Chapter 455 Kureha: Leon, My Superman!

But before its roar could spread, before its mind had caught up, a figure it had written off as a tiny insect swelled fast in its shrinking pupils.

Leon poured every bit of his strength into the blow, his body drawn back like a bow at full moon, the staff swinging up in an arc loaded with crushing pressure.

"Now..."

Muscles tight, loose hair flying, cloak snapping, the staff tearing a scream out of the air.

"...die!!!"

"Hah!"

The moment the staff came down, the air burst open in a ring of shockwaves visible to the naked eye.

A brief dead silence, and then the white shockwave let out a thunderous roar. Sand went flying in every direction from where Leon stood, so much of it that the space around him became a no-go zone for the sand itself.

The Sandstorm Giant Crocodile's body crashed down with a boom, throwing up waves of sand.

The others looked back at the hazy center of the storm. A silhouette sharpened there, walking out of the churning veil of sand at a steady pace.

And behind him, that crocodile of staggering size was being dragged along one-handed by a figure many times smaller than it, its body plowing deep furrows through the sand.

Against the empty desert backdrop, the sight made for an absolute contrast of power and scale.

"Wow!"

"That was incredible!"

"So cool!!"

"Leon, you're the best!"

"Darling, my superman!"

Seeing Leon walk out of the sand dragging the giant crocodile without a scratch on him, the women broke into cheers.

Leon looked at them running toward him with their arms open, grinned wide with a flash of white teeth, and gave them a thumbs up.

"So? How was that swing, pretty coo..."

He didn't get to finish. One figure after another shot right past him and threw themselves at the giant crocodile behind him.

"Wow! It really dropped the rare material, Sandstorm Giant Crocodile hide!"

"Amazing, I want a medium shoulder bag, those go for fourteen million on the market!"

"I think a tote would be nice too, elegant and classy, sturdy and roomy. Practical for shopping and market runs!"

Leon stood frozen in place, the smile fading off his face.

They say a smile never disappears, it only moves somewhere else, and at this moment his smile had moved squarely onto the ladies.

Wait.

An idea struck him. If bags made from this hide carried that big a markup, why not just turn them into limited-edition Ladies' Wonder Bags and sell them?

This was Lv.4 hide. Made into Wonder Bags it would have at least four times the volume. Sell them to Freya, Loki, Astraea and the rest, and he'd make money, keep his connections warm, and dodge the auction house's cut. Three birds with one bag.

Three birds with one bag!

A triple win. He won three times all by himself.

Wait, not just that.

The hide could also be made into all sorts of bags for the ladies around him, with Item Box enchantment to expand them. That way he'd raise their affection, and maybe, just maybe, that "little game" he'd never managed to make happen would finally have a shot.

A quadruple win. He won four times all by himself.

"Heh heh..."

...

Sand Land, near the passage from Floor 35 down to Floor 36.

After a day of hard fighting, almost everyone was worn out. Once they'd found a relatively safe campsite, they forced themselves through pitching the tents and collapsed onto their sleeping bags, sprawled on top of them, too lazy to move a finger.

Rose had taken off her armor and battle gear, leaving only a pair of hot pants and a white cotton halter top that bared her back, showing off her figure for all it was worth.

She lay on her side with one hand propping up her cheek and a waterskin pressed to her forehead, languid, looking at Leon with wide, pleading eyes.

"Mm... darling, dinner's up to you, all right? I really don't have the strength to get up."

"And it's so hot..."

As the vanguard, Rose and Jeanne carried the heaviest load. Meeting monsters head on burned through stamina and nerve in a way the others couldn't compare to. Add to that Sand Land's heat and dryness, worse than a real desert, and even a knight with stamina as deep as Rose's was showing her exhaustion.

"Okay, you all rest. You've had a long day."

Leon knelt beside Rose, gently brushed the loose hair stuck to her forehead back behind her ear, kissed her lightly on the lips, then got up, pushed the tent flap aside, and went to get the camp cookware and ingredients ready.

Besides endless yellow sand, their exploration of Sand Land had turned up a few hidden spots. Hidden is generous, they were just relatively hard to spot. Search carefully and you'd always turn up one or two.

Oases.

A secret area unique to Sand Land, and not to be missed.

Here they were called oases. On other floors, you could just as easily call them Pantries.

Leon's group had found one such oasis while exploring and mapping.

Growing there were all sorts of food unique to the desert: molten-char jujubes, crystal cistanche, sand thorn fruit, breadfruit trees and more.

These rare ingredients grown in the Dungeon weren't only distinctive in flavor and highly valuable, they also carried enormous nutritional value. Filling your stomach was the most basic use they had.

Of course, something that rare was never easy to get.

An oasis in the desert was contested ground, the kind every army fights over, and the most monster-dense area in Sand Land. An Adventurer who wanted to gather food there without some real skill would likely end up part of the food himself.

Only thanks to Leon, Rose, Jeanne, and Persephone, whose eyes lit up at any rare desert ingredient, had they carved their way through the oasis by sheer force. Otherwise tonight's dinner would have come out of the rations they'd brought down from the surface.

Leon tied on his apron, cleaned his kitchen knife, spun it through a practiced flourish, and smirked.

"Cooking, let's see where your limit is!"

"Hyah!"

He pinned down two cucumbers with one hand, the knife moving like something divine.

A second later, the kitchen knife became a blur in Leon's hand, coming down on the board in a rapid, crisp string of taps.

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