

Tapping a member of the crowd on the shoulder, he received an explanation. It seemed that the girl called Nahla, recently became a B-rank adventurer. Finally allowed to take on the quest, she actually managed to eliminate the pesky desert kraken, which had terrorized their village of Sandy Garden for a long time and scared away many travellers and merchants.
It was a great achievement and to celebrate it she was going to offer the big kraken and hold a BBQ. Everyone in the village was invited, as well as any travellers.

At that time, he saw Pom’s eyes light up as she told him that they needed to attend. It seemed that the kraken was going to be very delicious.
Not one to reject free food and interested in the way they celebrated in the desert, Junk agreed to attend.
Later in the evening at the BBQ, you could find Junk feasting on the crispy cooked kraken. Beside him was Pom, madly adding food to their plates, the roasted meat in her mouth.

“I can see someone is enjoying the party.”

Behind them a familiar voice said. Turning around they saw the host.

Junk greeted her with his mouth stuffed with food. Finally swallowing it he greeted Nahla properly as she chuckled happily at his previous voracious action. The loli didn’t bother to stop and just kept stuffing herself, while savouring the meal.

However, while they were turned around a black caped individual, wearing what seemed to be a fluffy hat stole their plates.

“Hey! Get back here!” Pom was first to respond and shouted at the thief.

She quickly casted an ice spell beneath the other’s food, which caused the caped individual to slip.

“Whoa”

The small individual managed to stop herself, leaning back but the abrupt stop caused her fluffy “hat” to fly into the air.

“Fluffy!”

Her hat flew away into the air, exposing her tentacle like pink hair, because her hands were full of the carrying two plates, she could not catch it. He green eyes widened seeing that she got exposed.

“A-an ALIEN!” The people yelled at her.

“A-alien!”

She quickly looked around, pretending to be clueless.

“Where is it!?”

She pretended to be scared and cowered. Then everyone saw her white furred hat fly back and land on her head.

Junk did not know what he should think, the other girl more of a glutton than him and Pom combined. It was also bizarre, seeing her glowing green eyes and red coloured skin.

The now hidden horns were a dead give away that the girl was not a local. Others at the party were too stunned to do anything, but Pom wasn’t going to let the gluttonous alien steal her food.

She quickly came to the girl and took back her plate. With a smug “oWo” look she went back to eating from her plate. The villagers and adventurers reminded of the food quickly scrambled to get more. Junk looked at Pom feasting and looked to the long line of people getting food.

“Now, now, there is enough for everyone…”

The host somehow calmed them down.

It was too late, the alien loli already ate his food. And what tipped Junk off was that even the hat got some food. He saw the loli give food to her head, which opened its mouth and swallowed the crispy and roasted octopus meat.

He, seeing that everyone was already in line, sadly had to wait for his turn. The wait was long, but he displayed his maturity, while wiping his saliva. When he finally got his food there were villagers playing music and singing.

The melody soothed his hurt heart. The other loli was too savage. He looked towards where the alien girl was munching with a new plate of food, she probably stole from someone else.

He decided that after he ate this plate of food that he was going to give her a piece of his mind. He ordered some mead and furiously poured it down his throat. Luckily, the good food and combined with the atmosphere made him calm down.

Slightly. He was still going to get revenge on the loli somehow. Yes, he was that petty. Once again in the long line for the food, he reaffirmed his conviction.