CHAPTER 19: CHAPTER 19- TRADE OFF

A full minute had finally passed since Yuuta unleashed the tornado spell. The howling winds had faded, and the eerie quiet returned to the canyon. Yuuta lay sprawled on the rocky ground, chest heaving, his wide frog mouth gasping in ragged breaths. His green skin was coated in a layer of gray dust, and small cuts adorned his limbs from earlier dodging and rolling like a possessed acrobat.

"Damn... finally," Yuuta muttered as he pushed himself up on his elbows.

He stood, albeit slowly, and patted off the dust clinging to his back, legs, and arms with his three-fingered frog hands. The fine grit puffed into the air in little clouds. His joints creaked slightly, and a dull ache lingered in his limbs, especially his sore frog butt and raw fingertips. As he dusted himself off, he stretched out his green arms and long legs, groaning.

"Shit... my whole body feels like someone beat me up with a sack of rocks."

He paused for a moment, blinking slowly as a strange sensation rolled over him. The tingling ache in his hands and feet was starting to dull. Not vanish completely—but definitely improve. It wasn’t natural healing, at least not how he’d experienced it back on Earth. This was something else. Something passive, steady. A slow crawl of vitality knitting tissue back together. Yuuta flexed his fingers and watched the thin scabs peel away, revealing fresh green skin underneath.

"Yup... still regenerating," he muttered, rubbing his thumb against his palm. "No clue if it’s from a magic skill card or just some freak perk of this stupid frog body."

He shook his head and let out a dismissive snort. "Whatever. If it keeps patching me up without me keeling over, then I’m not gonna bitch about it."

He turned toward the canyon path. The tornado had done more than just blow away the dust—it had scoured the collapsed cliffside clean. Rubble was tossed around like crumbs on a plate. Some boulders were split. Smaller stones lay everywhere like the aftermath of a bad rockslide. But the best part?

XP orbs and gold coins. Dozens of them... Probably.

Blue and small golden lights shimmered faintly amid the chaotic terrain. Some were stuck under small rocks, others trapped between cracks or nestled on top of flat stones like little glowing treasures. It looked like someone had cracked open a piñata of experience points.

Yuuta’s bulging frog eyes lit up. He practically drooled.

"Yes! Finally, I don’t have to play mole rat and dig holes just to pray for a damn XP orb!"

He took a few excited steps forward, hands swaying at his sides in rhythm with his gleeful skip. For a brief moment, the world was good. The pigs were gone. His frog limbs were holding up. There were shiny blue orbs everywhere (and gold coins ofcourse). He looked like a dust-covered green toddler skipping toward candy.

Then it happened.

His right foot came down on something small, hard, and incredibly painful.

Yuuta froze mid-step. His mouth opened. "FfffffffUCK!"

He dropped like a felled tree, falling hard on his ass. He clutched his foot, yanking it up and inspecting the culprit. It was a tiny stone, barely the size of a toenail, but shaped like a miniature triangle of agony. It was lodged against the soft skin between his frog toes.

"Shitty fuckin’ pebble! What the fuck!?"

He scraped the damn thing off, flicking it away like it owed him money. His eyes twitched as he rubbed at the stinging spot.

"Of all the damn things to ruin a perfect moment!"

No blood, thankfully. But that didn’t make the stinging any less real. The pain lingered like a buzzing reminder of how unfair this world was to bare-footed frogmen.

Yuuta stayed seated for a second, sighing through gritted teeth. He looked toward the nearby XP orb that had nearly lured him into a trap. It glowed gently, innocently. Like it hadn’t just nearly gotten him killed.

"I swear, this place hates me."

Slowly, carefully, he got back up—eyes scanning the ground like he was navigating a minefield.

"Alright," he muttered. "One foot at a time. If I get impaled again, I’m throwing this whole canyon into the next tornado."

With the cautious grace of someone walking barefoot through a Lego factory, Yuuta made his way toward the nearest orb. His hands hovered a little to the side for balance, and his toes curled slightly with every step. He avoided sharp-edged rocks with ballet-like precision, his face twisted in concentration.

When he finally stepped within 5 meter range of the first orb, it gave a little twitch—then zipped straight into his chest with a soft pop. Yuuta grinned smugly.

[XP Increase: Level 4 — 0.9% Progress]

Yuuta’s wide frog eyes locked on the floating blue orb as it zipped toward his chest with a cheerful little ping—followed by a

[XP Increase: Level 4 — 0.9% Progress] notification.

"Are you fucking serious?" Yuuta deadpanned.

He’d expected this, sure. The further he leveled up, the stingier the system became with experience gain. It was textbook game logic. Back on Earth, every RPG he’d sunk time into had this kind of progression curve. Still, expecting it didn’t make it any less irritating. Yuuta let out a long, dramatic sigh and slapped his dusty frog forehead.

"Just one little orb and not even a full percent. What do you want from me, blood? Actually, you have been getting that lately," he muttered, flexing his still-healing fingers.

He knew this pattern. Leveling up from now on would be a slow, uphill grind. But there wasn’t much point whining over it. He just needed to let off a bit of steam.

So he cursed the system a few more times under his breath, then resumed his nimble frog-walk between the scattered rubble, weaving between rocks and avoiding the sharper ones like some bare-footed acrobat. More orbs and gold coins were scattered across the dusty battlefield like loot dropped from a raid boss.

Some of the gold coins floated toward him with a gentle shimmer, pulled in by the passive effect of his [Magnet] card. Yuuta barely spared them a glance.

"You know, now that I think about it... what do these stupid coins even do?" he muttered, halting mid-step.

He looked down at the handful of coins now hovering around his hip like loyal little ducklings. They twinkled innocently in the sun.

"Can I buy something? Is there a shop? A vending machine? Can I get a new dick?"

That last thought hit him like a brick, and his frog shoulders slumped.

"Shit," he groaned. "Why’d I remind myself?"

For a moment, he just stood there in silence. His webbed hand reached down, gently swiping dust from his leg like some defeated war veteran. The canyon was quiet save for the occasional whistle of wind and the shuffle of loose stone.

But Yuuta wasn’t the type to sit in misery for long.

"Okay, look. I might be dickless, but I’m also a damn—no, fuck that word—a freaking spell-chucking frog with unlimited ammo. Infinite mana, baby," he said, proudly thumping his green chest.

"Wait a fucking minute," Yuuta muttered, his wide frog eyes narrowing suspiciously. "I’ve been flinging spells left and right like some cracked-out wizard, and I haven’t run out once..."

He froze mid-step, eyes going blank as the realization sank in. His mouth opened slowly. "...Do I have an infinite mana pool?"

A long, deadpan silence followed. Then Yuuta slapped his green chest with one dusty hand and scoffed.

"Tch. Figures," he said. "You take my dick, the least you could do is give me bottomless mana. Fuckin’ trade-off of the century. Congratulations, world. You broke my crotch and buffed my mana bar."

He waved his hand with a dramatic flourish. "Now I can explode pigs forever. Yay me."

He started pacing again, a little faster this time. There was purpose in his gait, even if he still had to dance around broken rubble and the occasional rock sharp enough to make him hiss and mutter curses.

Every time his three-toed feet stepped wrong on a small jagged pebble, he cursed like a pissed-off chef getting burned on a stovetop.

"Damn stone. Fucking rock. Another one? Really?!"

Eventually, his eyes locked on another XP orb, half-tucked under the jagged lip of a fallen boulder. The orb flickered invitingly.

Yuuta narrowed his eyes, crouched low, and slowly inched forward. This time, he was ready.

The orb wiggled, shimmered—then zipped straight to his chest.

"Damn right you do," Yuuta grinned, placing his hands on his hips in a triumphant pose. "Come to daddy. Well, metaphorically. Since, you know..."

He paused, cleared his throat, and patted the air like erasing a whiteboard of bad thoughts.

"Focus. XP now, revenge later. Dick... hopefully someday."

The faint ding from the absorbed orb tickled his ears again. Another small bump on his XP bar. It wasn’t much, but each drop counted.

With that, Yuuta hopped over a narrow fissure in the rock and continued his scavenger hunt, weaving through the debris field with a mix of glee and frustration. His gold coins floated in a lazy orbit, and every now and then he’d mutter, "Seriously, if I can’t buy at least a clean towel with these, I swear if I could, I’ll start melting them into frog armor."

Still barefoot and grumbling, Yuuta pressed on through the ruin of his own chaotic handiwork, already dreaming of what glorious skill card might await him at Level 5.

He just hoped it had nothing to do with more lightning struck.