Chapter 15: Waiting
Alvaric and Niva sat on a rock. The sun was already starting to set. Time kept ticking, but the mission completion notification still hadn't appeared. That wasn't good news for Alvaric. He could die for failing the mission. His heart pounded nearly four times faster than usual. That made his body unstable.
Seeing this, Niva hugged her master. "Shouldn't we go home?" she asked, worried, seeing her master freezing and anxious because the mission hadn't been completed.
"I'll wait a little longer," Alvaric replied.
Three hours passed. Night had fallen. The moon had risen, and the wind blew fiercely. The air grew colder. Alvaric was no longer wearing his clothes. He only had shorts on. His Ant Monarch's Armor had been destroyed—dissolved by the acid inside the Giant Sandworm's body.
Not only that, but his Chain Dagger had also vanished, corroded by the same acid. What Alvaric had now was only the Vappers Dagger, his shorts, and himself. He looked like a vagrant lost in the desert.
"Master, let's go home!" Niva urged again.
Alvaric turned to look at his subordinate. "Just a little longer."
"You can wait at home. The notification will come eventually."
Niva grew even more worried seeing her master shivering. His whole body trembled from the cold. His face was pale like a sick man. His fingers wrinkled from the chill of the night. If this continued, Alvaric could die of hypothermia. Niva clung to her master's body, but that wasn't enough. He needed something warm and wide.
Unfortunately, there was nothing there. Only sand and stone. Niva wanted to go home first, but she was too afraid to do so.
"Master, let's go home!" she begged once more.