章 23: Fucking Jump
My breathing echoed in the confined space, mingling with the slow, guttural croak of the giant frog. Its single eye, yellow and bulging, tracked my every move.
The atmosphere would have been a bit more tense if I hadn't killed 4 of these things already.
'Juuuump to the left' I thought as I saw its throat begin to bloat.
The frog's tongue shot out with a speed that blurred the air.
I bent my knees, muscles coiling like springs, and sprang. Not up, but sideways, feet scraping stone as I twisted mid-leap.
The tongue smacked the cave floor inches beside me.
I landed, rolled, and pushed off again.
The frog, startled by the fact that I hadn't been skewered, hesitated for a split second. I used that moment to launch myself off the far wall, my body a projectile aimed at its head.
The frog's eye widened. Its tongue retracted and shot out again, but I was ready. I tucked my body into a ball, spinning past the barbed tip. It grazed my arm, a searing pain, but I ignored it.
My fist connected with the frog's jaw, a satisfying thud that echoed through the cavern, and the big frog went tumbling away like a deformed barrel.
I could have ended the fight right then and there, cutting its eye with my claws and blinding it, but where was the fun in that?
I merely bounced on the soles of my feet, waiting for it to recover.
The frog retracted its tongue, croaking in frustration.
I feinted to the left, then launched myself to the right, using the floor to propel me forward. My feet skimmed the surface, barely touching the ground as I moved.
The frog's tongue shot past me again, fast yet predictable.
I closed the distance in an instant once more, fist slamming into the side of its head with a powerful thud. The impact sent the frog sprawling, its body hugging the ground once more.
'Come on, this was merely a love tap...' I thought with a small smile.
This was perfectly good Agility training, which was my lowest stat, barely breaking through to H-grade.
Agility: 81-102 (H)
By all means, I should have had a much harder time fighting this thing, but the trait I had chosen to steal from the first frog I devoured turned out to be unexpectedly strong.
Frog thighs (You can jump twice as far compared to what your stats would otherwise indicate)
Deceivingly simple and stupidly named for sure, yet the paradigm shifted completely when one considered that sprinting was basically jumping from one foot to the other at a very fast speed.
Even though the effect was more along the lines of increasing the Power of my leg muscles, when combined with my ever-growing Dexterity and a bit of out-of-the-box thinking, this naturally translated into more propulsion speed when I had a flat surface I could make use of.
'And this is merely one of the many applications...'
The frog I was bullying finally managed to rise to its feet and shook its head.
It was clearly disoriented, but its eye quickly locked onto me again.
It croaked angrily, its throat swelling before it launched its spear-like tongue once more.
I leaped straight up this time, knees bent tightly against my chest, then pushed off the floor as I landed, using it as a springboard.
The frog's tongue followed, a relentless predator guided by its instincts, but I was too unpredictable for its tiny brain.
Left, right, up, down. I danced around the attacks, the adrenaline numbing the pain in my arm, and when the tongue grazed me again, a burning line across my ribs, I barely felt it.
My fists slammed into its back from time to time, reverberating through its slimy skin, just to keep it determined.
It roared in pain, thrashing wildly every time.
It even attempted to sweep me with one of its legs, trying to knock me off balance when I got too close, but I dodged by...you guessed it, jumping over it.
I thought about delivering a kick of my own, just for shits and giggles, yet decided against it.
With my strengthened legs, there was a big probability that it wouldn't get back up if I did so.
Unexpectedly, even though it lacked even the tiniest smidgen of battle IQ, it seemed to realize that I was merely toying with it, and its attacks grew even more frantic as time passed.
Its tongue lashed out in desperation, faster than ever before, catching my leg with its barbed tip.
Pain shot through me as it drew blood, but I twisted in mid-air, changing direction, and slammed my fist into its eye.
'Naughty, naughty, Goliath Frog'
The creature reeled, its tongue flailing wildly as it tried to regain control of its tumbling body.
It had been a good fight, but after this last stunt it pulled, I could see that Frog No.5 was tiring, its attacks growing wilder, less precise.
It was time to end this.
I pushed off the ground, keeping my jumps low and swift, zigzagging around it in a blur of motion as I closed the distance.
The frog screamed one last high-pitched shriek that filled the cavern as my claws dug into its back, cleaving through vertebrae and cartilage, exposing the glistening white matter within.
Tendons and ligaments snapped like overstretched rubber bands, and the coppery stench of blood filled the air as I tore through the frog's spinal cord, in the same manner biology teachers did in my old world.
The mostly paralyzed frog collapsed, its body hitting the ground with a thud. It twitched, its tongue lashing out feebly, but to my eyes, it was just a slightly moving corpse.
I stood over it, panting, blood trickling down my arm, leg, and ribs, preparing to dig in when a sudden smell assaulted my nose.
It was a mixture of rusted iron, dirt, and what I could only describe as...darkness.
The odor made my hair stand on end, and instinctively, I turned around, my gaze locking onto the monster who suddenly appeared a few meters away from me, silent like a fucking ghost.
'Or should I say... shadow?'
It was almost as tall as me, and its entire body, head to toe, fingertip to fingertip, was pitch black.
Shape-wise, it looked almost human, but it had neither skin nor hair, just smooth black shadow. Its head looked like a pointed plus sign, with a big, silver, round part in the middle.
The monster stood straight, facing me with its expressionless parody of a face. It emanated an aura of menace, its presence suffocating.
It took my brain maybe a millisecond to comprehend what I was dealing with.
As I saw the monster silently flexing its body, preparing to lunge, I didn't hesitate, didn't waste time thinking useless thoughts.
It didn't matter why this thing came to the 5th floor, or the fact that I would have probably died without my enhanced sense of smell.
I merely allowed my body to react on instinct as I hurled the frog's corpse toward the War Shadow. With a swift motion, the dying creature was hurtled through the air, while I simultaneously propelled myself away with every ounce of strength I could muster.
I didn't bother looking back, the sound of wet flesh hitting the ground telling me all I needed to know.
I merely ran as fast as I could, along the path I memorized, and decided that I wouldn't stop until I reached the surface, just to be safe.
Yet even as I ran away like a fucking coward, the manic grin plastered on my face refused to go away...
...because I knew...
That I will be back tomorrow
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