I stood at the edge of the forest looking out over the vivid grasslands before me. In the distance, I could see the floating island waiting for me. I kept staring at it for a while, the ethereal nature of it having a captivating effect on me. I wasn’t entirely sure why I was so fascinated by the islands, seeing as I’d seen a whole bunch of otherworldly things ever since I got revived as a slug, but something about them just spoke to me.

I know that floating islands had been the subject of many a story back in my world, so I guess it was just the fact that I could see one for real that was so enticing to me. Akin to meeting a dwarf or an elf, or even a dragon of old, the floating island was a fantasy become real. Well, I hoped there wasn’t an actual dragon up there because I was pretty sure that would be a fight I’d lose.

With some effort, I took my eyes off the islands and scanned the grasslands again. The grass had grown pretty high, so if I really wanted to I could just hide by staying low. Another advantage of being small. Contrary to myself, there were some rather large monsters on the prowl out there that couldn’t be missed. As a result, the bigger monsters gravitated toward each other, making the fields a constant place of battle.

I guess this was a bit similar to the desert above during nighttime, just a little less extreme.

I continued watching for a bit, trying to build a rudimentary database of monsters that were on the fourth layer. I could see a herd of black horse monsters, exuding blue flames where their hair was supposed to be. Probably a higher evolution of the monster I hitched a ride with when I descended to the third layer. A giant tortoise was lumbering across the fields, three ice spikes decorating its back shell. It may have been slow, but any monster that dared to get close was dispatched by varying ice spells with relative ease. It helped that its shell seemed nigh impenetrable.

I could see something that I mistook for a strong gust at first, but quickly realized was probably a wind elemental. It had a lot of leaves in its body, which it flung at the others to a surprising effect. There was an undead stag with massive antlers that was throwing around conjured bone projectiles and a three-meter-long dragonfly that had two scythes for arms and was shooting out concentrated beams of light.

But what really took the cake, was the Hydra that was rampaging around. Sure, it only had two heads, but it was definitely the monster of legend. Just to make sure, I quickly used my hunter radar skill, which thankfully indicated the closest hunter to be somewhere else. If that thing had been a hunter I would have had to make a large detour to make sure I wouldn’t encounter it before I was ready.

Having seen enough for now, I started on my journey. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with fighting out in the open yet, preferring to wait until I had some more levels under my belt, so I would try to avoid the monsters as well as I could. I’d much rather find another forest patch where it was easier for me to hide. That said, if something felt the need to attack me, I would retaliate swiftly and brutally. No mercy.

I was racing through the tall grass, making sure to give both the ice tortoise and the hydra a wide berth, even though I probably could have taken them down with some effort. What I was worried about the most was that a fight would just keep attracting an endless horde of monsters, so I made sure to not engage in the first place. In the forest, there was plenty of space and cover for me to run away if things went south… out in the open, I didn’t have that advantage. Sure, if I combined my speed with the leap skill I could run away pretty fast, but there were other monsters out here that were most likely faster than me regardless.

Of course, there was always void jump to teleport far away, but the long casting time made it a less-than-ideal panic button. I would have to train to cast it faster and maybe look into mutating my brain further the next time I evolved. Spells were bound to become more complicated as they went up the tiers, so investing now would never be a bad idea.

I was coming in for a landing after my latest jump when I suddenly came face to face with a mole monster that was half buried in the ground. It seemed equally surprised to see me as I was surprised to see it and, having no time to change direction, I collided with its face with a wet smack.

Not wanting to be this close to the mole I pushed away hard, intending to jump away to get some distance, but the mole had other ideas. Two powerful, clawed paws grabbed me and before I knew it I was being dragged underground. Dirt rushed by as the mole retreated into a tunnel system that it had obviously dug out beforehand. It only took a few moments before the mole's body completely blocked the only light source and everything went dark.

It was dragging me deeper and deeper, clawing against my defenses as we went, occasionally biting or smashing me against the tunnel walls. I tried casting some spells, but every time I tried I got slammed into the wall, interrupting my concentration and making me unable to complete the spell. The cast time for my poison spear wasn’t long at all, it took me less than a second, but somehow the mole always knew exactly when I was attempting to cast.

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Did it have some kind of sensitivity to mana? If so, I wouldn’t be able to cast any spells, since all of them took even longer than poison spear to complete. It dawned on me that I didn’t have any non-magical attacks and that I might be in trouble. My defensive skills prevented me from taking too much damage, but if I just let the mole do its thing it would eventually wear me down.

What could I do?

I could explode my mucus armor which would maybe buy me some time, but there was no guarantee that I’d be released and in the worst-case scenario I would just take more damage because one of my defense skills wasn’t active. The good news is, the mole kept biting me, subsequently poisoning itself because of my mucus armor. Another point for not exploding it.

So was the only thing I could hope for that it’d kick the bucket before I did?

I mentally went over my list of abilities again, trying to come up with a way to put the hurt on this damn monster, when I remembered a spell I hadn’t used in forever. Poison shot! My very first spell! Poison shot was such a stupidly cheap and simple spell that I could probably cast it instantaneously. Not like poison spear that was cast incredibly fast, but truly instant.

There was no way that the mole could react to that. Well, poison shot also didn’t really cause any damage. It just applied the poison status, which was already applied due to my armor… So was I really back to square one? No… poison shot was really my only option, so I had to use it somehow.

Deciding that I didn’t just want to wait around until either of us dropped dead, I started casting poison shot with reckless abandon. I couldn’t see, but I knew where it was anyway since I was within its grasp and it kept biting me. So shot after shot of poison went out, the mole unable to stop me from casting, although not for a lack of trying. It redoubled its efforts to smack me into every available surface while biting me and descending ever deeper into the tunnel network.

I was cranking out the poison shots at an incredible rate. It felt more like I had a garden hose trained at the mole, shooting out a constant stream of poisonous water. After a bit, I tried to keep my aim focused on where I thought its mouth was. Might as well try to literally drown the fucker in poison at this point and, oh boy, it didn’t appreciate my efforts. Its struggles continued to intensify as I kept on shooting, unwilling to give up.

It turned out that those were its death throes, as it went limp a few moments later, finally releasing me from the vice-like grip it had me in. Good riddance, asshole. I took a quick peek at my HP and found that I lost a bit more than half. It somehow annoyed me that a stupid monster like that was the most dangerous thing I’d encountered in the fourth layer. But it at least showed me that I would be in big trouble if my magic was ever sealed away by an enemy.

I should look into ways to get some non-magical attacks at some point. Even though leap had proven incredibly useful already, I kinda wished that I’d taken an attack skill back when I had a free choice.

Well, nothing I could do about that right now.

Right now, I was stuck who knows how deep underground with no idea how to get back out. Maybe I should invest in a mutation that allowed me to see in the dark after all. I briefly considered just blowing my way out of the tunnels, but remembered videos I’d seen back on earth. Explosions in tight spaces underground could have a devastating effect. I was more likely to blow myself to smithereens or bury myself in an avalanche of dirt than to make it outside in one piece.

I sighed and quickly stored the dead mole in my inventory, resigning myself to a slow trek back to the surface. I used my arm tentacles to feel the way forward while slowly pushing myself along. It was pretty easygoing until I came to the first intersection. I paused for a bit, wondering where to go. The most logical solution would be to just go straight, but I was incredibly disoriented during the fight and had no idea how fast the mole could change direction.

I felt along the ground with my tentacles, eventually noticing that there was a wet trail leading into the tunnel to my right. My poison! I had inadvertently created a trail for myself that I could follow. I kept tracing the poison on the ground until that dried out as well. Before long, I was at another junction, unsure how to proceed. That is until I could feel the telltale vibrations of a monster passing through above me.

Earlier, I had considered just using a void jump straight upwards, but since I didn’t know how far down I was I got scared that I might just jump into solid dirt, and I wasn’t too keen on figuring out if that could happen or what would happen to me if it did. But now I could feel a monster above me and could vaguely guess how deep I was! I knew that a minimally powered jump would take me quite a distance, so I should have plenty of space if I just jumped straight up.

A few minutes later, the completed spell snapped into place. I quickly jumped through the open portal, emerging into the sky above the grasslands. I reflexively retracted my eyes as they were assaulted by the sudden brightness but quickly extended them again when I felt that I was falling. I needed to see!

I recoiled a bit when I saw the ice tortoise lumbering along below me, not exactly who I wanted to meet right now. I didn’t want to deal with its more than likely crazy defense, so I used leap mid-air to change direction. I landed with a heavy thud, the fall taking along some of my HP.

Not wanting to stick around I gave it my all to speed away from the tortoise, lest it speared me on an ice spike like I’ve seen it do to other monsters. This time I paid extra attention to where I was going to land, unwilling to have a repeat of the mole accident.

Moles were officially on my shit list now.