No Time to Mourn, Next Up Is—

The instant Sithran met the Curse Frog's gaze, goosebumps rose all over her skin.

Her sixth sense was screaming a warning: stay far away from that strange creature!

Without hesitation, she fired two arrows through the Curse Frog's huge eyes. It let out a bizarre cry and sank into the swamp, dark red blood soon floating to the surface.

It should be dead, right?

Based on her years of experience hunting monsters, Sithran guessed that those enormous eyes were the Curse Frog's weakness.

"What's going on down there?" Shuen poked his head out.

"Just a monster," Sithran said. "Did it drop any loot?"

"The monsters dropped these. Take a look."

As he spoke, Shuen tossed down a leather pouch. Inside were several Moss Balls of different colors.

Dungeon monsters had a distinctive trait: upon death, they had a chance to drop motes of light, otherwise known as items. Monsters outside the dungeon did not possess this trait.

"What are these for?" Sithran examined the Moss Balls. Red, purple, green—there were all kinds of colors.

"Let me see." The Medicine Expert pushed up his glasses, put on his gloves, and picked up a Purple Moss Ball. After conducting a professional appraisal, his eyes filled with surprise.

Seeing that, Verde pressed, "Well? What does it do?"

If a new high-value material appeared in Sain Underground City, his family could immediately organize people to gather it.

The House of Bede clearly regarded this place as their own backyard.

"It has an extremely potent detoxifying effect." The Medicine Expert's gaze shifted between the Moss Balls and the swamp. Suddenly gritting his teeth, he scooped up a lump of filthy swamp mud and water and stuffed it into his mouth!

"Fuck!" Everyone around him was shocked by that absurd act.

The swamp's poison was no joke. The Medicine Expert's face swiftly turned liver-colored, blood pouring from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth!

Trembling, he put the Moss Ball into his mouth and chewed it. Then a miracle happened.

His condition rapidly improved, and in the blink of an eye, he had restored to original. If not for the blood still on his face, no one would have believed he had just been poisoned so severely.

"The detoxifying effect rivals a high-tier Holy Light Healing Technique!" The Medicine Expert grew excited. "It's extremely valuable, extremely valuable! This is a new discovery!"

Verde instantly clenched his fists, unable to conceal his delight. When he looked back at Charon, the latter was smiling as well.

"Different colors of Moss Balls have different effects. This is my first time seeing something like this." The Medicine Expert rambled as he studied the other Moss Balls, finally muttering to himself, "This trip down here was definitely worth it."

"What monster dropped them?" Sithran poked Shuen.

"Those humanoid monsters made of weeds and vines. Their drop rate is pretty high—each one produces one or two."

The team's morale soared.

Charon pulled the Medicine Expert aside and whispered about something. Verde was thinking about bragging to women after he got back, while the adventurers...

They were drawing.

Recording newly discovered monsters and submitting the records to the Adventurer's Guild could earn them a substantial reward.

"Oh, right. I saw a monster over there I've never seen before." Sithran remembered the Curse Frog.

"I'll take a look." Danya volunteered and ran over. After feeling around in the swamp for a while, he indeed found the Curse Frog Sithran had shot.

He had never seen a monster like this before. It was roughly the size of a human, with two round, enormous eyeballs on top of its head. Just looking at it made his skin crawl.

"It really is an unknown monster. Huh, its eyes—"

Danya froze, because the Curse Frog was staring straight at him.

Beneath those giant eyeballs was another pair of smaller eyes. The Curse Frog's eyes gleamed with malice as it suddenly opened its mouth wide.

"Splash!"

A dense cloud of black mist slammed into Danya in an instant, swallowing his whole body.

"Danya!"

Sithran and the others were startled. Shuen hurried into the fog to save him, while Aili cast wind magic to blow the black mist away.

"Cough, cough, cough. I'm fine." As the black mist dissipated, Danya kept coughing. His dagger was buried deep in the Curse Frog's skull, and the monster was clearly dead beyond doubt.

"That scared the hell out of me. Luckily, this thing was ridiculously weak. That black mist seemed like it could only block vision. Why are you all staring at me? Is there something strange on me?"

"You... there's something... on you." Aili pointed at him, her face pale.

"Something?"

Danya looked down and saw something black wriggling beneath his skin. Wriggling, wriggling, wriggling—

"Ah!"

He screamed. The next second, a "tree" appeared.

A tree twisted from black thorns!

Thorns sprouting from his abdomen impaled him and suspended him in the air. He struggled and wailed as masses of maggots crawled out of his body, instantly hatching into buzzing flies.

By the time Shuen cut through the thorns and rescued Danya, he had already stopped breathing. The Teleportation Crystal on his body flashed and sent him back to the Revival House.

"W-What the hell is going on?" Verde staggered backward in terror.

He did not even know how he had died!

"Shuen, your hand!" Sithran suddenly cried out. Thorny branches had already emerged from the arm Shuen had used to hold Danya earlier, though they were both smaller and slower-growing than Danya's.

Shuen made a snap decision and cut off his left arm with one slash. Once separated from his body, the thorns on the arm stopped growing.

At that point, everyone realized the Curse Frog was the problem and hurried away from its corpse.

But there was not even a moment to mourn Danya. Next up was—

A horde of Curse Frogs!

When countless giant eyeballs rose from the swamp, everyone went numb.

Verde's teeth chattered. After a long moment, he finally shouted at the top of his lungs:

"Run!"

That cry was like a starting gun. Both the adventurers and the Curse Frogs broke into a sprint, beginning a desperate race for survival!

And some unlucky people immediately suffered for it.

"SONASI!"

Several Wobbuffet suddenly leaped out with cries. Two people failed to dodge in time and had their shadows stepped on, leaving them unable to flee as the Curse Frog horde surrounded them.

With several wet pops, two more thorn trees grew out.

"These things again!" Sithran's eyelids twitched wildly. She recognized the Wobbuffet at once. These Slime-like monsters were the ones that had gotten her killed by the Furnace Knight.

Now that enemies had met again, naturally she had to—

Sithran ran even faster.

Still, in the spirit of honoring the contract, she remained behind the experts, occasionally joining Aili in holding back the Curse Frog horde.

Melee fighters like Shuen did not dare get anywhere near the Curse Frogs anymore. One blast of that black mist could cost them their lives.

"Everyone, run faster! Shake them off!"

But things did not go as hoped. The Curse Frog horde had an exceptionally long aggro range, pursuing the adventurers relentlessly!

And as the commotion grew louder, other monsters began getting drawn over as well.

Goblins wielding all kinds of weapons, vast swarms of Skeleton Monsters, Grass Men bursting out without warning, and giant crows circling overhead.

And even more Curse Frogs!

Sithran's group was having an absolutely wonderful time running for their lives.

"This proves that mobbing monsters is the most efficient method."

Gong Qiying, who was monitoring everything, smiled happily.

At that moment, another group caught his attention.

"Oh? Aren't these the lucky ones who took the [Greatsword]? They came back so quickly."

On the screen, Jack led a group carefully around the monsters. At a considerable speed, they lit the Beacon Fire, and the fortress gates slowly opened.

Having a guide really did make things faster!

"I should raise the difficulty for them too."

Gong Qiying muttered to himself as he browsed the monster interface.

I really want comments. Playing solo is so painful.