Chương 14: Chapter 13 — Frogs and Feces

[NOTIFICATION] ──────────────────────────── Current XP: 812 / 1000 The croaking of the swamp had been constant for the last four days since Fenwick leveled. The XP was easy hunting and simple encounters with decent consistency. Morning, midday, evening — the dog-sized frogs that occupied the swamp zone of the intermediate path provided a continuous background chorus that Fenwick had stopped hearing consciously by the second day. It was just there. Part of the Thornwood.

As reliable as the creak of the harness and the smell that Flower Scent was doing its best to manage. This morning it was gone. Fenwick noticed it before he understood it. The acorn was already raised, ready to redirect Max toward a cluster of twig blights near the waterline, and then something made him stop. The absence of sound, landing a half second before his brain caught up with what the absence meant. The swamp was quiet. The silence had texture. Different from a kill, different from the hush before movement.

This one had settled in and intended to stay.

"Max," said Fenwick, very quietly. The hero was looking at the water. The water was looking back. The giant frog was enormous. Her skin was grey-green and warted and deeply unbothered, the trees seeming smaller near her, the path narrower, the general scale of the world adjusted downward to accommodate what sat at the edge of the swamp, regarding them with eyes the size of Fenwick's head. Fenwick had fought dog-sized frogs for four days. He had a system for dog-sized frogs.

The system involved Max, a club, and occasionally Grayson's Sparkly Hands for cleanup. It was a good system. It worked reliably. This was not a dog-sized frog. This was what dog-sized frogs feared. She had seen things come and go in this swamp. Adventurers. Predators. Whatever had been eating her population for the past four days. She had finally been annoyed enough to check. She looked at Max calmly, trying to decide whether this thing was food or a problem. She opened her mouth.

"Max—" Fenwick started. The tongue came out. Her tongue was approximately the length of a cart and moved considerably faster. It hit Max in the chest with a THWAP that Fenwick heard in his back teeth, and the world lurched as Max's feet left the ground. Fenwick had approximately half a second to register that the harness was still attached to Max, who was no longer standing. They were both flying towards the frog when the strap that held Fenwick's harness broke. He was airborne.

The Thornwood rotated around him in a slow, unhurried arc that his brain declined to process in real time and filed away for later, probably when he was trying to sleep. He had a brief, clear view of the giant frog's throat working. He had a briefer, less clear view of the mud. He landed with a sound that was mostly squelch and some of him. He lay there for a moment, paws in the air, taking personal inventory. He was alive. He was muddy. He was no longer attached to Max.

Behind him, the giant frog made a sound of satisfaction and swallowed. Max was gone. Fenwick rolled. Or tried to. It took longer than it should have. Being round in the way that Fenwick was round was useful in many contexts and actively counterproductive in others, and lying on his back in swamp mud was firmly in the second category. The mud was sticky, slippery, and smelly, decaying vegetation creating the perfect situation that made a rotund guinea pig look like a helpless turtle on its back. He wiggled.

He squirmed. He rocked himself to the side with determined movements that elicited a lot of grunting, a very red face, and more strain than he was used to. He got one rear paw under himself, lost it, tried again, got it back, and held on while he found the other one. Somewhere behind him, the frog's throat was working. He pushed. He achieved something approximately vertical after what felt like a considerable time. He was upright.

He was covered in things that moved either by their own locomotion or simply slid down his dripping, ooze-covered fur. The giant frog sat at the water's edge, enormous and satisfied, her throat moving with the steady rhythm of something settling a meal into place. Fenwick stared at her. Then he raised both paws. He had not used a leveled attack spell since the summoning. He had not needed to. Grayson's Sparkly Hands handled containment, and Max handled combat, and the division of labor had suited them both.

But he was a Level 4 wizard, and he had spell slots that had nothing to do with air freshener, and whatever was in his prepared spells right now would find a very large target. She blinked at him. Fenwick began to cast. She made a sound. It was not a happy sound. It was the sound of something that had expected a meal to behave in the manner of meals and had encountered a significant deviation from that expectation. Her throat was moving, and her insides were shaking. Her eyes had gone slightly crossed.

Something was happening inside her. Fenwick held. He did not lower his paws. The spell sat ready, aimed at the frog; the movement meant that his spell might not only hurt the frog but also Max at the same time. He needed to wait for a moment. He stood in the mud and waited and listened and did not cast. Thirty seconds. A minute. The swamp around them had gone completely still, the various crickets and small frogs of the swamp holding their collective breaths as the movement continued.

The sounds coming from inside the frog grew more specific. Tearing sounds as layers of flesh were ripped from the inside. Fenwick recognized that cadence. He had spent forty-five days learning it. The frog lurched. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Then lurched again. Then a pale grey fist came through the side of the frog with a sound that Fenwick was going to be thinking about for some time.

The fist opened, and grabbed, and pulled, and Max stepped out of the giant frog with the unhurried gait he always used. He was covered in things Fenwick would not examine. He was holding a piece of the frog's interior that he appeared to have decided was interesting. He dropped it. Turned around and grabbed his club and walked over and bashed the head of the frog. This went on for a few minutes. Max had opinions about being eaten and had decided to express them.

Fenwick stood in the mud, both paws still raised, leveled spell still fully prepared, and he slowly dropped them. At the same time, staring at the wall of meat that had been a huge frog, now completely turned to mush, with sounds that would be haunting his dreams tonight. NOTIFICATION ──────────────────────────── +100 XP +100 XP — NEW CREATURE TYPE: x2 BONUS APPLIED TOTAL: +200 XP [🎉] ──────────────────────────── Current XP: 1012 / 1000 ⚠️ LEVEL UP AVAILABLE ⚠️ PRESS TO CONFIRM The butterfly appeared immediately.

Sindy had been ready. Max reached for it. [🎉] ──────────────────────────── LEVEL 2 CONFIRMED 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 LEVEL 2 REACHED 4 ATTRIBUTE POINTS AVAILABLE. ALLOCATE TO CONTINUE The butterfly appeared over INT. Max's hand moved toward it. His hand came down on INT. INT: 1 → 2 The butterfly appeared over INT again immediately. Max's hand slid down past it. PER: 1 → 2 The hand kept sliding. CHA: -4 → -3 One point remaining. The butterfly moved back over INT, persistent. Max's hand drifted upward toward it.

His hand came down on INT. INT: 2 → 3 ATTRIBUTE POINTS REMAINING: 0 ALLOCATION COMPLETE Sindy accepted this. The INT gains were real. Three INT was real. CHA -3 was an improvement by any measure. She had gotten two points into INT. That was the target, and she had hit it. [NOTIFICATION] ──────────────────────────── — NEW SKILL UNLOCKED — ⚠️ COMBAT ARTS — ACTIVE She had approximately half a second of pure joy before the next notification appeared.

[NOTIFICATION] ──────────────────────────── ⚠️ ERROR ⚠️ COMBAT ARTS REQUIRES AGI: 4 ⚠️ CURRENT AGI: 1 ⚠️ COMBAT ARTS — LOCKED"Shit, shit, shit—" Max cocked his head as Sindy swore. His mouth opened. Something moved in his throat. Damaged, slow, working through an architecture that had rotted away over the last few months. The sound that came out was effortful and wrong in several specific ways and shaped, approximately, like a word.

"Ssshhit." The swamp was quiet. Fenwick stood in the mud, both paws by his side, entirely covered in swamp, staring at the hero. The hero looked at nothing in particular.

"... Max?" said Fenwick. The head turned. Fenwick slowly walked to Max as the hero's eyes followed him. He had a great deal to think about. [SYSTEM PRIVATE LOG] ──────────────────────────── [Entry 45] Day 45 in the fantasy realm. A giant frog swallowed him. He ate his way out. He had a real opinion today, even if it was about being eaten. Combat Arts unlocked. Combat Arts immediately locked again. AGI: 1. He said a word. It was not a good word. It was the best word. Current AGI: 1. We need to talk about AGI.