The plan that Elena came up with was a very simple one. The only reason why the city of Carinossa was able to play such tricks on them was because the three cities had no one powerful to rely on. There were a few people with the potential to reach the A rank but they would need quite some time to get there. For that reason, it was not possible to wait for them to grow up.

For that reason Elena wanted to use one of her clones here to protect the three cities. Elena was playing many of her clones in different parts of the world and these three cities were an excellent place for her clone to be.

These three cities had quite a few good artisans and Elena could use her clone to interact with them in order to increase her own understanding of craftsmanship. Elena was a higher level crafter than the dwarves but as they were using completely different techniques in their forging process, that would still be quite helpful to Elena.

"I have an acquaintance who wanted to find a quiet place to retire and practice crafting various things in his last few years. I found your cities to be quite a pleasant place to live so I can recommend him to one of the cities to live in. That acquaintance of mine is an A rank powerhouse and had served a foreign royal family as their guard. So he is not only powerful but also quite intelligent. He can act as their protector for the time being. If any of your cities could give birth to an A ranker then that person could take up his mantle next."

This plan by Elena was a perfect solution to their problems. They had fended off one of the enemy's attacks so they should be clear for the next 2 or 3 years. In the meantime, if they publicised the fact that they had the protection of an A ranker then the city of Carinossa would most probably even stop harassing the city.

So, all four people present there accepted Elena's proposal and thanked her for her kindness. They knew that any city would be more than happy to accept an A ranker as their part and their three small and insignificant cities were definitely not the best place for an esteemed person like a S rankers acquaintance to live. But still Elena was willing to help them to get such a person's help and she was not gaining anything from it. So if that was not Elena's kindness then what was it ?

After that Elena told them in detail about the persona she had created for her clone who would be living here. Then finally the people asked Elena about what she was planning to do with the man who was captured and interrogated.

As currently the three cities were not planning to go on a war against the large city, they needed to hide the fact that they already knew about the plot of that city's governor. But to that this man needed to return to the city and also needed to keep his mouth shut else it would be known that the three cities already knew about the big city's plans and then they might take unpredictable action next.

To solve this situation Elena decided to make a pact between the captured man and the leaders of the cities. The vow in the pact was that the city leaders would forgive him and his life would be spared but in exchange he needed to keep his mouth shut about this matter.

The type of pact Elena was going to make would be such that no one would be able to break the pact at all. She was capable of doing so as she was overwhelmingly stronger. So that way with this pact, all the loose ends in this matter would also be cleared.

Even now the man named Hadima was in the middle of his traumatic experience of the water paradox torture, so he accepted the proposal to sign the pact easily. If it was asked of him just a few hours after the current time then he most probably would have hesitated and there was a high chance that he might even refuse the pact. But as he was still under the pressure of the torture, it was not a problem.

...

After making everything up, Elena released the man and sent him back to his city. He was only apprehended for a single day so if he said that he was a little late to return as the adventurers of the three cities were searching around the desert then his master would not find anything suspicious. It was hard to believe that someone as loyal as him had given up only after a single day of interrogation.

The normal citizens of the three cities were still busy celebrating their spectacular win over the monster called disaster. It was for the first time that they were able to resist this powerful monster without losing anyone in the process.

As Elena was their hero, she was definitely the main attraction of these celebrations. Many people came to thank her when she was walking around the city. The food stalls were also handing free samples to show their appreciation. The bread shop who sold amazing bread that Elena loved was willing to get rid of the buying limit for Elena to show their gratitude to her.

Elena was very happy about it as getting a chance to enjoy the heavenly bread as much as she wanted was an offer that she was unable to refuse. The victory celebration went on for a whole week after which the cities started to return to their regular life.

Elena was also living her life here in a very fun way. She was regularly traveling between the three cities and was also enjoying their different cuisine. Even though the cuisine of Astatos was superior to the other two cities, Elena was able to enjoy everything these three desert cities had to offer.

Now she was just waiting for her clone to appear and then she would leave the area of three cities to explore the other part of this vast desert. Obviously she could just make her clone immediately but that would be too unnatural and Elena wanted to enjoy the city life for a little bit longer. That was the reason why she decided to enjoy these three cities for one more month before leaving.

Time passed quickly and soon one month's time was over. Last month Elena had spent her time eating, touring and doing a little bit of adventure work. All in all she had a good time. Now it was time for Elena to leave the city and for her clone to take the stage.

The clone she prepared for this time was an old male dwarf. He had a magnificent beard worthy of his identity as a former royal guard. Elena introduced him to all the city leaders and then left the city.

Just like that Elena's journey in the middle of the sea of sand continued.

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