Chapter 17- Call Me Mr. Disaster
Yuuta sat hunched on a smooth, sun-warmed slab of stone, his green back slouched and shoulders rising with every heavy breath. The bloodied rock lay at the ground, slick with gore, drying under the canyon heat. Red splotches stained his still-regenerating hands and flecks of pig brain clung to his rough elbows. He was a mess—dust-covered, blood-splattered, and absolutely exhausted—but a wide, crooked grin stretched across his face.
If frogs could smile, Yuuta was grinning like a madman.
Before he could relish the peace for too long, a soft, almost musical hum cut through the silence. From the ruined, caved-in head of the pigman came a gentle glow. A single blue orb floated upward, twinkling like a sapphire firefly. Several golden coins clinked as they tumbled out from the corpse’s chest cavity, glittering among the dust and dirt.
The XP orb and coins hovered momentarily—then zipped toward him with a suddenness that made him flinch.
They struck his body with a light impact and vanished instantly. The moment they disappeared, a familiar system chime echoed in his mind:
[DING!]
[Congratulations: You have leveled up!]
[New Level: 4]
[+50 Gold Coins]
Yuuta blinked, and then everything changed.
The canyon around him faded into a muted gray, the wind stilled, and even the dust hung motionless in the air like it had been frozen mid-drift. The ground beneath him felt the same, but everything else... it was like time had stopped.