I had to admit, I admired Rudeus's luck a little. Back when he had been teleported to the Demon Continent,
if Ruijerd had not been there to protect him, I doubted he could have made it back to the Central Continent.
After Nanahoshi and I left the Alorama Mountains, we traveled southwest for another two weeks.
Along the way, we encountered six waves of monsters. The most dangerous one was the monster we ran into in the desert.
By then, we had entered an endless sea of sand. The blazing sun was like a torch. The perceived temperature had to be over fifty degrees Celsius, while the ground was probably over eighty.
It felt like my brain was about to fry.
I had no choice but to use the mana leaking from my body to create ice around myself and press it against my skin to cool down.
Although Nanahoshi's body had not changed, she could still feel the heat and sweat.
When she noticed what I was doing beside her, she stopped sitting foolishly atop Silly Bird and baking in the sun.
Instead, she crawled beneath my cloak, pressed herself against me, and shared my ice-block air conditioning.
The weather was already scorching, and aside from our sun-protective cloaks, the clothes we wore underneath were quite light.
What was more, the silk undergarment she wore had long since been soaked through with sweat.
Inevitably, there were occasional touches and friction. According to her, those were all unavoidable circumstances. It was not like I was deliberately taking advantage of her.
At noon, the heat became unbearable. I could only use earth magic to create an Earth Fortress on the ground. The two of us and the bird entered it together to avoid direct sunlight.
Although I had decided to avoid