"Cough, cough!"
Gauss gobbled up several pieces of jerky in a row.
Only when a warm current surged through his body did he sigh with relief.
He finally had time to recall what exactly had happened.
He closed his eyes and pondered for a long while.
"Just now I was..."
"I entered the sand vortex, and then..."
"What happened again?"
Gauss muttered to himself, the confusion on his face deepening.
He found that he had lost the memory of what happened inside.
Serdur thought Gauss was speaking to him and shrugged.
If you’re asking me, who am I supposed to ask?
Nonetheless, he somewhat grasped the current situation.
"Captain? Have you lost your memory?"
"Yes," Gauss nodded. "I only remember jumping in, and then suddenly I was back out."
"I have no idea what happened inside at all."
The Half-Snake Man Serdur shook his head. "There must have been some event?"
"Just now, Captain, you climbed up with your own energy, maybe you were evading something?"
Gauss nodded thoughtfully.
His gaze suddenly drifted to the White Bone Staff by his side.
"Eh?" He exclaimed in astonishment.
The changes to the White Bone Staff were quite evident; not only had its length and shape changed, but the end of its handle was now embedded with a flawless white gemstone.
It looked exceedingly exquisite and beautiful, truly transformed into a genuine magic wand.
"How did my staff change?"
He swung it a couple of times.
The wand felt much more comfortable now.
And referring to it as a White Bone Staff seemed inappropriate since it no longer resembled bones but was now a smooth, jade-like magic wand.
Let’s call it the White Magic Wand.
"Captain, this is how it was when you emerged," Serdur pointed out. "It even emitted a Light Spell back then."
"Looks like I obtained something in there and finally completed this staff," Gauss smiled broadly.
Though he wasn’t sure what exactly transpired, he was happy to achieve a goal that Andri had worried over for decades, filling up the staff.
After all, he’d long made up his mind to continue using it, possibly never fully completing it.
It seems this wand is indeed destined to be with him.
Next time he returns to Gray Rock Town, he should take it to show to Andri.
However, he wasn’t sure where Andri had gone.
Ever since a few months back last year, she seemed to be traveling frequently, so much so that whenever he went to the Thorny Hut, she was never to be found.
His thoughts returned to the present.
He turned to Serdur, still looking concerned, and apologized.
"Sorry. This gemstone probably can’t be removed."
Logically, the spoils from such joint explorations should be shared, or at least a fixed proportion agreed upon.
Yet he wasn’t clear about what had happened inside.
Moreover, the gemstone seemed completely fused with the original White Bone Staff and couldn’t be separated.
Couldn’t just say that he’d use the wand for a few days, then let Serdur use it for a few days.
"It’s fine," Serdur shook his head indifferently. "You were the one who took the risk, I didn’t contribute much. No need to share the spoils with me."
Moreover, his gaze lingered on Gauss’s Transforming Magic Wand.
"This gemstone is also destined for you, Captain. If I had gone down, perhaps I wouldn’t have obtained it either."
"How about this, I’ll check the earnings from recent tasks and compensate you a bit more—though it likely won’t match the value of this gem."
After their exchange, they looked back toward the position of the magical quicksand.
With a notion to try, Gauss grabbed a passing lizard nearby.
Then proceeded with the sparrow replication test steps.
Unfortunately, when he threw the lizard, covered in a Gauss Force Field, toward the sand.
"Thud!" The lizard landed on the ground, dazed.
"Failed."
From then on, no matter how Gauss experimented, the blue light did not reappear.
The space below had completely vanished.
"Not being able to enter might not be a bad thing..."
Gauss could only comfort himself this way, considering that he’d already obtained the item, and his hurried exit suggested something might have occurred inside.
The two of them searched the valley again but found no other unusual items.
During this time, Gauss also checked his Storage Pouch but found nothing additional.
It seemed that the completed wand was all he had gained from the sand vortex.
Though curious about the wand’s effects, this wasn’t the place to test it.
Riding a land bird, Gauss and Serdur left the valley and returned to the village.
In the village, they heard that the two of them had cleared out the valley.
The villagers all breathed a long sigh of relief.
"The Goblin Slayer is really impressive."
"Indeed, I heard goblins would tremble at the sight of him."
"So mystical, yes, I have a cousin who..."
"I even heard he eats goblins?"
"Doesn’t seem like it, with his clean and fair appearance."
"..."
Gauss watched the villagers start whispering about his affairs again and shook his head.
They might have thought he couldn’t hear from afar but didn’t realize his Perception was keen; even the whispers carried by the wind reached his ears clearly.
He understood the spread of these half-true "rumors," given the severe lack of entertainment for commoners in this era.
Besides bedtime activities, all they had was to drink some cheap beer and share various anecdotal tales.
Some of which were true, while others bore traces of human embellishment.