Mud Troll
Mud Troll
When Angie's true name surfaced without warning, Aslan's first thought was to question whether he had finally succumbed to delusion or madness.
Twelve years of wandering and suffering—surely that was enough to break a man.
The thought came, and then came verification.
His finger swept through the air and pressed firmly on the dark space where the word Magic Power should have been.
[Remaining Points: 3]
The count did not decrease.
If the allocation had registered normally, Angie should have reacted. Instead, she only watched him with a puzzled look, her gaze tracking the way his hand kept brushing at empty air.
Next, Strength. Of all the floating stats, it was the one that would feel most tangible.
The moment his finger grazed the system window—before he even pressed it—Angie's expression shifted.
"...Huh?"
The remaining points ticked down to 2. Angie lifted her arm and stared at it, mute.
The gaunt, pale forearm of a girl, muscles flexing and relaxing with every clench of her fist.
Watching her, Aslan knew: the phenomenon floating before his eyes was no hallucination.
He hesitated briefly.
No reason to agonize. If it's been given to me, I'll use it.
The hesitation passed. He closed his eyes, exhaled, opened them again, and pressed Health and Agility once each.
"Wh-whoa?"
Angie reacted each time, but Aslan ignored it and pressed his own name.
[Aslan]
[■] [■■] [■■]
[Magic Power] [Fighting Spirit] [Luck]
[Remaining Points: 2]
The points appeared to be divided between separate pools for himself and Angie. Aslan pushed his two remaining points into Fighting Spirit and Luck.
A faint sensation of vitality washed through him.
He let out his breath and closed the system window. Angie was wiping cold sweat from her forehead, and their eyes met.
"What did you just..."
"What did you dream about?"
The girl had been about to ask what he had done—her body was telling her that his actions had caused the change—but the interruption cut her off. She closed her mouth.
"...Things staring at me. Strange things."
He had a guess. He wanted the guess to be wrong, but the evidence was undeniable, and he cursed it silently.
A crack crept through his indifferent mask. Angie noticed.
"What's with that face?"
"How many of those strange things?"
He didn't answer, only asked. She looked vaguely annoyed, but something in the intensity of his mood made her quietly count on her fingers.
She opened one hand fully, then moved to the other. As each new finger unfolded, Aslan's expression grew tighter.
Finger by finger they spread, until only one remained curled.
"Nine."
Aslan closed his eyes and let out a slow breath.
In the game Eternal Dominion, there was a scene every player saw not long after starting.
It came after leveling up, on the first night spent camping: the protagonist's nightmare.
A nightmare in which the gods—newly aware—turned their gaze upon a mortal whose existence had just been elevated.
But it couldn't be dismissed as merely a dream.
A dream where seven gods fixed their eyes on you and took notice was no ordinary nightmare.
And the fact that nine had looked upon her was proof enough.
Unlike the Eternal Dominion Aslan had played, the Geladrion he lived in possessed two more gods than the game had ever contained.
Which meant one thing.
In the same vein as the name now floating in the system window.
In the same sense as the main quest that had surfaced after twelve years.
The protagonist isn't me.
He opened his eyes. Angie had moved closer and was crouched in front of him, studying his face.
Her expression no longer carried any trace of irritation.
If anything, she seemed worried. She tilted her head, her features caught somewhere unreadable.
"Are you okay?"
Hearing the question, Aslan asked himself the same thing. Am I?
The question sent his thoughts spiraling downward.
Strength, Health, Agility—they hadn't become his. They belonged to the girl in front of him.
Only Magic Power, Fighting Spirit, and Luck were his.
The verdict was stark. But questions remained in abundance.
Why was this girl the protagonist?
Why had the stats been split cleanly between them?
Why now—after twelve years—did this phenomenon finally manifest?
Too many unknowns. And Aslan resolved not to chase them.
No amount of brooding would produce an answer. Even if he cobbled together a theory, he could never be certain it was right.
He had no desire to pour every mental resource into problems that would reveal themselves in time. Instead, he focused on what he could know right now.
He had leveled up.
He had gained Magic Power, Fighting Spirit, and Luck.
Compared to the past, when he had nothing at all, these were vastly better conditions.
Better even than if only Strength had risen, or Agility alone, or Health by itself.
Fighting Spirit aside, Magic Power and Luck were versatile assets.
No amount of raw Strength, Agility, and Health would make a man an absolute powerhouse capable of killing anything he swung at.
True strength took many forms. It belonged to those who planned and schemed.
That was how he thought, how he had lived, how he had fought. And by that logic, Magic Power and Luck were excellent tools.
Used correctly, Magic Power can substitute for Strength and Agility.
Health, perhaps not—but regretting what he didn't have would only drain his energy.
His thoughts having run their course, he finally answered.
"I'm fine."
Angie's expression said she found that unconvincing, but when he offered nothing more, she shut her mouth and lay back down on the blanket.
Before long, her breathing evened out into the steady rhythm of sleep.
Aslan watched her for a moment, then pulled up the system window again and released a heavy sigh.
The realization settled in: he would have to accept a new protagonist.
*
The camp did not take long to stir.
Without a clock, Aslan couldn't say the exact hour, but he used the system window to gauge the time and roused the party onto the road.
After they left the campsite, the trolls grew sparse. Sparse enough that Aslan handled most of them alone, the others providing only incidental support.
Karlsen noted the shift with unease.
"The monsters are getting... harder to spot."
"Means we're close to the exit."
The big dragon-kin spoke in response to Karlsen's near-mutter, his head swiveling as he scanned the surroundings.
Dragon-kin had poor eyesight but excellent sensory perception. Their awareness was keen—and even by that keen awareness, the troll numbers had noticeably dwindled.
As the enemy count shrank, the environment itself began to change.
The narrow tunnel gradually widened. Moss-covered boulders appeared here and there.
Life was slowly weaving itself back into the world.
The acid-melted rock hollows that trolls used as nests vanished from sight.
All signs pointed toward an approaching exit.
"Yeah, what the captain said—does feel like it's getting brighter, somehow..."
"It is getting brighter. Douse the torches."
Even Angie, Karlsen, and Ekul—inexperienced as they were—could read these signs. When the bald man voiced the observation, Aslan issued the simple order and stuffed his extinguished torch into his pack. With no darkness to fight, the party picked up speed.
They halted only when they found the way out.
A passage where light seeped through, tangled with vines stretching all the way down from above.
A passage that unmistakably led outside.
Beyond it, rain was falling.
The water seeped into the mine, pattering against rock, filling the tunnel with a clear, ringing sound.
Under the vine canopy, where pale sunlight filtered through, flowers bloomed in thick clusters.
"Outside—outside! It's the outside!"
At the sight of so much vivid life, at the sound of rain and the glow of sunlight, Karlsen let out a cry that was almost a shriek.
"I am never stepping foot in this godforsaken cave again!"
He shouted it and sprinted toward the passage.
"That man, honestly..."
Harod, who had spent the whole journey cautioning his men to stay vigilant, let his tension crack into a weary smile.
Ekul, looking exhausted, was pounding his own knees with his fists. Angie stared past the rain-soaked vines, her brow furrowed.
One by one, the party loosened, buoyed by the freedom within reach.
Only Aslan stayed taut, his grip tight around the mace.
He alone knew what was coming. He alone was preparing for a fight.
With the exit right in front of them, there was no chance it wouldn't appear.
The only questions were when and where.
His nerves pulled wire-tight, his eyes swept the area. Several signs prickled at his instincts.
Mud trolls could survive perfectly well in places without toxic miasma.
Yet the trolls had never come this close to the exit. If they wanted to nest anywhere, it should have been here, where the vegetation was thick. Instead, they'd nested in the miasma-choked depths.
Aslan didn't buy the idea that they simply preferred the poison air.
It looked more like they had withdrawn out of fear.
Fear of something, perhaps. A named monster, for instance.
His eyes darted—then stopped.
A shallow pool where falling rainwater collected.
Something disturbed the surface. Water splashed up with a sharp smack.
The wet slap made Harod flinch.
Aslan was already lunging forward.
"Get down!"
Karlsen twisted to look back at him—and behind the man's gleaming scalp, something materialized.
It emerged from nowhere, taking shape in the open air. It resembled a mud troll.
But only resembled. This was no mud troll.
Between the threads of rain seeping into the mine, the creature's white fur shimmered with transparency.
The transparent beast was raising one massive forepaw.
Karlsen, finally registering the presence at his back, went white—his face bleaching to match his scalp.
Aslan saw the man freeze in terror and hurled the mace.
Crack!
Grrk!
The mace slammed into the descending forepaw and caromed off.
The white-furred monster stumbled backward, and Aslan closed the distance in that opening, reaching Karlsen's side.
He caught the rebounding mace out of the air, drew his longsword with his left hand, and spoke to the bald man.
"Fall back."
"Y-yes! Yes, sir!"
The bald man fled, and the creature that had appeared so abruptly regarded the two humans—the fleeing one, and the one who stood his ground.
A low growl rumbled from its throat.
Aslan knew this monster.
White-haired Chrome.
A mud troll that had gained an invisibility ability and reclaimed its regeneration.
The creature people called the first mid-boss.
The white troll retreated a step, lowering its stance, growling.
Aslan pulled his magic power taut.
Thanks to the mana he had gained, this fight would be very, very simple.