Chapter 81: Hiding~ Shhh!

Now... How do I leave the human town without getting spotted along the way? After all, if I get seen, I will just end up being chased down again...Finding a comfortable spot hidden beneath a few planks of wood that leaned against the side of one of the houses, Scaly began thinking about her escape path from the human town, while also taking the opportunity to use her water magic to quench her thirst for the first time in hours.

Luckily, whatever seemed to affect her magic inside the underground river tunnels below the city, didn’t seem to have any effect on her after she got back up to the surface.

Well... Almost no effect, as the distinct smell similar to the smelly river still attached to her after she left. Not to mention, trying to clean herself to remove the stench, she realized that she couldn’t remove it.

Instead, it seemed to be slowly drifting off her at a pace that would at least take another few hours to complete.

Looks like I will be stuck inside the human town until the bad smell goes away, as it will be quite difficult to sneak away undetected smelling like this...

Lowering her head in defeat as she thought this, Scaly knew that it would be hard to escape if she ended up leaving a rather easy to track scent trail behind.

Not to mention the fact that it was dangerous to stay inside the human town for an extended period of time, there was also the important fact that she couldn’t increase her strength while she was stuck inside the human town!

Knowing very well that if she tried to kill off a few of the weaker humans, the rest of the humans would soon come swarming over towards her in massive numbers.

The only path to growing stronger safely while stuck inside the human town, was to go back down to the smelly river and hunt down the oversized rats. Although, considering how weak the oversized rats were, she would probably have to kill over a thousand of them to gain a single level with her current strength... And that was not to mention she would once again have to search for another way out and hope that she found it before she became thirsty to the point that the smelly river looked delicious.

Ah! How hateful!

Feeling reluctant to stay hidden without even being able to increase her strength for a long period of time, Scaly could only curse at the humans in her head as she tucked herself away beneath the wooden planks. Intending to keep her current hiding location unless some humans began to show up.

After all, it was quiet, secluded and away from the busy street filled with humans not too far away, a perfect hiding spot that wasn’t too obvious, while at the same time having the escape opportunity of going back underground or deeper into the alleyway.

The only problem being the fact that Scaly couldn’t hunt any monsters while hiding away waiting for the terrible smell engulfing her body to disappear.

Not that she could do much about it.

...

"Where is that damnable lizard!? Why hasn’t it shown up yet!?"

At the same time Scaly was hiding away beneath a few wooden planks while cursing every single human in the town inside her head, a rough looking man standing close to two meters tall frowned with a displeased expression on his face as he glanced at the quivering man dressed in a standard guard uniform standing in front of him.

"C-Captain, we haven’t been able to find any traces of it outside of those leading into the sewers, but... Going down there to chase after it is close to impossible considering the stench. Not to mention, none have been willing to go down there outside of the few people expanding different parts of the sewer system..."

"Who cares about that!? Do you know how much I’m going to lose if that lizard isn’t found before someone ends up dead!? Send the guards down there and find that lizard!"

"But-"

"No buts! The person who let that lizard slip into the city was one of the people under your command guarding the west gate, so you should take a little responsibility and do everything in your power to find that lizard!"

Not caring the slightest bit about the excuses of the guard in front of him, the guard captain directly blamed his subordinate for the lizard entering the city before sending him into the sewer to search.

"Yes..."

Knowing that he couldn’t say anything in response to his superior or he might end up losing his relatively safe and well-paying job that provided food and shelter for his family, the guard could only lower his head in defeat as he nodded his head in response before leaving together with a group of guards who were filled with despair after learning that they were going down into the sewer to search for the lizard.

Outside of them, the branch leader of the adventurer’s guild also came to a similar decision and sent a group of strong adventurers skilled in dealing with poisonous environments down into the sewer to search for Scaly.

Unfortunately for all of them, Scaly had long since left the sewer at this point in time. Meaning their search efforts would be futile. After all, given the stench down there, it would be close to impossible to trace her.

The only thing that might help them with figuring out where she went would be the dead and half eaten bodies of the oversized rats, she had encountered along her journey through the sewer system of the town. Especially considering that the number of oversized rats that ended up dead at her hands during the few short hours she had spent down there was close to the three digits!

Even if they didn’t give a lot of experience and didn’t help a lot, they ultimately still provided her with exp that helped her get closer to leveling up and further increasing her strength...

Far better than her current situation where she was plopped down beneath a few wooden planks without anything to do outside of playing around with her water magic and observe the humans passing by on the busy street not too far away.

Even though the situation seemed bleak at the moment, Scaly was confident that she would be capable of getting out of the current situation on her own without any problems.

After all, she was still an apex predator, far smarter than the humans who hadn’t even managed to find her with so many of them around to look for her.

ROOOOOOOOOOAR-!


However, as she was trying to encourage herself into not moving out of her current hiding spot out of boredom, a loud roar suddenly broke the silence before the humans on the street in front of her all began panicking.

"That was the ancient dire wolf! Didn’t the adventurer’s guild just send someone to hunt it down and stop it from causing trouble!?"

"Those adventurers are probably all dead! It’s clearly here and out for revenge!"

"Out of my way, I’m not going to stay anywhere near the gates if that thing attacks again!"

Listening to the humans on the street who were already panicking, Scaly confirmed her suspicion about the owner of the roar being the ancient dire wolf that she had seen not too long ago... And from the sound of what the humans panicking out on the street were saying, it had most likely killed the large number of humans she had seen going out to challenge it earlier and had come to the city for revenge.

It’s far stronger than I first thought, but... This should be the perfect opportunity for me to slip away during the chaos caused by the ancient dire wolf...

Narrowing both her eyes as she thought this, Scaly didn’t waste a single second as she sneakily made her way out from beneath the few wooden planks before cautiously following the side of the buildings in the direction of what she hoped to be a gate out of the town.

Although doing something like that would have gotten her spotted almost immediately due to her bright colored beautiful wavy blue scales, none of the humans seemed to pay any attention to their surroundings, as they were all trying their best to run away from the direction that the roar from earlier had come from.

None of them wanted to face the terrifying ancient dire wolf and Scaly understood why as she had seen just how many powerful humans had gone to hunt it down. Just in the number of level 50+ humans, there had at least been 10 of them.

Well, it doesn’t matter to me as long as I get to leave this place and get back to hunting down monsters.

When I get stronger in the future I will make sure to come back here and make them suffer far more than what that oversized puppy can do!