Unaware of the conversation taking place behind them, Verdell silently let out a sigh of relief upon seeing the group of adventurers disappear into the black miasma that shrouded the wheat field.
Even if there was danger lurking around every corner on a still developing dungeon floor, it was still far better than having to potentially face off against that kind of elite adventurer group. After all, the dungeon floor itself was still under development and was still far from being finished. Meaning that the monsters roaming around the dungeon floor weren’t as powerful nor numerous as they would be in the future after the dungeon floor was fully established and had some time to develop.
In fact, given how deadly the eighth floor of the dungeon was, Verdell had a feeling that he and Scaly wouldn’t have stood much of a chance making it out alive had they ended up facing a fully developed ninth floor of the dungeon in their current state- or rather, in Scaly’s current state, as she was the one who had been exerting herself to hold the two of them up and stop them from falling into the abyss earlier than they had.
It might not have been something mana draining, but it was certainly exhausting. Especially for a dragon like Scaly, as her larger body also meant the force exerted from the abyss had been greater than what he had experienced.
Speaking of which... The pull that had been exerted on him should have been transferred over to Scaly who was holding him up...
No use thinking about that now, there was no way anyone would have been able to hold on when that force dragged all of us down.
Shaking his head as he thought this to himself before he ended up blaming himself for being the reason why Scaly had been dragged down into the ninth floor of the dungeon, Verdell focused his attention on the wheat field down below to focus his mind elsewhere.
"Hm? That is..." And as his gaze shifted downwards, he suddenly noticed something moving around in the wheat field below. "Wait! Stop, I think there is someone down below!" Calling Scaly to stop so he could get a better look. At what he thought might be a surviving necromancer that had managed to endure even after falling into the blank dungeon floor and somehow managed to get to the developed part of the dungeon floor.
Something that in turn also caused Scaly to curiously look down towards the section of the wheat field he had been looking towards. Curious about whether he had seen one of those trees moving around or something different.
[Undead Necromancer, lvl 79]
[Description: Once a living necromancer. Now a dead one whose soul was consumed by death energy, becoming a walking dead no different from the undead once under their control. Proficient in Dark Magic, Curse Magic and Basic Poison Magic. Able to command some weaker undead, though far less effective compared to a living necromancer.]
And upon seeing what Verdell was looking towards, it became clear that it was something different- or more precisely it was one of the necromancers that had fallen into the abyss leading to the ninth floor of the dungeon before them. Having turned into some kind of undead necromancer after dying.
Still, though she felt interested in this necromancer, the overall low level and lack of any undead or other necromancers around made her lose interest in the little one below. Instead, she felt much more interested in trying to find somewhere these undead necromancers gathered on the ninth floor of the dungeon. After all, far more than one necromancer ended up falling into the abyss leading to the ninth floor of the dungeon.
Including those weaker necromancers who seemed to only serve the sole purpose of creating more undead and skeletons in the back during the earlier clash between the monster under the dungeon core and the Eternal Life Sanctum were numerous. At the very least, there should have been a few thousand of them.
Finding where these weaker necromancers had gone, there was a good chance she would end up running into the massive undead army that had similarly fallen into the abyss leading to the ninth floor of the dungeon.
Speaking of which, she still found it bewildering that the little necromancer below was the only sign of life she had seen so far on the ninth floor of the dungeon outside of those oak trees scattered across the wheat field.
Of course, she had already attempted to kill one of those oak trees using her magic shortly after she had managed to get away from the group of adventurers, but unfortunately for her. No matter what she did, she didn’t seem capable of doing any real damage to those trees, as whenever one of their branches broke or a deep cut appeared, they would rapidly regenerate like nothing had happened.
Even having Verdell lend a hand with fire magic didn’t work, as those trees just stood there doing nothing. Impossible to kill, yet at the same time unable or unwilling to fight back. The trees were truly a painful enemy to deal with, as her current strength seemed too low to do any real damage to them even with Verdell’s assistance.
"A necromancer?" As Scaly had already lost interest in the undead necromancer below and had already started trying to think of potential ways to end those damnable immortal tree monsters scattered across the wheat field, Verdell finally figured out the identity of the figure below-
Fwoosh-!
Although, different from Scaly who had instead shifted her attention elsewhere, he directly sent down a fireball to incinerate the undead necromancer after confirming it wasn’t a living necromancer any longer.
Finished, Verdell signaled for Scaly to continue, something she was more than happy to abide by, as she wanted to find a group of monsters, she could kill instead of those perverted weeping oak trees whom even her sharp claws couldn’t injure.
Unknown to the two of them, the wheat field shrouded in black miasma slowly began changing below them, weeping oaks growing spares and the wheat fields below becoming denser and more mature before a lone dirt road appeared amidst the sea of gold covered by the black miasma.
Only then did Verdell realize something was wrong and had Scaly stop once again before directing her towards the dirt road below.
Thud~
Jumping off her back before starting to examine the surroundings with a visible frown on his face.
"The miasma has grown thicker, and those wheat fields have also changed compared to before. Originally, I didn’t even notice it, but looking at it now, I could see a little over 5 kilometers around, but now I can barely see a little under a kilometer..." Frowning visibly as he said this Verdell made a motion of sniffing the air for few short seconds before his face scrounged up into an even deeper frown. "The black miasma isn’t harmless, it seems like it has the ability to confuse the mind and make you pay less attention to those small subtle changes in the environment."
Listening to what Verdell said, Scaly tried to imitate him in sniffing the air before nodding her head in agreement.
Of course, Scaly couldn’t sense the subtle change Verdell was talking about, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t pretend to understand what he was talking about. At the very least, she trusted what Verdell was saying and listened attentively as he continued towards a nearby weeping oak tree.
"This oak as well-"
CRACK-!
"It’s just a normal tree now, but neither of us noticed the change compared to those previous few indestructible oak trees."
That... I... How...!?
And seeing how he seemingly easily cracked a weeping oak tree in half, Scaly froze on the spot in disbelief before her gaze focused towards the now fallen weeping oak tree.
[Weeping Oak Tree Imitation, lvl 3]
[Description: A normal tree monster with an almost identical to a weeping oak tree.]
Reading the description and seeing the extremely low level, Scaly couldn’t help tilting her head in disbelief. Not understanding why, the weeping oak trees had suddenly been replaced with this cheap imitation for no reason.
"Don’t worry, I don’t think this has anything to do with some kind of trap. Instead, I think it’s because the dungeon core didn’t have enough resources on hand to finish up all the monsters immediately and instead decided to finish them up late down the line when it has enough resources or after the ninth floor has established itself as a proper dungeon floor." Sensing her doubts about the strange situation, Verdell jumped in from the side and explained his own thought regarding the mater, causing Scaly to short circuit for a few seconds as she looked down towards the now broken weeping oak tree imitation.
So... The dungeon core ran out of resources when constructing this part of the dungeon and decided to go with some cheap knockoff version to finish this part of the dungeon? What about the other parts of the dungeon? Are they okay...?
The situation made her seriously worried about the state of this ninth floor and how it would inevitably turn out...