Reincarnated as a Lizard

Just barely escaping from the undead kingdom’s capital city before she was caught up in the collateral of the meteor shower spell that had essentially leveled said city, the little necromancer rushed through the underground catacomb tunnels she had spent hours marching through just a short time ago. Knowing that there was a good chance that the adventurer behind the meteor shower spell had already discovered her presence and would come chasing her down after dealing with the lich in charge of the undead kingdom.

The only thing she could hope for was that the lich was stronger than a normal lich, something that was very possible considering just how many undead creatures and necromancers had ended up perishing to the dungeon core during the creation of the ninth floor. Becoming a solid foundation that would undoubtedly make the undead kingdom created on top of it stronger than a normal undead kingdom.

As for the lich winning the battle against the adventurer behind the meteor shower spell? She wasn’t that delusional. Fully aware that the person behind the spell was someone even those old liches in charge of the Eternal Life Sanctum feared. The most she could hope for was the lich being a bit stronger and having the ability to hold on long enough for her to reach the exit of the dungeon.

Still, focused as she was on reaching the underground world that the dungeon core had hidden away inside and hopefully find the exit leading out of the dungeon inside it, the catacomb tunnel was long. Long to the point where it would still take her another thirty or so minutes to reach the intersection that she had first entered the catacomb tunnel through.

And along with the fact that she wasn’t the one running through the dark tunnel, but instead the bone construct beneath her. The initial adrenaline rush she had felt upon seeing the countless meteors descending from above quickly died down before she found herself slowly slumping down from her standing position that was ready to deal with any potential attacks to a more relaxed sitting position.

”...”

Given the still half hour-long journey before her, she began shifting somewhat uncomfortably unable to fully calm down before pulling out her personal notebook to go over a few of the notes she had taken on the now gone skeletons. Reading through it for a good five minutes before starting to anxiously observe her dark surroundings. Wondering if the adventurer attacking the undead kingdom would pop through the dirt to attack.

Bang!

Ruuuumble~

In the end, to calm this sense of growing unease, she decided to strike out at the ceiling of the catacomb tunnel. Hitting one of the central load-bearing stone beams that caused a chain reaction, as the tunnel began collapsing in on itself behind her.

Deadly as this situation looked, she wasn’t in any actual danger with the current speed of the bone construct exceeding the collapsing speed of the tunnel behind her.

If anything, the tunnel collapsing behind her made it more difficult for the adventurer to chase after her and would at least be able to buy her some time in case he didn’t just rush back towards the underground world, she was heading towards.

The only real danger would be if the catacomb tunnel didn’t lead into the underground world like she suspected and instead ended up in a dead end.

Although she wouldn’t end up dead in that kind of situation, it would undoubtedly become far harder to reach the underground world before that adventurer chased her down, but this was risk she was willing to take. Knowing that without any kind of delay, it would almost certainly be impossible for her to escape from the terrifying adventurer with her current strength.

In a way, the fact that she had even been able to escape from the capital city of the undead kingdom in the first place was a miracle in its own way.

Like this, she continued riding her bone construct for another thirty nerve wrecking minutes. Passing the original entry point from which she had entered the underground catacombs before she spotted what looked like an end to the catacombs and an entry into the underground world beneath the ninth floor that the dungeon core had hidden itself within.

”Huh? What is this place...?” But instead of a vast underground world, she instead found herself flying through the darkness for a few seconds on top the bone construct before landing in the middle of what looked like some kind of primitive tribe. ”A mole gnoll tribe!?” Spotting a few of the inhabitants, that in turn allowed her to identify what kind of monster inhabited this primeval underground tribe.

”Just great, I had to run into these annoying pests....” Muttering this to herself as she looked over the increasingly large number of mole gnolls that started to congregate around her, a clear look of despair flashed through her eyes.

Not because these mole gnolls were particularly powerful by any means. No, on the contrary, they were rather weak compared to any of the other monsters she had encountered on the ninth floor of the dungeon.

Instead, her annoyance and despair came from the fact that she had once encountered a small tribe of these monsters in the past and understood just how difficult they were to deal with. For no other reason than the fact that they possessed an extremely unique ability to manipulate earth magic. Allowing them to seamlessly dig through the ground and essentially escape any attacks directed towards them by burrowing underground.

The only real counter to these unique little gnolls that were only half the height of an ordinary gnoll, was to blow apart the ground they had sunk into before they could sink too deep or utilize unique spirit, soul or other similar magic to kill them... And though these kinds of unique magic fell within the scope of necromancers like herself, they were highly specialized fields of study that someone, like her. Fully focused on advancing her strength. Didn’t spend much time studying.

For this reason, she felt both a sense of annoyance and despair upon spotting these mole gnolls. Annoyance because she understood just how hard it was to shake off these little gremlins once they saw you as their enemy and despair because being caught up in fighting these annoying little gremlins would undoubtedly give the adventurer clashing with the lich from the undead kingdom more than enough time to track her and catch up with her after dealing with the lich.

After all, the last time she was targeted by a far smaller tribe of mole gnolls, it had taken her over a week to deal with them.

In the end, she hadn’t even successfully killed them, but instead had to retreat using a flying undead, a memory that had remained buried deep in the back of her mind before the shameful memory was forcibly dragged out with this little encounter.

Her strength might have grown from back then, but she had no intention of fighting these little menaces again if possible.

Rustle~

Because of this, she decisively decided to pull out some expensive magical material she had gathered during her earlier war against the dungeon core back on the eighth floor of the dungeon. Throwing it out towards the increasingly large number of mole gnolls gathering before her as a peace offering before she commanded the bone construct to slowly move around the growing blob of mole gnolls while they shifted their attention away from her and instead focused on the luxurious monster materials she had pulled out.

The bait lasted around half a minute before the mole gnolls seemingly lost interest- or rather, had devoured the bait. Turning their attention back towards the little necromancer on top of her bone construct-

”Go! Before they close off the passage into the tribe!”

Whoosh-!

Something the necromancer in question picked up on immediately as she yelled out for the bone construct to speed up towards the small entry into the primeval tribe of the mole gnolls that was undoubtedly connected to the underground section of the ninth floor that she had been attempting to reach.

RUUUMBLE-!

And as if to respond to her desperate urging, the mole gnolls that had remained quiet so far suddenly rushed forth like an unstoppable tide, their combined magical fluctuations causing a shiver to run down her spine as she felt the earth beneath her feet starting to shift and try to swallow her and the bone construct.

Of course, with the bone construct and her strength, they were able to negate this quicksand spell and continue forward unimpeded, but this was never what was worrying. Instead, it was the fact that the entrance into the primeval mole gnoll tribe had started rapidly closing.

And once sealed, it would be impossible for the two of them to break through, as neither were skilled in earth magic, thus forcing them into a prolonged battle with the mole gnolls.

Bang!

Luckily, the earlier distraction had allowed the two of them to just barely get close enough to the exit of the tribe that they could escape in time before getting sealed inside-

Ruuumble~

Not that this was the end of it, as the mole gnolls showed no intention of letting them escape. Surging forth with great momentum. Forcing the little necromancer and her bone construct to continue escaping without even having the time to properly examine their new surroundings nor even consider what kind of dangers might be lurking within the underground forest they found themselves rushing straight into.