Feeling herself leaving the dreamscape, Scaly found herself in an extremely nervous state thinking about what she was going to face after she got to the material plane, as all she saw when checking the situation ahead of time was empty sky three meters around her. Safe as this seemed on the surface, she understood that it was far from safe given how there should be some kind of massive city attached to the dreamscape outpost of the adventurers.
Whoosh~!
Huh?
For this reason, she was surprised when the first thing that met her upon leaving the dreamscape and returning to the material place was a large pillar instead of the open sky she should have been facing-
Bang!
And with no time at all to react to the sudden pillar made entirely out of marble appearing in front of her, she had no way to slow herself down as she crashed directly into the tall marble pillar before she even had the chance to take in her surroundings.
"Whaaa-!"
The sudden crash also making her aware of the fact that she had managed to bring the dwarf adventurer along with her when she used the gate of dreams to leave the dreamscape and return to the material plane, as the person in question ended up tumbling off her back and falling towards the ground below alongside her.
A fall that was longer than expected, as the marble pillar itself stood more than twenty meters tall and she had crashed into it close to the top-
Bang! Crack~
But it didn’t take too long, as the two soon crashed into and cracked the paved floor below, causing Verdell, the dwarf, to almost faint on the spot from the pain, as his overall resilience was far lower than a dragon like Scaly, who almost instantly recovered from the crash and sprung to her feet to examine her surroundings and where she had ended up. After all, it was different from the open sky she had expected to find herself flying through after returning to the martial plane.
[Human, Light Bringer, lvl 79]
[Half-Elf, Holy Healer, lvl 47]
[Human, Light Cleric, lvl 58]
[Bearkin, Apprentice Light Cleric, lvl 27]
[Catkin, Senior Light Bringer, lvl 109]
[Human, Cleric...]
But the second she lifted her head to examine her surroundings; she was met with the surprised looks of hundreds of people all dressed exactly like the adventures that had chased her all the way to the dreamscape.
Although most of them were far weaker than the ones that had chased her back then, there were still a few stronger ones among them that would pose a problem for her.
Then again, the sheer number of people were more than enough to make her hesitate to fight them... And the fact that there might be even more people around outside what she saw as some kind of towering building filled with status and equally large pillars to the one she had crashed into, caused her to take the chance before she was attacked to flap her somewhat injured wings after the crash and take to the air flying in the opposite direction out of the large building.
Not bothering to even glance towards the dwarf adventurer she had originally wanted to finish off for daring to ride on her back. Understanding that she couldn’t waste a second if she wanted to get out of her current deadly situation alive.
"A dragon!? Where did it come from to crash into the temple pillar!?"
"Not just a dragon, look, there is a dwarf as well that fell off it!"
"Huh? Isn’t that Verdell? Since when did he know how to ride a dragon?"
Swish-!
And along with the surprised exclamations from the people around her, Scaly flapped her wings and bolted in the opposite direction that seemed to lead out of the large building that the people around her referred to as a temple. Verdell the dwarf still on the ground exhausted and injured, unable to get up in the short term.
What in the world... What a huge city...
But as she got out of the temple and took to the sky, she quickly saw the massive city spreading out below her, as she also realized how she had suddenly crashed into something when believing she was moving through the open sky, as the temple she had crashed into was located on the side of a towering mountain covered with similar temples and other buildings made of marble and precious stones, though visibly, the temple she had crashed into was the largest and also the one with the most people inside of it.
Flap~
Of course, she didn’t really care about any of this and only thought about getting away from this place that was undoubtedly swarming with powerful adventurers, as she flapped her wings to take to the sky as fast as possible before any of these powerful adventurers showed up. Only feeling confident in her own ability to escape after she reached the sky and made it impossible for adventurers unable to fly to reach her.
Thud~
Problem was, as she ascended rapidly, she found herself crashing into an invisible barrier. Faltering midair for a few seconds before stabilizing herself and trying to force her way through, an endeavor she didn’t take long to realize was useless, as the barrier didn’t even seem to waver for a second faced with her attacks.
If anything, she felt her attacks on the barrier drew the attention of countless powerful adventurers below. Forcing her to stop what she was doing and look for another way out of her current situation, a way that turned out to be her going higher up the side of the mountain she found herself on, as the barrier only allowed her to move upwards while staying close to the mountain, while at same time also becoming weaker the higher up she went.
Even then, she felt like she might be forced to return to the dreamscape if things didn’t work out, as it was clear that her current situation might be worse than going back to the dreamscape.
At the very least, within the dreamscape, her disappearance alongside the dwarf adventurer she had just recently learnt was called Verdell, should have caused the nightmare hawks originally targeting the two of them to turn their attention towards the adventurer outpost instead.
If lucky, she might be able to make use of this to slip away by returning to the dreamscape.
Still... If possible, she didn’t want to rely on luck to escape and hoped that the barrier at the top of the mountain would be weak enough for her to force her way through. In case it really wasn’t possible and she ended up stuck at the top of the mountain, her high altitude within the material plane might cause her to end up somewhere above the nightmare hawks and maybe even the night cloud that had consumed the floating continent.
Lost in her own thoughts thinking about potential solutions to the problem she had found herself facing, Scaly soon enough reached the very peak of the mountain where far more people had gathered around what looked like a market place of sorts located within the ruins of an even grander temple than the one she had ended up crashing into by accident alongside the Verdell.
"D-d-d-dragon!?"
"Why did a dragon appear here all of a sudden? And how did it even get through the barrier in the first place!?"
"Not just that! Can’t you feel it?! The presence alone is so powerful! Definitely far stronger than the average S Rank Monster!"
"You don’t say... It’s a dragon!"
Her appearance almost instantly drawing the attention of every single person present, but the person herself didn’t have the time to think about the attention she had garnered from the crowd, as her focus shifted from the barely visible barrier above her that showed no signs of having weakened enough for her to break through to the familiar swirling portal that she had already encountered once before when she had left the Howling Caverns Dungeon. A dungeon entrance.
Even knowing that there might be, yet another city filled with adventurers waiting for her on the other side, she didn’t have the time to hesitate, as before any of the adventurers looked towards her with shock plastered all over their faces had the time to react, she dove down towards the swirling portal-
Whoosh-!
Bypassing the shocked guard looking adventurers that stood around it as she soon enough found her surroundings changing rapidly once again, as she entered the dungeon.
From the dreamscape to the material plane, she had now once again shifted her position away from the material plane into a dungeon that she didn’t really know if it was truly located within the material plane itself or somewhere outside of it with the swirling portal she had travelled through connected to another plane similar to the dreamscape where the dungeon itself existed...