Feeling a sense of profound happiness welling up inside of her as she bombarded the venomous scorpions below, Scaly soon enough realized that there was no more scorpion below for her to kill, as they had either perished to her water blades or managed to hide away beneath the now bloody sand below. Forcing her to stop her bombardment of the area and restrain herself from attempting to hit the scorpions below the sand. Not because she didn’t want to kill them, but because she had realized that it was impossible for her to kill the already hidden scorpions.
Her strength was more than strong enough, but her water blades couldn’t cover a large enough area, and she would undoubtedly end up running out of mana before even one of her randomly thrown water blades towards the ground below managed to hit a target. Once again, reminding her of how important it was for her to learn a proper large-scale spell capable of dealing with multiple enemies at the same time.
Water blades might have been useful this time around but using so many individual spells wasn’t exactly simple and came at a significant expense when it came to her focus on things beyond conjuring water blades.
Shaking her small head as she thought about this to herself while looking towards the dead scorpions below, Scaly fought against her instincts to descend and have a taste of these new monsters and instead placed her focus back on trying to suppress the venom that was coursing throughout her body, as said venom had clearly taken advantage of her lack of attention to recover some strength. Strength that was soon enough suppressed before once being slowly erased by her own powerful body.
Before taking any risks, she intended to take proper care of this venom. Knowing that leaving it behind for too long might end up turning it into some hidden threat that could rear its head to bite her in the back the second she ended up in a deadly situation like the one she had found herself in inside the dreamscape not too long ago.
Problem was, it was difficult for her to focus on getting rid of every part of the venom inside her while flying. To resolve the problem properly, she had to find some safe to land for a few minutes so she could take her mind off flying. Not feeling daring enough to glide through the sky, as there was always the risk of something going wrong that could end up with her plummeting to the ground in the process. Placing her in a potentially deadly situation.
But... Although she understood this and wanted to find somewhere safe to land and purge the venom inside her body completely, she didn’t dare careless land on the sand again after having run into so many deadly scorpions on what should have been a safe floor without any too strong monsters around.
Instead of landing on the sand where another ambush could by lying in wait to inject even more venom inside her body, she wanted to find somewhere that rendered such an ambush from another venomous scorpion impossible.
Luckily, though most of her surroundings were made up of endless sand dunes with no end in sight, she did notice a few out of place structures and rock formations in the distance. Making her confident in having a place to peacefully remove the venom.
...
"Did you guys come because of the dragon as well?
"Huh?" At the same time Scaly began heading towards the nearest rock formation to have solid ground beneath her that would make an ambush like the one she faced impossible, below said rock formation, an older adventurer was left confused when faced with an unexpected question from a fellow adventurer. "What dragon?" Questioning the adventurer who had just asked him in a somewhat confused voice.
"You didn’t hear? A dragon entered the dungeon not long ago, causing countless people to team up in an attempt to catch it! Of course... With the unique properties of this dungeon sending people somewhere random within this desert if you don’t hold on to each other passing through the dungeon entrance, it will be difficult to find."
"Yes, I heard quite a few of those senior A Rank Adventurers and even a few S Rank Adventurers were drawn over to join the hunt."
"This..." Hearing the eager voices of the younger adventurers who had ended up running into him and his teammates by coincidence a few minutes earlier, the older adventurer could not help looking towards this group of youthful adventurers filled with a sense of disbelief.
From a glance, he could tell that the strongest among them had barely managed to reach the C Rank, with most of them being around D Rank.
A group like this dared to hunt down a dragon that had already been targeted by both A Rank and S Rank Adventurers? He didn’t know if he should be calling them stupid or brave to do something like that.
Not only because they had no power to fight against the others contending with them for the dragon, but also because their strength was far too low to face off against something like a dragon that was generally viewed as terrifying monster who at least had strength comparable to the S Rank if not higher.
Still... This kind of youthful spirit filled the older adventurer with a sense of nostalgia as he remembered his own youth, causing him to hold back the words of discouragement that he had originally prepared in his mind to dissuade these young adventurers from doing anything reckless. Not because he no longer for them as a senior, but more so because he understood how unlikely it was for them to even encounter this dragon and wanted to preserve their spirit.
Whoosh-!
But just as he was about to give the young adventurers a few words of encouragement, a terrifying wind suddenly swept past them followed by a large shadow momentarily blocking out the sun followed by something large landing on top of the more than thirty-meter-tall rock formation...
"That... Dragon!?"
And to the surprise of the older adventurer who hadn’t even had the chance to open his mouth, it turned out that the difficult to find dragon, had suddenly passed overhead and landed on top of the stone formation that he and his original team had been camping beneath before the group of eager youths had appeared.
"Look! It’s the dragon!"
"Wow... As expected... So majestic! So beautiful!"
"This is our opportunity! After today, we are going to be known as dragon hunters! Feared by both adventurers and monsters alike!"
He wasn’t the only one who saw this, as the group of youths already filled with energy and a drive to hunt down this dragon all broke out in loud exclamations as they already began imagining the respect and awe they would garner if they hunted down the dragon that had settled down on top the rock formation.
Out of the bunch, not even one of them seemed to have thought about their own strength in comparison to that dragon.
The scene was so absurd that the older adventurer could not help slapping himself in disbelief, as he watched how these younger adventurers began climbing up the rock formation in an attempt to reach the dragon above and prove their strength.
Even without knowing the exact strength of the dragon outside of the fact that it was clearly stronger than him, he understood that this group of inexperienced adventurers stood no chance in the face of this dragon. Especially considering that the other party could fly, while this group of young adventurers didn’t seem to have anything on them beside a few pieces of gear that screamed beginner from a glance.
If there was one positive about the situation, it was the fact that these over eager youths weren’t exactly experienced climbers and barely made it three or four meters up before plummeting back to the ground again.
...
Having landed on top of the stone formation and begun purging the venom still left inside her body, Scaly had already noticed the group of adventurers below, but after seeing their strength, she couldn’t find the will to bother with them and instead just focused on dealing with the venom instead.
Knowing that the adventurers themselves wouldn’t provide her with any experience nor would they be able to harm her even if she laid on the ground for them to strike at will.
In fact, this wasn’t exactly true, the problem was, Scaly had barely missed seeing the older adventurers below due to them being located below the stone formation and originally hidden from view.
If she had seen those older and far stronger adventurers who would provide her mor than two digits worth of experience, there was no way she would have ignored the adventurers below, as only weak adventurers like the ones attempting and failing to climb up the stone formation she was currently on top of were useless to the point where she didn’t even bother with them...