Chapter 10 Too Late for Mourning, Up Next Is—

The moment Steeran locked eyes with the Curse Frog, goosebumps erupted all over her skin.

Her sixth sense was screaming at her with intense warnings to stay far away from that strange creature!

Without hesitation, she released two arrows that pierced through the Curse Frog's large eyes. Following its strange cry, it sank into the swamp, and soon the surface of the water was tinged with blood.

It should be... dead, right?

Using her many years of monster-hunting experience, Steeran judged that the pair of large eyes was likely the Curse Frog's weak point.

"What's happening down there?" Huynh peeked out.

"Just a Monster," Steeran asked, "Any loot?"

"The Monster exploded these things, take a look,"

Saying so, Huynh tossed down a leather bag. Upon opening it, Steeran found several Moss Balls of different colors within.

Monsters from the Dungeon have a characteristic where they have a chance of dropping light points upon death, which are items, a trait not found in monsters from the outside world.

"What's the use of these?" Steeran examined the Moss Balls, red, purple, green—all sorts of colors.

"Let me see," the medicine expert pushed up his glasses, donned gloves, and picked up a purple Moss Ball. After a professional appraisal, a look of surprise crossed his face.

"What's it? What's it? What effect does it have?" Wild asked eagerly.

Once a new high-value material appeared in Sain Dungeon, his family could immediately organize a team to gather it.

Clearly, the Bed Family treated this place like their own backyard.

"They have a very strong detoxifying effect," the medicine expert's gaze shifted back and forth between the Moss Balls and the swamp. Suddenly he gritted his teeth, scooped up a handful of filthy mud and water, and stuffed it into his mouth!

"Shit!" The surrounding people were shocked by this abstract behavior.

The toxicity of the swamp was no joke; the medicine expert's face quickly turned the color of liver, and blood streamed furiously from all his orifices!

Trembling, he chewed on the Moss Ball, and then a miracle occurred.

Instantly, his condition drastically improved, and in the blink of an eye, he was back to normal—it was as if he had never been poisoned, were it not for the blood still on his face.

"The detoxifying effect is comparable to an Upper Tier Holy Light Healing Technique!" The medicine expert became excited, "Very valuable, extremely valuable! This is a new discovery!"

Wild instantly clenched his fist with a clear expression of joy. Glancing back at Charon, his lips too bore a faint smile.

"Moss Balls of different colors have different effects, this is the first time I've seen such a thing…" The medicine expert rambled on as he researched the Moss Balls of other colors, and finally, muttered to himself, "This trip was definitely worth it."

"What Monster did these come from?" Steeran nudged Huynh.

"They're from those humanoid monsters made of weeds and vines; the drop rate is pretty high too, each one can yield one or two,"

The team's morale surged.

Charon whispered something to the medicine expert off to the side, while Wild contemplated bragging to the ladies back home, and the adventurers...

They were drawing.

Submitting a new Monster discovery to the adventurer's guild could earn a handsome reward.

"Oh right, I saw a Monster over there just now that I've never encountered before," Steeran remembered the Curse Frog.

"I'll have a look," Danya volunteered and scurried over, rummaging through the swamp, he indeed found the Curse Frog that Steeran had shot dead.

He had never seen such a Monster, about the size of a human but with two shiny, round, large eyes on its head, which were truly creepy.

"Definitely a Monster I've never seen before, hey, its eyes—"

Danya paused because the Curse Frog was staring straight at him.

Below the large eyes, there were actually another pair of smaller eyes. The Curse Frog's eyes glowed with evil light, and suddenly it opened its mouth wide.

"Whoosh!"

A thick cloud of black mist hit Danya in the blink of an eye, enveloping him completely.

"Danya!"

Startled, Steeran and the rest watched as Huynh hurried into the fog to save Danya, and Ellie chanted Wind Series Magic to disperse the black mist.

"Cough cough cough, I'm fine," as the black mist cleared, all they saw was Danya continuously coughing, his dagger deeply embedded into the Curse Frog's head, signaling that the Monster was undoubtedly very dead.

"That scared me, but good thing this thing was ridiculously weak. The black mist seems like it could only obscure vision… Why are you all looking at me? Is there something strange on me?"

"You, you have something on you..." Ellie pointed at him, her face turning pale.

"Something on me?"

Danya looked down and saw something dark and wriggling beneath his skin, wriggling, wriggling—

"Ah!"

He screamed miserably, and in the next second, a "tree" appeared.

A tree made of black, twisted thorns!

He was impaled mid-air by the thorns that grew out of his abdomen, struggling and wailing, as maggots emerged in large numbers from his body and instantly hatched into flies, buzzing loudly.

By the time Huynh cut down the thorns and rescued Danya, he had already stopped breathing, and the Teleportation Crystal on his body flashed, sending him back to the Resurrection House.

"What, what on earth is going on here?" Wild stepped back in horror.

He didn't even know how he had died!

"Huynh, your hand!" Steeran suddenly shouted. Huynh, who had just embraced Danya, already had thorny branches sprouting from his arm, but neither the growth rate nor the size was as big as Danya's.

Huynh made a decisive move and cut off his left arm, and without the body, the thorns on the arm stopped growing.

At this point, everyone realized the problem had something to do with the corpse of the Curse Frog, and they all kept their distance from it.

But there was no time to mourn for Danya; what appeared next was—

A swarm of Curse Frogs!

When a dense cluster of big eyes emerged from the swamp, everyone was numb with shock.

Wild's teeth chattered with fear, and it took him a while to yell out:

"Run!"

That shout was like the starting shot of a race; both adventurers and Curse Frogs took off, racing for their lives!

And some unlucky ones bit the dust.

"SONASI!"

Several Indeedees suddenly jumped out, shouting as two people failed to dodge and got their shadows stepped on, leaving them unable to escape, completely surrounded by the Curse Frog swarm.

With a few wet stabs, two more thorn trees sprouted.

"Not this thing again!" Steeran's eyelids twitched furiously, recognizing the Indeedees at a glance—the creature that looked like a Slime that had caused her to die at the hands of the Molten Furnace Knight.

Now facing her enemy, she naturally—

Ran even faster.

Of course, in the spirit of the contract, she still ran behind the team of experts, sometimes teaming up with Ellie to stave off the Curse Frog swarm.

Close combat professions like Huynh dared not get close to Curse Frogs anymore, as a blast of the black mist could be deadly.

"Everyone, run faster, we need to lose them!"

But contrary to their wishes, the Curse Frogs' hate was extraordinarily far-reaching, doggedly pursuing the adventurers!

And as the commotion grew louder, other monsters were also drawn in.

Goblins wielding various weapons, hordes of skeleton monsters, grass men suddenly charging out, giant crows circling in the sky...

And even more Curse Frogs!

Steeran and her group, desperately fleeing for their lives.

"As it turns out, monster stacking is the most effective strategy,"

Gong Qiying, who was monitoring everything, laughed heartily.

At that moment, the performance of another group caught his attention.

"Wow, isn't that the lucky one who took away the Great Sword? Back so soon,"

In the footage, Jack led a group of people carefully avoiding monsters and quickly lit the beacons, the fortress gates opened slowly.

Having a strategy for the puzzle sure is fast!

"But I should give them a challenge,"

Gong Qiying muttered to himself, browsing through the monster interface.