Tilting her head in confusion as she looked down towards the group of weak adventurers who had been eager to climb up the stone formation in an amusing attempt to reach her, suddenly give up and start slowly descending towards the sand below, Scaly couldn’t understand why they had decided to give up.
In her eyes, they still had strength left to climb and should be able to give her an excuse to sunbath for at least another half hour. For them to give up now was nothing short of a disaster.
But, as she found herself listening to the complaints of these weaker adventurers, she realized that the reason for them to give up their climb had to do with another one of their companions down below, who had been catching them with wind magic, starting to run out of mana.
A reality that made Scaly realize that she had been overestimating these adventurers, as she had originally believed that they had been using wind magic themselves to slow their fall and prevent any injuries.
For them to have one of their companions dedicated to catching them with wind magic down below made her realize how truly weak these adventurers were.
Although she had not seen this mysterious five companion, she wasn’t the slightest bit interested in the other party, as someone left behind and placed on catch duty would undoubtedly be the weakest of the bunch and wasn’t of much interest to her. If anything, she felt like rolling over the edge to see if she could spot the other party would be her putting in too much effort on a meaningless task.
Oh well... At least I can send them off~
Still, as she watched the slowly descending adventurers, she felt a bit mischievous. Conjuring up a large ball of water that was made up of normal water and didn’t take much mana to conjure up...
"Hm? What is that sound? Is it going to rain? In the desert?"
"Look up!"
"Huh...?"
And as the group of four below suddenly found themselves looking up at the water ball wider than the stone formation they were climbing hovering in the air motionlessly, they all froze for a second before panic set in as the water ball seemingly decided to obey gravity and descend towards them-
Splash~ Splash~ Splash~
"Aaaah!"
"Nooo-! Heeeeelp!"
Gurgle~!
And soon enough, only the helpless screams of the four adventurers could be heard as they were swept off their feet by the heavenly river descending from above, one of the four even finding herself submerged beneath the water about to drown. By far the last thing she had ever expected to happen within a desert.
"Wha-what is happening!? Where did all that water come from!?" And at the same time, the senior adventurer who had been catching the group of youths who kept falling in their attempt to reach the top of the stone formation where the dragon had landed, could not help showing an utterly bewildered expression on his face upon seeing the heavenly river descending towards him from above. Earning him a confused look from his companions, busy preparing food below the stone formation out of the burning sun that made it impossible to stay outside for long.
"Tom? Is something wrong?"
"Yeah, what water- Huh? Why is everything getting darker outside-"
Splash~!
But before the adventurers inside had the time to question the senior adventurer, Tom, who made sure to catch the younger adventurers whenever they fell, the water from above hit him. Sweeping inside the small space beneath the stone formation the next second. Giving the adventurers busy preparing food no time to react as they were similarly swept away alongside Tom who had been knocked out by the sudden heavenly river coming down on him from above. Only surviving the ordeal thanks to his body being far stronger than a normal person as a B Rank Adventurer.
"Heeeelp! I can’t swim!"
"Swim!? How would even swim in this!?"
"My food..."
In the end, the senior adventurers found themselves unable to fight back against the powerful water current, as they were dragged deeper below the stone formation alongside the younger adventurers. Soon enough, discovering that there was a large underground cave situated below the stone formation, that they now found themselves being pulled into by the heavenly river that had descended from above out of the blue.
The only positive thing worth mentioning about their pitiful situation being the fact that all of them were powerful adventurers and were more than capable of keeping themselves alive in this kind of situation.
A few of the stronger ones even went ahead and grabbed the younger adventurers alongside Tom, the fainted senior adventurer who had already exhausted most of his mana catching the younger adventurers not long ago. Ensuring that nothing happened to them, as they were by far the most likely to hurt themselves as they were dragged into the massive cave below the stone formation.
"Thank you, senior... I thought I was a gone..." Earning a thanks from the leader of the four, as the remaining three had ended up joining the senior adventurer Tom in losing consciousness by the time they were rescued.
"No problem, though I think the danger is far from over, as this cave should connect to the floor below..."
However, contrary to what the leader of the four youths had expected to hear, the senior who had rescued him was far from calm, as he directly stated the deadly situation, they were about to find themselves in.
"The second floor..." The words alone causing a shiver to run down his spine as he quietly repeated them to himself. Understanding full well just how deadly the second floor of the dungeon was, a place even B Rank Adventurers wouldn’t recklessly enter without ample preparations, let alone weak adventurers like himself and his companions who had only recently been allowed to step onto the first floor...
Unaware of any of this, Scaly just watched with a hint of amusement as the weaker adventurers were pulled off the side of the stone formation and dragged downwards by the water. The entire situation looked rather comical, as the four were caught completely off guard and didn’t know what to do as they were unable to fight back and could only allow the water to drag them downwards and below the stone formation where they ultimately disappeared out of sight.
Harmless as this little prank of hers was, that was ultimately only in her eyes, as it was very much a life and death situation to the four weaker adventurers who would undoubtedly have ended up dead because of Scaly without the swift actions of a few senior adventurers.
Not that Scaly would ever know about any of this, as she no longer had any excuse to slack off any longer and shifted her attention towards the large slab in the distance.
Even though part of her wanted to explore some of the other nearby stone formations to see if she could find more of these curious weaker adventurers and play around with them a bit, she ultimately decided against it, as playing with those weaker adventurers didn’t increase her strength and only served as some amusement while she was taking a break.
If she ended up exhausted or needed to recover for a bit, she always had the ability to seek out another stone formation and see if there was another group of weaker adventurers around.
Low as the chances of encountering a similar situation again in the future might be, she could always hope.
Whoosh~
And along with those thoughts filled with a sense of anticipation for a potential future encounter with a group of weak adventurers when she inevitably ended up exhausting herself to the point where she needed to spend some time recovering her strength, Scaly flapped her wings and set off towards the big slab of rocks and stone in the distance.
Hoping that the large slab of the desert would have a path leading to the second floor of the dungeon, as she understood from what little she had seen of the first floor of the dungeon, that it was unsuitable for her.
Not just because of how weak the monsters living within the desert were, but more so because of how difficult it was for her to run into any monsters... And whenever she did end up running into a monster, it was always alone on its own.
In other words, outside of the group of venomous scorpions she had encountered just after entering the dungeon, she hadn’t found another group of monsters that consisted of more than two or three monsters.
Considering the large group of monsters she had grown used to encountering, be it the dream bears or forest rabbits, she couldn’t get used to only encountering one or two monsters at a time. Especially so with the monsters themselves barely ever reaching level 10. Providing her with close to no experience after she killed them.