While Scaly and Verdell continued their slaughter of the now leaderless undead army still occupied dealing with the attack from monsters, far from the frozen desert where they found themselves in a desolate wasteland filled with poisonous miasma, the group of adventurers who had entered the eighth floor of the swirling sands dungeon a step behind the two of them, found themselves locked in a confrontation with a pack of crocodilian monsters capable of spewing out a deadly poisonous mist that even powerful adventurers like them had to avoid.
Originally, these monsters wouldn’t pose much of a challenge if they just took them down from afar and avoided getting anywhere close enough for them to use their poisonous breath on them, but unfortunately for them, they had been rushing through the desolate landscape and hadn’t paid as much attention to their surroundings after realizing they were running out of time. Ultimately resulting in one of the crocodilian poisonous monsters catching on of the weaker mages off guard. Poisoning her and forcing everyone to turn back to save their slower companion before she turned into a quick snack for these crocodilian monsters.
And this was only the start of their current situation, as once they returned and managed to feed the poisoned mage an antidote that got rid of the poison, they found themselves encircled on all sides by those damnable crocodilian monsters.
The sheer size of the pack they had encountered easily numbered in the hundreds.
Weak as the individual strength of these crocodilian monsters might be in the face of SS Rank Adventurers like themselves, it didn’t matter, as they had essentially been forced to a stop and now had to waste time dealing with these annoying poison spewing monsters.
Although some wanted to blame the mage who had fallen behind, they also understood that this was their own fault for being too eager and forgetting the simple fact that a mage was nowhere near as fast on their feet as warrior type adventurers like themselves.
"Damnit! If these damnable crocodiles are the reason those foul-smelling necromancers get their hands on the dungeon core, I swear I will return and make crocodile skewers out of every single one of these crocodiles before the dungeon collapses!" Most prominent among the bunch of adventurers was a somewhat younger looking man who had been quiet so far, his pair of wolf ears clearly visible alongside his somewhat cute looking canine teeth as he barred them at a nearby crocodilian monster before crushing it with his heavy greatsword.
In fact, this exclamation wasn’t entirely because he was angry at these monsters who had ended up successfully ambushing and delaying them but also had to do with the fact that he was rather hungry. Not having eaten much since entering the dungeon outside of a few bland rations.
"""..."""
Of course, his teammates all understood the underlying thoughts behind this exclamation, as they hadn’t eaten much either and felt a similar hunger after listening to the loud exclamation. Already imagining the so-called crocodile skewers before looking towards the crocodilian monsters attacking them. Finding the legs and other parts of these poisonous crocodilian monsters, especially meaty and delicious looking upon a second glance.
Whoosh~
And completely unknown to the group of adventurers already silently debating amongst themselves over whether a quick snack break could be allowed to ensure they were in an optimal state for the upcoming battle with the necromancers of the Eternal Life Sanctum, a small bone bird silently watched them from above with a very clear look of confusion present within the soul flames that had replaced its original eyes.
"What in the world is wrong with the group of adventurers sent this time around..." And all the way at the main battlefield between the necromancers of the Eternal Life Sanctum and the dungeon core, the necromancer who had been placed in charge of monitoring the group of adventurers couldn’t help silently whispering his own thoughts to himself as he looked down at the confusing actions of the group of adventurers. Hearing everything they said as they quickly swept through the hundreds of poisonous crocodilian monsters before resuming their journey towards the main battlefield.
The main reason for his reaction not just having to do with the words of these adventurers, but also because he personally witnessed how the wolf beastkin amongst the adventurers tore off a few crocodile legs and skinned them while running before having one of the mages roast the legs while also seasoning them before handing over the finished grilled crocodile legs over to the rest of the adventurers running alongside him.
Surprisingly enough, the crocodilian monsters they had just killed had especially meaty legs. Making them look like giant turkey legs.
Rumble~
Just looking at those delicious looking crocodilian monster legs made the observing necromancer’s stomach let out a small protest, as it was clear it too wanted to find out just how delicious these meaty crocodilian monster legs were.
Unfortunately for him, he could only watch those adventurers eating those meaty legs from afar while at the same time being unable to look away, as he had been assigned by a senior necromancer to always keep an eye on the adventurers.
In other words, it was nothing short of pure torture and even made him suspect that those adventurers had already discovered the bone bird watching them from above and had deliberately decided to eat those delicious looking crocodilian monster legs just to torture him.
The only positive to the current situation was the fact that the group of adventurers had clearly slowed down compared to before, though... He didn’t exactly feel great about the adventurers slowing down considering the kind of torture he now had to sit through.
"When those adventurers show up, I will make sure they die a painful death!" And so, filled with a growing resentment towards the approaching group of adventurers, the observing necromancer who had eaten nothing but the necromancer exclusive dry rations that were far from fit for anything alive to consume, yelled out loudly filled with anger.
"Did something happen to those adventurers?"
"I don’t know, but it should be the case, otherwise old Rob wouldn’t yell like that all of a sudden."
"True, I wonder what it was... Makes me want to take a look through that bone bird..."
The sudden exclamation drawing the attention of the surrounding necromancers who were tasked with overseeing the progress of other undead armies that had not yet joined the main battlefield or were tasked with other things in preparation for a final push against the dungeon core.
Of course, the main difference from Rob, who was tasked with keeping an eye on the group of necromancers being the simple fact that they didn’t have to keep monitoring their targets all the time and mostly just checked up on the state of things once every few hours.
Because of this, most of these free necromancers moved over to see what had happened themselves. Using their own mana to connect to the bone bird that Rob was using to observe the state of the adventurers.
The bone bird itself being a unique kind of monster that could allow more than just one necromancer to connect and see through it at the same time. Allowing several necromancers to analyze or watch a situation at the same time.
"This- OUTRAGOUS! These adventures deserve death!"
"HOW DARE THEY!"
"Are they not supposed to be desperate to come and stop us from seizing the dungeon core?! How come they have the time to eat like this while we must eat those dreadful rations!?"
"Mocking us... They are mocking us! They already know about the bone bird and are deliberately doing this to anger us!"
Unsurprisingly, these necromancers who had suffered much the same fate as Rob the necromancer, reacted in the same way he did and were filled with an almost unstoppable anger towards those adventurers daring enough to show off to them in this kind of manner.
From the raging of these weaker necromancers who in the back of their head understood full well that they had no way to face those powerful adventurers on their own, it didn’t take long before one of them came up with a way to take their revenge against those adventurers.
After all, though they wouldn’t be able to kill them with their current strength even working together, they were more than capable of creating a trap that would be able to catch them by surprise and disgust them.
With that goal in mind, the necromancers that should have been monitoring the situation of the other undead armies shifted their attention entirely towards controlling a few skeletons and undead at the edge of the battlefield and having them set off to prepare a proper gift for those hateful adventurers.
In the process, the attack on the undead army Scaly and Verdell were in the process of wiping out went completely unnoticed, as the necromancer in charge of monitoring that army was among those who lent a hand in creating a trap for the adventurers.