Chapter 589: City Emerges In the Distance

Thwack-!

[Gained 1562 Exp]

Knocking down a snow rabbit that was unfortunate enough to find itself blocking her and Verdell’s path forward, Scaly happily watched Verdell jumping off her back to clean up the now dead snow rabbit within a few minutes relying on magic. Doing a gentle twist with his hand to sprinkle all kinds of spices over it the next second before throwing it into his spatial storage bag for food.

Originally, she didn’t know why he was preparing the food before roasting it, but having sensed her confusion, Verdell had explained to her that this was a special preparation method that would allow the difference spices to better blend with the meat. Making it more delicious, the only problem according to him was that this process took some time. Anywhere from a few hours to days or even weeks.

Hearing this for the first time, she had understandably been skeptical about potentially waiting weeks for food to be ready, but after he demonstrated with a piece that had prepared in this manner, she could only silently nod her head in approval and allow him to go along following this manner of preparation. After all, it was truly more delicious than without any prior preparation.

Thinking about all this to herself as Verdell finished preparing the unfortunate snow rabbit and got back onto her, Scaly couldn’t stop herself from drooling slightly thinking about the delicious feast waiting for her in the future.

Given how many monsters had jumped up along the way, there had to be at least a dozen or so pieces of meat slowly becoming more delicious as the two of them travelled through the frozen wasteland that was the northern region of the world. Meaning there would be more than enough for her to enjoy when it was time for them to settle down and rest for the night.

As for why they had to rest for the night even though she had more than enough strength to continue moving forward even at night? That had to do with another special feature of the northern region, as when night came, the temperature would drop even further. Reaching a point where even her recently acquired cold resistance would do nothing to guard her as she slowly froze to death.

Originally, she hadn’t believed this as she hadn’t personally experienced the night of the northern region. Having slept through her first night in the northern region because of the glacial behemoth and the terrifying blizzard it had dragged along with it wherever it went.

However, she quickly learnt just how terrifying the night was during the second night when she and Verdell had yet to find somewhere to hunker down amidst the vast snow field that stretched on endlessly. Only being broken by a few surviving crystal tree forests not in the path of the glacial behemoth along with a few tall hills and mountains covered in snow.

At first, the temperature had only dropped a bit before suddenly dropping off a cliff as it almost felt like the icy winds normally active in the sky above had decided to descend towards the ground below.

Luckily for her and Verdell at the time, they had been close to a small hill with an abandoned burrow in it that the two of them used to pass the night, but without that cover, they would undoubtedly have ended up dead facing the icy night winds that descended upon the frozen wasteland once the sun above vanished beneath the horizon.

It was also because of this experience Scaly found herself actively looking for places to hide while travelling through the frozen wastelands with Verdell on her back. Knowing that it would be good to have somewhere to quickly hide away in case something unexpected ended up happening along the way.

Surprisingly enough, the main kind of hiding spot she ended up finding along the way wasn’t the monster burrows and other natural hiding places she had expected to find. Instead, it was different kinds of shelters that had deliberately been created by adventurers travelling in the direction of the main city they were heading towards.

According to Verdell, these shelters was the main way adventurers were able to travel throughout the northern region without perishing overnight.

But... Great as these small dugouts were, most of them were designed for one or two adventurers to cuddle together for warmth and weren’t exactly large enough to fit a dragon her size. The only ones large enough to fit both her and Verdell inside at the same time- or rather just her, were the dugouts that had been created by larger teams of adventurers travelling together, like the group Verdell had joined to reach the main city in the past when he had been too weak to brave the northern region on his own.

Luckily for the two of them, the path they were travelling just so happened to be a path also used by these larger groups. Meaning that it wasn’t too hard for them to find somewhere to hide away when night came.

Still, even with all of this, Scaly found herself becoming increasingly displeased as she continued getting deeper into the northern region following Verdell’s guidance. Not because there was a lack of food or shelter, but instead because the monster she and Verdell kept running into were all weak and barely provided her with any real improvement in strength.

Although she understood this almost certainly had something to do with the glacial behemoth passing through the area killing or scaring off any of the powerful monsters that would have inhabited the region in the past, she was still becoming increasingly irritated with this lack of powerful prey for her to hunt down.

Maybe because of this, as she spotted a city emerging in the distance, she didn’t feel scared of the adventurers who might be hostile to her and Verdell but instead felt a sense of growing excitement over the potential repeat of what had happened inside the Swirling Sands Dungeon.

After all, while there might be a lack of powerful monsters, she was more than happy to substitute the powerful monsters with powerful adventurers.

At the end of the day, it didn’t really matter much to her, as both gave experience when she killed them. The only problem with adventurers being the fact that they couldn’t be eaten, though the large number of snow rabbit monsters inhabiting the northern region more than made up for this, as there was no lack of these rabbit monsters that seemed to hold a dominant position throughout the parts of the northern region she and Verdell had travelled through so far.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

However, as she and Verdell got closer to the city that had only just become visible in the distance as the blizzard that had once swallowed it was dragged away by the glacial behemoth, the loud sound of battle echoed out across the empty stretch of snow between them and the city.

Narrowing her eyes somewhat in excitement at the sound of battle, Scaly spotted countless figures attacking what should be the magical barrier protecting the city in the distance...

[Snow Wolf, lvl 51]

[Snow Wolf, lvl 64]

[Greater Snow Wolf, lvl 107]

[Elder Snow Wolf, lvl 151]

[Snow Wolf, lvl 43]

[Greater Snow Wolf, lvl 105]

[Snow Wolf, lvl 55]

[Snow Wolf, lvl 50]

[Greater Snow Wolf, lvl 101]

[Snow Wolf, lvl 57]

[Snow Wolf...]

Observing these attacking figures more closely, she soon enough realized that they were snow white wolves from large to small, the smaller ones numbering in the thousands, while the larger ones were a bit rarer-

[Greater Snow Wolf Pack Leader, lvl 198]

And leading them was an enormous wolf that screamed, it was the one in charge of the situation. Not only having strength infinitely close to the top of the SS Rank, but also several other powerful wolves that had also reached the SS Rank.

From a simple glance alone, it was clear that this city, relying on its magic barrier to fend off this massive army of snow wolves, was losing and had no real way to fight back against this large number of snow wolves working together.

Even worse, what looked like reinforcements coming to help this city had been caught unprepared outside before they had time to enter the city and were currently surrounded and slowly losing ground in the face of the relentless onslaught of the snow wolves.

Without doubt, this city looked like it wouldn’t survive for long in the faces of this army of snow wolves, but, to Scaly, this was a best case scenario, as this was exactly the kind of situation she had wanted to run into, with powerful monsters and adventurers alike gathered in one place for her to quickly sweep up and hopefully make use of to elevate her own level past level 49 and get to level 50, the final piece needed for her next evolution.