Chapter 13-Frogs

The moment that every single frog leapt towards Anjou felt like one of those scenes in an action movie where the hero is dogpiled by a group of ninjas and they use some sort of explosive technique to blast them all away at once. Unfortunately, for Anjou she didn’t have one of those. She had to resort to rolling out of the way. The frogs were more agile than she realized and they managed to hop towards her, the second their feet even touched the ground. Even with her evasive maneuvers, several of them managed to get onto her and bite down, causing pinpricks of pain in the spot.

One of the frogs that hadn’t managed to bite her jumped again, aiming itself towards Anjou’s face. She managed to side step it and punched it against the wall. It exploded like a balloon with a wet splatch throwing out guts and blood and a light blue core.

Dodging a few more frogs, she tore one off that had managed to latch itself to her shoulder. As it came free some blood spurted out and her health went down by two decimal points. Even though it hurt, it felt like popping a pimple where the pain was replaced by a dull relieving throb. She squished the frog in her hand and at the same time managed to crush one with her foot. Cores also popped out of their bodies.

The next few minutes became a game of “get these damn things off me” as more of the frogs jumped from the top of the cave and from the floor and managed to latch onto Anjou. It soon became nearly impossible to rip them off since a few of them had taken over her hands. She had to resort to smashing different parts of her body against the wall. With each impact at least two or three of the frogs died and a new core popped out.

“There’s too many of these damn things,” Anjou yelled out.

“That’s the point.” Cereza called back. “Gives you a lot of cores to level up with.”

Slowly, but surely the number of frogs on Anjou’s body began to recede. When she finally got the ones off her hands, she mercilessly pulled the remaining ones off her body and in anger punched them against the wall of the cave. The frog bodies didn’t provide much cushion so each punch sent a sharp pain through her arm, but she didn’t care. There was a certain kind of catharsis from it, almost as if she was punching a really strong punching bag.

When she finally managed to kill what she hoped was the last frog slumped against the wall breathing heavily and slid down to the ground landing in the pile of cores and guts.

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“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Cereza said. Her face was visible in the crack of the crevice.

Anjou looked up at her health. It had fallen to 4.8 out of 10. When she finally caught her breath, she picked up a handful of the cores and began to swallow them down.

You have eaten enough cores to level up.

You are now Core Level 3.

Your Dexterity has risen to level 2.

Due to your level in Dexterity you now take no damage from landing on your feet if you fall from a maximum height of 50 feet.

Because of leveling up, your health has been regenerated.

Your health is now 10 out of 10.

Congratulations by eating the cores of 30 Salt Cave Glow Frogs, you have gained the

ability Froggy Leap.

Anjou groaned. She was hoping that the level up would give her another stat in constitution which would’ve given her more health. She would’ve settled for one in strength to improve her punching. She examined the ability for Froggy Leap even though she had a pretty good idea of what it did.

[Froggy Leap]

Allows the user to leap high into the air. Current height 20 Feet. For each level in Dexterity, you will be able to leap higher into the air.

“Did you get a good skill?” Cereza asked. “Like some kind of crystal shield.”

Anjou pulled herself back up and started walking back to the crevice. “No. I got the ability to jump higher in the air.”

“Oh. Well that’s not going to help you now?”

“Yeah I know. I’m not willing to test it out anytime soon.”

“No I mean, it won’t help you in the next fight.”

Anjou stopped. “What next fight?”

She was answered by an echoing croak from behind her. Turning, Anjou saw a cave opening that she hadn’t noticed before, and the only reason she could see it now is that there was a large blue light crawling through it towards the cavern. It was another glow frog, only this one was as much bigger and had beady basketball sized eyes that were trained directly on her. Its name appeared as it entered the caven.

[Salt Cave Glow Frog: Mother]

“You’ve got to be (bleep)ing getting me,” Anjou yelled. “Are you trying to get me killed?”

“I’ve already told you what we’re doing here,” Cereza yelled back indignantly. “How many times do I have to tell you this?”

“I swear to whatever god you worship, if I survive this, I’m going to shove my fist down your throat.”

Taking a fighting stance, Anjou waited for the frog mother to make the first move. At first it stopped and didn’t do anything, but then it opened its mouth and a tongue shot out like a bullet.

She tried to dodge out of the way, but the tongue managed to latch itself onto her arm. The tongue began to pull itself back and take Anjou with it, but she stuck her other hand to the wall and quickly released some of her slug slime. It proved unsuccessful as the tongue yanked hard, detaching her from the wall and forcing her into the mouth of the frog.