"Desert Tuna, to the left! Group B, use Wind Magic to throw it off-course!" - Garami

"Roger!" - Group B

"Rollypide incoming, seven 'o clock! Mira, you guys take care of them!" - Garami

"Leave it to me!" - Mira

"Lily! That Dustrat is wide open. Snipe it down!" - Garami

"O-okay!" - Lily

Things are lively here at the Dust Bowl. And no, I'm not talking about the period when severe dust storms damaged the American and Canadian prairies. I'm talking about the area located north-east of the city, which is a large, bowl-formed area filled with dust, with large rock formations sticking up from said dust. 

"Three of them got through!" - Adventurer

"Great Wall." - Carion

*Dunk!* *Bang* *Crash!*

"Forget it!" - Adventurer

Things started with our single party, consisting of me, Mira, Lily, and the suddenly added Carion, hunting monsters here. However, the F- and E-rank adventurers from the Guild had sneakily followed us. Lily sure pulled their heartstrings. Those guys usually strive with unstable income after all, so many of them fear of having to live in poverty, just like she lived before today. Well, "Cuteness is justice" may also have something to do with it.

"*sluuurp*" - Lily

"... Don't eat them. Just finish them off." - Garami

"......Fine." - Lily

Even if said "cutie" is an adult with the appetite that even a demon would freak out from. 

"Keep at them! More Desert Tunas, Dustrats, and... yikes! An Amphisbaena!" - Adventurer

"That's the boss?" - Adventurer

"Hey, there's more of them coming there." - Mira

"Tch, just a mid-boss." - Garami

It wasn't supposed to be a group fight, but that Mira... she activated a Legacy Raid Quest. Not kidding here. It's called [Dust Bowl's Golden Skull], and it goes on stealing a golden human skull from the middle of the area. And, well, people knowing Mira would get the rest.

She grabbed the skull the moment she laid eyes on it, activating the Quest, and shutting all living being inside the Dust Bowl, meaning us, the adventurers that followed us, and even the monsters that are not part of the Quest. The Quest is like with the bridge I fought Levi on, the first half is about defeating waves of monsters, before reaching the second phase, which involves a boss fight. And we need to keep the skull while doing so. As I'm the fastest on my feet, I'm the one holding the skull. I can't place it inside my storage for some reason though.

The monsters of the waves include Dustrats, the wasteland variant of the Greycave rat, Rollypide, which is a centipede that rolls around like a wheel, the Amphisbaena, which is a snake with a head-on both ends. Maybe they are the reason why we haven't seen any ant monsters? And the last monster, which is also the most frequent one, is the Desert Tuna.

"Remember, the fish-heads will charge at you while swimming in the sand, so try to jump out of the way if they aim at you. Only try to guard with walls like Carion just did." - Garami

The Desert Tuna is one of the monster species I designed. It was the one I created right after the Kur Kigal! The Tuna is a type of monster that drains the small amount of moisture in the earth, resulting in the land turning into sand, which they can swim in. They look like tuna's at the size of a St. Bernard, with additional feet-like limbs that allows them to walk. Their only way of attack is to charge at the victim, making them easy targets if you're careful. They were also one of our original targets for subjugation, so two birds with one stone. 

"Hey, can't I go in with the others? I wanna fight! My chimera blood is begging to fight!" - Lily

"No way, weakling. Keep on finishing the tunas Levi comes with. Either that or continue with the sniping." - Garami

"Fine! I get it! *Hmph*" - Lily

Levi was effectively using [Drain Touch] to weaken monsters just before they died of exhaustion, for then taking them to Lily so that she could finish them up, getting more EXP in the process. We also armed her with a small crossbow, so that she could snipe at enemies from a distance while being guarded by Carion's Earth Magic walls. What's her current process by the way?

=====================================================================

SKILL LIST

Ability Skill: [SP Enhancement (Small) LV22] 

Attack Skills: [Poison Bite LV4] NEW

Crafting Skills: [Poison Synthesis LV1] NEW

Active Skills: [Stealth LV1] NEW [Shooting LV2] NEW [Aerial Movement LV1] NEW

Passive Skills: [Acrobatic LV1] NEW 

Resistance Skills: [Poison Resistance LV2] NEW [Heretic Immunity] NEW [Hunger Resistance LV50] 

Racial Skills: [Growth Chimera] [Formless Chimera] NEW [Demonic Vault LV1] NEW 

Elements:  [Darkness Element LV1] NEW

=====================================================================

It's going up, if anything. Kinda makes me remember the time when I was a little Grey Demon. That [Formless Chimera] is like a limited [Transformation], which gives a chimera-type monster the ability to change parts of their body to whatever else they are made of. In Lily's case, she can monsterize parts of her body, or turning back into a regular human form. When she gets her hands on some monster parts.

Also, when I used [Kin Promotion] on Lily, I got enough proficiency to break the LV10 line. Ain't this skill getting proficiency a little too fast? Anyway, along with the extra skill points, the skill itself got a new ability: the ability to grant one of my racial elemental-attributes to my kin, promoted or not. That's why Lily has the [Darkness Element] skill. Even the guys who already was a kin got a skill: Levi and Orimaru also got that, while Mira and Raoul got [Heretic Attribute]. Mira tried to strangle me when she got hers.

"Group C here, we have taken care of the first Amphisbaena. Waiting for orders!" - Group C adventurer

"Go and back up Group B. Mira, take care of those other two at the left. Levi, help them out. Group D, what's the status on the wolfs?" - Garami

We had divided the adventurers into groups, with over 10 in each group. Mira was leading the assault group A, while group B and C were taking care of the weaker monsters. Group D was in the rear, providing support and scouting the area for more monsters. Carion and Lily were in this group, where they also guarded all the materials we had collected for the gathering Quests we originally came for.

And I was acting as the commander-in-chief, directing orders to all four groups, while keeping the golden skull safe. I even picked up the [Commander] skill, which helped a lot. Levi was doing as she pleased, taking care of monsters here and there.

"Group C requesting spider-bomb delivery!" - Group C adventurer

"Already dispatched them. Take cover!" - Garami

*BANG-BANG-BANG!*

The third job I had, was providing long-range support through my newly leveled-up darkness magic, specifically the Dark Bullet spell, and by creating doll-type kin with the ability to explode. The [Kin: Doll] lets me create Living Dolls that I can stuff special abilities into, like letting them self-destruct in a massive explosion due to owning [Gunpowder Element]. I hear that having the [Explosion Element] would give a bigger bang, but I'll take what I can get.

"Hmm, they're late." - Garami

"Who are?" - Carion

"The Wasteland Wolves. They should have acted by now, seeing as the whole area is affected by the Quest." - Garami

Wasteland Wolves, our second original target. Unlike the Tunas. which we needed to hunt for their flesh, the Wolves are to be taken out due to them harassing merchants and travelers that travel to Velantas. So, we're cutting down their numbers to learn them a lesson.

"I see. The Quest affects to all the intruders inside the Bowl, so the nomadic Wolves would also be seen as a contender. Unlike us, they don't care about beating the boss, so they would rather return the skull. Is that it?" - Carion

"Right. On. Spot. But making sure this thing gets taken away will help us in the long stretch, as it dries up the land even without Glavras around." - Garami

The skull was some sort of magic item which absorbed Deat aether in the atmosphere, which may have prevented undeads spawning in the Dust Bowl, but it also used the absorbed aether as fuel to keep on drying the area even more than normal, resulting in this desert-like area, so far from where the Water-Knot used to be.

"Then, how about getting an eye higher up? We're fine here, so try to look after the wolves, and potentially the boss." - Carion

"What, trying to get rid of me?" - Garami

"No, no, it's just that I cannot relax without knowing about all potential threats." - Carion

"Just take care of them when they arrive then." - Garami

"Unfortunately, I am too lazy for such a thinking-with-ones-feet feat. I even took my classes with the intent of having to do as little as I can in mind." - Carion

"Hmm? Don't get what you're talking about, but I'll get that bird's eye view you asked for. I'll take a shot towards where the Wolves are if I see them. Take care of this while I'm gone." - Garami

"Roger," Carion answered while taking the golden skull. After that, I started to run towards a rock formation, at the top of a large dune. A Desert Tuna tried to ram me, but a small jump, and a Double Slash, a Sword Art that's obtained when you have [Dual Weapon]. It can even be used with daggers, or even dagger and kodachi, which I'm using.

After climbing on top of one of the five stalagmite-like rock formation, I got quite a nice view of the area. Except for the large cave where the skull was hidden, there was no large land formation, and the whole area was more sunken than the rest of the region, making it look like a real bowl filled with dust. Hmm. That dust-cloud over there... Dark Bullet!

"I knew it! The Wolves are coming from there!" - Garami

I shouted to Carion, who lifted his fist to show he heard me. Guess I'll go down from here no-

=====================================================================

Location Quest: [Dust Bowl's Golden Skull]

Description:

The unliving has yet to rise, nevertheless, they torment this land. Steal the skull of drought, to make this world fit for man. However, the King of Drought will be displeased, so make sure you will not meet Tharos with pleas.

Rank: D (Raid)

Objective:

• Keep the Golden Skull while clearing the following objectives:
  • Phase 1: Defeat the Guardians of the Golden Skull 5/5 COMPLETE
  • Phase 2: Slay the King of Drought 0/1

Rewards for completing the main objective: 

• Skill Scrolls related to the Subjects of the Golden Skull X2
• Skill Scroll related to the King of Drought (Party: Last-Attack Bonus)
• Golden Skull of Drought (Last-Attack Bonus)

=====================================================================

Huh? Did we clear all the waves? Let's see, hmm? One, two... five Amphisbaena? They were the Guardians? In hindsight, the Quest did divide the monsters into Guardians and Subjects. No big problem there, but that means the King is supposed to make a majestic entry now. Right when the Wolves are coming for us! Now's not the time to play pirate in the crow's nest! I need to regroup with the rest of the gang!

*Rumble, rumble, rumble*

Wh-whoa! Earthquake?! No, it's only this dune. Does that mean...

---

"Hey, elf! What's that?!" - Lily

I want to know that myself. Out of the dune Garami had climbed on, a ridiculous large Desert Tuna appeared. The dune was this King Tuna, covered in the sand of the Dust Bowl. It lacked legs like its smaller companions, instead, it had 3 pairs of wings across its large body, all six of them similar to those of a dragonfly. The "rock formations" that Garami had climbed on was a set of horns, forming a make-shift crown on top of its head.

"It's only a guess, but it should be the King of Drought. Everyone that can attack at a distance, aim at its belly! If you are confident in your aim, take out its wings and head instead! The rest of you, keep an eye on the remaining monsters on the ground!" - Carion

The magicians and archers snapped out of their daze and aimed at the dragonfly-tuna. Levi charged up her breath so that it would reach the air-born tuna, and even Lily aimed at her crossbow against the big tuna. But, the tuna has already gotten quite the attitude...

*Twang*

She hit it?! From this distance? I know that it is an impressive feat, but even someone kind and gentle like me is going to get irritated if you do not stop with that arrogant grin.

"Tch, can't reach it. In that case, Stream Slash!" - Mira

And there's something impressive happening here as well! Several magic circles appeared on the blue sword Mira was wielding, and water wrapped around it, forming a whip with the sword as the base. Mira then started to slash all the remaining monsters on the ground with her whip-sword. A Desert Tuna was slashed in two halves when she jumped over it and took a somersault, making the whip-sword slash through the spine of the Tuna. A Rollypide tried to crash into her after that, but she simply side-stepped and slashed the monster by keeping the water-whip in a straight, horizontal line.

I think Mira and the rest can finish off the stranglers on the ground. Time to focus on the King Tuna. It counteracted our attacks with Sand Magic, or is it Sandstorm? No matter what it was, large whirlwinds of sand came flying out of the magic circles that appeared by the sides of the Tuna.  It blew away almost all our attacks, while the remaining ones got thrown off course. The remaining sand came raining down on us.

This is not going to be easy. As I thought that while drinking an MP-recovery potion, I saw something happening on top of the Tuna. A purple light flashed, and then,

"Snakes?!" - Adventurer

"No, dragon?!" - Adventurer

"!? Poison?!" - Adventurer

Whoever guessed that, must be correct. It was poison in the form of a four-headed dragon. The four heads bit four of the wings to the King Tuna. The Tuna opened its mouth, in what was supposed to be a scream of agony, but it didn't have a voice, so we heard nothing. The four-headed dragon then threw the Tuna towards where the Wasteland Wolves were.

*Crash!*

The Tuna, with its ability to fly destroyed, fell on the wolf pack without any resistance. The Wasteland Wolves were either crushed or done in by the poison that covered the Tuna.

=====================================================================

QUEST PROGRESS:

Location Quest: [Dust Bowl's Golden Skull] is completed:

• Phase 1: Defeat the Guardians of the Golden Skull 5/5 COMPLETE
• Phase 2: Slay the King of Drought 1/1 COMPLETE

Rewards can now be collected.

Do you want to collect your party's reward?

YES/NO

=====================================================================

Just like that?! 

*Poof!*

"Too close! Way too close! If I hadn't had both [Acrobat] and [Aerial Movement], I would have died!" - Garami

"Ah. Forgot you were there." - Carion

"Ain't that too mean?!" - Garami

---

It took some while, but we finished detoxifying the Desert King Tuna, the 'King of Drought', as it was called. My Detoxification skill, which is integrated into [Hydra, Dragon of Poison], can remove all the toxic in whatever venomous substance I throw out with the Ultimate Skill, except for Hydra, which is one step too toxic to remove it all. The few Priest adventurers we had with us managed to clear up the rest with their Antidote spell. They even got some skill levels from doing it.

"And never reach out for something that suspicious again!" - Garami

"But, but, it was made of pure gold!" - Mira

"A pure gold SKULL! You must be an idiot if you want something that curse-looking!" - Garami

Ah, whatever. I can complain all I want to this sprite of greed, but she will run right into a trap if the bait is a single gold coin. Better to make her feel obligated to me, so I can make use of those assets of hers.

"Sashimi, tuna salad, tuna steak, tekkadon, katsuobushi... *slurp*." - Lily

And here's a chimera of gluttony, already thinking of how to eat the massive amounts of Tuna we have gotten. And sorry, but that last one is a fermented dish, so you won't be getting that any time soon. Should I try to let her eat fly monsters? That would be fitting. Or maybe a grasshopper! No, that's a forbidden taboo. No matter what, don't fall for the temptation of that famous hero! Stay strong Garami, stay strong!

Tokusatsu heroes aside, the mob-adventurers look like they're shining with honor now. They are E- and F-ranks, so surviving an encounter with a D-rank raid boss may have upped their confidence. That, and their skill lists has been powered up big time due to the Quest rewards. 

All participants got 2 Skill Scrolls that contains a skill related to the four monsters that guarded the skull, the Wasteland Wolves notwithstanding. They wanted me to appraise the scrolls so that they would know what scroll they got. Due to there being almost 50 of them that got the different scrolls, I got to see that there were two scrolls for each "subject of the Golden Skull", which are as follows, along with their apparent drop rate:

• Dustrat:
  • [Cooperation] 15%
  • [Sand Walk] 15%
• Rollypide:
  • [Rolling] 13%
  • [Physical Resistance] 5%
• Desert Tuna:
  • [Swimming] 12%
  • [Super Acceleration] 10%
• Amphisbaena:
  • [Parallel Thoughts] 12%
  • [Poison Breath] 8%

No need to say, I traded with some of the adventurers to get [Poison Breath]. Good thing that guy wanted [Sand Walk]. And I already had the [Super Acceleration] scroll, so no prob there. Carion got [Cooperation] and [Sand Walk], but he traded the latter for [Parallel Thoughts]. Lily got [Physical Resistance] and [Cooperation], while Mira got two with [Swimming]. She coaxed some guys to trade with her for [Super Acceleration] and [Sand Walk]. Levi got [Poison Breath] and [Rolling]. Talk about being generous. Even the tamed monster got some rewards.

And then there were the Last-Attack rewards for the boss. Here, we got skills related to the Desert King Tuna, which were:

• [Dried Earth] 40%
• [Sandstorm] 40%
• [Sandstorm Magic] 20%

It's way easier to calculate the drop rate when only five got them. Wait, that's not how one figure drop rates! 

Ignoring the stupid demon's outburst, I and Levi got [Sandstorm], Carion and Lily got [Dried Earth], while Mira got [Sandstorm Magic], which was the one she didn't want. As a Water Sprite, she wanted [Dried Earth] more than the magic skill, so she traded with Carion. And for the skills themselves:

• [Sandstorm Magic] is the magic skill that allows the use of Sandstorm attribute magic.
  • Gets a small boost from [Earth Element], but only 33% of what [Sandstorm Element] would have given. The boost would be replaced if the skill user got an Element which's closer to the magic skill, with Sand giving 50% for example.
• [Dried Earth] is a skill that dries up the terrain the skill user stands on, and the moisture that was dried up goes straight to the skill user.
  • It can only be used as many times as the skill level per day, and can only be used on non-living terrain.
  • Needs MP to be used.
• [Sandstorm] allows direct creation of sandstorms, even when one's lacking in, you know, sand.
  • It's faster than the magic skill, as one doesn't need to create a magic rune, but one can only create a sandstorm though.
  • It also gives a passive resistance against damage and visual distortion from sandstorms.
  • The size and duration of the sandstorm increase with the skill level.
  • One can only use this skill as many times as the skill level in the period of one week.
  • No costs though.

And finally, it was this nasty little bugger.

=====================================================================

Item Name: Golden Skull of Drought

Rank: C+

Type: Guild Decoration

Durability: 500/500

Weight: 5

Decoration Effects:

• Death-attribute damage taken: -5%
• Sand-attribute damage taken: -5%
• Dehydration when in desert- and wasteland areas: -5%

Description: The golden skull created by a Cursemaker in order to slowly kill the land.

Through foiling the wretched mastermind's plan, the skull is now a reward for the brave warriors who fought for the land.

The skull will now aid in the battle against the non-living on the dying earth, in hope that the brave warriors who stole it will fulfill its vengeance against the Cursemaker that killed it to use it as a tool of destruction.

=====================================================================

"Nasty as hell. Both the contents of the description and the writer themselves." - Garami

"Did you say something?" - Punching bag Carion

"Nothing, punch-, Carion." - Garami

"Even elves have a limit to how much disrespect they can handle. Want to try?" - Carion

Nope. I wasn't in the wrong, but sorry. I even made sure your glasses were removed before I pummeled you. But anyway, I'm so sorry. So stop looking at me like that. It's kinda scary...

While I was making an apology inside me, Carion peeked over my shoulder to see the appraisal result. Ugh, I'm getting too used to appraise with the results showing. 

"Hmm, are you planning on renting this thing to the Guild? They would pay not just a little gold for it." - Carion

Renting, huh? Not a bad idea. And I have no Guild on my own, but renting it to the Adventurers Guild for a while will give me the bonus effects. Just need to stay firm on the renting-part.

"Velantas! I'm back!" - Adventurer

I feel the same. I'm gonna get a good meal, a bath..., or not. The city's short on water. Have to settle with a good dinner from Terd, and a good night's sleep. 

"Whoa! The caravan is here already!" - Adventurer

Hmm? That's... a lot of carriages. There's so many of them I can't see the gate.

Wait a sec... wasn't there going to be a caravan coming to the city tomorrow? And I was planning on keeping the lowest profile in Terra Sol's history until I could catch a hike out of the city due to someone arriving at that caravan?

"Hey, is there someone running towards us?" - Adventurer

So, if that caravan arrived already today, won't that person also arrived... what was that?

".........mi!!!!" - Approaching dustcloud.

"Did someone say something?" - Mira

No way. There's no way this can be happening. Even someone so twisted like Alvatria can make me endure something like that, right after a freaking raid Quest.

"Milady Garami!!!!" - Church-member-looking old man (Black attire)

She is so twisted! Why was I so stupid to forget that?!