Chapter 28
Taking calming breaths, Keith mustered his courage and glanced at his reflection again to see a foreign, unfamiliar face staring back. The hairstyle he meticulously maintained every morning was no more.
“I’m a baldy now,” Keith muttered, feeling aggrieved and insecure, the confidence in his appearance plummeting. Thankfully, there wasn’t anyone around, or he’d want to find a hole to hide in.
It took Keith a few minutes to accept reality.
Sighing, he focused back on the wall of fog, wondering what the name of this zone was. Before heading in, he mentally communicated with his mount and told it to fly higher.
After climbing hundreds of feet, Keith looked into the distance and saw a sea of fog covering the entire zone. From time to time, the canopies of massive trees poked out. There was nothing noteworthy other than that.
Keith landed on the ground and unsummoned his mount. He stood in front of the wall of fog and tried to peer through it to no avail. It was especially thick. Walking forward, he observed the fog retreat in tandem, keeping a distance of fifteen feet from his position.
Feeling somewhat afraid, Keith crossed the dividing line between the two zones and entered the fog, the sunlight taking on a grey hue. He immediately noticed the ground was wet and mushy, sinking with his every step. Crouching down, Keith saw layers of decomposing leaves and undergrowth. Was the zone a marsh?
Keith continued forward until it occurred to him that he couldn’t hear his footsteps. Stopping to listen, he found his surroundings eerily silent. Keith looked around and felt like something was watching him from beyond the fog, even when he used Mana Manipulation to confirm there wasn’t.
Well, that’s scary, Keith thought.
Minutes passed as he ventured deeper.
Suddenly, the outline of a tall figure appeared in his path. Keith reflexively activated Mana Barrier to thwart an attack, yet the figure remained motionless.
Surrounded by fog, the unknown creature and Keith entered a standoff, neither moving.
The atmosphere was tense.
When a minute went by with nothing happening, Keith summoned a spear from the Arsenal of the Desert. It hovered next to him as he inched forward. In response to his advance, the fog retreated, lifting the veil over the mysterious creature.
It was a tree.
Keith’s face turned red at discovering that the mighty foe he imagined was harmless. He should’ve noticed that Mana Manipulation told him there was no mana signature, meaning it was an inanimate object.
Relaxing, Keith dismissed the spear and approached, finding the tree’s black bark rotted and covered in moss. The trunk curved upward, appearing sickly, and its branches curled like fingers. It was the creepiest tree he had ever seen.
Keith pressed further into the damp and dimly lit fog. The sickly diseased trees appeared in large numbers, and eventually, he started encountering ponds with reeds and bushes growing around them. Non-aggressive critters like frogs and dragonflies made these their home.
A loud splash caught Keith’s attention when he passed a larger pond. Spinning around, he came face to face with a human-sized creature climbing out from the depths of the water, a squirming frog in its mouth.
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(Ancient) Guppi Fighter – Level 725
Health: 5,000,000/5,000,000
Hunched over, the Guppi Fighter fully emerged from the pond, its slimy transparent blue skin displaying its veins and organs. Like a fish, it had webbed hands and feet, and Keith was reminded of a piranha when he saw the sharp, serrated teeth lining its absurdly big mouth.
The monster blinked its bobbly eyes at Keith.
Swallowing the frog whole, it looked him up and down, asking, “What fish you be?”
Keith was amazed. Orcus was the first monster he encountered that could speak, and now there was another. He found the situation surreal and decided to humor the creature, answering, “I’m a human.”
“Human?” The Guppi Fighter’s eyes abruptly turned bloodshot.
Without warning, the monster pounced at Keith, its mouth opening abnormally wide. Keith hurriedly activated Mana Barrier and raised an arm to block as it knocked him to the ground. He felt his body stiffen, followed by a notification informing him a skill had immobilized him for three seconds.
Now stunned, Keith helplessly watched the Guppi Figher’s mouth clamp onto his extended limb, sparks erupting when its teeth ground against his Mana Barrier.
While trying to chew apart Keith’s arm, it snarled like a rabid dog and used its clawed hands to scratch at his neck.
Though Keith’s Mana Barrier proved resilient against the physical attacks, what alarmed him was the copious amounts of saliva spewing out from the Guppi Fighter’s mouth. Not only was it disgusting, but it also possessed a potent corrosive property, melting through Keith’s Mana Barrier alarmingly fast.
By the time two seconds passed, the saliva broke through and touched his armor, at which point ominous sizzling sounds rang out. A few drops of spit also landed on Keith’s face, and since his helmet didn’t cover that area, it ate through his cheeks, revealing his teeth and tongue.
Keith felt excruciating pain yet was unable to scream, and when the stun effect finally wore off, anger overcame him.
Roaring, Keith slammed a Fireball-encompassed fist into the Guppi Fighter’s jaw with his free arm. The strike dazed the monster, allowing a root to wrap around its ankle and yank it away. As Keith jumped to his feet, the Guppi Fighter severed its bindings with a swipe of its claw and landed some ten feet away.
Unexpectedly, the monster sprang backward into the fog and disappeared within, surprising Keith. He immediately noticed how the fog didn’t keep a distance of fifteen feet from the Guppi Fighter as it did for him.
How troublesome, he mused, looking around.
Due to the fog, the Guppi Fighter could appear from fifteen feet away in any direction, and considering its speed, Keith would barely have any time to react to its attack.
Never before had he been in such a disadvantageous environment.
Thinking quickly, Keith activated Arsenal of the Desert and summoned a dozen weapons. They spread out, covering him in every direction. Next, he touched the back of his helmet, using Sensory Link to leave a mark and enabling him to see behind him.
Staying vigilant, Keith observed the fog closely and attempted to sense for any mana signatures in his surroundings. Akin to a light in the dark, he discovered an approaching bundle of mana coming from his left. Keith feigned ignorance and turned to the right.
A few seconds later, the Guppi Fighter burst out from the fog and rushed in to attack when it saw Keith facing the other way. It made no sound as it neared him in two steps, its claws already mid-swing, not noticing what was happening behind it.
At the last moment, Keith stepped aside, avoiding the Guppi Fighter as a half-dozen weapons pierced through its back and pinned it to the ground. Seemingly infuriated, the monster shrieked and attempted to pry itself free until Keith crushed its throat with a fierce stomp, whereupon it grew still.
Keith sighed in relief when the corpse dissipated into motes of light.
With the fight over, the adrenaline coursing through Keith’s body faded away, and a throbbing pain came from his mouth. Using a mirror, he saw several holes in his cheeks. The acidic saliva had melted away a portion of his face.
“Holy slimeballs.” Keith squirmed at the sight, disgusted by the pus surrounding his wounds. He searched through the medical supplies in his inventory and withdrew a burn cream. Tenderly applying it to his face, he then used bandaids to hide the holes.
After taking care of his wounds, Keith took out a chair from his Collection Grimoire and sat down to take a rest. He reviewed the earlier fight, concluding that he needed to change his mentality.
Since Keith was in an unfamiliar zone, facing an unfamiliar monster, he needed to behave much more cautiously. It wasn’t like in the past when he could purchase information about a zone’s characteristics and a monster’s skills. Now, he needed to figure out the details himself.
Moving forward, Keith decided to adopt a control-type combat style when encountering new monsters. He wouldn’t go for the kill right off the bat. Instead, he’d take his time discovering their capabilities. That way, he wouldn’t needlessly put his life at risk.
The Guppi Fighter had given him a wake-up call.
If it hadn’t been alone, who knows what would’ve happened when it stunned him for three seconds?
I got lucky, Keith thought.