Noticing the dwarf adventurer following behind her, Scaly originally wanted to force him away, but on second thought, she realized that doing so would end up causing a disturbance that would almost certainly end up drawing the attention of the nightmare hawks above. So, with that in mind, she ended up ignoring the dwarf adventurer and continued slowly slithering forward. Intent on reaching a place far enough away so that she wouldn’t end up inside a volcano after leaving the dreamscape, something that turned out to be harder than she had originally expected, as the volcano itself proved to be far larger than she had thought possible.
Even after she had travelled over a hundred meters away from her original position and peeked back into the material plane through the gate of dreams, she found herself still submerged in the lava.
Not just that, but she also caught something moving around inside the lava. Meaning that even if she could somehow survive landing in the lava, she still had to survive whatever terrifying monster that lived inside the volcano, a difficult task to say the least.
Instead of that, it did look like her current situation in the dreamscape was far better, as the nightmare hawks above hadn’t yet noticed her and the dwarf adventurer following behind her-
Squawk-!
Or that was at least how she hoped things would play out, but a loud squawking sound from above announced the end of her peaceful slithering through the forest without being noticed by the nightmare hawks above, as only a second later, countless nightmare hawks had their attention drawn towards her and the dwarf adventurer.
"Friend... I think we should get going..."
You don’t say so...
Hearing the words of the dwarf adventurer, Scaly could only nod her head in agreement as she unfolded her wings and was about to take off flying before the nightmare hawks reached her-
Thud~
But before she could take off, she felt something attempting to climb on top her... And behold, she saw the small dwarf adventurer trying mount her like some kind of dragon rider.
This little thing dares!?
WHOOOSH-!
And unsurprisingly, she was far from pleased with this development, as she directly flapped both her wings and took off before the little dwarf adventurer had the chance to climb on top of her-
"Whaaaaaa-! Let me get up properly!"
However, contrary to her expectations of the dwarf adventurer tumbling off her body with the fast take off, she instead found the little dwarf hanging on to her tail with all his strength as he screamed in a panic at the sudden turn of events.
Let go! You damnable dwarf!
Not that Scaly cared the slightest bit about the panicked little dwarf clinging to her tail for dear life as they had already ascended more than a hundred meters into the sky thanks to her use of wind magic for a fast takeoff.
Squawk-!
Only with the arrival of a nightmare hawk did the struggling duo rolling around midair come to a stop, as Scaly stopped trying to shake off the dwarf adventurer and instead turned her attention towards escaping. Deciding to ignore the bold little dwarf adventurer for now as she flew as fast possible in the opposite direction of an increasingly large number of nightmare hawks diving towards her from above or chasing her from behind.
The one positive thing about the situation being that the cloud made entirely of nightmare hawks above them wasn’t as large as it looked from below. Allowing Scaly to make out from under it before all the nightmare hawks above realized what was happening below and decided to target her.
"Ugh... I think I need to throw up..." Barely holding on this entire time, the dwarf adventurer barely stopped himself from throwing up as he managed to recover a bit from the chaotic scuffle earlier.
When he heard legends of riding dragons, this was the last thing he had expected when he finally got the chance to fly a dragon himself. If possible, he wanted to never ride a dragon again in the future, his stomach simply couldn’t handle it.
Still, with things stable as Scaly flew off in one direction instead of trying to throw him off, the dwarf adventurer at least had the chance to slowly reel himself in by using Scaly’s tail as a rope to drag his body forward until finally getting onto Scaly’s back.
Squawk-!
But almost the second he got on her back and no longer found himself barely holding on to her tail, a nightmare hawk dove down towards him from above. No... It didn’t dive towards him, but instead had its entire attention focused on Scaly, talons already about to pierce into Scaly’s back. "Underestimating me!? Damnable bird, I will turn you into a rotisserie chicken!"
FWOOOOSH-!
And following a rather loud exclamation, the dwarf drew what looked like an intricate bright red magical circle in the air that instantly exploded forth with a terrifying flame that directly swallowed up the nightmare hawk.
Squawk!?
Giving the bird no chance to react as it was burned to a crisp and soon enough fell from the sky towards the ground below. Leaving behind a rather tantalizing aroma that made Scaly below unconsciously swallow as she began wondering what the nightmare hawks tasted like, as the aroma alone was more than enough for her imagination to start running wild.
No! That isn’t important! That little dwarf, he killed it, but I still managed to get some experience without doing anything!
Shaking her head a bit as she banished the thoughts on how delicious a nightmare hawk would, Scaly instead focused on the fact that she had managed to gain experience from the nightmare hawk that had just been killed by the dwarf that had somehow managed to climb onto her back while she had been focused on escaping.
[Gained 6828 Exp]
Although the experience gained was less than half of what she gained from killing a nightmare hawk on her own, it was still far better than nothing and the main reason why she hadn’t done a barrel roll to try and get the dwarf off her.
After all, humiliating as it might be to have a little dwarf riding on top of her, none of this mattered if the dwarf helped fend off nightmare hawks while also helping her become stronger in the process.
[Gained 5626 Exp]
And as another notification appeared following the dwarf shooting down a second nightmare hawk with what looked like an arrow made of fire that exploded on impact, Scaly decided that the little dwarf was welcome to stay as she shifted her attention towards escaping from the increasingly large number of nightmare hawks chasing her.
Looking back, the number had grown from the initial dozen or so to more than a hundred with the number still increasing as more nightmare hawks began realizing that something was happening.
Even with the dwarf shotting down the ones that got close enough to potentially attack her, it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed by the sheer number of nightmare hawks. After all, mana wasn’t an infinite resource and the dwarf on her back wouldn’t be able to keep up his current pace of throwing out fire spells forever.
[*Ding* Reached level 12]
Still, with the dwarf working overtime, it didn’t take long before she reached level 12, while the dwarf also managed to make significant progress, going from level 96 to level 98. Only a short distance away from reaching level 100 that would qualify him as an S Rank Adventurer.
"Ah! I can’t hold on much longer! I’m running of mana potions...!"
But this was ultimately the limit, as even with the dwarf chugging down over a dozen blue bottles that he referred to as mana potions to fill up his rapidly depleting mana pool, he had run out and wouldn’t be able to continue fending off the nightmare hawks for much longer.
Great as her own condition was thanks to the efforts of the dwarf adventurer, Scaly also understood that she wouldn’t be in a much better situation when he reliable support disappeared.
Huh? Isn’t that the adventurer outpost...?
But just as she was about to try and come up with some way to escape the current deadly situation by potentially using the gate of dreams while praying, she wouldn’t end up somewhere dangerous, the adventurer outpost appeared off in the distance. Reminding her of the powerful adventurer she had seen easily tearing apart nightmare hawks not too long ago.
"The outpost! Go there fast! It’s our only chance!"
Also seeing the outpost in the distance, the dwarf on her back yelled loudly with a clear look of excitement on his face, like someone lost in a desert about to die of dehydration finding an oasis.
Whoosh-!
Having already made up her mind on where to go, Scaly didn’t hesitate in the slightest as she rushed towards the outpost in the distance, a large flock of nightmare hawks chasing her from behind.