Starchild Crusaders

by J. J. Pavlov

  She will never betray that love, no matter what happens. And she hopes her little sister will learn to do the same.

  Chapter 51 - Dune

  My eyes snap open, and the first thing I see is Hestia's face close to mine with her eyes closed. For a moment, I'm thinking that she's leaning in for a kiss, taking advantage of and have her way with the defenselessly sleeping me.

  Then everything rushes back to me: My return from talking to Maou-mama, being confronted by the professors in the transportation room, the battle to the death. I was teleported somewhere random, just like in the accident on my very first day in this world.

  And then Aldebrand, whom I had swallowed at the start of the fight, used an explosion spell to burst out of my stomach, nearly killing me in the process. Hestia healed me with her magic, and I fell asleep, most likely from the aftereffects of the pain and exhaustion.

  The angel girl's lips are dry and chapped, her cheeks are flushed, and her breathing is only a faint rasp. That instantly has me alarmed, and I look around to find that I'm under a dome she has put up with her wings. From between some gaps, I can see the outside. There's desert sand, and the air above it is wavering from the immense heat of the midday sun.

  Hestia used her own body to shield me its harmful rays while I was unconscious, and most likely stayed like this for half a day or more, considering it turned from night to midday.

  "Hey, Hestia!" I cup her face with my hands and try to shake her. Her eyelids quiver and then open a little at the tone of my voice. Recognizing me, she smiles faintly before slipping away again. "No, don't fall asleep!"

  I don't remember any procedure for treating extremely dehydrated people most likely suffering from heatstroke. But I know that she needs to drink something and get out of the sun right away.

  Pushing her wings aside, I get out from under her and look around. The scenery looks like photos of the Saharan desert that I've seen. The sand underneath my feet is very fine and more like dust, suggesting that this is not sand from a beach. The rolling dunes extend as far as the eyes can see, and the heat of the sun beats down on me relentlessly. Even in my current body, I can feel that this isn't a place for those not made for it; how could Hestia survive staying in this heat with her black wings and no water?

  The first thing I do is try to replicate her body but with white wings. But I say try because I feel that my mass is inadequate to do so. My current form is also smaller than the one I had when I was still in the academy. It's not as bad as when I was ripped in half and ended up as a loli version of myself in Yagrath, the Dark Continent, but what I am right now is all I have.

  Aldebrand did a real number on me. While I can't boast about having saved up a lot of mass during my academy days since I didn't eat beyond what I needed to keep my hunger at bay, I had enough to grow to more than three times my normal size. It's all gone now.

  "Hestia, I'll save you..." I fall to my knees next to the angel girl and pull as much mass as I can from inside me to at least create something like a parasol, even going as far as hollowing out my body to the limit before it collapses on itself.

  The next step is to give her water. Luckily, magic is convenient like that, and I summon a floating ball of water. But I notice right away that it's far smaller than it should have been. Could my magic output be related to my mass?

  It doesn't matter now, as time is of the essence. I take a mouthful of it and feed it to the angel girl through her barely parted lips, one gulp at a time. While I do that, I place a bit of the floating water on her forehead to cool her down.

  But no matter what I do, we need to get out of this heat somehow. Even in the shade, it's unbearably hot, and the air is so dry that it might as well be sucking moisture straight out of our bodies. I'm far more resilient than the Fata, but even I can tell that this place is deadly in the long run.

  I remember my earth magic lessons. While Magni and Bjorn stood against me in the transportation room battle, I won't discredit the things they taught me.

  "Wait here. I'm creating a shelter for us." Speaking to Hestia to keep her awake, although I'm not sure she's even able to understand me, I step away. I see her eyes flutter when the shade provided by the makeshift parasol created from my own mass disappears, and breathe a sigh of relief. At least she's somewhat responding to outside stimuli, although she's very weak right now.

  Performing the movements I learned from the father and son earth mages, I visualize a crude house. Knowing that the fine desert sand is the worst base to use for earth magic, I put my all into pulling from as deep underground as I can, hoping to find bedrock.

  The ground rumbles and I feel something coming up where I'm pointing. Then, walls rise from the sand and form a cube just three times three meters in size. Under the current circumstances, that's all we need.

  But the rumbling doesn't stop, and I look down at my hand. Did I accidentally hit a water vein or was my output too big and I hollowed out a large cavern underneath us?

  Instead, the small house I created explodes outward, and from inside the flying sand, a massive form emerges. Its body is long and made of uniform ribbed segments, with brown skin that resembles that of elephants in texture. When it turns its head toward me, I find myself staring into a black maw filled with circular rows of teeth made to grind down boulders the size of my crude stone house.

  It's a sandworm, of course. But I don't have the time to roll my eyes at this cliché development that comes with every fantasy world with a desert arc. While I may be resilient, I don't have any organic material in my genetic repertoire that could withstand those grinders. And Hestia is on the ground behind me, in no shape to take off into the skies to avoid this creature.

  In other words, I have to fight it off.

  Unlike the sandworms in games I've played, this one doesn't roar. What use would it have to do that if it spends most of its life underground anyway? It turns its head left and right before retracting it back underground, leaving behind only a swirling hole of sand that quickly fills up on its own.

  I didn't spot any eyes on its head, so it must be finding its targets by sensing tremors. It attacked the house I created because it caused a small earthquake, so building another one is not an option as long as this monster is around. But I still need to get Hestia into a permanent shade.

  I point at a distant dune and mutter 'Mico Ignis' to create a small but powerful explosion on the surface of the sand. Only moments later, the ground trembles, and the worm breaks out from underneath the point I targeted. When it realizes that whatever it sensed got away, it goes back underground swiftly.

  With this, I know how long it takes for it to travel around as well as how high it rises from the sand. It should be enough to pull off what I have planned.

  "Mico Ignis!" Once again, I create an explosion a distance away, about as far from us as the last one I fired off. The moment I feel the tremors underground start, I point my hand at the air right above where the spell went off, and begin to chant the next one. "Grandor Mico Ignis Fortior!"

  It was the exceptionally powerful explosion magic I used on my first day of fire magic class with Astrid. Back then, I only wanted to try out what I just learned and didn't know much about combining modifiers, but it worked anyway. She scolded me for putting the entire class and myself at risk.

  The massive worm bursts through the surface of the sand and its massive maw involuntarily swallows the volatile swirling flames. I let go of the magic, and a split second later, the worm's body expands from the inside, and a pillar of fire is blown out from its mouth. It wasn't enough to rip it apart, though.

  But then, pieces of flesh impact the sands around me, meaning that its insides were ruptured. I quickly run back to Hestia, making sure nothing hits her until the rain of meat stops. The worm's form shakes in its death throes before toppling like a giant tree, causing a massive tremor upon its fall.

  Staying still for a moment, I check for any further quakes under my feet. Other sandworms my get attracted by
this impact, so I'll hold off on moving until I at least confirm there aren't any in the immediate vicinity.

  When nothing happens, I heave a sigh of relief and look at the smoke rising from the felled beast's unmoving mouth. Then I glance at the angel girls suffering under the sun. It may seem counterintuitive, but it's better than nothing under the current circumstances. Picking her up and carrying her on my back, I head for the worm carcass.

  A nauseating stench wafts toward me like a physical wave as I approach it. Chanting one water spell after the other, I douse the embers that keep eating away at the creature's insides and wash it out while cooling it down in the process. I can tell that the water created by my magic really is diminished in the desert, now that I use it repeatedly. At least it's not unusable.

  "This may smell bad, Hestia... but it'll keep you out of the sun." I say as I approach the opening to our new temporary base.

  I quite literally learned the hard way that this explosion from the inside only killed it because of how durable this beast's flesh is. With nowhere for the pressure to go, it ravaged through its internal organs and blasted them out. The meat itself is almost indestructible, and even my bone blades can't cut it. Although there's so much of it, I can't eat this worm because even if I were to gape to my absolute limit, I could never hope to take its size inside me.

  Thus, I had to make do with the pieces of organs scattered across the desert. While they were still a lot and filled me up nicely, it feels like a waste to not take the whole thing. But at least I'm no longer in lack of mass and replicating Hestia's template is not a problem now.

  "Chloe?" The fallen angel's voice emerges from inside the cave that I turned the worm's carcass into, calling out to me weakly but with an audibly alarmed undertone.

  "I'm here." Sinking a chunk of what may be part of the liver into my body quickly, I turn around and run to the opening.

  "W-what is this?" Looking around, Hestia tries to get up.

  "This was the only way to get out of the sun." Touching the walls that I made sure to rinse down thoroughly, I find that it's started to become slimy again. This body is already beginning to break down, so we can't stay here for long. "Do you know any rejuvenation spells that could get you back on your feet? We have to get going."

  "Yes, I do." She replies and begins to chant right away. Once again, it defies my ability to perceive, let alone comprehend, but I turn away to scan the horizon. Our little retreat is most likely the only thing that breaks the monotonous orange landscape of the desert for hundreds of kilometers in all directions.

  "Have something to drink." When Hestia is done, I turn my hand into a cup, which I fill with water I saved inside my body. My experiments with keeping things in my unfathomable depths have taught me that I can do so without spoiling things, including food and water.

  "What about you?" The angel girl worries about me, but I shake my head and gesture for her to drink.

  "I'm fine. Hungry, but fine." Losing a lot of my mass did create the unbearable sense of hunger I suffered from on Yagrath when it felt like I was consuming myself from the inside. It did get alleviated from eating the scattered pieces of the worm, but the lingering sensation is still pulling at the back of my mind.

  "Is this edible?" Hestia finishes drinking and asks while looking around herself. She has already figured out that this is the carcass of a massive living being.

  "It should be, but I can't even nick it with wind magic. And I don't want to use explosions; it might attract more of its kind." While its momentous fall didn't do so, the possibility that they're on their way here from very far away still exists. If I could turn this one into minced meat, I would be able to gain a lot of mass. But if I got swallowed by another one in the process, it wouldn't be funny. I wouldn't be able to get out without pulling an Aldebrand myself, and I'd rather not emulate him. "I'll find food elsewhere."

  "Then we should go." Pushing herself off the ground on wobbly feet, the angel girl moves her black wings carefully.

  "We should, but you're in no shape to travel right now." Watching her walk like a newborn foal, I comment with a grim expression.

  "I am sorry." She lowers her head in shame. Then she drops to her knees with an anguished expression and asks for my forgiveness with her hands clasped together. "Please forgive me!"

  "What're you apologizing for?" I'm surprised by her sudden intensity.

  "I was the reason you were unable to take Kamii with you." Her mention of the little dark elf causes a sting in my figurative heart. It wasn't really her fault since Thorvald used gravity to push her toward me.

  An ugly part of my mind considers why it was Hestia and not Kamii. Why did he throw her at me instead of the little dark elf? But at the same time, I'm aware that Kamii wouldn't have been able to heal my destroyed body, and I would have died then and there, leaving her to fend for herself in this desert.

  In a sense, this may have been the best outcome among the bad cards my hubris and overconfidence dealt me. If I had used the moment of surprise to kill Thorvald instead of swallowing Aldebrand, we wouldn't have been in this situation. And if I had killed the fire professor inside my body right away instead of torturing him, I wouldn't have come that close to death.

  Pretty much all of it was my own mistake.

  "No, it's not your fault." I finally answer after thinking it over. Then I quickly change the topic so that we can move on. "Come, you'll ride on me."

  "Huh?" Tilting her head with round eyes, Hestia blinks.

  Now I know that the fine sands of old deserts don't provide much foothold for feet not made for it. Much like snow, the paws of a vularen sink in or slide away, and it just makes traveling more exhausting. Luckily, I don't feel any exhaustion in this body and can walk endlessly.

  Due to the additional mass I gained from the worm, I was able to create a covered carriage on my back, inside which Hestia fits snugly even with her wings. The sun is beating down on the sands relentlessly, and if she were to be out in the open, it would just be a repeat of what happened when I woke up earlier.

  She told me that I fell asleep near midnight, so I've spent about half a day here at this point. This is longer than I have ever been apart from Kamii since I met her. I'm sure she's scared to death right now and waiting anxiously for my return to save her from the clutches of the academy. I don't want to consider the possibility that something irrevocable happened to her.

  But as I climb dunes and slide down into valleys, I realize that I have no idea where to go. While I may be able to orientate myself using the sun, I don't even know where the academy is relative to our position. Just heading north won't be enough, as we could very well be on the southern hemisphere of the planet. It could take months to cover such a distance when not using the transportation network.

  And at this point, I'm sure that Basarab did something to my memory. I'm not a forgetful person, especially not when it comes to pictures, but I simply can't recall the image of the academy teleportation circle that I ingrained into my mind. He spoke with his alluring voice and commanded that I would forget.

  I suspected it before, but maybe he's a demon or a cursed human. At least there's no way memory-wiping falls under magic. Because if it did, whoever has access to it would be able to control the world. And it's most likely not as powerful as it may sound; otherwise, he could have made me forget everything.

  I shudder at the thought; if he were able to do that, he could destroy my mind. Next time I see him, I won't even let him speak a single word.

  "What is it?" Hestia touches my fur-covered back with a concerned tone in her voice. I physically shuddered while trudging along, and she noticed.

  "I'm just thinking about how we can find out where to go." I noticed that I could speak the human language in any shape or form even without vocal cords, although it usually results in the Crawling Chaos voice. Thus, I replicated a human organ in the vularen's throat, making this oversized wolf-like animal speak in a high school girl's tone. I would laugh if th
e situation weren't so dire.

  "I can help." The angel girl suddenly slides off my back and spreads her wings. She has recovered enough to be nimbler on her feet again, and now she takes to the air before I can stop her.

  "Hey, come back. That's dangerous!" I call out to her from below. Then I remember that I can just follow her myself since I have her template. Why didn't I consider flying up and taking a look around myself?

  "I can see something!" Pointing in the distance, Hestia calls out to me. "It seems to be a group of large animals."

  "Food." I mutter. It's not only for me but for Hestia too. While I can use water magic to keep us hydrated, I can't create food. If we have to wander this desert for several days, she'll die from starvation. The worm meat isn't something she could chew, let alone digest, so there was no way to make that into provisions.

  "They do not seem to be moving, but I cannot tell at such a distance." Hestia lands beside me and reports. "It is quite far, though."

  "It's better than nothing." Her tone suggested that it may be out of our way, but we don't even have a way right now. Maybe the animals can somehow lead us to an oasis or even to civilization. "Get on. I'm going to speed up."

  As we travel, doubt begins to fill my mind. Why would large animals live in a barren desert such as this? Carnivores need plenty of herbivores to survive, and herbivores need plenty of vegetation. With a decided lack of the latter, both of the former can't exist either. Then again, there are gigantic sandworms, so I guess why not?

  I reach the top of the dune behind which Hestia said she saw the animals. They may have moved on already since it did take us some time to come here, but when I look down, I see a group of light and dark brown forms.

  The animals that Hestia spotted were a collection of twelve tents made from dark cloth. Some of them look derelict, while the others don't give me any more confidence that they're still inhabited.