After checking in with his foraging skill, he was reasonably certain that the frogs were edible, if not ideally suited for human consumption. Having obtained a fair amount of practice in dressing and cooking wild game during the tutorial, he unsheathed his dagger and walked over to the tongueless corpse, whose insides were still intact.

After making an incision along the belly, he carefully removed the guts. When he pulled the beast’s heart free from the remains, Nick discovered something interesting. There was a crystal sphere the size of a marble mixed in with the tissue, cloudy with just a hint of green. Figuring that it might be valuable, he stored it in his pack and returned his attention to the task at hand.

He washed his hands, walked to the top of the hill to make sure nothing had arrived over the last few minutes, then began building a small fire from dried marsh grass and a few sticks he was carrying in his pack. After sharpening a short pole to use as a spit, he was ready to get busy grilling.

He ran into an obstacle when he tried to pull the legs free from the frog’s body. They flat out refused to detach from the skeleton no matter how hard Nick pulled, even resisting a couple of full-strength chops with his sword. Those bones are really tough.

Shrugging, he decided that he would have to improvise. He proceeded to awkwardly cook the meat by lifting the corpse above the fire and slowly rotating the body, charring the outside before the inside was fully cooked.

It was one of the worst meals he had made so far. But it was good enough to fill his stomach and left him with plenty of meat for dinner. Given the difficulty of cooking the first frog, Nick decided to leave the other corpses alone. It wasn’t worth spending the time. The meat would go bad before he could eat it, since he didn’t have time to make jerky. Besides, he still had plenty of provisions left in his pack. He did check to see if they had more of the strange stones inside, but didn't find anything of the sort.

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As he awkwardly chowed down on a grilled frog leg that was still attached to the torso, he saw that the beast’s bones were made of the same black material as the ridges and armored plates covering its exterior. It turned out that they weren’t so much of an exoskeleton as a direct extension of the frog’s skeleton.

Since the bones had proven to be incredibly durable and seemed to offer some innate protection against magic, he decided to store the remains inside his bag. The bones might come in handy later and he could always ditch them if he needed more room.

While the fire was still nice and hot, he used the steel helmet he had found in the sewers to boil some water, then drank his fill and refilled his canteen. Maybe if he found a better way to secure the helm over the flames, he could use it to make soup.

Around this time, Nick noticed that his wand was back at full charges. Apparently, defeating the spear-tongue frogs had released compatible essence, allowing the mysterious device to restore its depleted energy.

As he put out his fire and started walking down the hillside, he reflected that as much as he liked his leather jacket, he really needed to acquire some additional armor as soon as possible. Something rigid enough to distribute the force of a blow over a wider area.

Even more critically, he needed to find a helmet. My head is an obvious weak point for my opponents to target. One solid headshot and all the healing in the world won’t save me.

Nick hoped that he would come across civilization at some point, as he desperately needed to go shopping. Not to mention, being alone for so long was really starting to get to him.

His brief meeting with the others during the arena battle had only highlighted his prolonged solitude. With any luck, he would be able to trade with some of the other people who had volunteered for this challenge once he reached the base of the tower.

I can’t wait to find some reliable party members to climb the tower with. It will be great to have someone I can trust to watch my back. Maybe Kenji or some of the others from the arena will be there when I arrive.

With his belly full and his thoughts on the future, Nick left the hilltop and resumed his journey across the bog.