Contrary to Scaly who had now seen a clear path forward to increasing her strength, Verdell was lying down with a dead fish look in his eyes as his gaze drifted out across the empty landscape, he now knew hid god knows how many terrifying monsters. The earlier battle had drained every little bit of mana that once flowed through his body. Leaving him exhausted to the point where even moving around normally had become a painful experience, as the strain from the earlier battle had ended up feeding back into his physical body. Draining his stamina along the way.
Had his strength increased because of the battle? Yes, his level had jumped all the way up to 125 thanks to the spider and a few rolling stone armadillos that had ended up being caught off guard and killed by his fire magic, but... Considering he had essentially been reduced to a state where even the simple act of moving had become difficult, he didn’t feel this increase in strength he had experienced was worth it. After all, they were still stuck within the ninth floor of the dungeon and were in an extremely dangerous state where they could be attacked by an even stronger monster at any second. Being in this kind of drained state where even moving around was difficult, was far from optimal.
To ensure that he wouldn’t end up turning completely useless by the time of their next battle, he could only pull out the different precious magical herbs he had managed to gather so far during their journey through the eighth floor of the dungeon. Feeling like a group of alchemists were staring him down with killing intent in their eyes whenever he crushed one of the precious herbs and swallowed the liquid. Knowing that every single mana rich herb he ended up consuming in this manner meant a significant hit to his future earnings when he tried to make up for the financial loss the journey through the swirling sands dungeon had been so far.
After all, though he had managed to reach the S Rank and had even managed to progress significantly in his strength on the journey alongside Scaly so far, it had also turned into the most expensive dungeon exploration he had ever participated in. Not only burning through his emergency food reserves, but even potions he had been saving up for decades and hadn’t dared to use had to be used to ensure his own survival and ability to keep up with Scaly.
Take mana potions as an example, he had a few when he had begun and had been reluctant to use them in the past, but now he had already run out and had been forced to use the precious mana rich herbs that would normally be used for such an expensive and precious potion. Even worse, while he would normally be able to recover his losses by selling monster parts and other precious things he found in the dungeon, this time around, he had no such opportunity, as the monster corpses either had to be left behind or were eaten by Scaly.
Not to mention, he couldn’t exactly carry those large monster corpses around given the current situation he and Scaly found themselves in. So... He had already come to terms with the fact that this exploration of the deepest part of the swirling sands dungeon was going to burn through everything he had saved during his time as an adventurer.
Then again, the progress in strength he had experienced and the simple fact that he had at the very least become an S Rank Adventurer at least made up for the fact that he was going to be penniless once he made it out of the dungeon.
That is... If he made it out alive, something he wasn’t yet fully certain about yet given the current situation he and Scaly found themselves in. Speaking of the current situation the two of them found themselves in, Scaly was starting to take full advantage of the knowledge she had just obtained from the battle just now and was looking around for monsters hiding away down below, something that was far from easy with how good the monsters at the ninth floor of the dungeon seemed to be when it came to keeping themselves hidden.
If not for the fact that there was a clear and severe lack of flying monsters on the ninth floor of the dungeon and they could fly while the monsters below seemed incapable of flying, it would have been a nightmare to navigate through this kind of deadly dungeon floor. Luckily, this was not the case, and safety seemed to have been guaranteed while they were up in the air.
Thinking about this, Verdell couldn’t help recalling the group of powerful adventurers they had left behind at the periphery of the undead kingdom.
Although they had managed to pass through the undead kingdom with relatively little to no effort, the same would undoubtedly be far more difficult to accomplish for the group of adventurers moving on foot through the undead kingdom. Still, with their strength, they should be more than capable of making it through the undead kingdom if they avoided drawing out a large-scale army response from the undead kingdom.
And after they made it through the undead kingdom, they would end up facing the continuous ambush of the local monsters of the ninth floor of the dungeon, something that still shouldn’t be enough to kill off such an elite and powerful group of adventurers but would undoubtedly slow them down.
At the very least, the worry he had about this group of adventurers showing up and interfering with them was probably not worth mentioning, as the distance they had travelled so far would properly take the adventurer group days to cover under continuous ambush by the local monsters.
The one worry he had about those who had ended up following them from the floor above was the leading undead or rather the powerful undead under her command. After all, he still very much remembered the fact that she had fallen into the ninth floor of the dungeon alongside the mist serpent and doubted a powerful necromancer like that would simply end up perishing.
As for the mist serpent... Though he might feel confident in its strength, he doubted it would be able to get into the developed part of the dungeon without drawing the attention of the dungeon core in the process and getting itself killed. If anything, the leading necromancer might take advantage of the dungeon core’s attention being drawn away by the mist serpent to slip inside the developed part of the dungeon herself.
By far, the necromancer was the most worrisome enemy that they might find themselves facing off against in the future.
Even if that necromancer might not have the ability to fly, with a bone construct exceeding the SS Rank under her control, she would be more than capable of brute forcing her way through the ninth floor of the dungeon. Ignoring the ambush monsters that now seemed to be the main kind of monster found throughout this floor of the dungeon.
Bang!
And as he was lost in his own thoughts about the potential dangers, they might end up running into later down the line, Scaly descended from above and crashed into a large monster that had been hidden in the grass below.
Roooar-!
The monster in question barely managed to let out a final roar in defiance before the sharp claws of Scaly came down from above and directly caved in its skull. Killing it on the spot. The entire sequence of events happening so fast that Verdell barely managed to register what had happened before he was back up in the air again on the back of Scaly. Understanding that the dragon beneath him had already started getting used to the hiding monsters on this floor and decided to take advantage of the situation to hunt down these hiding monsters. Relying on the simple fact that she was flying up above them to catch them completely off guard.
After all, it was clear from the unfortunate first victim of Scaly’s newfound ambush technique that the local monsters weren’t the slightest bit used to dealing with a flying enemy and had essentially no defense in the face of that kind of enemy. Only able to keep an eye on the ground and react when it was already too late and Scaly’s claws had already pierced through their head.
The only problem Scaly found herself facing was the simple fact that the monsters on the ninth floor of the dungeon were truly experts when it came to hiding themselves, as even when scanning the ground below for them, the only reason she had been able to find one of them had been because its status had popped up before her showing what kind of monster it was and where it loved to hide. In other words, it had directly revealed its location and helped her easily find out where it was hiding.