The sight of countless brown frogs charging towards me was truly something I wouldn’t pay to see.
It felt as if I had become an extra—no, the protagonist—in one of those apocalyptic zombie films.
…If I just stayed like this, I wouldn’t end up as the protagonist but rather as a real extra.
I supposed I had to do something.
First, I pushed the precious thing I obtained after dismantling the giant frog into my body. I hadn’t yet decided what to do with it, so it hadn’t dissolved.
Maybe if I ate it, I could control those frogs… Though that thought did cross my mind.
After gaining the ability to remotely control Kim Cheon-soo like a puppet, the idea of consuming Singularities felt a bit uneasy.
Of course, gaining a new ability was interesting and exciting in its own way.
However…
Facing the problems that arose from this ability prevented me from simply rejoicing.
If I casually entertained thoughts of wanting to die, there might be someone out there who would feel the same urge.
Looking at Kim Cheon-soo’s case, it seemed they wouldn’t actually die from it… but if someone happened to be thinking negative thoughts already…
…they might really end up dying.
That was why consuming Singularities left me feeling somewhat conflicted.
If only they would clearly tell me what kind of ability I’d gain beforehand, I might have been able to make a choice.
Right now, it feels like I’m spinning a gacha machine, hoping for some ability.
If I consumed the precious thing from this frog, I might gain the ability to control the smaller frogs, or perhaps there would be no change at all.
It’s also possible that the Swamp might disappear, causing them all to vanish.
Or… an unknown, bizarre ability might manifest, causing trouble for Han Seori, Kim Cheon-soo, and even Yang Ha-na.
Not that I forgot about Yang Ha-na right away or anything. She wouldn’t be mad about that since it’s all in my head and she wouldn’t even know.
Anyway,
Because I delayed absorbing that precious thing, the decisions I could immediately make were only two.
One was to fight the frogs head-on, the same way I dismantled the previous one.
The other was to flee and escape them.
Even though my thoughts were clear, I had no real choice. If this place were simply the vast Swamp I wandered around in, it might be a different story, but now I’m deep in the mud, somewhere unknown.
Moreover,
My Knowledge pouch wasn’t helping this time. It was too busy spinning around like a helicopter to assist.
Thus,
I felt that fighting these creatures was the most realistic option.
Having finished my short deliberation, I shot out sharp tentacles in all directions, just like I had done inside the frog’s body earlier.
The tentacles pierced a few approaching frogs, but the wounds weren’t fatal. If they weren’t fatal, then I’d just have to make them fatal.
While keeping the tentacles embedded in their bodies,
I spun my body powerfully.
Just like how my Knowledge pouch spun above my head.
This created a scene where, instead of an umbrella, the bones of one remained, with frogs dangling grotesquely from the ends.
There’s a bird, they say, that impales its prey on branches.
…Kind of feels like that?
The difference between that bird and me, however, was that as my body spun faster, the frogs were cleanly sliced into chunks.
If I can cut down the bigger ones, how could the smaller ones withstand my attack?
I thought I could handle them all this way.
After spinning like a dancer for some time,
A problem arose.
No matter how much I spun, the endless line of frogs never seemed to end.
It felt as though the vast Swamp I once walked through was, in fact, made entirely of these frogs.
At least the good news was that my Jelly hadn’t dulled or rusted like other weapons.
Even though I could fight all day, watching the endless wave of frogs, my Jelly feels on the verge of turning pale.
I remember a game I played once where the objective was to last 30 minutes against a wave of enemies. I wonder if the protagonist in that game felt the same while facing the endless enemy waves.
In that case, they had a set time limit… which might make me worse off, knowing there’s no end in sight.
All the while my body, which had been spinning like a fan, began to slow down.
Because my vision covered 360 degrees, I only noticed the change in speed a bit late. When I examined the tentacles that had stretched out, I found them buried under a pile of frogs.
…My Jelly might not have dulled, but it seemed I was being overwhelmed by sheer mass.
A mountain of frog Jelly had piled up on the tentacles, and there were now numerous such heaps around me.
And atop those heaps—
The frogs were beginning to jump down.
Watching frogs rain down from the sky was truly a surreal sight. In some foreign lands, they say fish fall from the sky in hordes.
…Guess I don’t need to go abroad after all.
Even as I tried to free my tentacles, the ones buried under the piles of frog Jelly refused to budge.
It seemed there were other factors at play besides sheer weight.
At that moment,
Plof!
A frog that had fallen from the sky collided with my face. One after another, the sound of splattered bodies filled the air around me.
It’s said that you don’t notice your clothes getting wet in a drizzle, but this felt more like a downpour.
My balance was shaken by the continuous body slams, but thanks to the secured tentacles, I didn’t fall over.
However,
The situation wasn’t good.
The frog bodies gripping the tentacles looked as if they had formed a wall, hard as stone. And into this Jelly well they had created, more frogs kept falling.
…Like water filling a well.
The level of frog Jelly kept rising.
Before I knew it, they had submerged my ankles.
If I stayed like this, I’d end up preserved in Jelly or fossilized like an amber stone.
So I bit down on the Jelly still in my mouth, sharpened my hand, and began slicing the falling frogs while cutting off the extended tentacles.
The severed pieces dissolved into the frogs below, quickly becoming their food.
…So that’s why they were holding on despite being cut.
I felt foolish for being so carefree just moments ago.
Realizing the situation had grown more serious, I moved toward breaking through the frog wall instead of blindly flailing my tentacles like before. I swatted away anything that fell toward me.
This is why you shouldn’t let your guard down.
…I hadn’t destroyed them yet.
With every step, the frog Jelly clung persistently to my ankles.
It felt like the hands of zombies reaching out from a grave.
Although hardening my feet helped a bit, it also added weight, making movement uncomfortable.
Plof plof plof!
By the time I reached the wall, the frogs had piled up to my waist from the sky.
Maybe…
…The entire swamp outside was them.
Though the Knowledge pouch should have reacted that way, seeing it didn’t makes me realize I shouldn’t get too overconfident even in its presence.
Anyway,
Upon reaching the wall, I began moving my hands to break through. I scooped the hard frog bodies and forcibly consumed them into my body.
A peculiar repulsion, like water and oil refusing to mix, was felt, but it wasn’t too strong, so it was manageable.
Still not very tasty.
Though I thought about throwing it behind me, it might further raise the frog Jelly level.
So I began gnawing through the hard Jelly bit by bit.
Oddly enough, it seemed as though they had learned or perhaps resisted being eaten externally, which is why this was the only way out.
Going inside the big one was the right choice earlier.
But perhaps dismantling it too easily led me to let my guard down.
My progress destroying the Jelly wall was slower than the speed at which countless frogs filled the Jelly well.
Before I knew it, the chest-high frog Jelly began pulsing, moving like a single organ.
The feeling of my body being tightly squeezed from all sides was starkly clear.
Though I didn’t breathe like a human, it was evident that becoming fully trapped in this mass would be quite troublesome.
I might not be able to escape.
Trapped here, unable to eat them,
I might end up spending an eternal time waiting for someone to save me.
…That’s truly undesirable.
What should I do?
Would shooting out spikes all over my body like a hedgehog stop them?
I still haven’t fully understood how to use my body properly.
With the moment of complete engulfment approaching,
I gazed at the swirling “precious thing” of the great frog inside me and made a decision.
…The only way to resolve this situation immediately seemed to be…
Eating it.
And so,
Without knowing exactly what would happen,
I began dissolving the “thing” I had stored within me.
I could feel the frogs’ movements becoming more frantic, so it seemed I was on the right path.
…Perhaps.
