Struggling for a good five minutes with the spicy giant ant guards, Scaly found herself unable to finish more than half of the first giant ant guard before giving up on trying to eat any more of it.
Having originally wanted to avoid eating anything after the first bite, it could only be said that her starving state had ended up winning in the end and forced her to eat enough to at least fill up her stomach a bit before she ventured into the giant ant nest, something that left her silently hoping that the other giant ants inside the nest would taste better.
If every single one of these ants were spicy like these two, she really wouldn’t know what to do, as she would be forced to fill up her stomach with spicy ants, something that seriously made her consider just leaving the small mountain to look for somewhere else to fill up her stomach.
But this thought did not last for long, as different from the weaker monsters she had seen wandering around the small mountain when she had first settled down and sealed herself off to sleep and recover her strength, the ants were strong enough that killing them would be helpful in her main goal of growing stronger.
Together with her not knowing when she might encounter strong monster able to significantly help her strength grow now that she had left the Hollow Caverns Dungeon, Scaly had no intention of giving up on these ants now that she had run into them. Worrying that if she left for a short time to fill up her stomach, someone else might show up and steal her prey from her, something she couldn’t allow.
Because of this, after the small struggle session of eating half a spicy ant, Scaly began making her way inside the larger cave. Keeping her eyes open for other ants. Not taking long to spot a new giant ant smaller than the two who had been standing guard at the mouth of the mountain cave.
[Giant Ant Worker, lvl 37]
[Description: A giant ant with the sole purpose of working itself to death. Strength ranges between E and C Rank. Tastes... Interesting...]
Inspecting the smaller ant that had yet to discover her presence, Scaly couldn’t help pausing at the somewhat ominous end of the description. For some reason, even if it wasn’t spicy, she had a feeling that this worker ant wouldn’t be much better... And indeed, after quickly taking care of the far weaker ant and biting into it, she quickly spit what she had bit off back out again. Her face was one of utter horror as she fearfully glanced towards the dead body of the worker ant that had been taken out by her in one simple move.
Although she had taken a bite of it and spit what she had eaten back out again a second later, she couldn’t help wondering if all the giant ants would be this bad. No, the spicy ants were fine, they were at least edible, but the worker ant... She had no idea how to describe what she had just tasted and only knew that it was the worst thing she had ever attempted to eat. Even starving, she wouldn’t ever get anywhere near desperate enough to eat something like that. Starving to death in that kind of situation almost seemed like the better choice...
Rustle~
Caught in a momentary dazed state from just having her tastebuds incapacitated, Scaly failed to notice that the work ant she had just killed wasn’t the only one around and by the time she finally sensed the movement of the other worker ant, it was already too late, as it had disappeared into the depths of the large underground cave that existed just a dozen or so meters away from the mouth of the mountain cave that now seemed like a narrow entrance to the massive underground cave that the worker ant had escaped into.
But even with the work ant escaping, Scaly wasn’t too worried about it, having already prepared herself to face off again the giant ants of the giant ant nest. If anything, part of her was fine with allowing this one ant to escape for now and inform the rest of her presence. Knowing that it would at least save her the time of having to find the giant ants on her own, something that would undoubtedly take a long time if she had to search for the giant ants on her own.
With these thoughts in mind, Scaly found herself leisurely moving forward while making sure to keep her distance from the already dead worker ant. Soon enough, finding herself inside the large cave she had seen the other worker ant disappearing into earlier.
Taking a short time to adjust her eyesight to the darkness after having been blinded by the sun outside only a few minutes earlier. After which, she noticed the worker ant that had escaped earlier scrambling towards another pair of giant ant guards, who in reaction to this panicked worker ant began to similarly panic as they moved in sporadic patterns around the entrance they were guarding.
Rumble~
And only a minute or so after the panicked dance between the giant ants began, a loud rumbling sound began echoing out behind the three panic dancing ants before countless giant ants suddenly began emerging from tunnel that undoubtedly led deeper into the ant nest. Every single one of them freezing for a brief instant after noticing her standing on the path leading out of their nest as she had made no attempt to hide herself while waiting for them to gather-
RUUUUMBLE-!
Only for them to charge forth the next second, filled with a profound killing intent that made it clear that they were ready to lay down their lives to defend their nest. The best possible outcome in Scaly’s eyes, as this meant that none of these giant ants would try to run away after getting injured by her in the upcoming battle.
The reason why she wasn’t panicking even in the face of such a large number of giant ants being because she had already realized that the strongest of these giant ants wasn’t even close to comparable to a monster like the magic earth cow lord. Essentially meaning that even in large numbers, they didn’t really pose much of a threat to her.
If she retreated in time, it would be fine, as these giant ants simply wouldn’t have any way to restrain her.
Swish-!
And so, with that in mind, Scaly happily charged forward to meet the incoming giant ants head on. Clashing violently with a larger giant ant that was directly launched flying into one of the large boulders that made up the only decoration throughout the large and rather empty underground cave.
The sheer power of her physical body being on full display, as even the largest of these ants had no way to compare with her, even if her focus was on her magic, as she was ultimately still a dragon.
However, the rest of the giant ants weren’t scared off by this terrifying display of power from the initial clash and instead began swarming Scaly from all sides. Surrounding her in no time before attacking. Forcing her on the defensive in the face of the overwhelming number of giant ants, as she began using her water magic to fend off most of the attacks, she couldn’t block with her claws.
Detrimental as the situation had become only a few seconds after the battle started, Scaly wasn’t too surprised by this and had already expected it. In the end, what mattered was that she continued killing the giant ants even while being on the defensive, causing her experience bar to once again rapidly fill out like it had done back during her short time hunting down weakened monster at Howling Cave City before the terrifying lightning wielding adventurer had appeared.
To be honest, she was curious about just how many of these giant ants were present inside the nest and if it would be enough for her to directly reach level 30 in a single step.
For this reason, she allowed herself to be dragged further into the underground cave towards the tunnel that led deeper into the giant ant nest. Curious about the reason that the giant ants had to do something like this outside of wanting her closer to their reinforcements, something Scaly was more than happy with, as she really wanted to find out if there were any ants stronger than the ones, she was currently facing off against hidden somewhere inside the giant ant nest.
Hoping silently that she would be able to draw out these stronger ants that would undoubtedly also provide her with far more experience than the giant ants she was killing now.
And it was exactly this scene of Scaly’s heroic battle with the giant ants that Charles happened to witness first hand...