Landing on an empty grass plain alongside Verdell with a large forest to one side and a mountain on the other, Scaly couldn’t help feeling a sense of growing disappointment at the strength of the different monster lurking within the tall wild grass.
[Large Grass Snake, lvl 78]
[Wild Grass Lizard, lvl 69]
[Grass Shaped Golem, lvl 81]
[Green Plains Butterfly, lvl 23]
Just a cursory glance revealed not even a single monster above level 100. Making it increasingly clear that the ninth floor of the dungeon wouldn’t have anything around for her to use to increase her own level, let alone get anywhere close to level 50 and her next evolution. The best she could do was continue practicing her magic in the hopes that raising the level of her different magical abilities would increase the chance of new powerful evolutions once her level reached 50 in the future, a time she had a feeling would only come once she left this cursed dungeon that had started throwing nothing but useless monsters at her ever since she ended up on the ninth floor of the dungeon.
Well... The monsters within the undead kingdom weren’t useless and she should be able to find some powerful undead and skeleton monsters as long as she kept exploring that undead kingdom, but the warning Verdell had given her made it clear that doing so was a bad idea with her current strength.
Thinking about all of this as she began moving through the grass plains alongside Verdell, Scaly failed to notice a pair of eyes lighting up within the dark shadows of the forest next to the grass plains. Following the two of them as they made their way through the tall grass- or more precisely, Verdell walking next to her.
Having originally descended to the ground to walk on their feet instead of flying to avoid the potential danger of entering a place swarming with powerful monsters without any kind of warning ahead of time, Scaly didn’t feel the slightest bit happy about the turn of events because of how slow they were now moving. The only positive to the entire situation in her eyes was the fact that Verdell was no longer sitting on her back and was instead walking beside her-
Thud~ Ptsh!
[Gained 3212 Exp]
Oh, and the fact that the monsters lurking within the tall grass now threw themselves at her without any regard for their own lives. Delivering a steady stream of experience that while not having the biggest impact on the growth of her level, at least provided her with the ability to see her experience bar slowly moving forward, something she hadn’t been able to experience flying through the sky up above earlier due to the clear lack of flying monsters on the ninth floor.
Maybe for this reason, though unsatisfied with the strength of these monsters that should have been far stronger than the monsters she fought against on the eighth floor and even seventh floor of the dungeon, she wasn’t too sad about the current state of things now that her strength was at least slowly improving compared to earlier where she had just been moving around without the slightest bit of increase in strength.
What she feared wasn’t that there wouldn’t be any powerful monsters around, but that there wouldn’t be any monsters around to help her improve her strength.
Verdell himself had no idea about the troubled thoughts of his companion and was instead keeping his eyes peeled for any potentially powerful monsters that might be lurking nearby. Relying on his sensitivity to the surrounding flow of mana, learnt over his long years as a mage, that they were getting close to the dungeon core.
In other words, if he was correct, they should soon start seeing the different powerful monsters he suspected had gathered and settled down close to the dungeon core in preparation to defend it later when the construction of the dungeon core finished.
"Hm? Something is watching us...?" And it was because of this heightened sensitivity to the surrounding environment that he suddenly realized something was watching the two of them from the forest only a few hundred meters away from where they were walking within the tall grass.
But when he turned around to look in the direction where this gaze was coming from, it disappeared before he had a chance to identify the owner of that secret gaze.
This... Not a normal monster...
But the mere fact that it had the ability to so quickly hide itself from him made it clear that this wasn’t an ordinary monster. Instead, it was clearly a very smart monster that knew how to properly keep itself hidden while watching them. Especially so because only a short time later, he felt the same gaze locking onto him from another place within the forest that he wasn’t looking towards-
Whoosh~
However, the second he shifted around towards that direction, the gaze hidden within the forest vanished into thin air like it had never been there in the first place. Leaving Verdell scratching his head in frustration knowing that something was watching them but at the same time had the ability to avoid detection no matter how hard he tried to catch the other party in the act.
Whoosh~ Whoosh~ Whoosh~
Huh? What is he doing...?
And as Verdell began moving around erratically in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the monster that was keeping an eye on the two of them from the depths of the forest, Scaly found it difficult not to notice the dwarf’s erratic movement as his little headed spun in circles while moving up and down in some weird motions that left Scaly utterly bewildered at the strange antics that looked like some sort of weird ritualistic dance from the outside.
Only when her gaze shifted away from Verdell towards the forest in the distance did she realize what he was looking towards, or at the very least trying to catch a glimpse of, as she barely managed to catch a glimpse of a massive creature silently moving around within the dark forest that had been left without any light thanks to the thick canopy above.
[Dark Forest Lurker, lvl 177]
[Description: The dark forest lurker is a unique evolution of the green forest spider that generally inhabits forests covered in perpetual darkness under their thick canopies. Not allowing any light inside, as the forest exists in a state of perpetual night. Allowing unique monsters like the dark forest lurker, a massive forest spider with legs more than five meters long, to exist.
Be warned, although a single dark forest lurker is considered far weaker than an average SS Rank Monster and, in some cases, even weaker than some stronger S Rank Monsters, they rarely roam around on their own, where you find one, you generally find a dozen. Prefers to ambush prey. Stalking the prey for long periods of time before the actual attack. The longest known instant being an elf that was silently stalked for over seven years before the dark forest lurker found the opportunity it had been waiting for to ambush and kill the other party.]
Thanks to that, she also managed to inspect the monster Verdell had been trying his best to catch a glimpse of himself, a giant spider that seemed to have targeted one or the two of them.
[Dark Forest Lurker, lvl 181]
[Dark Forest Lurker, lvl 158]
[Dark Forest Lurker, lvl 165]
[Dark Forest Lurker, lvl 171]
[Dark Forest Lurker...]
Not just that, but there wasn’t just one of those powerful spiders keeping an eye on them, but an entire family of spiders. The reason why Verdell hadn’t seemingly realized this was because whenever he looked towards one of the spiders, it sunk back into the darkness and disappeared before being spotted while another one further away emerged a short time later to keep an eye on them. Giving the illusion that a single monster was rapidly moving around to avoid detection while keeping a constant eye on the two of them.
The situation was frustrating to say the least for Verdell, as he didn’t dare shift his attention elsewhere in fear that those monsters lurking within the forest would take the opportunity to rush forth and attack them from behind once his attention faltered and he let down his guard and began to ignore the gaze from the forest.
Of course, contrary to the anxious Verdell, Scaly only felt a sense of growing excitement watching those spiders hidden away within the dark forest.
After all, though deadly, these spiders represented the simple fact that she would no longer have to worry about the constant stream of weak monsters that the dungeon had been throwing at the two of them as a group of powerful monsters had finally appeared. Meaning she once again felt she stood a very real chance at reaching level 50 before she would inevitably end up being forced out of the swirling sands dungeon in the not so distant future.