(Heartfelt thanks to 'Kaede no Chōrei', 'Tianming. Canyue', 'Pokémon', 'Youcai Luobo', 'Tubi Nanbowan', and 'Everything Is the World's Fault' for their rewards!)
Time rewound to seven hours after the girls had gone their separate ways from Supply Town that morning and headed for their respective destinations...
In the boundless sky, a massive airship invisible to the naked eye streaked forward at a terrifying speed amid shrill tearing winds.
This airship was naturally Fraxinus, which had departed from Supply Town and was heading for the Royal City of the Baruba Empire!
The Giant Beast Forest lay between the Three Great Empires. Starting from Supply Town, the town closest to the Giant Beast Forest, was the fastest way to reach the borders of any of the Three Great Empires.
Even so, after flying for a full seven hours since morning, Fraxinus had yet to reach the Royal City of the Baruba Empire. The only thing displayed on the large screen in Fraxinus's command room was an expanse of desert.
That was right!
A desert!
In the Sparlier World, neither the Ai Lu Empire nor the Phil Empire had deserts within their borders. Only the Baruba Empire did, and deserts covered more than eighty percent of its territory!
Thus, from the moment they entered the Baruba Empire, all Kotori, Kurumi, Tohka, Miku, Yoshino, and Origami saw in the command room was desert.
Of course, they had encountered quite a few cities in the desert along the way, but those cities had long since been abandoned, with only groups of magical beasts causing trouble there.
Under such circumstances, Miku, who had gradually developed visual fatigue, rubbed her eyes and muttered.
"Are we not there yet?..."
"Are we not there yet?..." Tohka was gradually losing patience as well. The ribbon securing her dark-purple hair into