Seeing the large lake in front of her that flowed into the tunnel and created the river that she had been walking alongside for the past four hours and looking up at the waterfall that fell from somewhere in the sky above the mountain, Scaly understood that it wasn’t likely for the water to stop anytime soon if the waterfall kept feeding new water into the lake.
At the very least, it seemed like the speed of the lake filling up with water was around the same as the speed that the water was being drained by the tunnel. Creating a form of equilibrium where the lake remained at the same height as the tunnel entrance.
Because of this, what little rocky land was left around the lake had already been turned into a rather lively area filled with all kinds of unique plants that had adapted to the unique environment inside the mountain crater.
Unfortunately, outside of it being a rather peaceful place without any monsters around at first glance, Scaly understood that she had no way to determine if there were any monsters inside the lake that took up most of the crater... And from her previous experience on the third floor of the dungeon and what she had seen in the sea back then, she didn’t believe that there weren’t any monsters hiding below the surface.
But... Even if there are monsters hiding inside the water, the land should be safe. If I look around the place, I might even find somewhere to hide while going through my fourth evolution. The only problem with this is that there isn’t really anything around for me to eat after I finish my evolution...
Thinking this to herself as she looked out over the lake before turning back to the little bit of land around the tunnel entrance, Scaly decided to take a look and see what she could find and if there was anywhere suitable for her to undergo her evolution.
After all, even though the land part of crater was rather small, it still covered an area of a few hundred meters and had quite a few unique looking trees that hid parts of the land from view...
Rustle~
Moving through a few bushes that had managed to grow in the rocky soil by somehow growing their roots through the rocks, Scaly soon finished looking around the entire piece of land not under water and concluded that there were no monsters that had managed to avoid her by hiding somewhere behind the plants on the land.
At the same time, she also found a few locations of interest during her quick tour of the area.
One was a small bag that had been overgrown with plants, likely having belonged to a human adventurer who reached the crater a long time ago.
Inside the bag, she didn’t really find anything of use outside of a piece of paper with some drawings of mountains and other things on it and a few tools that she couldn’t really use with her claws.
Next up, she found several potential locations for going through her evolution, the most promising one being a small hole a few meters above the trees of rocky land.
Although it would take some effort to climb up, she would at least have a location that would remain safe even if the water inside the crater lake suddenly rose during her evolution or the monsters, she suspected to be lurking inside the waters had the ability to crawl onto land.
After all, even though they might spend most of their time living inside the lake waters, Scaly had personally witnessed how the monsters that had lived in the sea of the third floor had managed to climb out of the sea an onto land.
Last up and by far most interesting of all the things she had found while looking around the place was a path that seemed to have been carved into the side of the mountain going up and out of the crater from what she could see.
Though it was tempting to climb up the path to see the rest of the fourth floor of the dungeon from high above and finally have the ability to see what laid beyond the tall mountains that had blocked her view in the past, Scaly didn’t entirely trust the path that went up the side of the crater.
The main reason for this was that the path itself continued around the crater and ended at the opposite end of where she was standing at the moment. Essentially meaning that she would have to spend most of her time above the crater lake while making her way out of the crater... And considering that fact that she could see a few locations on the path that had been broken off, she didn’t really feel that eager to try and make her way out of the crater at the moment. Especially considering that she still had no clue just how strong or weak the monsters possibly hiding inside the lake waters might be.
At the very least, going by the standard of the higher up the mountain, the stronger the monster, Scaly didn’t want to accidentally end up provoking a powerful monster that could very well be at the same level as the drake that she had seen settling down on top of one of the tall mountains.
RUMBLE-!
However, as she was thinking about what to do next, a loud rumbling sound suddenly echoed out from the sky above-
FWIIIISSSH-!
Followed by the waterfall from the sky almost doubling in size. Instantly increasing the water falling into the lake.
Even worse, the waterfall seemed to be growing in size with each passing second... And turning to look at the tunnel entrance and the river flowing through it now growing in size, Scaly understood that it was only a matter of time before it was overwhelmed if the heavenly waterfall kept growing in size.