After the extremely loud day, the peace and silence of the night were surprising for every creature within the vicinity of X, Brik, and Aqua. The explosion had blown away almost everything near them, and too exhausted to care, the three of them fell to sleep in the depression it formed, a smile on their face.
The sun slowly rose as the moon set, but the three of them snored away. It was only after a few hours,.or maybe days, around noon that X woke up. He jumped up with a start upon seeing the bed of broken glass that they slept on, which only caused it to bleed more. He then looked at his left arm to see hundreds of shards sticking out of it.
X was surprised as to why he did not feel any pain until he realized that it probably was because his whole body had gone numb from the battle. His memory of the struggle was struck in with perfect clarity, but the visions he recieved during them was hazy. Out of the multiple visions he had seen while fighting, he remembered only one claerly. A memory of being in the vicinity of the master of these demon, the Fifth Lord.
He did not remember its name, its features, or anything really, but X remembered the demon as a terrifying creature. The hair on his neck stood up at the mere thought of facing that demon, even though he did not even know what it looked like. X quickly woke up his friends and conveyed the message to them.
'So..., you're telling me that the demon we fought was an actual soldier, you know like the soldier for another demon.'
'Yes'
'And that demon is much stronger.'
'Yes'
'We can't dream about killing it.'
'No human alive can.'
Brik and Aqua had the expression of shock stuck to their face for quite a while. After getting over the shock, Brik told them to forget about it. There were immediate issues to be handled, like returning to their continent. They could wait for a ship, but that would take too long.
'How about taking the centipedes again? That was a smooth ride.'
'You ready to kill some more scorpions, Brik?'
Brik was pissed off, and jumped up to grab X's tunic, but ended up wincing. The injuries sustained during the battle had not exactly been healed, after all.
'Stupid.'
Aqua insulting him was the last straw. Despite his injuries, the hot-headed knight leaped forward, ignoring the pain. X grabbed him and pushed him off, both of them wincing in pain. Aqua yelled at the two of them to let go while insulting Brik once more, and after a while, they stopped fighting, but they continued bickering. During their continuous arguments, they failed to see the dust cloud approaching them until it crashed into them.
'Sandstorm.'
Yelled Aqua, as she placed her legs on the ground to avoid floating away. Brik grunted and scolded himself for not noticing the storm and for creating this useless argument, while X simply stood still, noticing the movements of the shadows in the distance, getting closer.
As soon as others noticed those shadows, they quit speaking, ready for combat. Five figures approached them, tall and covered in desert robes. The storm blocked their vision to the point that it stopped them from seeing any feature of the people on the other side except for a vague silhouette. The tallest among them stepped forward and spoke in an odd accent.
'We wish to speak to thy leader.'
Aqua and Brik looked at X, who shrunk away while pointing at them, indicating that they should speak. When they acted like they did not understand, X meowed like a cat and grabbed his tongue. Brik and Aqua did not understand it, but luckily, the robed figure unknowingly translated.
'What happened travelers, cat got thy tongue.'
X nodded. Brik understood him, and stepped forward, his muscles rippling. Despite that show of power, X could tell that he was injured from the slight limp that was well hidden.
'You know, you could watch us and learn how to speak, X'
X let go of his tongue and stared forward intently. Brik walked towards the robed individuals with long strides, the air around him filled with confidence. Considering his explosive personality, he was not the first choice X would have in mind for conversations, but he did not seem to be angry at this point.
'What is it that you want to speak to us, that you had to interrupt our important conversation.'
No, he was angry. X looked at Aqua, who simply shrugged and ordered him to look forward while staring at him.
'Thou were just arguing with each other.'
The man's accent set off X. The accent of the desert tribes, with a rolling r and deep pronunciation of the words. They slid their s, hissing like a snake. X was not sure if it was a warning, but he did not feel like speaking, so he shut his mouth.
'Who are thou?'
'Travelers from the northern continent.'
'Thou art from Europa?'
'Yes, man.'
Brik was angry, and his voice started rising. The two of them started speaking for a while about why they came here, and from the conversation, X made out that the desert dwellers came here to investigate the explosion that was caused due to the battle. Brik's voice had almost reached the level of a shout, and X was seriously worried about it now. He turned around and silently pleaded Aqua to speak, and after repeated requests, she agreed.
'Brik, step back. You are pissed off, you know. That is not how you converse'
The desert people spent a while discussing something among themselves in their language, a tongue that used countless rolled rs and sliding ss. The words were harsh to the ear, but smooth ang flowing, similar to the desert itself.
'We do not trust thou. Thy must change thou leader.'
'Our leader is a little shy, so we had to step in.'
'We need to know where thou art from, exactly, or else we will not let thou go. Who tols thou to come here?'
'Royal Academy'
'Thou are from the Royal Academy. We are sorry for not knowing thou. We shall let thou go, but we need a favor.'
'What is it?'
'Please tell the Tower Master good things about the Shift Sandstorm tribe.'
'Sure.'
Aqua spoke in a dignified manner. Brik huffed angrily.
'So, you can act all mighty when you talk to us, but the moment you realize that we are from the Royal Academy, you consider us important guests.'
The men on the other side discussed this, and spoke quietly.
'We are a small tribe in the big desert. We are weak and want to thank the Academy for helping us. So we think of thou as guests.'
One of the robed men in the back spoke, and he was met with a glare from the leader of those men. X took a deep breath and spoke in a weak voice.
'Could you stop this... Sandstorm.'
'Yes Sir.'
The tall-robed man spoke to the others who followed him on their tongue for a while, and then they all started chanting a certain hymn that sounded familiar to X. The sandstorm slowed down enough for them to see each other, and after a minute of chanting, completely stopped blowing.
The men were wearing robes that once may have been white but had been stained brown in the harsh desert climate, and some amounts of dark skin were visible through the gaps in their robes and veils. The ones in the back spoke something in their tongue, and for a moment, there was silence as everyone waited for a reply.
The men were speaking to X, Brik, and Aqua, and expected them to talk back, while the three of them thought that it was an internal conversation. The leader of the men then spoke.
'The people were asking you the reason why you came here. I am sorry, I didn't remember that thou don't know our...'
'Language, yeah we get it, it's fine. We came here because that was our first mission. It was to scout for demons in the desert and report to one of the tribes. However, the demons caught us before we caught them, and we engaged in a deadly battle before achieving victory.'
Aqua spoke in a dignified manner, using her hands to explain the circumstances. The men glanced at each other, then at Aqua, pondering how to ask her a question without insulting her. The man who stood just behind the leader spoke out to him, and the leader translated while blushing slightly.
'The people ask me to tell what speak has spoken, but I did not know it.'
'Basically, we came here to check for demons and fight demons.'
Aqua spoke with a sigh. The man translated, and the others around him nodded in satisfaction. Suddenly, they went quiet and stared at the distance. Then they knelt one by one, the leader first followed by the others around him. X turned around and saw a mountain on the horizon, one that he had not seen a few moments before. The sound of scales shuffling and sand falling could be heard from the distance.
X understood why the men kneeled, and followed suit, setting his knees on the ground. Aqua quickly knelt, and after a bit of grumbling, Brik copied them, trying to maintain his posture. The being they saw in the distance was one of the great rulers of the sand, a Sand Worm. The language of the people, and their abilities to control the sandstorms, all formed through the copying of these majestic creatures.
A great cloud of sand rushed towards them at extreme speeds, as if the desert was rushing to open the door for an esteemed guest. All the people including the three knights stared as the dust cloud neared them. After ten minutes of waiting, they finally realized what was in front of them. Three centipedes, their heads seeming like it was scraping the sky, creatures that they had ridden before. The Giant Centipedes were here to give them a return trip.
The desert people respectfully bowed their heads to the knights after bade each other good byes, their dark skin peeping out from the gaps within their robes. X followed them, returning the grace, then climbed on the centipedes that had lied down for them to climb. Muttering a "thank you", X went forward.
'To the sea?'
'No way, I could not handle the one-way trip.'
'Long distance, then? Going East, all the way to the Fallen Kingdom.'
'At least there are fewer chances of running into giant sea serpents there. I hope.'
X muttered, and all three of them laughed as they went away, ready to go back home.