My Wife and I Became Sages in Another World-Chapter 189: Desert Contract

The following day, after we visited Abel’s family, my group and I went to the palace since the sultan invited us.

The last time I saw him, he was leaving Kalusia to return to his position and told me to bring "my fiancee" next time so he could meet her.

While Melina and I weren’t engaged, I could tell by the playful nature of the sultan that he meant her.

When we arrived, the servants recognized us instantly and guided us to a room to wait for Harun and his family.

It was decorated with large pieces of tapestry hanging on the walls and brass lanterns illuminating the room that gave a slight scent of incense.

Plush cushions were placed around a squared table where a tall water pipe stood in the center, reminding me of the "hookahs" from my past world.

The servants gave us coffee and cookies while we waited for the sultan and his family, and a little over half an hour later, their big group arrived.

I remembered that Sultan Harun had more than one wife, but I didn’t know the exact number, at least not until that moment.

The sultan stood in front, holding his youngest daughter’s hand, while a boy slightly older than her walked closely to his father.

Behind them, five beautiful women wearing silk dresses made their entrance and introduced themselves.

The little princess’ name was "Jade," and she was the girl who was cured of an illness by one of my holy panaceas, which later made the sultan trust me as soon as I met him.

She looked like she was around eight years old, while her brother, Prince Tarik, seemed to be closer to twelve years old.

After the introductions, we were moved to a bigger room that maintained the same aesthetics and decorations as the previous one and sat around a much bigger table where the servants were bringing food and drinks non-stop.

Honestly, there wasn’t much to say or do. We were simply celebrating that our plans worked.

Melina seemed to be having fun speaking with the five wives, the battle-maids were talking to the kids, and my companions were stuffing their faces with food like no tomorrow.

Harun asked me how much longer we were staying in Aridonia, but we were thinking of staying for a few more days before traveling to the Droman Empire for more sightseeing.

Later that night, our group was full and slightly drunk from the feast, so Harun offered us two rooms to spend the night and said that we could stay for as long as needed.

The following morning, my group and I went to the adventurers’ guild in Aridonia’s capital to see what kind of contracts were posted there.

To our surprise, there was an adamantite-ranked contract posted, asking for the hunt of a massive monster called "Dune Worm."

It was one of the highest-level quests we had encountered at a guild, but we still felt confident about it after we had encountered dozens of S-ranked monsters.

When we showed the contract to the clerk and said we were taking it, she looked a bit worried for us. That is until we showed our platinum cards, making the clerk widen her eyes and give us the contract almost instantly.

The worm was supposedly 60 meters long and could burrow underground, which made it a challenging fight in the desert dunes.

After the clerk showed us a map of the desert and marked down the area where the worm had been seen, we promptly made our way there and flew across the dunes for a few hours.

The area that was marked on the map was quite far from any settlement. In fact, we were right in the center of it, which was the most unforgiving area of the desert when it came to monsters and climate.

Building a little house for us to rest in the middle of the dunes wasn’t easy since all of the dirt was soft sand. We had to use water and earth magic to turn it into a sturdier material before raising the walls.

After we built our camp in the middle of the desert, we began searching the area using magic, focusing on looking for a presence underground.

The monsters we found the most were these giant scorpions the size of a big dog, which wasn’t massive, but it was still way too big for a scorpion to be that large. Seriously, it creeped me out.

We killed a few of the scorpions that tried attacking us whenever we descended close to the ground, making the rest stop their attacks and get further away from us in fear.

After the scorpions started avoiding us, realizing they had no chance against us, our search became a tad easier without all of the noise from the giant insects.

We even butchered some of them after inspecting them and noticing that some of their parts could be used in alchemy, especially the tail that had a potent venom inside it.

’I don’t know for what kind of potion we can use this venom for, but I might as well take it and see...’ I thought as I stowed away the monsters’ parts in my void pocket.

A few hours later, the night started setting in the desert, and the temperature dropped considerably. Thankfully, our ponchos kept us cool or warm depending on the weather due to Vespera’s enchantments.

The group and I returned to our little base in the middle of the dunes, and I started cooking a hot soup for everyone, thinking that it would go well with the cold of the desert.

However, as I was calmly cooking and stirring the pot, Vespera and Yoru stood up abruptly from their seats with serious expressions.

"You guys feel that?" Vespera asked everyone, prompting the whole group to use our "search" spells.

I could feel a powerful presence not far from us, and it felt like it was moving at high speeds, which wouldn’t have been too strange if we weren’t in the middle of a dune field.

"Is that the worm?" I asked, but my answer came before anyone else could reply as we felt the ground violently shake.