Magic Underachiever

The night enveloped the entire Death Desert. On the night sky, the stars clustered around a crescent moon, embellishing the clear night sky and illuminating the layers of sand dunes on the ground.

Without vegetation and water sources, the temperature of the dry desert will drop rapidly at night. Without the scorching sun, the breath of death emanated from every gravel, and soon formed a layer of gray mist attached to the top of the desert, and the wind became as cold as if piercing the bone marrow.

This is the environment of the former Death Kingdom. Under the cover of the breath of death, the undead monsters buried under the yellow sand slowly woke up. They dug out the hole and staggered out, and the broken vocal cords made a low-frequency hissing sound, like the sound of the wind but with more anger than the wind.

Skeletons and zombies are the most common undead monsters in the Death Desert. They wander without any purpose, and then gather in clusters to patrol in a specific area.

In addition to these low-level undead monsters, some large undead often appear in the Death Desert, making this desert a forbidden zone for life for a long time.

Even now... magic and firearms are widely used, and it is difficult for a single creature to live and see the sunrise of the next day in the Death Desert.

But no matter how dangerous the night in the Death Desert is, there are still people who stay in this area shrouded in death for various purposes.

The Dosan Railway is an important lifeline of the Flormink Empire. Whether it is day or night, there are always trains running on it. During the day, most of the undead are afraid of the scorching sun and high temperatures, and hibernate under the yellow sand; and when the death energy rises at night, the number of undead increases and begins to threaten the safety of the railway.

Airships are important equipment for the Flormink Empire to protect the Dosan Railway. At night, there are at least four guerrilla airships patrolling along the 800-kilometer-long Dosan Railway.

The balloon on the top of the guerrilla airship is 110 meters long and shaped like a slender torpedo. The inside of the balloon is a steel frame, and the outer skin is a composite material that is resistant to high temperatures and wear. At the bottom of the airship is a nearly 30-meter-long cabin with four twin-mounted rapid-fire guns that can carry out ground-to-air attacks; the bomb bay stores high-explosive bombs and incendiary bombs.

In addition, there is a small anti-aircraft machine gun cabin on the front, back, left, right and roof of the airship, which serves as air defense firepower.

In addition to these weapons fixed on the airship, each guerrilla airship has two to four air combat mages on duty. They are equipped with steam flying wings and can use alchemically enhanced guns for air combat.

Like most airships, the guerrilla airships of the Vlomink Empire also rely on steam to provide lift and power. The roar of the huge propeller at the tail is particularly clear in the quiet night.

The guerrilla airship patrolling along the Dosan Railway maintains an altitude of 200 meters and travels at a speed of 150 kilometers per hour. Several searchlights driven by magic and electricity constantly scan both sides of the railway, carefully identifying every undead that may threaten the safety of the railway.

Guerrilla airships simply ignore a few low-level undead. The locomotive of the Dosan Railway has been specially reinforced, and a plow-shaped ram armor has been added to the front face near the rails. If one or two undead dare to stay on the rails, they will be smashed to pieces. But if there are too many undead, and too many broken limbs are entangled in the wheels and transmission rods, the train will be unable to move forward.

Some powerful undead may also cause the train to derail.

Therefore, in order to ensure the smooth flow of the Dosan Railway, the railway line has been included in the key patrol area by the Imperial Air Force.

When the airships patrolling at night find a large group of undead approaching the railway, they will immediately bombard the group of undead. If there are more, they will throw high-explosive bombs and incendiary bombs, and eliminate them if they can, and lead them away if they can't.

The sound of artillery and explosions accompanied the passengers on the Dosan Railway to sleep peacefully.

In addition to the Dosan Railway, there are also human activities in the hinterland of the Death Desert at night.

40 kilometers southwest of the Great Tomb, there is a temporary camp. More than 20 people rested around four campfires. They wore thick clothes to resist the cold of the desert at night and used flames to dispel the dead air. Their dinner was cooked in an iron pot on the campfire, and a faint smell of meat floated in the air.

Guns were placed in the place where they could easily reach them. Although the camp had made perfect preparations to defend against the undead, in the Death Desert, any caution was not too much.

These people were mercenaries, a special group who gambled their lives for wealth.

The one who hired them to go deep into the Death Desert this time was Sir Charles, a world-renowned explorer, archaeologist, and inventor. Due to his significant contributions in the fields of archaeology and science and technology, Sir Charles was named an honorary noble by many countries and was hired as an honorary professor by many well-known magic academies.

Sir Charles can be said to be a man of the times and is admired by countless people.

Sir Charles, who is already 56 years old, is still very strong, with a thin face, a mustache under his hooked nose, and a monocle stuck in his eye socket. In the silent death desert, he was not as fearful of the undead as the mercenaries, but was still immersed in his work. He wore a proper gentleman's suit and a dark gray cloak to protect himself from the wind and sand, and sat on a foldable bench. In the light of the campfire, he used a fountain pen to write down his discoveries from the day's exploration in a notebook.

Under his feet was a map of the Dosan Desert, and a cane with a golden hoop was pressed on the map to prevent the wind from messing it up. On the map, there were lines and marked circles, indicating that Sir Charles had been exploring the Death Desert for a long time.

"Sir, it's time to eat something."

A girl about twenty years old came to Sir Charles with a bowl of hot soup and a piece of dry bread. The girl was wearing a canvas denim suit, a triangular scarf around her neck, chestnut hair in a ponytail, a cowboy hat on her head, and a pair of spur boots on her feet. A leather bullet belt was wrapped around her waist, with yellow round bullets inserted in it. A gun holster was tied on the outside of her right thigh, with a silver revolver inserted in it, and a slender leather bag was pinned on the left belt, with a section of the handle of a magic wand exposed outside the leather bag.

There were some red spots on the exposed skin on the girl's face due to sun exposure, but the skin on her neck and wrists was extremely delicate and white.

Holding the hot soup, the girl sat down on the sand next to Sir Charles, watching him continue writing without raising his head. The girl advised: "Sir, when are we going to leave the Death Desert... I would rather go to the glaciers in the far north with you than be baked by the sun here.

Look at my face... If it continues to be exposed to the sun, I'm afraid even magic can't save it.

No boy will pay for me in the bar anymore."