Chapter 40: Mud Boss

Kutch watched how slowly but steadily Safo’s fighting style improved. His pace, stance, and breathing technics became better. They spend the whole day sparring taking breaks only for food. Inch by inch Safo Nur grew better. Kutch was a skilled teacher, he knew how to correctly prioritize his lessons in order to teach step by step.

In the evening, having their last meal for the day, they spoke about a game once more. Achraf shared his location, apparently, he was in a forest where everything was white including trees and animals, and everything was covered in snow. Achraf’s character died in that forest chased by a pack of aggressive wolves.

Safo was exhausted, he was half asleep. He couldn't walk properly, barely lifting his legs. Kutch made him give his best and so did Safo.

“Kutch, I have a personal question to ask, if it is okay?” Safo was a little hesitant but still decided to ask.

“Oh, I got you, I feel you, man. I, myself, went through everything that is happening to you. And acknowledging that you are a royalty I will be able to find you the best girls in the town, you don’t worry about it. “Okay”?” Kutch tried to use the word that he learned from Safo, he still wasn’t sure if he used it at the right time.

“What girls? … No! Man, what is wrong with you? No. It is not what I meant, man. I wanted to ask for some pills to sleep or something similar. Last night, even though I was in the game I slept very poorly. I kept seeing some flashes in front of my eyes. Not sure if it is because of the game, or this device on my neck, or the disgusting liquid I had caused it, or just stress piled on me. I just wanted to get better rest to be in good shape tomorrow, and that's all.”

“Ahaha… ha.” He scratched his head in embarrassment. “Try to sleep today and if even after this much training you will have problems with sleep, I will ask for some medicine for you.”

“You are probably right. Okay, I will try."

At night Safo was intended to imply his new learned combat knowledge on mud monsters again. Kutch told him to reach level 5 killing only them and then move on to other monsters. Still, he wasn't allowed to use any weapon.

Luna ran away to start her grand quest, she was a hardcore leveling bird all of a sudden. She committed her full energy and enjoyed the game.

As for Safo, he was already knee-deep in the mud again.

Low kick, push kick, jabs, hooks, and uppercut that were the shortlist of the tasks for practice. By mixing and matching these basics Safo Nur wanted to make them perfect and learn more complicated methods of a fight in the future.

After training with Kutch and getting some theoretical knowledge about body positioning and breathing Safo Nur’s stamina also increased a bit. Not the capacity to be precise but the way that he spent it changed. He was better than how he was yesterday. Although his dodging skills improved a bit, he still used the hit and run method.

Non-stop he finished dozens of monsters when something unexpected happened.

A mob that looked like a mud monster but three times bigger appeared out of the lake and moved a lot faster than the rest of its short friends. It moved towards Safo, seemingly to take revenge on its fallen friends. Seeing that Safo decided to leave the pond as fast as his legs could.

‘Kutch didn’t mention any daddy monster.’ On top of the monster was the green bar displaying his HP, it was 10. It surely was the Boss of the mud pond and it was angry.

Fortunately, Safo Nur had his HP full, which was 20 points. He stopped running and turned around, he felt confident, out of nowhere. He decided to face the boss.

'It has 10 HP while I have 20HP, I guess I can try.'

The moment they engaged in combat Safo Nur regretted that he didn't continue running from it. It was way faster than other small fries.

Nevertheless, it was a good challenge for Safo Nur. The monster was the same height as Kutch so he could utilize dodging skills that he practiced so hard. And so he did, the monster came swinging his hand horizontally which was too obvious even for a non-experienced fighter. Safo Nur duck and threw a right hook of his own using his full power which landed critical.

By this time Safo Nur figured out how to calculate critical damage, it was double his full strength plus agility points. So his critical damage was 0.9.

Which meant that Mud Boss wasn't that much of a threat to him. He just needed to land a dozen good shots.

But just when he thought that and a devilish grin appeared on his face, a third arm grew from the monster's belly hitting Safo Nur in the stomach and sending him flying for a couple of meters.

By the time Safo gained his posture and stopped coughing the Mud Boss was swinging his arm vertically to smash him to the ground. Safo threw himself forward completing a somersault, he placed himself at the back of the monster and threw some more punches. Alas without any critical damage, it was fast jabs without a lot of strength backing them up. He had not enough time to gather his strength to make a mighty hit.

Again utilizing the strategy of hit and run, he was already running to secure the distance between him and the monster.

A shock overflowed him, his HP bar caught his eye, he lost 10 HP. After a single hit taken from a Mud Boss, he lost half of his health. He was glad that it was just a game, in real life battle he would probably be in a condition that wouldn't allow him to continue the fight.

Safo couldn't let himself lose focus on that opponent. One more strike and he was done. When Safo was a couple of meters far from the monster thinking about his next move, the Mud Boss threw a punch. Safo looked confused, because obviously an arm couldn’t reach him, or could it?

An arm didn’t stop its way towards Safo, it stretched and lengthened itself to get what it aimed for. Safo jumped to the side dodging the arm just to see that another was getting closer, and the third one after it.

By some miracle, unknown to Safo he managed to elude the blows. Muddy brown arms flew by more than 5 meters behind him. And it clicked! It was the same in the games, a window to attack, Safo wasn’t a fool to miss the opportunity that the Mud Boss created for him so politely. He landed a punch using his momentum sending the giant cluster of mud back for a meter. Safo successfully made a couple more kicks before the creature regained its focus and retracted its arms. Safo ran back again, he wasn’t ashamed to use the same method again and again. It worked, so why not?!

The winning strategy was working perfectly a couple more times closing the green bar of the Mud Boss to its end. In his last attempt to kill Safo the creature was furious, it even roared before sending its fists to the target. Safo’s heart was beating like crazy, though he was calm on the outside, he knew he did it before and he had to do it one more time, kill the monster. He dodged first arm, second… third...

Right before he jumped from his position to make his last blows Safo received one himself. He felt a thump on his leg followed by dull pain. He was sure that he escaped the arms, so what was the source of the pain?!

’Is it a fourth arm? I had 10 HP only and his one hit is exactly what I needed to die.’ But after a millisecond of analyzing his situation, he realized that he wasn’t dead yet. His HP was 9!

[Health 8/20]

[Health 7/20]

He received two more hits from behind, which made him change his position and look back only to see 5 small mud monsters. They came to aid their boss in its tough fight. Safo’s heart sank, he was so close to defeating the Boss of the area.

‘That roar! He called his gang.’

He looked at the bar above the big creature's head, one or two hits could finish it off. He already knew that it was a bad idea to get surrounded by the monsters, he could receive multiple hits simultaneously.

‘Damn, I want it so much. Argh… what the hell?! I’m going for it. 6 punches from small monsters or 1 hit from the big guy.’

Adrenalin rushed into his veins, Safo convinced himself to continue the battle. But at that moment he had to retreat to survive, even if it created disadvantageous circumstances for him. The small five placed themselves before their daddy, or mommy.

After they built their formation, it was time to assault. Some of the short muds moved forward to reach the enemy, while big mud threw its arms once more. But this time it did it so Safo will have to either meet with small mud monsters to dodge the arms or meet the stretched arms to escape from small guys. Checkmate situation for Safo Nur.

Safo tried his best to predict the path of the deadly arms, to his surprise his brain seemed to work a bit faster than before. Adrenalin or the nauseous liquid's work, Safo was glad for any help that his body could supply him. He ran forward calculating his future actions.

By an inch he ducked from the first arm and pushed himself to the left to evade the first mud monster, he dived right into the mud to escape from the second arm and a mud monster that tried to grab him. Entirely covered in mud, he himself looked like a mud monster.

The third arm was about to hit him in the face when he moved his head. He gathered the rest of his strength and willpower to jump from where he was sitting and run to engage with a third small monster. Rather than hitting or fighting him in any way Safo just plunged his feet in it and pushed himself up to be on top of the mud. Thick dirt could hold his weight and the reaction of the small mud monster was too slow to acknowledge the unusual event.

From the top of the monster Safo jumped to another and not fully landing he hurried forward and found himself in front of the Boss creature. While in the air Safo’s right fist rocketed to meet the big guy's eye and it did the job. The monster melted down and nothing was left of it in an instant.

Safo fell and went under the mud. The pond wasn’t deep, but it was thick making it resistant against movements. When Safo emerged from the mud and cleared his view, he saw nothing. Small mud monsters were gone too. However, Safo was not sure for how long, Safo knew that he had to flee from the crime scene as fast as possible.

Utilizing his last strength and stamina, he dragged himself out of the mud that seemingly became thicker even more.

Exhausted, he dropped to the ground 10 meters before the wooden gates of the village and passed out. Dirty, covered in mud head to toe. He went to sleep in the game while sleeping in real life.

Almost at the same time, a series of announcements and notifications rang throughout The Cube, which Safo missed for obvious reasons.

None of the players knew what caused the event but the hearts of veteran adventurers burn with flames of new hope and jealousy. The huge wave of fuss flooded the game once more.

Gamers who dropped The Cube due to the countless failures in their attempt to ascend to the Cube 8 rushed back after hearing the news.

The Cube community copied and distributed the news to every corner that they could reach. They were no longer stuck on Cube 7.

"The way is open!"