Finishing off the man and ants!

A hulking black giant with horns appeared, its eyes white holes that seemed to be endless. Any and all light absorbed into its body as the world turned monochrome around it. The Dahaka looked around before setting its sights on Ron.

"?EM DENOMMUS UOY EVAH YHW" The Dahaka spoke in reverse, Ron couldn't understand it however he understood the intent behind it.

"A user of the Dagger of Time has appeared. Is It not your duty to remove them and the Dagger?" Ron spoke to the Dahaka, he would have loved to be able to use the dagger however Ron already used whips and his fists. He would have to pump more points into his dagger talent making his wish for unarmed combat talent useless.

The Dahaka heard Ron's words and looked around, it sniffed around and seemed to find something in a certain direction. It suddenly jumped in the direction it was looking at, the world turned colourful again after it left. "Let's go after it, I only have enough points for an hour" Ron said his points were draining rapidly. He hoped an hour was more than enough time for the Dahaka. 

Scarlett nodded and picked Ron up "You're injured just let me take you" Ron suddenly had a bad feeling she was still a little angry at his dirty look earlier but that couldn't be it right? Scarlett suddenly jumped and followed the Dahaka, every time she landed Ron could feel it in his body, yea she was still a little peeved. Inwardly Scarlett was a little shocked that Dahaka exceeded her expectations and was something even she would have trouble facing.

Around ten minutes ahead of them a man was panting on the desert floor, having covered the cut on his cheek. "Goddammit! He almost killed me!" The man was indeed the same person who attacked Ron and Scarlett, his name was Jack.

"If I had the full power of this dagger I could've killed him easily, however I don't have enough wish points" The dagger was extremely expensive. Jack only had some abilities unlocked and even those cost him a fortune.

"Oh well I'm sure I shook him off now only to wait to recharge the Sands" Jack said as he looked at the empty handle of the Dagger of Time, it would slowly fill back up but it would take around 2 days.

"Once it's full again I will strike them again, those injuries won't disappear in just 2 days then I'll kill him" Jack said with fury in his eyes, his earlier pleas were just desperation pleas he didn't mean them.

Suddenly just as the man made his declaration the world turned monochrome, he was confused for a bit before he saw a black humanoid thing jumping towards him. Fear assaulted his eyes as he realised what it was. "YOU ACTUALLY SUMMONED A DAHAKA FOR ME!? The man screamed out of pure fear. 

He knew what the Dahaka was, however he never expected one to actually show up here. He had been using the dagger all this time and no Dahaka showed up which made him think that the tower was a place the Dahaka couldn't reach. He also knew the only weakness of the Dahaka was water but good luck finding that here in the desert.

The man wanted to escape in the sand once more but the Dahaka was having none of that, tentacles shot out from its stomach and dug into the sand snatching the man by his ankles.

"NO please spare me!" The man screamed at the Dahaka. Who turned a deaf ear towards the man.

"DESARE EB OT DEEN DNA ENILEMIT EHT DETPURSID EVAH UOY" The Dahaka spoke to the man, even though he couldn't understand it he knew he messed up. The Dahaka would chase all who used the Dagger of Time.

More tentacles shot out and pierced the man killing him on the spot, the tentacles then went to the dagger that was dropped and enveloped it drawing it towards it. The dagger turned into sand as it was absorbed by the Dahaka. Not far from the scene Scarlett and Ron were watching it all play out.

"Damn that thing has no mercy" Scarlett said, that thing was a menace and seemingly immortal only weak to one thing from what Ron had told her.

"It struck fear into whoever encountered it when one played the games, but the real deal is far scarier" Ron agreed with Scarlett.

The Dahaka turned to Ron and Scarlett and approached them. Scarlett frowned a little thinking it would fight them next when Ron walked up to it.

"KCAB EM DNES ,ENOD SI BOJ YM" The Dahaka spoke to Ron. He understood its intentions.

"I will do that" Ron nodded and opened the wish store to wish the Dahaka back home. When the Dahaka left colour returned and peace was restored once more with only Ron, Scarlett and a corpse left.

Ron looked at the corpse of the man and with a slight sigh as he began inspecting it for loot, it was dirty to loot a corpse however he would take what he could get. Ron looked closely at the boots of the man and saw inscriptions on the boots, clearly it was an enchanted item. Most likely the item he used to travel through the sand. Ron took off the boots and put them on.

Normally one gets the manual on how to use the item when they make the enchantment, however Ron didn't get one because he basically robbed one off someone. So now he had to figure out how it worked, It took some time but Ron was able to figure it out. He could use these boots to dive into the sand and travel through the sand, the sand was just an inch above his head. 

Now Ron had gotten boots of sand travelling as he liked to call them for the low low price of 60 wish points because the Dahaka took barely 10 minutes to find and kill the man. Ron didn't have such high hopes in the beginning, he remembered the Prince outrunning the Dahaka for ages so he half expected the man to be able to outrun him as well. 

Speaking of the Dahaka, wasn't it much more deadly here than in the games? Did the Prince really have that much plot armour? It was possible some characters that weren't as powerful in their own series were now much more powerful due to the removal of plot amour.

The man didn't have anything else anymore, no more smoke bombs making Ron question whether it was necessary to even summon the Dahaka in the first place. Eventually even with hindsight he would still summon it, it had only cost him 60 points and found him quick.

"So what now? We go to the ants?" Scarlett asked Ron. His injuries had stopped bleeding however they would still need some time before they were fully healed.

"Let's walk over there, I may have recovered quite a bit by then" Ron said, he still didn't know the extent of his healing factor that he had gained from the potion and this was a good time to get to see it.

And just like that they walked to the location of the ant nest it took them over a day to reach the nest, when they reached the nest Ron's wounds had stabilised and was beginning to heal Ron's guess was that it would take around 3 days to fully heal a nasty wound. He also realised there was a downside to his advanced healing that he had not foreseen, Ron's appetite increased by a huge amount even needing to dip into his wish points by 40 points to refill his food and water supplies.

Although his wounds had healed somewhat he was still in no shape to fully fight the ants, especially not the numbers he could see walking in and out of the nest. Ron estimated a rough 300 ants were there according to traffic, all these ants were the size of the spiders back at the forest. 

*Ding* Ron had gotten a message for finding a small black ants nest giving him 1,500 points bringing his total up to 1,750. That was a nice bonus however Ron didn't think he'd get the elimination bonus unless he summoned someone to clean up this mess and Ron didn't know someone who had a grudge against ants. If Scarlett destroyed this nest Ron wouldn't get the points but there was not much he could do.

"Cleaning this up is my task after all, do you need whole bodies?" Scarlett asked after consulting with her for a bit.

"It would be nice to fill the storage with as many whole bodies as possible, after that you can go wild" Ron answered Scarlett, he wasn't about to summon another storage bag purely for this encounter. 

"Alrighty let's finish this quickly so we can enter the dungeon" Scarlett said, cracking her knuckles. An ant saw her walking over and clacked its mandibles angrily at her, Scarlett turned one of her fingers into a sharp claw and simply poked it through the head once she was close enough. The ant turned limp pretty quickly, she had preserved the entire body except for the brain.

She continued this plan of attack for the next 50 ants calmly poking them all in the head, Ron quietly stored them all in his storage space. Quickly there was no space left after Ron had stored the 50th ant. He gave the signal to Scarlett that she could let loose and the moment he did she activated the kindling state and went ham.

She quickly made small work of all the ants, like a blender going through fruits she sliced and diced all the ants with now both hands as claws. A giant ant suddenly appeared with a huge abdomen, it was clear this was the ant queen. To Scarlett it was no different than the other ants, it also stood no chance against her. In roughly 30 minutes Scarlett had completely wiped off the ant colony from the map, not even the eggs or the stragglers were spared.

As Ron saw her go to work he suddenly got an epiphany, why did no one clear the ant colony before them? The answer was wish points, discovering a small ant colony gave Ron 1,500 points. Was it possible that people were just ignoring the ants and 'farming' the points it gave to newcomers? If that was the reason, didn't Ron and Scarlett piss off a couple of people when they completely destroyed it? Ron couldn't know for sure but he would still take this shortcut even if he knew. He needed to enter the dungeon to gain more wish points and equipment.

"Alrighty let's head back so we can enter the dungeon as soon as possible" Scarlett was stoked to enter the dungeon. Ron just nodded along and smiled at her enthusiasm even if he told her about his theory before she destroyed the colony she would've just done it anyway. If she could break through she would even destroy the dungeon if she needed to.

Ron and Scarlett took another day to return to the desert town, it took longer to travel than it took to destroy the ant colony. Even with the distraction from the man in the beginning. The guards let Ron and Scarlett in without any problems due to it being noted from two days ago. They walked to the guild where they turned in their tasks. Normally Scarlett's task had to be verified by scouts however the town lord overruled it and trusted Scarlett's prowess.

Ron on the other hand was taken into a different room where another man was present. Judging from the way the man looked Ron guessed the man was a crafter of some kind. There were also two guards present to ensure Ron didn't do something stupid like attack the crafter.

"So can I see the bodies? I can give you merits depending on the state and the amount" The crafter got right to the point. Crafters that usually Ron read about were infamous for their temper and wish to not have their time wasted.