Beginning her journey through the space between floors alongside Verdell, who was clinging to her back like his life depended on it, Scaly found herself growing bored of the empty darkness only illuminated by the faint red light clinging to the bubbles behind them. Not because she didn’t want to explore what mysterious things might be lurking in the darkness of the space between floors, but instead because it was far more boring to fly through the dark space without any clear goal. All she could do was essentially pick a direction and hope she ended up colliding with something along the way.
As for using the dwarf on her back as a torch to illuminate the dark space? She had thought about it but had no idea how to communicate what she wanted to Verdell, something that once again made her lament over the fact that she didn’t have any way to communicate with him even though she could somehow understand what he was saying.
In the future, if possible, she really wanted to get her hands on some kind of skill or magic that would allow her to communicate with others.
Unaware of the fact that he was currently being viewed as a useless torch, Verdell didn’t have any extra energy to spare as he continued to hold onto Scaly with all his strength. Knowing that should he fall off in this kind of place, he would undoubtedly end up dead, as there was no way for Scaly to see him in the darkness even if she might have wanted to save him after falling off.
Even if the reason why he fond himself in a life and death situation was because he wanted to complete his class quest and successfully advance and become an S Rank Adventurer. Part of him could not help second guessing his earlier decision to climb on top the reckless ship that was Scaly. An understandable reaction considering the current situation the two of them now found themselves in, reduced to flying aimlessly through the darkness hoping to collide with a spiral staircase that would lead them up to the first floor of the dungeon- or even if that wasn’t possible, one that exclusively led back to the second floor of the dungeon.
To Verdell, anything was better than aimlessly flying through the darkness that could swallow them up at any moment.
A belief Scaly didn’t share, as while she did find the dark space boring to fly through, it had only been a little over a minute since she had- since the bubble popped on its own and they found themselves flying through the darkness.
It would be at least another minute or two before she joined Verdell in wanting to get back even if they ended up on the second floor of the dungeon again.
But before this could happen, Scaly who had been flying forward with seemingly nothing blocking her path forward-
Bang!
Found herself colliding with something midair, causing Verdell on her back to almost slip off and fall into the darkness below as she used her claws to grip onto the surface of the wall, she had collided with while recovering from the pain of flying straight into something.
The only positive outside of finding something in the darkness being the fact that she hadn’t been flying at full speed. Having understood ahead of time that doing something like that when she couldn’t see what was in front of her might end up getting her killed from colliding with something at high speed... And even if she didn’t die, it would at least take her some time to recover from such an impact, enough time for her to cross the dangerous threshold that her instincts had warned her about earlier.
"This..."
Recovering a bit faster than she did, Verdell couldn’t hold back his curiosity and hope of finding a way out of this deadly place. "Is it a spiral staircase encased by walls to cut it off from the space between floors or something different?" Voicing his thoughts out loud for her to hear.
Who knows, it might be a wall of some kind? At least it seems to be made of some kind of rock...
Fully aware that Verdell couldn’t read her thoughts as she answered his question in her own head, Scaly found herself growing similarly curious about what she had collided with. Wasting no time as she began climbing around the outer rocky surface of the object with Verdell finding himself almost hanging off her body with the rock surface being almost completely vertical.
Unfortunately for the two of them, as she continued her exploration of the rocky surface, it didn’t take long for her to discover that both top and bottom of the strange rock wall stretched far beyond the thousand meters she could maneuver around inside the space between floors while abiding the warnings given by her instincts.
Her final estimation of what the object looked like after crawling around it, was that it was some kind of strange almost completely vertical cone with a diameter of a few thousand meters at the bottom that was only a hundred or so meters smaller at the highest point she could reach.
Outside of that, she couldn’t gather any other information about the strange object, causing Verdell, who was similarly doing his best to try and understand the strange object that could only barely be seen by him after he decided to finally become the living torch she had wanted him to become, to helplessly vanquish his flames before motionlessly clinging to her back as she continued poking around at the rocky surface after the initial investigation concluded.
Thud~
Hm? Are the rocks loose here?
And it was during this process of poking around out of boredom that she realized the rocks on a small section of the strange vertical cone were loose, causing her to start digging with growing interest. Watching with growing interest as the rocks fell away and a small entrance began to take shape.
"This... you found a way inside!?" Something Verdell also noticed, as a few of the rocks and stones dug out by Scaly ended up hitting him on the head by accident. Not that he cared that much about being hit by a few small rocks and stones after realizing where they came from.
"Haha, this is great! It might be a more unique passage connecting the first and second floor of the dungeon. If we get inside, we might be able to leave this damnable place!" Feeling a sense of excitement welling up inside of him as he spoke out loud to himself before using his fire magic to illuminate the growing hole created by Scaly and the intact stairs that could be glimpsed through the small opening, Verdell became Scaly’s number one cheerleader. Cheering her on from the back as she fully dedicated herself to digging a tunnel for them to squeeze through.
Maybe because of this encouragement from Verdell, Scaly didn’t take more than a few minutes to dig out a hole just large enough for her to squeeze through.
But of course, because she wouldn’t be able to fit through the hole with a dwarf on her back, she first decided to lower herself and help Verdell through the hole. Knowing that he wouldn’t be able to get through on his own with his clear lack of flying abilities.
The entire process ended up taking longer than it had taken her to dig out the hole in the first place, but by the end, both managed to successfully squeeze through and reach the stairs hidden away on the other side of the stone wall.
On the surface, everything looked the same as the other spiral staircases that the two of them had encountered while exploring dungeons in the past, but a clear difference that stuck out immediately was the fact that the spiral staircase they now found themselves on lacked a source of light that could normally be found on the different staircases within dungeons, be it from a torch that would never stop burning or a unique crystal that would glow gently and illuminate the stairs.
Now, however, the only source of light for the two of them to rely on was the small fire Verdell had created to light up their surroundings now that he was back on solid ground and no longer had to cling to her back for dear life.
""...""
Looking at each other for a few short seconds after taking in their surroundings, they didn’t linger around for long before slowly starting to make their way up the spiral staircase towards what both assumed to be the first floor of the dungeon.
No... It would be more accurate to say that the two of them hoped they would end up at the first floor of the dungeon upon reaching the end of the spiral staircase. Given the sheer weirdness of the spiral staircase itself, be it its odd shape or lack of light, the two expected to end up somewhere that wasn’t the first floor of the dungeon upon reaching the top...