Yuuta stood with his legs bent low, his green, frogman figure outlined against the swirling mass of dust and smoke ahead. His wide eyes glinted with desperation and fire, the taste of iron still on his tongue, his chest heaving from the effort of surviving.
A sudden gust surged from within the thick fog. It wasn't natural—it was a hungry wind, clawing its way out of the smoke, carrying with it the smell of burning pork fat, scorched iron, and something deeper. Something primal. The stench of an unstoppable beast refusing to fucking die.
Yuuta narrowed his eyes, his frog heart pounding like a war drum in his chest. "You've gotta be shitting me..." he muttered, sweat trickling down the sides of his green face. His voice was hoarse with fatigue, but the fear in his gut twisted tighter with every heartbeat.
He didn't wait for confirmation.
He threw out his stubby three-fingered arm and conjured another glowing orb of crackling blue-white energy. Magic Missile.
The sphere hummed with murderous intent as it launched forward, slicing through the dust cloud like a bullet. It disappeared into the gray—
BOOM!
A thunderclap exploded from inside the debris, sending another ripple of force through the canyon. The ground trembled. Pebbles jumped.
A shrill, guttural screech echoed from within the smoke. A pig's scream—maddened, mutilated, enraged.
Yuuta's jaw clenched. "Still kicking, you pork-faced shit?"
He didn't give it time to answer.
Another orb formed in his palm. Magic Missile.
And another.
BOOM.
BOOM.
"Choke on it!" Yuuta snarled, lips peeling back in a savage frog-like sneer. "Eat every last one!"
Again. And again. And again.
BOOM.
The canyon lit up like a storm with each successive detonation, flashes of white and blue flickering through the smoke like lightning bolts trapped in a sandstorm. The walls shuddered. Rocks cracked and tumbled from the cliffs above, too afraid to hold their ground.
But the pig didn't die.
The next gust from the smoke carried with it a different sound—an inhale.
It was breathing.
No, not breathing—charging.
Yuuta's eyes widened. "Oh, fuu—"
The thick smog of destruction parted like curtains under a gale.
The massive figure burst forth.
The fat pigman, now even more terrifying in its battered glory, surged toward him with an unnatural shriek. Its armor was scorched, plates melted and warped. Part of its metal helm was torn away, revealing raw, blackened flesh beneath—a blistered snout, twisted tusks, and one blood-red eye burning with singular, murderous hate.
It looked like a demon that crawled out of a slaughterhouse.
"Just fucking DIE already!" Yuuta screamed.
But the pig wasn't listening.
It launched.
Twelve stories of pig-shaped rage soared through the canyon like a boulder tossed by a goddamned catapult. Its body twisted mid-air with horrifying agility, the shattered metal on its shoulders sparking and whining as it twisted for momentum.
Yuuta's legs moved on their own.
He leapt left, his froggy frame nimble and light—but not fast enough.
The pig had learned.
As Yuuta moved, the monster's massive, grotesque arm extended sideways in a brutal, backhanded arc. A gauntlet the size of a car screamed through the air.
And it hit.
CRACK.
Yuuta didn't scream. The air was too fast for that.
His green body ragdolled mid-leap, spinning violently through the air like a broken kite. Blood erupted from his side where the armor struck, painting a red streak in the air as he flew.
His body smashed into the canyon wall with bone-breaking force, cratering the stone on impact. A spiderweb of cracks blossomed outward from where he hit—dust exploding from the cliffside, pebbles tumbling in cascades.
Then silence.
Yuuta slumped in the crater, twitching.
His limbs twitched spasmodically, and his thoughts were a mess of ringing, flashing, and pain. Blinding pain. The world spun. He coughed, red droplets flecking from his wide mouth.
His frog skin was torn and scraped raw, his ribs felt like wet paper, and his arm throbbed with what could only be described as pure, molten suffering.
He couldn't move.
For a few seconds, there was only the sound of wind howling through the canyon, whispering like death coming to collect its due.
He blinked slowly, trying to focus. His vision blurred in and out, but he could still see it.
The pig.
It was standing, hunched slightly, breathing hard. Steam rose from its body where the Magic Missiles had scorched its flesh. Blood dripped from exposed patches of meat between shattered armor plates. One arm hung strangely—the one it used to swat Yuuta—but the other still clenched into a massive, iron gauntlet.
Its beady red eye was fixed on Yuuta.
Yuuta's whole damn frog body looks like it had been turned inside out and slammed into a cliff by an angry freight train made of bacon grease and bad decisions.
He lay slumped in a spiderwebbed crater carved into the canyon wall, limbs twisted at impossible angles, vision swimming. The impact had knocked the breath right out of his lungs. But more than that, it felt like something inside him had cracked—like his bones had liquefied and his organs had been put through a meat grinder.
And then, something began to crawl.
An itchy, crawling, burning sensation started at his toes. Not just pins and needles—this felt like a thousand centipedes with torches were dancing under his skin. It crawled upward, slowly, insidiously. Yuuta's three-fingered green hand twitched against the rock. His tongue, heavy and thick in his mouth, barely managed to let out a groan.
"What... the fuck is happening to me?!" he screamed—or tried to. It came out more like a guttural ribbit choked in agony.
The sensation didn't stop. It spread—up his legs, through his spine, crawling toward his arms, his neck, even his frog face. The pain was overwhelming. Every nerve in his body screamed in unison, but something strange was happening.
His arm, twisted the wrong way like a snapped twig, shifted. Bones cracked, popped, and slid back into place with wet crunches. His leg—which had been bent at an angle that would've made a chiropractor vomit—snapped back with a sickening pop. His green flesh rippled, pulsed, and stretched as if knitting itself together.
Yuuta let out a frog-like screech, a raw animal noise of both pain and horror. "WHAT THE HELL?! THIS FEELS LIKE BEING SHOVED INTO A MICROWAVE FILLED WITH NAILS!"
And yet… it was working.
His body, broken and bleeding just seconds ago, was mending itself. The pain was unbearable, sure, but with each twitching second, Yuuta felt more strength return to his limbs. His muscles un-seized, his vision stopped swimming, and the hammering pain in his skull dulled just enough for him to think straight.
Sort of.
Meanwhile, across the bloodstained canyon floor, the massive pigman moved.
The fat bastard's charred and melted face—if you could even call that dripping slab of pork a face—cracked into a grotesque grin. Its eyes, glowing faintly red, locked onto Yuuta's crater. It let out a low, guttural snort that vibrated the rocks.
"Yeah, laugh it up, bacon bits," Yuuta muttered through clenched teeth, his voice a ragged whisper. "Still alive. Fucker."
The pigman turned, slowly, like a mountain deciding to move. Each step sent a deep thud reverberating across the canyon. One after another, its gigantic pig feet—covered in iron-capped boots and caked with blood—crunched over the cracked ground.
Yuuta watched through half-lidded eyes, his breathing sharp and shallow. The beast wasn't coming for him yet.
No. It was walking toward its club.
The same spiked monstrosity that had cratered the earth and destroyed a cliff when it was thrown like a damn frisbee. It lay embedded in the rubble, blackened metal and blood-caked spikes glinting dully in the sunlight.
The pigman limped toward it.
Its armor had fared no better than its face. Chunks of steel had melted, seared right into its porky flesh like brands. Skin peeled and charred clung to metal like leather straps. Blood oozed from dozens of cracked plates and burn holes, but the thing kept walking.
Yuuta's breath hitched. His eyes darted to his now-fully regenerated arms, still twitching from phantom pain. His chest rose and fell in shaky gulps.
"What the fuck, is this regeneration?" he muttered under his breath, voice hoarse. "I didn't pick a healing spell... Did I get this by leveling? Is this part of my frog powers?"
He didn't know. And honestly? He didn't care.
Whatever it was, it had just saved his slimy green ass.
And it felt good.
Not the pain—that still sucked. But the strength creeping back into his limbs, the twitch of recovered muscle, the weight of his own body now manageable again—it all made Yuuta feel something he hadn't felt since this hellhole started.
Hope.
He planted one three-toed foot against the rock behind him. Then the other. Slowly, shakily, like a drunk frog rising from a week-long bender, Yuuta stood up inside the crater.
His breath was still ragged. His skin itched like hell. But his legs held.
The pigman was just now reaching its club, one heavy hand dragging the weapon free from the rubble with a disgusting SKRRRCK sound. Its armor cracked as it moved. It let out another wheezing snort—less intimidating now, more like an asthmatic hog trying to catch its breath.
Yuuta stared at him.
The wind cut through the canyon. Dust swirled lazily in the aftermath of the battle.
Yuuta's frog eyes narrowed.
"Think I'm dead already, huh?" he growled.
His voice was low now. Cold. No more screaming, no more panic. Just the simmering fury of a guy who got turned into a frog, thrown into a death pit, and slapped halfway across a mountain by a pig-faced bulldozer in armor.
Yuuta's jaw clenched. A vein bulged in his temple.
"I'm not done yet, you overgrown pork chop."
He raised his hand—still tingling with residual pain—and let a flicker of magic spark to life in his palm.
His frog mouth curled into something that might've resembled a menacing grin… if you squinted. A lot.
Yuuta exhaled shakily, then muttered through his gritted frog teeth, "Round two you fucking piece of shit…"