Chapter 40 Where To Now?

*Hooowl* *Whizz*

All that can hear in the desert is the wind after the Bronze Skull Sect has turned into a pile of rocks.

The sun is not in the highest position in the sky, but it is clear that night is still far away, and even Irina feels uncomfortable under those scorching sunlight rays.

"We're screwed..." The fairy sighs. "I wanted so badly to get out of that goddamn hole, but we're no better out here... goddamn fucking desert!"

"Hahaha..." Klaus chuckles as he hugs Irina. "It's okay, my dear, we're together, and that's all that matters."

She feels very comfortable in his arms, even with his mantle preventing some skin contact. "You are very optimistic, honey; I don't know exactly where we are, but I bet there are many hundreds of miles between us and the border of the Ancient Forest."

"Your home?" He asks in a neutral tone.

Yet, she can feel there's a bit of hesitation in his tone. "It was, but now my home is with you, no matter where you go."

"I'm glad you think so." He speaks lovingly. "But I understand that you must want to see your family again; they must be worried about you."

Irina has always loved her parents, and she has never had any complaints about them, so she certainly doesn't want them to suffer without knowing what happened to her.

However, she fears that by returning to the Elven Kingdom, things could quickly get out of control. Some people might not accept her relationship with Klaus; she already understands well how he likes to solve problems.

Klaus feels Irina's concern making her nervous, so he hugs her tighter. "You are worrying about unnecessary things now; we should focus on our current problems."

"Yeah..." She looks around. "We have to find a place to hide from the sun; it would be too bad if you started to burn again."

"Sure, let's do it." He nods as he stops hugging her; As much as he would love to walk around feeling her soft skin, he has to stay focused to keep the sunlight from touching his body.

She looks at his body with a thoughtful expression. "Flying with you would be dangerous, right?"

"I think so; we better walk." He responds.

"Mm." Irina nods; even though she is quite strong now, taking someone as big as Klaus flying would exhaust her quickly.

"Let me have a look around." She flies dozens of meters upwards to try to get a good view of the horizon, but the sun and sand clouds prevent her from seeing far.

She returns to Klaus' side and points in the opposite direction to the Bronze Skull Sect.

"We should go in that direction; I think it's the north; reaching the Ancient Forest is our best option since to the west is the Human Kingdoms, and to the east... well, it's better not to go there."

Klaus doesn't know anything about that place, so he completely trusts Irina's opinion. They start walking quickly in the supposed northerly direction, but all that sand slows down the pace.

"What's to the east?" He can't help but be curious about that.

"Trolls." Irina responds. "They're demi-humans like my people, but they're... more like beasts than people, I guess."

"I see..." Klaus gets even more curious about the creatures called Trolls; in fact, he is curious about everything in that world, mainly other demi-humans.

Before he can ask Irina any more questions, she exclaims. "Damn!!"

"What happened?" Since he has to keep his head down, his vision is minimal.

"There's a sandstorm headed our way." Irina responds as she sees that giant dar sand cloud on the horizon.

From Irina's tone, Klaus understands that it is bad. "We have to find a place to shelter fast."

She tries to see anywhere, but there are only dunes around; some ruins are distant, but they just look like big rocks that can't protect them from the sandstorm.

"There's nothing but sand…" She sighs.

"How do necromancers travel through this place?" He can't help but wonder about that.

"They use closed wagons pulled by bone beasts that can go through sandstorms like that." She explains.

"Aren't there any of those wagons around?" He asks.

Irina looks back, but the sand clouds are getting heavier. "I don't remember seeing it outside that building... I have no idea where the necromancers keep the wagons."

"Wait!" While thinking about the wagons, Irina remembers something and looks at the storage ring on Klaus' finger. "That nasty piece of shit looked really rich; I bet he had something useful for this situation."

Klaus can't really tell what is useful in that storage ring, so he gives it to Irina. "Here."

The fairy takes the ring and quickly checks what's inside, getting disgusted by Jared's mound of sex toys. "Whew! We have to get rid of this garbage."

She points her hand away and forces all the garbage out, leaving a few useful things like clothes and a pile of jewels, gold coins, and crystals in the ring.

"So much gold, but it's useless now…" She sighs as she sifts through the jewels inside the ring, trying to find anything that could help.

The sandstorm is fast approaching, and Klaus can hear those raging winds very close. "Whatever you're doing there, you better do it faster, my dear."

"There has to be something here…" Irina continues examining Jared's treasures; since he was traveling through the desert, he should have something to protect himself from sandstorms.

However, Jared always ran around with servants to worry about such things for him. Those servants were obviously killed by Shadya before they could understand what was happening.

"Found it!!" Yet, Irina exclaims as she pulls out an ornate box from the ring and shows it to Klaus.

"A little box?" He asks, confused.

"That bastard was really rich..." Irina comments as she smiles at Klaus. "You're going to like this."

He looks closely at Irina as she focuses her energy on the small ornate box, making strange symbols glow over its surface.

The box starts to shake in her hand, and she puts it down quickly; then the box opens, and shockingly, many things come out of it at an unbelievable speed.

*VUSH*

Klaus is speechless when he realizes he's inside some sort of large tent, which has raised itself around him and Irina. "The fuck??"

Not only is that tent huge, having many meters of space and height, but it is also provided with various pieces of furniture, and most impressively, the walls are dense enough to prevent the sunlight from causing him any discomfort.