Finding her way back to the hillside where she had first landed after being forced to down the fifth floor of the dungeon ended up proving far more difficult than she had originally expected.
Not because she ended up finding her path blocked by a powerful monster like the deceptively named harmless snake or a large swarm of monsters like the branch eaters. Instead, it was because she only now realized that she had no clue where she was inside the forest. Having essentially just moved around aimlessly since leaving the human city ruins in search of monsters that would help her reach level 30.
Although this had ended up proving useful, as she had managed to successfully reach level 30, it now proved to be a problem when she attempted to find her way back to the location she felt was best option for her to go through her fifth evolution in.
In the end, because of just how difficult it was to find the hillside, she instead decided to try and search for the edge of the forest and find her way back to the human city ruins again first, as she at least knew her way back to the hillside from that location.
At the very least when it came to finding her way back to the human city ruins, her luck was far better, as she soon found the edge of the forest that bordered the empty grass plains that the human city ruins were located inside of.
The problem was that the human city ruins she wanted to find were nowhere in sight even after she ventured into the empty grass plains. Meaning that her search was still far from over. The one positive being that she could at least follow the edge of the forest until she encountered the path led all the way back to the human city ruins and from location of the path alone, she would be able to find her way back to the hillside.
That was... If she ended up going in the correct direction while moving alongside the edge of the forest while keeping an eye out for the path leading to the human city ruins.
Luckily, just as she began worrying about this after having glided through the air peacefully along the edge of the forest without encountering any dangers for a good two hours, she spotted the familiar-looking path emerging in the distance, stretching far into the empty grass plains...
Hm? The path is there, but... The human city is... Gone?
But as she got closer to the cobblestone road, it didn’t take her long to realize that the human city that should have been located on the other side of the cobblestone road was nowhere in sight. Having seemingly vanished into thin air. Making her tilt her small head in confusion at the puzzling situation. Not understanding how such a large human city could just simply vanish so suddenly.
That is... Mist? Is that why I can’t see the human city?
Only when she slightly narrowed her eyes in attempt to look farther ahead, did she realize that there was a difficult to spot mist blocking her view. Making it far more understandable why she couldn’t see the human city ruins from where she was.
Flap~
Whoosh~!
Having confirmed her location after understanding that her view of the human city ruins had been blocked by a mist that had emerged while she had been busy hunting for monsters to reach level 30, Scaly didn’t waste any time lingering around the edge of the forest as she flapped her small wings before using her wind magic in tandem to gracefully glide through the air in the direction of the hillside where she had first landed when she had fallen into the fifth floor of the dungeon.
Back then, she had only moved in a single straight line when escaping from the swarm of branch eater worms. Making it rather simple for her to track her past path through the forest.
Not to mention, the branch eater worms had essentially carved a path through the forest when they had chased after her. Finding this carved path through the forest would make it extremely simple for her to find her way back to the location where her battle with the branch eater worms had first started, a location that was extremely close to the hillside she planned to go through her fifth evolution on.
The only thing that somewhat worried her was that the branch eater worms, who had seemingly disappeared from the forest after encountering a setback in the human city ruins, would be hidden away somewhere close to the hillside she planned to use for her evolution.
Although she was confident in sneaking past them to get to the hillside now that they were no longer chasing after her, she still worried that they would end up chasing after her again. Forcing her to temporarily give up on her plans of going through her next evolution in peace.
But on the other hand, if she could fully avoid the branch eater worms and they were truly hidden somewhere nearby, they would provide her with the perfect source of food upon waking up from her fifth evolution.
As for the danger that might be involved in hunting down the branch eater worms and provoking them for a second time? She didn’t really worry about any of this, as she personally felt that she would become more than strong enough to deal with the swarm of branch eater worms after going through her fifth evolution!
Filled with confidence as she thought about this, part of Scaly began hoping that the branch eater worms had truly ended up settling down somewhere close to where she was intending to go through her fifth evolution, as it would not only solve the food problem, but would also give her a chance to take revenge on these annoying worms who had sent her running in a rather pathetic state by relying on their overwhelming numbers to overwhelm her.
Filled with this thought of revenge and the excitement of soon being able to go through her next evolution to become far stronger, Scaly failed to notice a clear discrepancy between the cobblestone road she had just encountered and the one she had seen leading to the human city ruins in the past.
The discrepancy being that the cobblestone road itself was in a far worse state compared to the one she had seen leading to the human city ruins.
From small bits of grass peeking through the road to several cracks and broken parts that made it clear that the road had been far less maintained and was worse built to withstand the passage of time, it would have been clear to any human passing by that this was a completely different road to the one that had been leading to the human city ruins.
The problem was, Scaly wasn’t exactly human and didn’t really pick up on the differences between the two roads. Only thinking to herself "Oh, a human road." And nothing more before she was on her way.
But there were other monsters less developed than her who would pick up on this kind of difference, so it couldn’t entirely be blamed on her now being a little dragon. Instead, it would be more accurate to say that it had to do with her mindset sorting things into what was useful for improving her strength and what was not, with the latter being easily forgotten by her or overseen.
An example would be how the human city ruins were easily remembered by her because it presented a clear chance for her to improve her strength in the future.
A random road on the other hand... Was far from important enough for her to bother remembering much about. The only real thing she would remember about it being its general appearance...
Whoosh~
For this reason, even as she found herself feeling a bit confused that she didn’t see any signs of the trees that should have been felled by the branch eater worm swarm when it had been chasing after her, she didn’t think too much about it and continued moving deeper inside the forest. Believing that it might have been the immortal snails at work fixing up the forest while she had been gone from this specific part of the forest.
As for how the immortal snails planted so many trees and helped them grow into large, towering trees in such a short period of time? She didn’t think too much about it and just believed that it was the immortal snail using some kind of unknown plant magic to grow the trees while she hadn’t been looking.
Considering how heaven defying the immortal snails were, it wasn’t that hard for her to believe that they also possessed magic capable of growing trees. If anything, that would be the least shocking ability of these terrifying snails that were essentially immune to any kind of damage...