Bob was striding through the grasslands, George trotting along at his side. Where are the enemies? Where are the monsters? He peered left and right, shading his eyes against the noon sunlight. Gone was his old caution, his crippling fear, he wanted to fight. He wanted to test himself. He wanted to level. This was the path to strength.

There, he sent Harry shooting forward. A level three Raupenflieger was perched on a stem of grass a couple feet away. Level three was the highest he'd seen so far, though to Bob's untrained eyes, the creature just seemed a good deal fatter and with more intricate wing designs. It wasn't a danger to him any longer. Before the creature could so much as take off, the cloak had folded over it in one smooth motion and pulled taut, effectively trapping the caterpillar-butterfly inside.

Bob knew what to do next. This was either the best or worst part of fighting Raupenflieger depending on your perspective. He squeezed. The creature's body resisted the pressure until, until, it couldn't. Bob sensed the imminent implosion and cracked open a little escape chute in the cloak's exterior. There it was. The disgusting and yet sort of intriguing sensation as the caterpillar went pop. A stream of acid and smoke jetted out of the little opening and landed harmlessly on the ground a few feet away, melting through the grasses.

Melting through the grasses? That looked a good deal more potent than the level 1 they'd first splattered. It was a good thing Bob hadn't gotten any on his skin. Even George had learned to leave the carcass juices alone by now. Pain is the great teacher.

Raupenflieger acid, however, only affected organic substances, making it completely useless against Harry Mud. The cloak had turned out to be something of a god of death to these little creatures. Harry would sweep out of the sky, blink out the sun, and mercilessly crush the little insects until destruction.

The operation was almost automatic for Bob and Harry at this point. That must have been the seventh or eighth Raupenflieger they'd encountered so far. Now that they were actually looking for monsters, they found the annoying insects everywhere.

The insects gave almost no worthwhile experience to their level 5 hunters, but it was good practice for Bob. His control over Harry had skyrocketed. He'd set the foundation during his tent building, when he'd stopped thinking of the cloak as a tool to control and more like a replacement for his lost arm. But capturing moving targets in a high-pressure, low-risk situation had really helped him solidify those gains.

He still couldn't quite manipulate the cloak instinctively like he could his real arm, but the results spoke for themselves. The trick, he'd found, was to give up on trying to nail any movement on the first try. That isn't how we control our bodies. Instead he strove to maintain a continuous, conscious connection with the cloak throughout any complex actions. Then he'd make numerous small corrections as the action proceeded, guaranteeing that the cloak stayed on vision.

These insights had made him infinitely more adaptable, because he could effectively react in real time to any changes. Say for example like a Raupenflieger dodging his first attack and buzzing straight for him. That hadn't happened of course. It was a hypothetical, a thought experiment if you will. And of course, there was no way he'd panicked, tripped over and taken a splattering to the face. Why then had he bought an extra tub of Raupenflieger Squasher cream, you ask. Well, what business is it of yours; it had been purely precautionary purchase, thank you very much. You can't exactly be too well prepared, can you?

Anyway, implausible hypotheticals aside, Bob could now the face the little buggers with something like self-assurance. Bob had decided to kept George in reserve. A decision Bob's knight did not approve of. But honestly George hardly needed more practice with that fireball. He had proved himself depressingly adept at destroying things. And seeing the hill go up in flames would only attract unwanted attention.

George was Bob's ace in a hole, and when they met a properly dangerous enemy, Bob would not hesitate to call on the dog. And where were these dangerous enemies? Bob wringed out any lingering fluids from Harry, swept the cloak back on and started moving. The whole exchange had hardly taken a minute.

Yes, where were these dangerous enemies? Couldn't a man get a good fight when he wanted one? Imagine planet Earth getting recycled because her champion simply couldn't find enough high-experience monsters to dispatch. That would be just unfair. Bob would have to lodge a serious complaint against the system if this monster dearth continued. He'd have to take legal action.

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Sure Bob enjoyed practiced his mud manipulation finesse as much as the next man. He knew he still had a long way to go before mud mastery. But sometimes you want a challenge thrown in. Experience, a level-up, something to keep the motivation high. Low-key serious, you know, like an elite guard before a mini-boss. They'd been wandering around for forty-five minutes now and only found those obese caterpillar-grenades. That was always the way. You stop finding things as soon as you start looking for them. Tut, tut, tut.

Snap. Bob's mind flashed with unendurable pain. He almost lost consciousness right on the spot. He felt himself starting to topple over to the right. He heard George's barking from far away. He looked down and saw two rows of three-inch teeth stabbing into his right arm. He didn't remember those being there before. That was the system annotation arrived (thank you kind system): "Wiesenkriecher (lvl 6)". Isn't it nice when our wishes come true?

The teeth connected to a v-shaped snout and the v-shaped snout connected to a cruel-looking face with beady eyes and slitted ear holes; behind the face was a three-meter long grass crocodile, its back a veritable meadow of tall grasses that blended perfectly into the surrounding greenery. An ambush predator.

The jaws scissored forward, clamping down even harder and trying to cut straight through the arm. Bob screamed. It felt like he was being eaten alive. Scratch that, he was being eaten alive. Thankfully he'd been wearing his mud cloak and his mud cloak had immediately stiffened on first impact, preventing the wicked ambush from slicing his arm off then and there.

Harry at least had been paying attention. But that was where the good news ended. Bob was having trouble even seeing through the pain, let alone thinking up some clear counterstrategy. Magic required a particular kind of intense focus that was difficult to muster up when a bloody crocodile was chewing through your arm. Hell Bob would give the damn animal the arm if it would just piss off. He felt himself going into shock. Just looking at his bloody, tattered arm sandwiched between that awesome jaw and those white fangs was making his head spin.

You are the mud magician. You are the mud magician. That haunting voice of the hilltop at night. That steely, menacing voice. You are the mud magician. The mud reaper. The master of the sleeping darkness.

Bob's mind cleared. He felt brutally cold like he'd lost all sensation in his body, like he was manipulating a game character and not his one and only soul. Harry melted off the rest of Bob's body and streamed into the crocodile's jaw, layering around the thickest part of Bob's arm in an attempt to leverage the crocodile's mouth open. The jaws cracked open an inch, but the crocodile doubled down on its bite, straining every one of its jaw muscles to rip through Bob's arm.

They stalemated for half-a-second and then the jaws inched closer together. Bob was losing the battle for strength. He was always the weaker. Those monstrous jaws were vicing slowly down. He'd lose the arm. He'd crumble on the ground and the monster would go for the neck. He had to stop fighting like he thought he was superman. Fight smart Bob.

Bob reshaped the cloak's internal layer into a maze of prickly spikes, solidifying the tips with layers of hardened mud and then he gave back. The jaws clamped down, overwhelming Bob's weakened defenses, clamped down and impaled themselves on the spikes. The crocodile shuddered, its eyes widening and growing bloodshot, the jaws springing open, recoiling instinctively from the sharp objects.

Now, Bob thought, trying to swing his limp arm away using his shoulder muscles. Crack! Bob moaned. The crocodile's jaw had slammed down again with all the extra force of momentum.

What was wrong with the creature? Blood trickled down from the crocodile's mouth, its own blood, spilling out of many holes made by Harry's barbed defenses. That had to hurt. But the crocodile didn't budge. What a stubborn asshole. It had decided to double-down on its first approach. Just perfect. And what the hell was he supposed to do now? Pop, a familiar blade appeared in Bob's left hand. The system dagger. My old friend.

"Thanks George," Bob mouthed through extricating pain; "Sir George," he corrected himself. The dog had finally calmed down enough to start helping. Thank the heavens. Naturally that fire breath had been out of the question. Oh it would have killed the monster, it just would have killed Bob alongside with the monster. And Bob was powerfully grateful George had managed to figure that much out by himself.

No, George's first response, typical canine, had been to try to bite his adversary. Tragically, the crocodile's skin was covered in an armor of overlaying scales and George's measly bite didn't even make a dent. The dog had probably hurt himself more.

But now the dog had finally started thinking. Bob twisted the dagger round and start stabbing at the creature's snout. The blade jarred backwards, foiled by that natural armor. Cheating motherfucker. Well I know one spot that's nice and squashy. He swung at the creature's eyes. The crocodile had an impressively long snout and its eyes and ear slits stood all the way at up the top. He couldn't reach.

Why'd I have to have such short, scrawny arms? He'd couldn't quite reach, but it was close. Only a couple millimeters. If he could just... Bob leaned forward, grimacing as he torn his own shoulder open against the crocodile's teeth; the blade rose and fell, hiss... the eye looked like it had deflated, yellow pus and blood trickled slowly down like some hideous tear. The crocodile staggered unconsciously backwards a step, dragging Bob with him, the jaws clamped down just as hard as before.

"Why, won't, you, let, go?" Bob made an attempt on the other eye, but the crocodile had decided drastic times called for drastic measures: the death roll.