Following the successful escape from the night phantom cat, Verdell found the rest of his path towards the dungeon core cleared of any monsters that might have originally blocked his path. The weaker ones having hidden away due to the loud explosion, while the stronger ones rushed over to investigate the explosion alongside the night phantom cat. Allowing him to reach a small hill next to the dungeon core where he quickly found a small cave opening that he could crawl into and hide away while he waited for the side effects of the strengthening mixture to kick in. Knowing that observing the dungeon core in his current state wasn’t exactly optimal given how the side effects could kick in at any second.
As for the small cave he had found himself crawling into? It was far larger than he had originally thought and did seem to connect to some underground world that had already been created throughout the ninth floor of the dungeon by the dungeon core, but for now, he didn’t dare to move any deeper into the cave and only lingered around the edge where there wasn’t any monsters around to trouble him while he faced the side effects of the strengthening mixture from earlier.
Speaking of which, though the strengthening mixture hadn’t ended up proving useful during combat, it had still been helpful when it came to increasing his travel speed. Allowing him to reach the dungeon core faster than he had originally anticipated and even having allowed him to take full advantage of the delayed fireball drawing away all the powerful monsters to easily move through the tall grass.
If not for the increased speed from the strengthening mixture, he had a feeling that he wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere close to the dungeon core before those powerful monsters realized there was nothing of interest where the fireball had exploded and returned to their original territories through the tall grass field. Making it far more difficult for him to continue moving forward through the tall grass.
"Ugh, look like the... Side effects are here..." And just as he thought about how lucky he had been to avoid those powerful monsters and had successfully hidden away within the small cave that served as an entrance to the underground world of the ninth floor of the dungeon, Verdell felt the side effects he had been dreading kicking in as the enhancement provided by the strengthening mixture began fading.
The only positive thing outside of having successfully hidden himself away was the fact that he could clearly feel that he wasn’t about to face the worst side effects possible thanks to the quality of mana rich herbs used to create the strengthening mixture.
But...
He still ended up finding himself throwing up in a corner of the cave. Only able to feel thankful that he didn’t end up with diarrhea, as that would truly have been an awful turn of events in this kind of situation. Even if he had managed to successfully hide himself away from any nearby monsters that might have spotted him under normal circumstances. After all, it wouldn’t exactly be a pleasant experience, and he didn’t really have much spare clothes with him in case he was faced with that kind of accident.
...
Around the same time Verdell found himself throwing his dinner up in some obscure cave corner next to the dungeon core, Scaly had already managed to successfully infiltrate one of the monster outposts that the two of them had ignored on their path earlier. In fact, this wasn’t the first one she had ended up infiltrating over the past few hours. In fact, it was already the third.
Although... The other two proved to be far more disappointing than she had originally anticipated, as they were essentially monster strongholds with pristine guards out front, but filled with nothing once she charged inside. Leaving her rather disappointed and at the same time also angry at the dungeon core that had clearly been cutting corners to ensure it could complete other parts of the ninth floor first, just leaving behind a seemingly complete exterior while it worked on things elsewhere. Clearly not having anticipated, someone would willingly attempt to conquer these seemingly powerful monster strongholds so fast.
At the very least, the last few hours hadn’t been entirely for nothing, as her progress towards the next level had reached around 50%. Slower than she wanted, but better than nothing considering how difficult it had become to increase her level the closer she got to reaching level 50.
Not to mention, having already reached level 46, she felt confident in being able to reach level 50 before she inevitably had to leave the Swirling Sands Dungeon alongside Verdell in the future.
Speaking of which, she was also using the opportunity while targeting the different monster strongholds she had avoided in the past to search for places where the path out of the dungeon could potentially form in the future when the ninth floor was completed. After all, according to what she had managed to learn from Verdell about this unique path that would take one directly out of the dungeon. The exit might not form before the dungeon floor was fully constructed, but there were several clear signs that could hint where it would take shape.
Unfortunately, those so-called signs and hints weren’t exactly easy to spot even for someone with knowledge of them like Verdell, let alone someone like Scaly who had just learnt about these kinds of signs and potential hints. In fact, there was a good chance she would walk right past the potential location where the exit would form even with this knowledge.
Verdell hadn’t really expected her to find the exit in the first place and had just given her the knowledge in case she ended up finding some place that could potentially be the future formation point of the exit. Giving them a few places to focus searching through first when they inevitably began looking for the exit after the ninth floor of the dungeon had been fully constructed by the dungeon core.
It was also with this in mind that Scaly began silently approaching the third monster stronghold she had decided to target since Verdell set off towards the dungeon core. Hoping more than anything else that the monster stronghold before her was a completed one that didn’t just have a few intimidating monsters lingering outside it like the other two monster strongholds she had taken down so far had.
The reason why she hoped this was the case wasn’t just because only taking out a few guards wouldn’t give her that much experience, but also because she had to approach the monster stronghold cautiously and not cause any commotion that might alert the powerful monsters inside before she had the time to properly assess the situation of the monster stronghold and if there were any monsters too powerful for her to deal with lurking inside.
In fact, it was this cautious approach that made her silently curse those two previous monster strongholds strongly in her mind alongside the dungeon core, as she had essentially ended up spending an hour slowly infiltrating the monster strongholds that turned out to be empty outside of the few dozen monsters guarding the exterior of those strongholds where the strongest amongst them had only barely reached level 100 if he was lucky.
Or in other words, a group of monsters that could be easily dealt with in less than a few minutes by her under normal circumstances that had ended up ultimately taking her over an hour because of how cautiously she had approached them.
Whoosh~
Maybe because of these previous two attempts, Scaly didn’t move anywhere near as cautiously as she had done in the past when approaching the third monster stronghold-
Crack~
[Gained 4562 Exp]
Casually cracking the neck of one of the guarding monsters before slipping inside while the others were distracted looking elsewhere.
An approach that under normal circumstances should have failed because of how close the guarding monsters were to one another but ultimately succeeded because of a small distraction she had left by dropping a small monster to run around and cause a commotion nearby a short time earlier. Distracting the guarding monster just long enough, as she successfully penetrated the outer perimeter of the monster stronghold that she would have originally spent hours trying to figure out how to safely infiltrate.
Reckless? Yes, but in the end, it worked out just fine, as Scaly soon found herself moving through the empty tunnels that spread out endlessly through the mountain that the monster stronghold was located inside of. Making her almost immediately judge this monster stronghold as another dud.
The only thing that stopped her from turning around to kill off the few monsters still left guarding the entrance to this seemingly empty stronghold being the fact that she still had to make sure just in case the monsters were hiding away further inside.
Although... She wasn’t exactly thrilled about what she might find...