I stood at the edge of the island, looking down at the sprawling scenery of the fourth layer. It truly was quite beautiful with its undisturbed nature. All I’d known in my past life was the cement jungle, never leaving the big city I grew up in. I’d seen places like this before, but only as pictures on the internet. These pictures always fascinated me, and I often told myself I would go and see these fantastical places.

Little did I know that I’d see them on another planet, transformed into a monster straight from people's nightmares.

I thought back to the story of the Asphons and how similar it was to my own. Due to a cosmic event out of their control, they’d ended up transformed into a monster. And even though it was a difficult situation, they made the best out of it, improvised, adapted, and overcame. So far I’d just been running around trying to get stronger, with no real goal set in my mind other than finishing the quest the system gave me, unsure of what would come after.

I’d even go so far as to say that I enjoyed myself with this odd freedom I’d been thrown into. But seeing the story of the Asphons changed how I felt about my current lot in life. I wanted a bit more than just running around fighting others for no reason other than getting stronger. I don’t think it ever really clicked for some reason, but there were others like me out there.

I’d been on my own for so long, that I almost forgot that I was part of something called “The Traveler Initiative”. When I was choosing my new life, there’d been thousands of planets to choose from. Thousands of planets filled with other people. Sure, the travelers seemed like a somewhat detached force if Tim was to be believed, but they were out there, and I wanted to meet them.

I want to join them in whatever they are doing, meet people who could relate, make friends, and learn about their culture.

Unfortunately, the only way for me to do so looked to be completing the main quest. Namely, descending to the eighth layer and completing whatever it was the system wanted me to do here. And the only way to do that is to get stronger. A LOT stronger. And the only way to become stronger? Kill as many of the other monsters as possible, as brutal as that sounded. But on this world, it was either them, or me. And I choose me. I jumped off the edge and spread my wings, physically, as well as metaphorically.

It was time to visit death upon the fourth layer.

I stared down at the abomination at the edge of the water from my spot in a tree. Seriously, I’d seen some fucked up shit before, but this was… something else.

There, seemingly oblivious to the world, sat a huge frog, empty eyes staring into space, revealing just how little intelligence points this thing had. But hey, larger-than-average frogs aren’t scary, I hear you say. Yes, of course. The actually horrifying thing about this frog was the bones sticking out of seemingly every available surface. It would be one thing if it was just decorating itself with the bones of its fallen enemies in a display of intimidation, but I’d seen it literally break its own bones, breaking through the skin and joining the others.

The result was a frog that looked like a fucked up hedgehog, armored by an array of its own bones. I stared at it in fascination for a while, considering just what it had in store that I’d need to be wary of. Well, it could probably jump far and I’d need to watch out for the tongue. Aside from that, it was always a bit of a toss-up about what skills a monster had. Hopefully, I’d never find out, I thought as I cast two poison assassinations.

The frog didn’t react at all to the spell, proving once again how hard it was to detect. Content for now, I just sat back and watched, occasionally reapplying the poison. The frog didn’t seem too interested in moving around, so I could just patiently wait out the poison, no need to stick out my neck.

Taking it easy once in a while was nice as well.

I sat there, trying to closely analyze the spell whenever I cast it, for a lot longer than I was used to. Usually, my poison would’ve either killed it or at the very least made it display extreme discomfort. Yet, this frog was just sitting there without a care in the world. Could it be… poison resistance?!

Fuck, of course there would be other monsters like me that were resistant, or even immune to poison! It was entirely possible that I’d encountered monsters with resistance already, but this one might actually be immune, judging by how it seemed wholly unaffected. I carefully reassessed my options, wondering if I should just engage in open combat.

I still wasn’t confident enough to deal with more monsters showing up if the sound of fighting lured any of them, so I didn’t exactly want to risk it. But the frog was also somewhat rare because it was resting in a somewhat isolated spot, which was why I designated it as a target in the first place. Poison would be mostly useless, so I’d need to use my rather explosive and loud void javelins to deal with it. That, and there was still the giant spike, which I considered using since I didn’t need my regular mana for other spells here.

Wait… hold on a second…

I had yet to test out a void mana-infused giant spike! I had just enough of the infused mana to cast the spell twice, and, judging by how my relatively weak poison spells got a significant upgrade when cast that way… Just how crazy would a giant spike get?

Suddenly eager to test the spell out, I immediately started charging an infused giant spike, the spell is completed rather quickly as I forwent the analysis of the spell formation. I let it loose as soon as possible, the telltale glow below the frog having a purple tint this time around. I think I saw the frog’s eyes snap down to inspect the glow, but at that point, it was already too late!

I watched in awe as the spike emerged, spearing the frog as it usually did. Although this time, as a bonus, there were smaller spikes all over the spell’s surface, causing further damage and brutally ripping into the flesh of the frog. The spell had always been impressive, and this upgraded version didn’t disappoint either. Alas, it wasn’t enough to kill the frog.

The frog had somehow figured out where I was hiding. I knew because I just narrowly managed to dodge the tongue that shot at me with scary precision. I retaliated by shooting a void javelin at the bleeding frog, which it dodged with a giant leap into the air. I was briefly impressed by the power contained in its legs, since it jumped up a good twenty meters, but quickly had to focus on dodging again.

All around me, spears of all shapes and sizes rained down and to my horror, I realized that the frog was shooting at me with its bones. Thankfully I was a small target and I could easily dodge the larger projectiles. Some of the smaller ones managed to hit me, but most of them bounced off of my defensive skills, while the ones that managed to penetrate through did little to no damage.

I idly noted that the bones seemed to be poisoned, but ignored it since I had poison immunity. I charged up two more void javelins and took aim at the falling frog shooting off one javelin while retaining the other for later. I expected it to happen, but the frog used a mid-air leap to dodge my javelin. It would appear like we had rather similar skills. My second javelin hit the frog square in the face, the explosion sending it tumbling toward the ground.

Not willing to drag this fight out any longer, I readied my second giant spike, activating it as soon as the frog hit the ground. Once again, the enhanced spike emerged from the ground, this time ripping the frog apart. The system confirmed that it was dead, so I quickly gathered it into my inventory and ran, before more eager combatants showed up.