Mushoku Tensei: Reincarnated as the weakest Sword God

Our journey through the desert began the next morning.

Elinalise had a huge smile on her face as she caressed her belly in satisfaction.

But when morning came along with the first ray of sunlight, the lustful Elinalise disappeared giving way to her adventurous side.

We were now on the Begaritt continent, this place was not as safe as the central continent, I had to put my head in the game or I was going to get us both killed,

"Let's try to stay covered for now," I said as I put on my hood, and we set off.

"Make sure to stay hydrated too, let me know if you get thirsty," I said.

"Of course" she replied seriously.

Now that I see it, she seemed like a totally different person than last night, maybe this is also part of her charm.

We both wore coats and hoods on our heads, exposing any part of the body that could be dangerous here.

Even though we were in the middle of a desert, I could refill our water supply with magic whenever necessary.

Still, neither I nor Elinalise had any experience in this type of terrain, and there was no telling what we would find on the path ahead.

"Our course is north then?" she murmured.

"Yes, please guide me," I said.

Elinalise didn't need a compass to orient herself, a relatively well-known skill of the elves, they never lost their sense of direction, not even in forests as thick as Lumen.

With that ability, along with the skills she had acquired over the years, I was confident she would keep us on track regardless of the obstacles we encountered.

"It's very hot out here..." she sighed.

I could only shrug at this, my mana capacity wasn't high enough to make artificial weather like Rudeos, so the most I could give her was unlimited water.

It was the first time I had walked through a desert, I felt my feet sinking into the ground with every step, luckily, I had become accustomed to moving through the snow, it was not exactly the same, but my ability to step lightly was still useful.

However, this optimism only lasted until midday, I was getting more and more exhausted, and the sun that beat down on us was the main problem, besides the scorching wind that kept blowing in my face, I noticed that my body temperature was high and I was starting to feel a little dizzy, I cursed myself, my resistance to sub-zero temperatures is of no use here.

I rehydrated as often as I could, but this feeling of fatigue continued to increase rapidly.

Elinalise was not better, her steps were also more noticeable and she asked me for water more often.

...

That first day we encountered multiple monsters.

The first creature we encountered was a giant scorpion about two meters long, its tail was split in two, and it could lash both sides independently of the other, Elinalise told me that it was called the twin scorpion of death, its sting produced a very dangerous poison although fortunately it could be cured with intermediate level detoxification magic.

The creature had a relatively strong shell, but with a long sword of silence, I was able to cut off both tails with relative ease.

The thing was a B-rank monster, it didn't represent a danger to me, but if Elinalise had been alone as she planned, I would have had a harder time.

"Wow... that thing was big huh?" she said as she caught her breath.

"Yeah, but it was a piece of cake," I said as I wiped the blood off my sword.

"I guess you weren't bragging when you said you were a Sword Emperor huh?" she said while patting me on the back.

Begaritt's monsters weren't supposed to be comparable to those in the Demon Continent, so it was a little strange that the first one we encountered was so big.

"Maybe the scorpions are unusually big?" she muttered

"Sure, that could be, sometimes you encounter the most dangerous monsters right off the bat don't you?" I said with a smile.

"Not very often I'd say," she said with a snort.

"Hmm, maybe the monsters in this area are just on the stronger side then?" I deduced.

"That seems a little more likely" she replied with a smile and so we continued at our usual pace.

The next monster we encountered was a Treant, a common enemy this time, this one was a green Treant cactus, rather than a walking tree and it was also a C-rank monster.

Capable of shooting needles at its enemies and using basic earth magic, but, once upon a time, it didn't pose much of a challenge.

"It's almost reassuring to encounter a Treant, isn't it?" Elinalise said as she cleaned her sword.

"I guess so, they really are everywhere aren't they, almost like slimes," I said.

"Hmm? Slimes? But those only live deep in caves" she said with a raised eyebrow.

"Sorry, don't mind me, anyway, it's a shame that they're cacti here, not trees, we can't use their bodies for firewood" I muttered.

"Yeah, they're too saturated with water, I imagine that could be useful on its own, but you already have your magic," she said.

By now, Elinalise could already use intermediate-range water spells, her classes at the university had not been a waste.

...

The next threat came suddenly and without warning.

"They're attacking us!" she shouted, jumping to my side.

A fraction of a second later, a gigantic earthworm emerged from the ground right in front of where she was standing. It was an especially large earthworm, one meter thick and five meters long.

It let out a strange bark in the air and then sank.

"My god, that scared me..." she muttered as she leaned against me.

"That was a sandworm, wasn't it?" I asked.

"Yes, and a very large one," she replied with a frown.

It seemed that the sandworms here were also unusually large, I had caught a glimpse of five meters of its body, but the rest were still underground, they could be up to ten meters long in total, which made them large enough to swallow a man whole, if one stepped over one without realizing it, it was the equivalent of stepping on an instant death trap.

I turned over the ground where the sandworm was rooted, cutting it with blades of hardened earth, it died without so much as a squeal, a small puddle of liquid forming around the part of its body that had burst on the surface.

...

The last monsters we encountered that day were a group of ants, we saw them after crossing a particularly large sand dune, the next moment Elinalise threw me to the ground, and we ended up sliding halfway up the hill we had just climbed.

"That's an army of Phalanx ants..." she whispered in my ear

that didn't mean much to me, but I followed Elinalise's example by slowly crawling up the dune. This involved staring at her ass for a good while, always a sight for sore eyes.

We snuggled together and I took the opportunity to hug her around the hip, she didn't say anything so I continued.

We looked over the crest at the Phalanx ants, bright red creatures marching in an orderly formation.

Each ant was between thirty centimeters and one meter long, some were larger and some were smaller, they also had different shapes, I saw some with wings and even some with a strangely human-looking lower body.

Despite the variations in their ranks, the creatures marched with the same determination, towards the same destination, it was basically a river of large military ants, the line stretching as far as the eye could see on both sides.

"Considering their size and numbers, this is definitely an S-rank threat," she muttered as she used my arm as a pillow.

Some time had passed and we both laid on our backs as we waited.

"Well, really? Would you mind explaining? I'm a little curious," I said, genuinely curious.

"Phalanx ants are one of the most dangerous monsters in existence, they are known for their insatiable appetite and ability to consume anything in their path, those ones are particularly massive as well, they must be a species unique to this continent," she explained.

"None of the individual ants are that powerful, those down there are probably E-rank or maybe D or C for the larger ones," she continued.

"Well, C-rank is nothing to scoff at," I muttered.

And from the looks of it, there were thousands upon thousands of them, however, the danger a monster represented was not assessed in a vacuum, one also had to take into account their tendency to move in groups.

"Oh! That must be the queen." Elinalise pointed at a particularly large ant in the crowd, it was at least two meters long and had the upper body of a human female...

"Hmm? Nah, don't even think about trying to fight them." Elinalise said seriously.

"Sorry, I was just thinking about how to escape if they noticed us."

"Okay then... but let's be clear that we will wait here until the entire army passes, understand?" she said.

"Okay, understood," I said nodding.

...

In the desert, the sun turned red as it set, the sand began to glow crimson and pools of shadow formed beneath the dunes, transforming the scene from a monotonous sandy brown into a striking pattern of vivid reds and blacks.

It felt like we had entered a different world.

But a desert is a desert, in my old world, the Sahara probably looked like this at dusk too.

"The temperature is dropping rapidly, we could advance further at night, right?" I asked.

"I guess you're right, let's keep moving forward for now then" she replied.

"Sure, I... hm?"

As we talked, I heard something fluttering through the air nearby, looking up, I saw a group of bats about fifty centimeters long.

"Those are giant bats, Gino" Elinalise said.

"Are they monsters?" I asked

"A borderline case, but they move in groups, we should... eh?!, what's going on with these things?!" Elinalise screamed in panic

For some reason, however, these things were gathering around Elinalise, they didn't seem to be attacking her but they had her almost surrounded,

"Gino! Don't just stare, help me!" she screamed.

"Yeah, sure" I said as I lunged at the bats.

As agile as Elinalise was, she couldn't keep moving with a wall of bats surrounding her.

...

After putting some distance between us and the place of our battle with the bats, we found a quiet place to make a temporary shelter, this would be where we would spend the rest of the night.

Instead of relying on our provisions, we decided to cook and eat the dead bat that same night, we still had plenty of food left, but any self-respecting adventurer tries to supplement their provisions when they can.

After dinner, Elinalise and I decided to rest for now, tomorrow we would continue our trip.

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