After receiving a few earfulls from Ellephwen most of the morning, Ellena was eager to get back out into the forest. Her body was bigger, stronger and sturdier and she wanted to test it out. Of course she had to promise Ellephwen that she would be back even earlier now; just past noon to be exact, but that was a fair compromise given the circumstances. Frankly, she was surprised that her kin let her out at all.
Thanks to the lecture, her time for this particular day had been cut awkwardly short, so her only goal was to test her mettle against an old foe. The Lesser Frogs, especially any Lesser Poison Frogs if she could find them, enemies she once struggled against.
With her ever so slightly longer legs, the young Mushman found a Lesser Frog within very little time. A Lesser Tree Frog if one went by its green skin. Perhaps Ellena had managed to garner a reputation with the Frog community, but for some reason this particular amphibian became immediately aggressive, launching its tongue like a whip.
Ellena simply ran forward, letting the tongue slap almost helplessly against her helmet. It may have been a risk, but she was curious about the amount of the damage it would do to her now. The answer appeared to be very little.
Rather, it seemed as though the attack hurt the Frog who cried out even before Ellena reached the beast. The Lesser Frog attempted to pull their tongue back, but Ellena had already closed the distance, instead all it could do was brace itself as she barreled straight into it head first. The Frog bounced along the ground, not stopping until it hit a rock, splatting against it instantly. Indeed, the Mushman had gotten quite a bit stronger it would seem.
For a moment, Ellena waited, yet no levels came. Where… Where is it? What, I didn’t even get a single level up from that? I know it was easy, but come on! They used to give multiple. Ellena continued to grumble, before remembering that she was talking about a living being’s life. She caught herself and calmed down.
The only answer was that if one wasn’t enough, then she would keep hunting them until she found out how many would be. So, with what little time of her day remained, Ellena began her grind.
The first level took three Lesser Frogs. The next took two Lesser Poison Frogs. The two of both. She carried on until she had gained five levels, killing a total of Twelve of the normal Frogs and Six of the Poisonous ones. A total of eighteen kills for five levels.
She also received a level to the Mushroom Helmet skill, so it was definitely still fruitful, but still, she needed to find new foes to fight. Regardless, she had yet to take a look at her actual stats.
Name: Ellena
Age: 51 days
Species: Lesser Mushman Guardian, Mushman
Height: 3’4”
Sex: N/A
Level: 06 +5
Health: 38/41 +5
Mana: 8/8 +5
Stamina: 51/60 +7
Energy:45/60 +7
Attack: 34 +3
Defence: 85 +9
Magic Attack: 11 +2
Magic Defence: 36 +3
Titles: Kin of Ellephwen
Skills: [Pain Resistance lvl 5] [Night vision lvl 3] [{Mushroom Helmet lvl 9}] +1
[Tough Stomach lvl 2] [Unarmed Combat Novice lvl 7] +5 [Swiftfoot lvl 4] +2 [Warriors Heart lvl 5] [Warriors Will lvl 4] [Lesser Regeneration lvl 4] [Guardian lvl 2]
Whilst there was a clear difference between now and when she first levelled as a Mushling, this still wasn’t quite as rapid as she wanted. Though it was likely she already had better stats than almost any Forest Mushman she had met in either life. It had only just occurred to her that she was already larger and stronger than either of her parents. She also did mess around with the Guardian skill a little, but it was a struggle to get to grips with it.
Still, she was weaker than humans. It was still a miracle she survived that first run in with them. If she ran into any other and didn’t have the element of surprise it would not go quite as well.
As she walked home, Ellena began to think of what her plan would be going forward. She decided her best bet would be to find a dungeon that wasn’t too far outside of Ellephwen’s sphere of influence.
When she arrived, Ellephwen had already begun cooking. It wasn’t a sight one could easily get used to, a Dryad in a cooking apron. She did make it work though. It would still be a few hours until they ate with her stricter curfew, so Ellena didn’t have much to do save for kicking her feet.
“Do you know much about what the Mortal races refer to as attributes Ellena?”
The Mushman nodded. She knew a little, she was a Human after all. Attributes were a purely man made classification system made for Monsters so they did not actually appear in Monster stat lines. They were generally quite straightforward. There were elemental attributes, such as Mushmen belonging to the earth element, Lesser Frogs to the water. Then there were incredibly simple and broad classifications for different kinds of Monsters. Wolves belonged to the Beast attribute, Dryads and Mushmen both belonged to the Nature attribute.
It was a rather outdated and useless system given that all Monsters belong to nature really, but adventurers still used it even in her last life to make it easier to choose quests and communicate quickly in the heat of battle.
“Exactly Ellena. It was a bit outdated. It’s changed a bit since your last life. More specifically it's thanks to the Explorers guild that turned into the class system.”
Ellena looked up, it still always hit her a little bit when she remembered that Ellephwen could read all of her thoughts. Class system? Like nobles, peasants, that kind of thing?
The Dryad smiled. “A didn’t meaning of class, I’m afraid. More like classifications. The guild founder found that the mortals, more than ever, needed to work in a coordinated fashion. So, he announced the class system. If you wished to register a party with the Explorers Guild to reap the benefits of a membership, you must have at least four members and at least four members must fulfill one of the class requirements.”
Then what are the class requirements? Ellena asked.
“Oh it wasn’t anything too complicated, they were rolls necessary for a balanced party. Uh, for example, the two thought essential are Bastion and Healer. A Bastion is someone that can either soak a lot of damage, or draw a lot of attention. Their job is to distract most of their foes. A Healer is, well, a healer, that one is quite straight forward. Whether it's through divine power, medical knowledge or something else. There are of course others. Saboteur, Marksman and Seeker amongst others. They also integrated already existing classifications such as Beast Tamers for good measure.”
Ellena never had been an adventurer, but if such organisation was not necessary two hundred years ago, she couldn’t imagine why it would be necessary now. Perhaps the Monster Continent truly was just that dangerous. So rather that identifying monsters, the mortals now identify other humans?
Ellephwen carried on her cooking, moving a group of vegetables over to a lidded pot filled with water. “They also updated the monster classification system, but it's mainly for variants as the mundaner beasts are easy enough to identify already. Belcher for variants that can spit fire, Warlock for those that can use magic, that sort of thing. Though a few actual Warlocks have reportedly expressed quite a bit of disdain for that choice.”
As far as she was aware, Warlocks were those born with little mana that made deals with power Demons or Monsters to touch into their power. If it were me, I’d just accept it and pump my muscles up instead. Why risk selling your soul to some random Monster?
“Yes, well. I’ve come to realise you’re something of a musclehead Ellena. If you were a mana user you would have no need for arms.”
Strangely, magic wasn’t something she ever had much interest in. She knew that, of course, magic was generally more powerful than a sword or a bow, but it never seemed like it would be as fun…
Hmm… Hmm? A sudden realization hit the ex-human, these were thoughts she had even in her past life. Somewhere deep down, maybe she was always something of a battle junkie. She just never got in any battles to realize that.
To that thought, Ellephwen did not say a single thing. The two continued to chat all the way until dinner and beyond and with that the day came to an end. For the time being, Ellena had no goal beyond evolving. Which is what led her every action outside of her new home.
The very next day she began her search for a dungeon once again. Fighting whatever monster would come at her on the way. For the most part it wasn’t anything beyond the Lesser Frogs or Horned Rabbits. The rare occasion something stronger appeared she generally tried to avoid it, or was at least cautious. She may have been stronger, but recklessness had almost led to her death multiple times already and she’d been alive less than two months.
It was the third day that she found something and it wasn’t a dungeon. It was a monster she had not come across yet. She had gone to the place she evolved and followed that cliff wall along when the trees began to scatter. Eventually thick muddled water replaced most of the trees and she wandered into a swamp. There were still trees of course, she had not left the great forest, but there was a lot more visibility.
A multitude of Monsters could be seen, a whole army of Lesser Frogs, a few breeds of birds including Swampmingos and even a lazing Sapphire Hippo. That was definitely not a beast she wanted to mess with, even if it was one of the weaker Hippos around.
Instead, the creature that caught her eye was near the Lesser Frogs and it wasn’t alone either. It looked like they did, only larger, fiercer and with spiked bone-like eyebrows. She had to assume it was a Greater Frog and she had to assume she could take it. At the very least it was still weaker than a Moss Toad, which she had heard was the weakest of all the Toads.
I take care of the lesser versions easily, so why wouldn’t I be able to beat this one? I’ve also doubled my level in the past few days, so it should be easy right? Or… It should be possible at least…
Of course, being Ellena she had gotten completely lost in these thoughts and did not even notice that the beast in question had already spotted her and approached with every second the Mushman wasted.
As soon as the Mushman had realised what was happening, the Greater Frog did something quite surprising, it shot its tongue out to grab onto a tree, then launched itself using the momentum.
With only instinct, Ellena braced herself, digging her legs into the ground and aiming her head at the Frogs trajectory. It opened its mouth as wide as it could in an attempt to chomp her, but when they met she pushed her body skyward meeting the beast whilst it was stuck flying through the air.
The Frog's jaw snapped shut with its tongue still flying, snapping it in half. Its body flew a few feet into the air from the impact, then it simply fell to the swampy mush, making a dull splash.
A hissing scream erupted from the green mess in the muddy water, the smell of blood mixing with the stench of its vile breath. Ellena had taken some damage, more than any of the other Frogs had dealt the past few days, but even so this was a decently easy victory. Though she already knew what happened when she got overconfident.
Even if it had clearly been the aggressor, she didn’t want to watch it suffer and die slowly, so, she gave it mercy, dropping down on top of it just like it did to her. A sickening squelch reached her eyes, then, silence.
“Overall level has increased from [Level 10] to [Level 12]!”
“Unique skill [{Mushroom Helmet lvl 9}] has increased to [{Mushroom Helmet lvl 10}]!”
“Skill [Guardian lvl 3 has increased to [Guardian lvl 4]!”
Well, it was more than she had in a while with one kill and she also now knew something else she could hunt quite safely. Which meant that she would be returning here in the future. In fact, the young Mushman now had to think. Was it a better idea to just hunt a few more of these Greater Frogs just so that when she did finally find a dungeon, she would be a little more prepared for it.
…
It was not a long debate in her head, so she got to work finding any and every Greater Frog that she could in the swamp. Not that she didn’t let her Guardian aura out to attract a few other small beasts too. Though admittedly she still had little control over that.
In fact, by the end of the day, Ellena had managed to level another 11 times, to a healthy level 23. Another dozen dead Monsters, including three more Greater Frogs and she was already almost at a quarter of her next evolution.
Unfortunately, the sunrays shooting through the tree branches told her curfew was right around the corner, so once again, the small Mushman headed home. One step closer to most of her goals.
Her small heart still beat rapidly, despite the day and adrenaline winding down, as little Ellena couldn’t help but now dream of what a dungeon would do for her. If she leveled this quickly against Frogs hopping around, how fast would a place filled with foes elevate her? Obviously, she wanted to find out soon.
Not sure what it is about the chapter, but I don't feel super satisfied with it. I think next time I have time off I might revisit some chapters and touch them up properly. I did try and fix a bit of lore I genuinely don't remember writing about the monster attributes, cus I think it was poorly concieved, but honestly the new one feels kind of irrevelant to Ellenas story, just sorta world building really? Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed regardless of my trepidations.