Having decided on a temporary peace treaty with the dwarf adventurer to avoid drawing the attention of the nightmare hawks swarming above, Scaly slowly resumed her earlier forward movement without giving the dwarf adventurer a second glance after making sure that the other party didn’t attempt to ambush her while she wasn’t looking.
In the end, though a peace treaty had been forged between the two of them, it didn’t mean that they had to work together in getting out of their current situation. Not to mention, with her dream magic, she didn’t intend on working together with the dwarf adventurer in the first place. The only thing she cared about was getting further away so she could leave the dreamscape without becoming one with the volcano on the other side.
What is it doing...?
Unaware of what Scaly was up to, the dwarf adventurer could only stare speechlessly towards the dragon slithering forward in a strange manner. Having never encountered a dreamscape monster, this unique even after having spent the past few years wandering the dreamscape encountering all kinds of unique dreamscape monsters.
To be honest, it wasn’t even his first encounter with a night cloud, as they did tend to pass through the floating continent once every few years.
The reason why he had found himself caught up outside this time around and had ultimately been forced to hide away like many other adventurers who hadn’t been able to return to the outpost in time, was because he had been too far away and had been unable to return in time.
Even then, he had originally planned to lay low for a bit until the situation passed over and it was safe to return to the outpost again. Unfortunately, it turned out that the night cloud passing through this time around was of a completely different scale compared to the ones he had encountered so far during his time inside the dreamscape.
Normally, a night cloud would take only a day or two to pass through, but this one was on a completely different scale, something that was obvious from the sheer number of nightmare hawks currently hovering above them. If anything, the number of nightmare hawks was an indication to the dwarf adventurer that this was a night cloud the size of which he had only heard about through stories from other adventurers, one that wouldn’t pass for another few months at earliest and might even last for years.
This kind of nightmare cloud was not only filled with far more nightmare dreamscape monsters like the nightmare hawks but also had far stronger nightmare dreamscape monsters lurking within.
For someone like himself to survive, he needed to reach the outpost before the situation became dire and those stronger nightmare dreamscape monsters began appearing.
The clear problem before him being the nightmare hawks above that made travel impossible without being swarmed by them, something he had personally already experienced before and only survived thanks to the sacrifice of his companions, who had ended up drawing attention away from him.
As for why this had happened, he was almost certain it had to do with his small size compared to the group he had teamed up with and encountered along the way back towards the outpost after the night cloud descended.
Not all of them had ended up dying to that ambush, but one who almost certainly didn’t make it out alive was the S Rank Adventurer who acted as the leader of the group. Not because he drew attention to himself to help others, but instead because he was someone with giant blood flowing through his veins. Making him stand over three meters tall, a clear priority target in the eyes of the nightmare hawks.
Just thinking about the pitiful fate of that old team leader, he couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for the other party.
Though... On a positive note, the fact that he had drawn the attention of most of the nightmare hawks back then had ended up allowing him and several others to make a quick escape...
Rustle~
As he found himself somewhat lost in his own thoughts, he was suddenly brought back to the current situation by the rustling sound of the dreamscape monster that he had already identified as some kind of dragon.
Although... No matter how hard he looked at it, he couldn’t associate the strange slithering motion with a dragon.
But then again, information on dragons was scarce to begin with. Even more so for dragons that existed within the dreamscape. For him to not know about their particular behavior and unique movements was understandable.
If anything, he would be able to return this information to the guild in the future and should be able to earn a bit of a reward if the information was confirmed as accurate after he went through a few tests to check if he was lying. Normally, these kinds of tests might not be applied, but he had a feeling that this kind of unique dragon behavior would undoubtedly end up with those kinds of tests to confirm he was telling the truth. After all, one would find it hard to believe what he was seeing without seeing it firsthand.
For the first time, the dwarf adventurer felt what some of those scholars dedicated to researching monsters felt when they encountered a new unique monster or one that behaved in a manner that others would find hard to understand.
The one example he thought of immediately being a unique kind of slime that was proven to have rather unique palate that ended up with it later being used in sewer systems across the world. Bringing forth a revolution in hygiene and health that earned the scholar who discovered this unique little slime’s true use a name in countless history books.
Of course, one thing that was always omitted was how this scholar had discovered this unique palate of the slime, as it wasn’t exactly easy to encounter or find before the guild and countless kingdoms and empires dedicated resources towards increase the population of this unique slime...
Shaking his head as he thought about this, the dwarf decided not to think too much about this kind of thing and instead began to slowly follow behind Scaly.
The reason for following Scaly being because he guessed that she had somewhere that she considered safe that she was moving towards... And even if that wasn’t the case, she should be moving along a safe path that would take them further away from the flock of nightmare hawks.
Not to mention, the direction she was moving in happened to be the same as the outpost, so the dwarf adventurer was more than happy to follow behind her. Even if the pace was a bit slow in his mind, it was better than nothing, as they were at least continuing to make progress. Far better than standing still waiting for nightmare dreamscape monsters to show up and attack them, drawing the attention of the nightmare hawks above in the process.
But... As the two continued moving forward slowly, the nightmare hawks above began moving more often. Diving down towards the forest below.
Originally, the dwarf adventurer didn’t care too much about this, as he guessed that the nightmare hawks were just hunting down dreamscape monsters who hadn’t yet realized how dangerous it was for them to move around with those nightmare hawks above.
However, as one nightmare hawk dived down not too far away from them and soon enough ascended back towards the flock above, the dwarf adventurer caught sight of an adventurer that he recognized struggling even as the sharp talons dug into him before being pecked to death the second he was dragged into the large flock.
Given that this adventurer had also experienced the attack of nightmare hawks alongside him, he knew for certain that the other party shouldn’t have made any reckless movements or sound that might attract the attention of the nightmare hawks above.
In other words, the nightmare hawks above had some way to hunt them down even while hidden beneath the towering trees.
And...
Rustle~
Glancing at the rather large dreamscape dragon slithering forward in front of him, he didn’t feel the slightest bit safe, as the dragon in front of him would undoubtedly be far easier to find compared to his companions who had been picked up and dragged into the flock above.
Problem was... He couldn’t exactly leave the other party, as there was no other place for him to go, as Scaly happened to go in the same direction he needed to go.
All he could do was silently hope that the nightmare hawks wouldn’t notice them and that the outpost was closer to them than he believed it was.
As long as he could see the outpost, he would feel confident in reaching it and escaping inside the barrier that should already be actively guarding it against nightmare hawks like the ones above.