Watching the massive mountain gnoll easily twice the size of the group of now nervous mountain gnoll hunters, Scaly could not help feeling happy that she hadn't been wrong about the strength of the mountain gnolls.

They were indeed as powerful as she had expected, it was just that there also seemed to be weaker mountain gnolls around that followed the command of the stronger mountain gnolls located at the base of the tall mountains.

Looking towards the weaker mountain gnolls who were shivering in fear in the face of the powerful mountain gnoll, Scaly could not help feeling curious about what was about to happen to these weaker mountain gnolls.

After all, from what little she could understand, it seemed like the mountain gnolls had gone out to hunt for the stronger mountain gnoll… And now that they had essentially ended up returning without anything to show, Scaly felt that nothing good was in wait for these weaker mountain gnolls…

Groowl-!

As if to satisfy her curiosity, it didn't take long before the stronger mountain gnoll finally let out an angry growling sound before directly grabbing one of the hunters by the neck-

G-g-groowl…!

Lifting it into the air while the smaller mountain gnoll in question struggled to breathe with a terrified expression on its face.

""…""

Even then, the remaining mountain gnoll hunters all remained silent, as they just fearfully observed one of their companions being chocked to death by the larger mountain gnoll. Showing just how fearsome and intimidating this single mountain gnoll held over the weaker mountain gnolls.

Thump~!

However, just as Scaly thought the larger mountain gnoll would twist the neck of the weaker mountain gnoll and kill it, the larger mountain gnoll let go of the weaker one, as it fell to the ground with a painful growl before desperately sucking in air to refill its lungs.

From the looks of things, although the mountain gnolls were rather ruthless in the way they did things, it was clear that they would not go as far as to kill their own over a single mistake of not bringing anything back after having gone out to hunt.

Even though a trait like this was admirable and made them somewhat similar to the humans she had encountered who didn't seem to kill each other either, Scaly did feel disappointed seeing how the larger mountain gnoll had spared the weaker mountain gnoll.

After all, if it had ended up killing the weaker mountain gnoll, she had a feeling that she might have been able to hunt down the mountain gnolls without having to worry too much about being noticed and hunted down by the stronger mountain gnolls.

However, outside of just letting the weaker mountain gnoll hunter go, she also saw it calling over a dew other mountain gnolls before heading in the direction that she and the weaker mountain gnoll hunters had come from.

Clearly, the stronger mountain gnolls were going to seek revenge for the weaker ones, something that Scaly felt rather uncomfortable witnessing, as she knew it would mean that she was likely to get targeted and hunted down the moment she started killing off the mountain gnolls in large enough numbers.

Rustle~

Then again, this hesitation to act against the mountain gnolls didn't last for long, as she began moving closer to one of the cone shaped stick huts shortly after the stronger mountain gnolls left the hunting camp.

Now that the stronger mountain gnolls that might prove a challenge for her to kill had left on their own, there was no way Scaly would give up the opportunity to kill the remaining weaker mountain gnolls. Especially so considering that all of them had at least reached level 35 and should be enough to help her reach level 10 that was required for her next evolution.

Of course, the strength of the weak mountain gnolls wasn't really that weak in reality, as a large number of them were still around level 40.

Even though she felt that she was stronger than them, the number of mountain gnolls present would still be hard to deal with.

So, with that in mind, Scaly had first decided to try and sneak into one of the cone shaped stick tents first to try and see if she could assassinate one of the mountain gnolls without the rest of them noticing anything.

Considering that the cone shaped tents were only made up of sticks, it was rather easy for her to sneak inside one of them, even with her slightly larger size-

Growl…? GROOOOWL-!

However, things didn't turn out like she had wanted them to and Scaly found herself directly in front of a rather confused mountain gnoll that had been about to leave its stick tent to figure out what the commotion outside that had woken it up a few seconds earlier was about.

Resulting in a rather awkward situation where the two of them just stared motionlessly at each other for a brief moment before the mountain gnoll let out a loud growling sound to alert the other mountain gnolls in the camp about her presence-

Ptsh-!

G-growwl-!

[Gained 1278 Exp]

Of course, as a result of it being focused on alerting the rest of the mountain gnolls to her presence, Scaly was given a perfect opportunity to rapidly close the distance between the two of them and slice open the throat of the mountain gnoll. Killing it in a simple swift attack.

Unfortunately, it was far too late for her to silence the mountain gnoll, as the damage had already been done…

Groowl!?

Grrrooowl!

Grrr!

And as if to answer the earlier call, countless growling and angry sounds soon echoed out from all around the small camp before Scaly clearly felt several mountain gnolls rushing over in her direction filled with killing intent.

So much for trying to silently kill them off one by one… Oh well…

Shaking her head as her plan of silently killing off the mountain gnolls came to an end before she even had a chance to carry it out, Scaly didn't feel too depressed as she made her way out of the small stick tent to face off the mountain gnolls rushing towards her.

[Mountain Gnoll, Hunter, lvl 45]

[Mountain Gnoll, Trapper, lvl 37]

[Mountain Gnoll, Tracker, lvl 41]

[Mountain Gnoll…]

Given that the strongest among the mountain gnolls had already left following after the commanding mountain gnoll to go seek revenge on the monster that had chased away some of their kind, the strongest one among the mountain gnolls still left in the camp was only a level 45 gnoll hunter.

Although this was still strong and would have caused her trouble to deal with before her third evolution. Now that her strength had increased by a significant bit compared to back then, Scaly no longer felt like it would be that hard for her to deal with so many level 40 monsters at once.

Of course, she wasn't really certain about this, as she had yet to face so many powerful monsters at once, outside of when she had been surrounded shortly after the fear caused by the powerful human lifted.

But the main difference from back then and now, was the fact that the monsters back then were far more numerous and also stronger, while she hadn't really fought them so to speak and had instead used a single powerful water magic spell to intimidate them into retreating.

Not to mention, her goal this time around wasn't top safely retreat, but instead to kill all of the mountain gnolls and hopefully reach the limits of her current evolution and start preparations for her fourth evolution.

Roooar~!

With that in mind, Scaly let out her still cute sounding roar as she eagerly faced the incoming mountain gnolls. Ready for battle, as she directly used her water magic to conjure up several water spears that she threw towards the approaching mountain gnolls.

Whoosh-!

Whoosh-!

Whoosh-!

Groowl!?

Not having expected the sudden volley of water spears flying towards them, the mountain gnolls were left with only a few seconds to dodge or block, as the first water spears soon reached their targets-

Ptsh-!

Ptsh-!

Ptsh-!

[Gained 1375 Exp]

[Gained 1652 Exp]

[Gained…]

[*Ding* Reached level 9]

In the end, the first mountain gnolls to respond were the ones with the least time to block or dodge the incoming water spears, as a large number of them ended up being hit or just outright killed by the incoming water spears. Allowing Scaly to not only drastically lower the first approaching mountain gnolls strength, but at the same time gaining enough experience to reach level 9.

Although it was mainly because she was already close to reaching level 9 in the first place, it didn't stop Scaly from happily smiling to herself upon seeing the pop-up screen showing that she had reached level 9.

Instead, it caused her to become even more fired up for the battle than before, as she jumped forward to attack the first of the mountain gnolls rushing towards her-

Swish-!

Grooowl!

Taking advantage of the fact that it had been distracted by her earlier water spear attack to slice through one of its legs with her sharp claws.

Partly severing it and causing it to become unusable, as the mountain gnoll could only put all of its strength into its last intact leg to forcibly push itself far enough away from her to avoid a deadly blow from her second claw strike aimed at its throat.

Hmph! It isn't that easy to escape from me!

Not feeling the slightest bit discouraged by the last second escape from the mountain gnoll, Scaly similarly put strength into her legs as she jumped after the mountain gnoll. Intending to reach it and kill it before it had a chance to escape again-

Swish-!

Chiiiing-!

However, before she had a chance to do this, a crude sword suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of her. Forcing her to retract her attack to block the sword from piercing into her body.

[Mountain Gnolls, Great Warrior, lvl 51]

This… One of the stronger mountain gnolls is still around!?

Retreating a bit to see who it was that had interrupted her attack, Scaly could not help frowning upon realizing that it was actually one of the stronger mountain gnolls that she had thought had left the tent camp earlier.

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