Kyle and Selene moved away from the Fire Coast.
Selene was quite nervous and uncomfortable.
This was a Peak Adept!
She felt like she had to protect Kyle more than he would protect her.
Naturally, she wasn't very interested in catching a Colossus with Kyle since he was only an Adept.
Sadly, she had already entered an agreement with Kyle, and turning back now would make her feel embarrassed and guilty.
Especially since she had technically lied to him.
'Just my luck,' Selene thought with a sigh. 'I guess that's what I get for lying.'
As they kept walking, Selene looked awkwardly at Kyle.
"Excuse me, could you run a bit faster?" Selene asked from on top of Skweera.
"I can't run faster," Kyle said. "My equipment is heavy."
Selene sighed once again.
"Come," Selene said as Skweera ran past Kyle, stopping in front of him. "You can sit on Skweera's back."
Kyle looked at the big beast with interest.
'Oh! I get to ride as well? Cool!' he thought.
"Sure," Kyle said without any shame, and jumped onto Skweera.
Skweera's back buckled as Kyle landed on its back and transmitted a concept to Selene.
Heavy!
Selene was a bit surprised.
Skweera was an Initial Ferocious Beast, and it thought Kyle was heavy?
Apparently, his equipment was actually heavy.
Skweera continued walking forward, but it had also slowed down a bit.
"Do you have corpses?" Selene asked as they approached the Sandworm Barrier.
"Was I supposed to bring some?" Kyle asked.
Selene sighed again.
"It's fine."
The next moment, Selene opened a package lying on Skweera's back.
'Oh, it's those hairless cats!' Kyle thought as he saw Selene pulling one of the corpses out.
Moments later, the first worms appeared.
Selene made a small cut in the corpse and threw it to the side.
Almost immediately, the Sandworms left Skweera alone and charged at the corpse.
'Ah, so that's how you get past the Sandworm Barrier,' Kyle thought. 'If I had just cut that crocodile into pieces, I could have probably gotten past everything without issues.'
'Wonder why Theodor didn't tell me.'
Kyle wanted to ask, but Selene was right there, and she would hear him talking to Theodor.
He didn't want to make her think he was crazy.
Of course, he wasn't crazy.
He was just talking to the voice in his head.
Completely innocent stuff.
After they passed through the Sandworm Barrier, Skweera veered towards the south.
"So, where do we go?" Kyle asked.
"We need to go east," Selene answered.
"Then, why are we going south?"
"There's a Hillstalker Ant nest east from here," she said. "Didn't you come from the north? You should know that."
"Oh, that nest!" Kyle said. "That's no longer there."
Selene furrowed her brows. "What do you mean?" she asked, looking at Kyle.
"I took care of it," Kyle said.
Selene looked at Kyle with surprise.
"You took care of it?" she asked with skepticism.
"Yeah, killed like 70 ants. That was my first genocide. Feels funny," Kyle answered casually.
At this moment, Selene felt like she wasn't the only liar here.
Hillstalker Ant nests were no joke. These things charged forward without fear or hesitation and overwhelmed their enemy with numbers.
Yes, Skweera was very powerful, but it wouldn't be able to kill all the charging ants before they reached it.
At that point, the ants would grab Skweera and climb it to kill Selene.
"You're sure?" Selene asked.
"I mean, my armor is proof of that," Kyle answered. "Where do you think I found all this Wasteland Metal?"
The gears in Selene's mind turned as she combined several clues and realized that Kyle's story made no sense.
If he found the Wasteland Metal there, how was he already wearing this armor?
Kyle needed a smith to create the armor, and he had just arrived in the Fire Coast when they met.
Also, wouldn't that mean that he had fought naked against the ants?
Selene took a deep breath.
She believed Kyle just wanted to impress her by lying.
"That's not the only problem," she said. "There is also a Sandcrocodile Horde in the way."
"Oh yeah, those things," Kyle said. "They were annoying. I killed like ten of them."
Selene grew annoyed.
Kyle's lies grew more and more outrageous.
Every Sandcrocodile was an Initial Ferocious Beast.
How could a Peak Adept kill ten of them?
"You're telling the truth?" she asked.
"Huh?" Kyle answered. "I mean, yeah. Why would I lie about that?"
Selene looked at Kyle, who just looked back at her with confusion.
"Fine," she said. "If you can deal with the Sandcrocodiles, we can avoid the Terror Meerkats."
'Terror Meerkats?' Kyle thought as the image of a cute meerkat popped into his head.
Skweera veered to the left, and some time later, they saw the sand dunes.
Before entering the dunes, Skweera stopped.
"You go first. You're our Shouter," she said.
Naturally, Selene wanted to use this opportunity to test Kyle.
"Aight," Kyle said as he jumped down from Skweera.
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