Feeling herself becoming increasingly excited thinking about how she would be able to make use of the adventurers to rapidly increase her own strength, Scaly kept her distance from the three adventurers and began to slowly follow behind them as they began making their way back towards the outpost that they mentioned returning to. Hoping that the strength of the adventurers at this outpost wasn't too different from these three adventurers.
After all, if the strength of the adventurers was around their level, it meant that she didn't have much to worry about even if she ended up being discovered sneaking around the place later.
The only potential bad situation would be if these three adventurers were considered out of the ordinary for how small their group was and how weak they were, something that she feared might really end up happening considering the large group of powerful adventurers she had ended up running into not too long ago.
In that situation, she planned to just look the other way and ignore the adventurer outpost and instead focus her attention back towards hunting down dreamscape monsters, as hunting down dreamscape monsters also avoided the risk of drawing unwanted attention that might turn her into a wanted target among these adventurers, something she felt might have already ended up happening to her back on the material plane.
Then again, if she was strong enough, being wanted by these adventurers might not be bad, as it meant countless adventurers would willingly throw themselves at her. Ensuring that she would be able to harvest a large quantity of experience without doing anything special.
Just thinking about it made her feel a bit excited about her future, as the group of three adventurers continued their journey back towards the outpost. Oblivious to the dreamscale dragon sneakily following them from behind. Not forgetting to sneakily listen in to what they were talking about. Curious if they might reveal some useful information…
"Haaa… I heard Ken and his team returned lately, covered in injuries after having followed the information given to them by those five from the Holy Light Church."
"Ken? It wasn't just that old man and his friends going out, but several groups teaming up to take advantage of the chaos left behind by those two terrifying demigods of the dreamscape. Heard the reason for their injuries and casualties had nothing to do with the dreamscape monsters emerging thanks to that chaos, but instead because they encountered some kind of new dragon native to the dreamscape."
"Not just encountered, they tried to ambush it and ended up losing three people in the process… And as they were making their way back after the loss, they ended up in a swarm of dream worms. Only barely escaped with their lives!"
"Wow…"
"They survived a swarm of those damnable worms without anyone dying? Impressive…"
Surprisingly, the subject of their conversation just so happened to be her and what she guessed were the adventurers she had ended up clashing with for a short time, as it became clear to her rather quickly that those powerful adventurers came from the same outpost as these three somewhat weaker adventurers. Making it clear to her that the strength of the outpost she was heading towards was far from weak and her initial fear of these three being amongst the weakest adventurers might turn out to be true.
Although not the worst possible turn of events, it meant that she would have to be far more cautious in case she decided to focus on hunting down adventurers instead of dreamscape monsters. Having to keep an eye out for any of those stronger adventurers who might by lying in ambush ready to attack her the second she lowered her guard. Not much different from how that large group of adventurers had managed to ambush her while she had been busy fighting a dreamscape monster.
If not for her finishing off her enemy fast enough back then, she might not have been able to get out of that situation alive, as she understood full well just how powerful that combined attack launched by the mages had been. Even giving them a second longer might have been enough for the power it carried to reach a level that would outright kill her.
Huh? That should be the outpost they mentioned…
Just as she pondered how difficult it might be for her to hunt down adventurers now that she knew that they wouldn't be as weak as the three she was currently following behind, Scaly spotted what could only be described as a towering wall in the distance covered in countless shinning magical symbols that made her feel a sense of instinctual fear.
But that wasn't the main thing that drew her attention. Instead, it was the sheer size of the outpost as its scale alone was almost double that of Howling Cave City that had been centered around the Howling Caverns Dungeon where she had been born.
A city of such scale couldn't be considered a mere outpost no matter how she looked at it, as it almost instantly became clear to her that the adventurers were far more established within the dreamscape than she had originally anticipated.
After all, outside of the city standing before her, there would undoubtedly be a far larger city behind it on the other side within the material plane. Similar to the city that had been located on the first floor of the Howling Caverns Dungeon that had the far larger Howling Cave City behind it.
Only, the city behind an outpost inside the dreamscape was bound to be on a completely different scale compared to Howling Cave City. Making her feel uneasy in the face of the potential strength that could be mobilized from this massive outpost or rather fortress that had been placed on the floating continent.
Even her original plan of hunting down adventurers was put on a momentary break, as she feared that the adventurers lurking around inside that city might come out in full force to deal with, something that she doubted she would be able to deal with even if she had gone through her seventh evolution.
Not because there might be a group of extremely powerful adventurers present within the fortress in front of her, but instead because she understood from a glance at those walls that it would be impossible for her to break through them even if she was allowed to attack them with all her power for days without anyone stepping outside to stop her.
This feeling didn't come from testing her strength against the walls personally but instead came from her still immature understanding of mana and the subtle mana fluctuations that all beings, alive or not, would exude when using magic.
If the level 71 light wizard amongst the three adventurers she was following could be considered a 1 on this scale of mana fluctuations, she would be equivalent to a 5 or 6 when she used magic, while the mana fluctuations she sensed from the passive operation of the barrier covering the fortress in front of her was several hundreds if not thousands times the fluctuations she felt from the light wizard.
Although guessing the strength of a barrier that covered such a large area and drew upon dozens if not hundreds of mana sources in this kind of way might be flawed, Scaly wasn't exactly knowledgeable when it came to barriers, as her previous encounters with barriers hadn't given her the time to properly examine them nor had she been able to properly sense mana fluctuations as easily as she could now that she had gone through her sixth evolution and her mana heart had reached the third circle.
To her, it looked like whatever guarded the fortress constructed by the adventurers was hundreds if not thousands of times stronger than her, something that understandably made her feel a sense of profound fear and rethink her evaluation of the potential strength that could be wielded by adventurers, as it now looked like she hadn't truly encountered any of the powerful adventurers yet.
The sense of fear she felt even caused her to freeze momentarily on the spot. Allowing the three oblivious adventurers to escape the fate of dying beneath her sharp claws, as they hurried back towards the massive walls in the distance before the night cloud had the time to reach them and swallow them up alongside the light that permeated the floating continent.
As for scaly…
I… I need to leave this place!
Only when the night cloud swallowed her up and caused night to descend did she wake up from the shock. Not even bothering to think about the three adventurers that had managed to escape from her, as she wasted no time turning around in the opposite direction of that terrifying outpost.
Any intention of focusing her efforts towards hunting down adventurers having long since vaporized after sensing the terrifying mana fluctuations from the walls covered in magic symbols…