The tongue attack from the toad kept coming and every time it reached Cade, he would parry it using his shield. He had been parrying the attack many times now.

In the beginning, he was always pushed aside by the tongue but bit by bit, he had gotten used to it and his parried had become better and better.

“It is time,” said Cade and his face became serious. He parried another attack and evaded the second attack. The toad retracted back his tongue and launched another attack immediately.

The toad was annoyed with Cade kept parrying his attack. He had lost count on how many attacks he had made.

It was not like monsters had unlimited energy and the toad had started to get tired. The toad wanted to end the fight immediately but he did not know-how. The toad frowned but he still kept attacking Cade.

Another tongue attack came directly towards Cade. Cade raised his shield and perfectly parried it but he did not waste the opportunity and slashed the tongue with his sword.

The sword perfectly cut the tongue in two and blood started gushing out of it. The toad saw his tongue was cut and pained rushed through his body.

The toad was in pain and immediately retracted his tongue back. He felt like crying but the pain was so much that his tears did not come out.

Cade did not rest. He saw the toad pulled back its tongue and ran forward towards the toad. The toad was in pain and did not realize that Cade was coming at him.

Once the toad fully retracted his tongue, he moved his hand and inspected his tongue. The toad’s tongue was not as beautiful (in his perspective) as before and it was dyed in blood. The toad was thinking about how he can restore it.

While the toad was focusing on his tongue, he got careless and forgot about Cade. Cade was coming at him fast and when the toad finally realized that Cade was coming, it was too late.

Cade was already in front of his face. Cade slashed his sword at the toad’s face. The toad did not have much time to react and was slashed by the sword. The toad was slashed to two.

“Sigh~” Cade sighed. He felt a bit frustrated not because he failed to kill the toad but because he wasted too much time practicing his parrying.

Cade’s cardboard short sword was equivalent to a D grade weapon of the same level and a level 1 toad won’t be able to withstand its attack no matter how high the toad’s difficulty was.

The toad was evaporating and it dropped an E grade level 1 endurance crystal. Cade picked up the magic crystal and stored it into his storage.

Instead of continuing forward, Cade decided to rest for a bit. The toad was not an easy opponent. He did go through quite a bit of difficulty but once he was able to parry the attack properly, the toad was not that hard to defeat.

Cade took out a bottle of mineral water and drank it. While drinking the water, a few explorers passed through him.

Since they already saw Cade’s earlier, they did not mind him much but they were surprised to see that Cade was fine.

However, there was someone else that was much more surprised than others. He was not only surprised but spooked at how Cade was fine.

He was hiding at a corner nearby Cade. That guy was the guy who volunteered to find Cade in the dungeon due to the betting. His name was Shihoon.

Shihoon was looking for Cade and he finally found him but at the time, Cade was fighting the toad. He was surprised to see that Cade was doing quite well fighting the toad with only his cardboard.

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However, his surprise turned to spook when Cade cut the toad’s tongue with the cardboard sword. It got spookier when the cardboard sword cut the thick skin toad easily and killed the toad in one attack.

When he thought back when Cade was parrying the tongue with the cardboard shield, it got spookiest. He felt goosebumps all over his body.

“That cardboard is not normal! It must be a piece of equipment,” thought Shihoon. “That’s right when I think properly, there was no one stupid enough to use cardboard in a dungeon.”

“I’ve never heard or seen someone selling this kind of equipment. Usually, equipment like weapons and armor is made of metal,” Shihoon tried to remember if there were any equipment that looked as silly as the cardboard but to his memory, there were none.

“The kid looks interesting too. He is obviously a beginner but his equipment is high grade considering that it can kill the toad in one attack. Is he from a powerful family? I doubt that. His clothes… are cheap.”

“Those from the powerful family will usually wear expensive clothes. No way in hell they will touch cheap things but that cardboard is unusual. The best possible scenario is that he got it from a monster drop.”

“He looks interesting, I want to see more of what he can do with that cardboard,” Shihoon decided to follow Cade to observe him.

After he saw Cade fighting the toad, he already forgot his purpose of finding Cade. He already forgot about the bets and felt more interested in Cade… Cade’s equipment.

Cade was resting and he realized that he should take a longer rest. He checked the time and it was 10 in the morning. He took quite a while fighting a toad but he learned to parry.

Cade looked at his stats and he sighed. He did not know when he would level up. Fighting a level 1 monster will not help him much in leveling up. He was level 9 and the experience he got fighting level 1 monster was small.

At his pace, it will take a long time for him to level up to 10. Without leveling up, he won’t be able to strengthen his equipment.

Not only that, he needed to kill as many monsters as possible to farm magic crystals. Magic crystals were the most important ingredient to strengthen his equipment and skill.

Cade’s skill at the moment needed the magic crystal the most. He had never once gotten hit directly by the toad, so, he did not know how effective physical resistance was but he knew that the skill will save him in a lot of situations.

Cade did not want to try the skill’s effectiveness because his stats were low. Even with the resistance, he could die in one attack.

Cade decided to rest for 15 minutes before he continued his exploration.

***

A train arrived at the train station nearby the big tongue toad dungeon. The train door opened and a beautiful girl with golden hair walked out of the train.

The morning sunlight bathes her in its light and she shone in it like an angel. Everyone at the station was staring at her. She saw a little boy staring at her and she smiled at him.

With her smile, she shone more and everyone’s mouth opened wide. They were all mesmerized by the dazzling beautiful girl that they saw.

The beautiful girl walked and left the station. She headed towards the big tongue toad dungeon. She took out her genius phone and opened the image folder.

“I better ask around if they saw Cade. With my smile, they will surely help me,” said Cynthia and she found Cade’s picture. She took it secretly in class after she decided to recruit Cade.

“Urm~ I feel like a stalker… A princess like me is doing something like this…” Cynthia felt like crying. She did not want to give up though. So, she steeled her heart and resolution.

With Cade’s rejection, she felt more fired up to recruit him. She knew that Cade was unwilling but that unwillingness was what drew her more.

If she told others about her identity and asked them to join her party, they would all agree immediately but not Cade. With Cade’s refusal, it was enough for her to know that Cade was not someone who was greedy and fame seeker.

She will not have to worry much about his loyalty if he joined her party and she felt like they will work together well.

With Cade’s picture on her genius phone, she asked around the tents for Cade. After an hour of asking and walking around the tents, unfortunately for her, no one saw him.

“I guess I need to search for him inside the dungeon,” said Cynthia and she decided to search for him inside the dungeon. Cynthia stood in front of the dungeon’s portal and walked forward. When she was reaching the portal, she was suddenly blocked by something.

“??? What is happening?” Cynthia wondered. She put her hand on the portal and some kind of barrier was blocking her.

“Miss, if you are over level 10 you cannot enter the dungeon. The dungeon now has a level limit,” an explorer beside her said to her.

Cynthia stared blankly at that explorer trying to process what he said, “………. WHAT!”