The Sandworm that attacked Elena was particularly big for a Sandworm, compared to the ones they had previously killed.

  It bared its sword like fangs as it tried to swallow Elena.

  「GURURURURURURURU~!」


  Along with that sudden cry, the Sandworm was heavily struck from its side.

  When the Sandworm came back to its senses a moment later, the human that was supposed to be its prey was gone.

  Of course, even if she had been attacked as is, Elena would still have been able to handle the situation. She could have leapt back, barely dodge to counterattack, or jumped straight into the Sandworm’s mouth to attack it from the inside before it could bite down.

  Regardless, there were several options open to her and she chose the most basic one, leaping back.

  However, as one who had earned the title of General Princess, that wasn’t where it ended.

  After seeing Set pounce forward to attack the Sandworm, Elena had leapt back to swing her sword whip.

  The distance between her and the Sandworm was too great for a sword or spear, but a sword whip was a different matter.

  The blades slashed through the Sandworm.

  Unlike her previous attack, the sword whip had more magic power this time and ripped through the Sandworm’s skin and flesh, reaching the bone.

  In addition, her attack was only a decoy. As the Sandworm twisted its head in pain, Set struck it from the side again, knocking one of its eyes out and shattering the surrounding bone.

  Given the Sandworm’s peculiar vitality, it didn’t immediately die.

  Instead, it continued to thrash around in pain, not realising that its act would only serve to kill itself faster.

  「Set!」


  「GURURURURU~!」


  At Rei’s call, Set, who had landed after striking with his fore claws, went back to Rei.

  Elena was already beside Rei, sword whip in hand.

  「Rei?」


  Elena asked questioningly when she saw Rei standing there instead of chasing after the thrashing Sandworm.

  Rei replied with a small smile under his hood.

  「Don’t worry. It’s already dead after been struck by Set.」


  「……? Oh, I see.」


  Elena didn’t understand what Rei was saying for a moment, but quickly realised when she saw Rei looking at Set’s claws and recalled what skills he had.

  That is to say, Poison Claw, which had been raised to level 4 from the Grand Scorpion’s magic stone.

  The pain from the poison in Set’s claw strike followed by Elena’s sword whip caused the Sandworm to thrash about the ground. This caused the poison to circulate faster and in a few minutes, the poison had gone through its entire body. The Sandworm fell to a ground with a thud befitting its size.

  「Poison Claw, huh? You killed the Earth Crab using the Thorns Spear and fire magic. But, seeing this, Poison Claw really is a powerful method of attack.」


  「I honestly wasn’t sure about a Griffon using Poison Claw at first, but……seeing it with my own eyes, it’s not that bad.」


  「Gururu~!」


  Isn’t it great! Set seemed to say with a proud cry.

  While stroking Set, Rei gave a sigh.

  「I had heard that monsters had a higher rate of appearance on the desert oases floor……but this is more than I expected. This is the second time we’ve been interrupted in the middle of a fight since the Earth Crab.」


  「The third time if you count the Bloodydiles attacking the Earth Crab. ……So, what now?」


  Elena glanced over at the dead Sandworm and two dead Desert Lizardmen.

  Rei didn’t want to have to strip the materials here. However, the Sandworm in front of them was over 10m long and its body wasn’t fully out of the ground.

  Of course, it wasn’t an issue to store it into the Misty Ring, but it would be difficult to find somewhere to strip the materials from it.

  (I don’t think it would be possible to dismantle it in the guild. No, it might be fine if I use the guild’s training field……but that will likely cause other problems to occur.)

  Rei was already quite well known in Exil, partially due to his title and partially due to Set.

  However, there were still some adventurers who didn’t like him and there was a high chance they would use the opportunity to try and mess with him if he tried dismantling monsters in the guild training field.

  Naturally, Rei wouldn’t show them any mercy, but it didn’t mean that he wanted to deal with that trouble in the first place.

  (There are a lot of monsters on this floor anyway, it might be possible to dismantle it here and just kill anything else that gets attracted here.)

  Calculating the risk and reward in his head, Rei judged that it was probably safe to dismantle the Sandworm here, based on the level of monsters they had run into.

  That said, he wasn’t completely comfortable as there had still been what they believed to be a Basalisk on the 14th floor.

  「Even if we take the Sandworm back, there will be various problems finding a place to dismantle it, so let’s just do it here. We’ll leave the Desert Lizardmen for later.」


  While replying to Elena, he stored away the two dead Desert Lizardmen into the Misty Ring.

  「Set, I’m sorry, but could I leave the guard duty to you? Because it’s a Sandworm this big, there will definitely be monsters attracted here by the smell.」


  「Guru~!」


  Leave it to me, Set seemed to say with a cry as Rei and Elena started to dismantle the Sandworm as they had done in the previous floors.

  「It looks like this is the last thing.」


  Rei muttered as he placed the lens of the Sandworm’s eye into a storage container before storing it away into the Misty Ring.

  It had been about 40 minutes since they started dismantling the Sandworm. It would normally have taken Pleiades only 10 minutes, but Rei and Elena weren’t too used to dismantling Sandworms. The biggest reason, however, was still the sheer size of the Sandworm.

  Because not all of its body was above ground, Rei had stored it into the Misty Ring before taking it back out. In total, it was over 15m long.

  Considering that ordinary Sandworms were only 5m long, this one was three times as big.

  Seeing that, Rei wondered if it was an abnormal species. But although he thought about that, its only difference was that it was bigger in size, there were no other visible differences.

  All the abnormal species they had seen so far were very different from the original monsters, so he judged that it might just have been the difference in environment as he stripped the various materials from it.

  Another important matter was the corpse of the Desert Lizardman that had been devoured by the Sandworm earlier, which Rei wanted to check to see if there was still anything useful left.

  Most of its body had been chewed up by the Sandworm’s fangs or melted in its stomach, but luckily for Rei, its magic stone was till intact.

  Because Rei had fought the Desert Lizardman to a certain extent, it met the conditions to be used by the Magic Beast Art.

  「Gurururu~」


  Set went up to Rei and gave a cry.

  There were traces of blood on its beak and claws.

  Rei had half expected that because he had heard sounds of fighting earlier as they were stripping materials and took out the Dagger of Flowing Water to wash it off.

  「Hey, come over here and I’ll wash you.」


  First, Rei used the water from the Dagger of Flowing Water to wash away the blood on Set’s beak, claws, and body.

  If anyone that had drank the water made with Rei’s magic power before saw this, they would definitely scream that it was such a waste.

  That wouldn’t be surprising of course, as it was water that could even be served to royalty.

  「Gururu, Guru, Gurururu~」


  Set gave a happy cry as he was washed by Rei.

  Seeing that, Elena gave an involuntary smile……before noticing that her own hands were covered in Sandworm blood and body fluids as well and frowning.

  「Rei, sorry, but could I also wash my hands?」


  「Hm? Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. Come over here, you can wash it off easily.」


  Elena went over to the two of them and started to roughly remove the grime.

  The two of them had been stripping materials while dismantling the 15m long Sandworm, so it was inevitable that they would be covered in blood, flesh, and body fluids.

  After a few minutes, the three of them were much cleaner and the spots that they had washed with water were already starting to dry up.

  (I guess this is one of the benefits of it being hotter in the desert floors.)

  As Rei thought of that, he stored away the Sandworm materials, magic stones, proofs of subjugation, meat that Set could eat, and everything else into the Misty Ring one after another……


  「Oh.」


  As he touched them, Rei’s hands, which had just been washed, naturally got dirty again.

  Giving a sigh, he walked over the the nearby oasis to wash his hands as it was a hassle to use the Dagger of Flowing Water again.

  Some Bloodydiles seemed to eye Rei up, but he managed to quickly wash his hands and leave without being attacked.

  He reached out to Set in gratitude, who had been ready to counter attack if anything had made a move on Rei.

  「Guru~?」


  Set’s eyes narrowed at Rei’s comfortable touch. Seeing that, Rei gave a small laugh as he checked his surroundings.

  To the side were five dead Kobolds.

  While Rei and Elena had been dismantling the Sandworm, the Kobolds had been attracted by the smell of blood but were easily dispatched by Set, who had been keeping guard.

  「……They never learn.」


  They had wiped out a group of Kobolds just earlier and hadn’t thought more would attack again so soon.

  As he thought about that, he soon realised something.

  「That said, we did kill them all.」


  If even one had survived, they might have gone back to tell the others of the danger of Rei’s group.

  However, because they had all been wiped out, no information had gone back. Attracted by the strong smell of blood and seeing Rei and Elena in the middle of dismantling it, they must have seen no reason to not attack and were promptly annihilated by Set.

  「Well, it’s quite good that Kobolds were the only ones to attack.」


  The five Kobolds were all quite destroyed.

  Some were missing heads, others had large holes in their body, likely from being pecked.

  「Set, it’s fine to kill them, but it would be a great help if you could leave the proofs of subjugation intact.」


  「Guru~」


  As Set gave an apologetic cry, Rei stroked his head and told him to be more careful next time before storing the corpses away.

  This time, it didn’t matter as Kobolds were low ranking monsters. However, if they had been high ranking monsters with valuable materials, it would have been very unfortunate. That was why Rei only warned Set this time.

  「Rei, if we don’t need to stay here any longer, why don’t we move on? If you want to wait for more monsters to come though, that’s also fine……」


  What do you want to do? Rei was lost in thought for a few seconds before looking around and coming to a decision.

  「Let’s hurry on. It’s definitely quite effective to lure enemies in with the smell of Sandworm blood to earn more money and collect more materials, but it’s not possible to do that continuously, especially if the fighting drags in a large number of monsters. It’s better to call it a day at an appropriate point than to get stuck.」


  If several Earth Crabs appeared, it would take a lot of time to kill them and, even if they could kill the Earth Crabs, there was a high change that other monsters would appear after hearing the sounds of fighting. It wasn’t worth the risk just to get more materials.

  Rei’s words convinced Elena and Set, so they left the area. ……After a few more hours and fighting off several more attacks, they found the stairs to the 16th floor.