Actually if the dlls is in the same directory it does mean that windows
will look there even if the current directory is not in your path (always
true if the executable is in the same location, only true if safe dll
search is off) given that windows has not found the dll registered in the
system in any other place and there are no overrides anywhere else.

The search goes in this order:
If the dll is already in memory, this is used.
If the dll is in the list of known dlls versions it is loaded from there
(list of dlls is at HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
Manager\KnownDLLs)
If it is not found in any of those locations then it is searched
Finally dependencies are resolved using this steps as well

If dll has not been found and it is not overridden by a full path
definition nor a manifest then the search goes as follow
Directory from which the application was loaded
If safe dll search mode is disabled then the current directory is searched
The system directory - starting with the current arch, then fallbacks to
previous archs
The windows directory
And finally all the path environment variable

Hopes this helps a little bit.

Reference:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/dlls/dynamic-link-library-search-order

Best regards - Cristobal E