Using One's Enemy to Kill the Frog

"Ribbit~ Ribbit~"

The tyrannical Pond Frog pinned a twisting, crawling insect on a tree with its tongue, reeled it into its mouth, and chewed greedily.

Its two puffed-out cheeks looked like milky-white bubbles.

Arthur closed his eyes and thought over Parrot Gro's suggestions. Not one of them was feasible.

Pond Frogs had poison glands in their skin that produced venom. A mantis's double blades could pierce their skin, but the poison would kill the mantis too.

There had once been a "dog-licks-frog" incident on the Old Continent. A hunting dog licked a Pond Frog and died of poisoning not long afterward.

"Charge! It's not my real body anyway!"

"Worth a try!"

He remembered that frogs had poor dynamic vision. Moving slowly through the grass, he felt his sharp double blades twitch with eagerness.

He circled behind the Pond Frog, then suddenly beat his wings and charged at it.

The mantis's razor-sharp arms flashed coldly as they slashed into the Pond Frog, drawing a visible stream of blood.

Its skin really was as thin as Parrot Gro had said. The mantis's arms pierced it with ease.

Before Arthur could do anything else, the Pond Frog spun around 180 degrees, opened its enormous mouth, and swallowed the mantis whole.

It was dark?!

Damn it! What was this sticky stuff?!

Arthur's consciousness returned to his real body. The mantis attack had failed, and Pond Frogs were difficult to deal with.

Night had fallen outside. He ate a little hardtack and washed it down with rum.

The sailors patrolling the deck whispered to each other:

"Strange. How come I've barely seen Captain Arthur since I came aboard the Great White Shark?"

"It is a bit strange. Why does Lord Arthur always look like he's just woken up?"

"I heard Captain Arthur is a supernatural being with extraordinary powers."

"Could it be that the longer he sleeps, the stronger he gets in a fight?"

Arthur enhanced his hearing and caught their conversation in the sea breeze. The corner of his mouth twitched uncontrollably.

Phew~, good thing the Great White Shark often docked and there weren't any goats aboard.

Otherwise, who knew what rumors would spread!

He stored one each of "Ease," "Dread," and "Fascination" in the [Rite], then took out the Fear Musket and the Whale Herder Sword.

"The next fight will be a tough one. After that, I'll have to change identities, so I probably can't take my old belongings with me."

Arthur planned to keep the "Fear Musket" as a backup option for an "old body substitute." He could try converting the Whale Herder Sword into a supernatural item.

If he found a better "old body substitute," he could still use the Fear Musket.

White Sand Island.

Arthur appeared near the Pond Frog once more, hiding behind a clump of grass in the shape of a mantis.

There was no way he could kill the Pond Frog himself. He had to use someone else to kill it.

He quietly put some distance between them, making sure the Pond Frog would have to chase him for a while.

Beating his wings, he leapt rapidly through the grass, slashing through the blades as he raced away.

Arthur looked back. The Pond Frog hadn't reacted at all. It was like an idiot.

With no other choice, he could only hop in place, hacking at the grass to make noise and attract the Pond Frog's attention.

The Pond Frog darted toward Arthur with astonishing speed. He didn't take flight until it was just a meter away.

After fleeing for a while, Arthur let his guard down, and the Pond Frog closed to within a meter.

Arthur looked back at the Pond Frog and saw its bulky body shoot into the air. It soared skyward from a meter away, then dropped down like Mount Tai bearing down on him.

"Ribbit!"

The Pond Frog had caught itself a mantis.

After gorging itself, a hint of confusion appeared in the Pond Frog's eyes. There seemed to be a lot more mantises around lately.

It abandoned its usual cautiousness and strutted through the grass, searching for food with a swaggering gait.

[It descended upon White Sand Island.]

Without a second thought, Arthur hopped in place to draw the Pond Frog's attention, then fled without looking back.

He kept a safe distance of one and a half meters. Whenever the Pond Frog seemed to lose interest, he hopped around on the spot to whet its appetite.

"Gili-gulu~ Dudu-du~"

"Gili-gulu~ Dada-da~"

The sound of the natives talking rang out. Arthur ran toward it, taunting the Pond Frog from time to time.

The Pond Frog bounded over, its big eyes fixed on the mantis leaping about as it savored the taste of its last meal.

That pest had to pay for provoking the great frog!

The two natives were talking when they suddenly saw the Pond Frog pounce at them. They leapt to their feet in terror.

They backed away, waving the stone spears in their hands.

Arthur lay motionless on the ground to avoid getting hit by a spear. The Pond Frog was so large that one spear struck its vulnerable body.

The poison glands on the Pond Frog's skin contained deadly venom, but without direct skin contact, it was still just a frog.

The Pond Frog lay on the ground, twitching. The natives stabbed it twice, and blood seeped into the soil.

After talking it over, the two natives snapped off a pair of branches, used them to pick up the Pond Frog, then scraped their stone spears against its skin.

The stone spears had been successfully enchanted → Venomous Stone Spears.

Having made use of the Pond Frog, the natives tossed it aside and walked excitedly toward the beach.

Arthur lay motionless in the grass, using his body's camouflage to save his own skin.

He crawled over to the Pond Frog to see if he could take it over. Its size and abilities were far superior to the mantis's.

He gave it everything he had, but couldn't take over its body. Arthur abandoned the frog's corpse and headed for the other side of White Sand Island.

As time passed, the mantis moved through the forest, hunting insects to replenish its energy.

"Huh?!"

After eating a caterpillar, Arthur took a couple of steps forward and saw a stretch of snow-white beach.

At the boundary between the beach and the grass stood three tall palm trees. Among their emerald leaves were faint golden ones.

Golden palm leaves?!

Anything unusual was extraordinary, and extraordinary things were supernatural materials.

The conditions on White Sand Island could produce Twin Coconuts, a primary material for Sequence 7 of the Scholar Path. Naturally, they could nurture other materials too.

Arthur scrambled over, relying on his flimsy wings and sharp mantis arms to climb up the golden palm tree.

He used his mantis arms to saw back and forth at the base of a Golden Palm Leaf.

"Creak, creak~"

"La la la~ La la la~, I'm a hardworking lumberjack~"

Humming an unknown tune, he finally cut through a Golden Palm Leaf with tireless effort.

The enormous Golden Palm Leaf fell onto the beach, kicking up a gust of wind.

Arthur climbed down, circled the Golden Palm Leaf, and frowned a little.

How was he supposed to carry it back?

[It saw the "Golden Palm Leaf," an insignificant supernatural material.]

[It took the "Golden Palm Leaf."]

The Golden Palm Leaf vanished from his sight, as though torn apart by an invisible hand.

Arthur hopped over to a clump of grass, lay beneath it, and returned.

He tossed the "Golden Palm Leaf" into [Research] to study it and find out which Path it belonged to.

He could also use [Dream Entry] to get a good night's sleep.

Fog City, the capital of the Tudor Dynasty and the jewel of the Empire on Which the Sun Never Sets.

At Stuart Castle, Arena rode her carriage back to her family estate and stepped into the grounds once more, sword in hand.