NOVEL FROG Chapter 1.2
The next day after waking up and eating breakfast Bors handed me a huge backpack and told me to follow him, almost dragging me away from the inn and leading me into a small gathering of rough looking men.
The first guy was about my size but build like a wardrobe with wide shoulders and bulging muscles wearing some fur and a single sword at his hip, the second was much taller had even more muscle, either that or they were more evident since he didn’t wear a shirt, had a huge shield at his back with a mace by his hip, the last man looked like a classic rogue thin and with only a long dagger as a weapon but holding several pouches by his hip.
“Yoh Bors this the newbie you were telling us about” asked the first guy with his hands at his hip.
“Yep, this is Roland Synclar, Roland thats Mord Latro the party leader” Bors pushed me away from him and waved “Well I’m done here good luck”
“So you’re the newbie the bossman was telling us about huh” Mord looked me over with a critical eye then snorted “I suppose if you’re not fighting it could work but we’re not waiting for you if we have to run”
Looking at my out of shape and slightly overweight body I blushed causing the three of them to burst out laughing, the skinny guy shook his head and waved me over “Ha, don’t worry kid we weren’t like this when we started too, anyway I’m Scott Olds and that’s Guile India over there”
“yeah, yeah, now he’re how this is gonna work” Mord told me with a serious expression “We’re not going much deeper only to the 19th floor and we’ll avoid the more dangerous monsters, our goal is to hunt Battle boars for Boar meat so things are gonna get heavy for you, just stay out of our way and try not to lag too far behind, if we find a monster party drop everything and run away Understand?”
“Understood” I nodded, quite happy with the instructions even if I’d prefer a lighter load than meat. At least the party leader seemed more or less competent.
My initial load turned out to be an extra bag with potions and antidotes, a few meters of rope, some rations, three thick spears, an extra sword and mace and two sets of extra throwing knives for Scott in case they were needed leaving the adventurers with as little extra weight as possible so they could fight better.
We left Rivia behind us and made our way towards one of the walls while making some small talk “So, how did you turn up down here alone anyway newbie, did your party die on the way down?”
“Shut up Mord what if that really happened” chided Scott
“Heh, he’s an adventurer if he can’t take it he shouldn’t even be in the dungeon” the man boasted “And it’s not like one can’t make a living outside Oratio, my cousin is only level 1 and he lives quite comfortable, I hear he only has to fight monsters once a month in his city”
“No, I didn’t lose my team” I told them and thought about it a little before deciding to play along with Villi’s idea, it was as good an explanation as any “My familia played a prank on me, they dumped me down here on the safe floor while recovering from a night of drinking”
“Assholes” Mord said and the other two nodded before he wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “If you put on some muscle you can come find me later, Ogma is a great god.”
“Thanks”
Soon we arrived at a huge, uneven hole in the ground where I could see the lower floor almost 30 meters down “alright guys you know what to do, Guile goes first and secures the landing while the newbie jumps last”
Then they proceeded to make their way down the edges of the hole taking care not to slip on the rocks until they stood ten meters from the ground floor and just let themselves drop down, I followed them as best as I could then looked at the party searching for enemies down on the ground and towards the walls, shit that’s a long drop.
Taking as much care as I could I found some holds at the edge of the wall and lowered myself letting my body dangle down in the air, glancing down again I gulped and let myself drop, the ground hit me hard sending a jolt of pain up my knees and I forcing me to bend them until I lost footing and fell on my ass but it was nowhere near as painful as I thought it would be, shit I didn’t think I could make this jump before without breaking some bones.
Giving me a hand Guile pulled me to my feet before pulling out his mace and started to walk in front of our little party.
The 19th floor was filled with strange trees and everything around was made from wood covered in a glowing blue moss or green foliage making it hard to see too far away from our location and leaving large shadows growing towards the ceiling, suddenly my eyes caught movement to our right and, before I could shout a warning, Mord turned towards the right and swung his sword in a devastating doward blow cleaving a centipede like monster in two and all hell broke loose.
From above us in the trees a dozen clawed centipedes started revealing themselves, their carapaces had acted as camouflage but now they pounced down on us with two sickle like from legs, Guile lifted his shield and bated the first four aside with a mighty swing before smashing another against a tree with his mace, Mord acted like a brute swinging his sword with all his strength but not completely without skill parring a blow aside before cleaving a second monster’s head and dodging yet a third one.
Of the three Scott was the most skilled, his reflexes were top notch as he pulled two daggers and threw then lodging the projectiles on the pouncing centipede’s unprotected bellies causing them to screech like mad, then he jumped up and kicked a monster towards Guile and bounced off a tree to slam on top of another pinning it down against the tree with his dagger between the joint of its carapace.
My eyes caught it all at the same time but my reaction felt slow and heavy I barely managed to pull out my sword and block two sickles from piercing my head, the monster released a screech in my face and used its superior strength to push me down to my knees and slowly overcome my arm’s resistance until one of the sickles drew blood from my cheek, gritting my teeth I released a scream and put as much strength as I could manage to push the beast to the left while throwing my body to the right, the roll dislodged most of the extra weapons I carried at my back but allowed me to survive.
Acting on instinct I slashed at the beast only for my sword to bounce of its carapace and almost fall off my numb hands as the impact left them trembling, my eyes caught the second monster attacking me but it was just too fast, with my arms still a little numb I couldn’t block the blow and barely managed to dodge one of its sickles before the second one hit me right in the heart, the armor managed to save my life but it drove all the air out of my lungs and sent me thumbing through the ground, thankfully away from any of the attackers.
The distance gave me just enough time to recover my breath and get back on my feet even if my chest was still hurting like hell, coughing a couple of times I looked at the two giant insects coming towards me, their black eyes glinting and sharp mandibles clicking in eagerness at an easy meal, shit I could die here, I could really die and not the immediate painless death of my previous life but I could actually get eaten alive piece by piece.
Breathing hard I stopped being stupid, stoped trying to copy my companions or study the beasts and focused entirely on what was important, surviving against a monster who completely beat me in status.
A kind of calm state feel over me as my eyes focused on the monster’s movements and my mind started working overtime, in the few seconds I had I did my best to regain my breath and come up with a plan of action, after that single exchange I knew there was no way I was gonna kill any of the creatures by myself they were so far above my level it wasn’t even a contest but at least they weren’t so fast as to become blurs to my new eyes, my heart started beating harder against my chest as excitement filled me and I moved.
Running to the left I put the monsters behind each other so that they would come one at a time and observed them as close as I could, my body couldn’t compete with their speed but my eyes caught their every movement noticing the second one of the beasts lifted its front from the ground and attacked, twisting aside I parried one of its sickles trying to slash at me and kicked its head away from me causing it to lose balance and smash into a tree then I rolled under the second beast’s pounce as it smashed the wood on the ground.
I still wasn’t fast enough and one of its blades nicked my leg leaving a gash the size of my hand but I managed to get at the creature’s back and turned away to run back towards my party, not my best decision since the beast swung its body back bludgeoning me with its carapace and sending me flying before twisting around and spewing liquid towards me.
Covering my head I did my best to let the liquid fall on the backpack while desperately trying to find the second beast, thankfully it had gotten its sickles stuck to a tree and was still trying to pull it out, turning back to the immediate treat I moved the second I saw it’s attack start and managed to parry another two sickle blows aside before my hands became too numb from the cheer strength of them and the monster managed to beat the sword out of them with the third hit then it flew forward to bite me opening its mouth wide, I knew I was done, it was just too fast.
A throwing knife flew over my shoulder and buried itself deep in the monster mouth causing it to hear back in pain and splashing me with green ichor then Mord was there cutting of the creature’s head with a single blow before kicking the second so hard it was flattened against the tree it had been stuck into, he took the time to get his sword point between its carapace and pierced it until it stopped moving “Good job keeping two of the things occupied newbie but try to stay a little closer next time”
As I stood there breathing hard Mord cleaned his sword on a piece of cloth tied to his waist and snorted “Come on get harvesting already we don’t have all day”
Still recovering from the scare, I took a few seconds to regain my breath before slowly lifting my hand to my face and wiping the ichor away from my mouth… Strange, why was I smiling? I took one last glance around before grabbing my sword and looking it over, it didn’t have any ichor so I put it at my back and straightened myself “fuck so that’s the diference between a level 1 and level 2”
“Level two, what’re you talking about, those things are all level 1” Mord kicked a centipede over rolling on its back “Sure they’re a little strong but nowhere near a level 2 monster, if we find a group of those we’re running away”
“Shit”, taking a few more breaths I managed to find the smaller dagger Bors had lent me and pull it out before looking at the centipede “shit where’s the magic stone in this one again?”
“The chest newbie, it's always the chest”
“Right… shit” taking the first magic stone out was complicated and took me nearly a minute of cutting at the things belly but it became much easier after that and in a few seconds I had 13 magic stones and two centipede carapaces on my bag, Mord saying there was no sense leaving drops even if they weren’t what we were waiting for and the carapaces were light enough.
Things weren’t so hard after that, we didn’t get ambushed by any more large groups and Scott managed to find most other mobs before they were even close allowing Guile to tank them much easier to the point I only had to defend myself when a firebird showed up and tried to fry me from range, thankfully my eyes noticed the gathering of mana, acting fast I managed to hide behind a tree when the bird washed my location with a breath of fire in the shape of an arrow and Scott managed to snipe its wing with a throwing knife, he lost the knife but we got three fire feathers in exchange.
