Looking around the empty wheat field along with the rest of the people that had ended up being dragged down into the ninth floor of the dungeon along with her, Scaly inevitably had her attention drawn towards the few lone trees throughout the wheat field...
[Weeping Oak, lvl 141]
[Description: A normal oak tree that evolved into a monster because the ground it grows is saturated with dead bodies. Anywhere a weeping oak appears is far from normal, as at least thousands have perished on the ground it stands.]
And as she did, she couldn’t help freezing for a short second. Not having expected the trees scattered across the wheat field to be monsters.
Not just that, but the description itself clearly gave some hints about where the monsters, undead and necromancers that had descended to the ninth floor of the dungeon ahead of them had gone.
Still, Scaly felt a bit confused over the situation, as this dungeon floor was nothing like what she had expected after listening to the different necromancers describe what a still developing dungeon floor looked like. In fact, the floor she now found herself on along with them looked like a normal dungeon floor from what she could see. No sign of the so-called blank dungeon floor or the terrifying dungeon core that they had been describing fearfully a few minutes earlier.
Because of this, she slowly shifted her attention towards the group of necromancers a short distance away from where she had landed. Listening to them discuss the strange situation amongst one another.
"This... The dungeon floor isn’t a blank?"
"That much is clear to anyone, though I doubt things are that simple. After all, just standing here, I can feel the dense death energy lingering in the air."
"True, the black miasma covering this wheat field should have formed from the dense death energy created by the death of countless beings... And with those who went ahead to explore this floor before us, it isn’t too difficult to guess where this vast death energy came from."
"Indeed, the reason the floor isn’t a blank one is likely because we were lucky enough to end up in an already developed part of the ninth floor of the dungeon, as for those who went on ahead before us... They were almost certainly integrated into the dungeon floor already..."
In the end, the necromancers did prove useful, as listening to them talk, Scaly quickly realized what had happened and why the ninth floor of the dungeon was so strange and different from what she had expected to encounter once she ended up on the ninth floor of the dungeon.
The necromancers were so useful that she almost felt reluctant to kill them off.
Ptsh-!
"Aaah!?"
[Gained 12.682 Exp]
Almost that was... As she took full advantage of them not yet having realized the dangerous situation, they found themselves in to ambush one of them before starting to sweep through the rest of the helpless necromancers who had little to no way to protect themselves without their undead legions around to guard them.
Even if they could still use their dark magic, poison magic, curse magic and other sinister magic to fight, they weren’t able to put up much resistance in the face of her claws and water magic. Breaking with little to no effort on her side.
[Gained 21.690 Exp]
[Gained 17.142 Exp]
[Gained 9312 Exp]
[Gained 27.132 Exp]
[Gained...]
[*Ding* Reached level 43]
By the end, the hundred or so necromancer caught completely off guard by her sudden attack ended up providing her with just enough experience to level up once.
Although far from satisfactory, it was better than nothing, as she at least managed to take another step forward towards level 50 where her next evolution waited for her. The only unfortunate thing was the fact that it seemed like the stronger necromancers had all fallen into the abyss back then when the ground had shattered.
Not because they gave up on escaping to the ceiling of the eighth floor of the dungeon like some of the faster necromancers had done, but instead because they had been forced down into the abyss because they had exhausted their strength in aiding the leading necromancer from behind during her battle against the mist serpent.
"Looks like we don’t have to do anything..."
"Yeah, that little dragon truly is fierce. Makes me wonder who that dwarf is."
"Who knows? There are many powerful adventurers we don’t know about. Maybe this dwarf is one of them."
Not too far away from the pitiful screams of the necromancers being cut down one by one, the group of adventurers casually commented on the situation with little interest.
Instead of the dragon cutting down the necromancers that had fallen alongside them and doing their job for them in cleaning up these necromancers, the group of adventurers were far more interested in Verdell. After all, in their eyes, he was a powerful monster tamer- or rather dragon tamer, a figure that was undoubtedly no weaker than them and might even be a senior only a single step away from surpassing the SS Rank and entering what was considered the true pinnacle of strength.
"..."
And feeling these interested gazes focusing on him, Verdell couldn’t help feeling a bit uneasy about the current situation. Understanding full well that he was nowhere near as strong as this group of adventurers suspected, he was just a little mage who had only recently reached the S Rank and had managed to befriend a dragon in the process.
If these people learnt about his situation, he feared the situation might take a turn for the worse.
So, with that in mind, he remained aloof in the eyes of the adventures who seemed eager to strike up a conversation and kept his gaze focused on Scaly. Hoping these adventurers wouldn’t be bold enough to come over and start a conversation on their own.
In the end, as Scaly returned to his side, the group of adventurers still watched him from a distance. Giving him the chance to climb onto her back before doing his best to signal her to take off and get as far away as possible from the group of adventurers.
Whoosh~
Something Scaly understood to some extent, as she also didn’t feel like staying around those adventurers because of how strong they were and the fact that she had no way to take them on with her current strength.
"They left..."
"That is to be expected, that senior should be curious about the dungeon core and might want to use the opportunity to take a look at how powerful the dungeon core has become now that it is in its current state."
"Indeed, I would want to check out the dungeon core as well if possible. After all, in its current state, it will be beneficial to those proficient in magic, as observing the movements of a dungeon core in this kind of situation might allow one to learn the mana circulation skill. Making it easier to use magic and increases mana recovery speed."
"So... Should we take a look as well? After all, it looks like we won’t face any danger inside an already developed part of the dungeon if we don’t cause any large commotion that ends up drawing the attention of the dungeon core."
"Sounds like a plan. Maybe we will even encounter that senior along the way."
Not the slightest bit surprised by Verdell leaving alongside Scaly without paying them any attention in the process, the group of adventurers mistakenly believed that Verdell was in a hurry to get to the dungeon core for an opportunity to learn this sought after skill that was possible to learn by observing how a dungeon core manipulated mana while in the process of developing a dungeon floor.
Of course, this information was difficult to obtain under normal circumstances and even S Rank Adventurers wouldn’t know about, but for someone like Verdell whom they believed to be a senior standing even above them within the guild, it was only a given that they believed him to be aware of this fact that was well known amongst SS Rank Adventurers.
In a sense, it was also because of this information that they didn’t feel there was anything wrong with the way Verdell was acting, as an opportunity to learn a skill capable of not only making spell casting easier but also increasing one’s normal mana recovery speed was incredibly valuable.
Even if one wasn’t a mage, almost everyone used mana.
Monster tamers, the class they suspected Verdell to be part of might not be a mage, but they had countless spells and abilities that used mana. Making it understandable why someone like that wouldn’t waste time chatting with them when the opportunity to obtain a precious skill that directly increased their strength appeared.
Not to mention, they could always chat with him later when they got to the dungeon core and made their own attempt at obtaining this valuable skill before the dungeon core finished the construction of the ninth floor.