“Gatrom!” A goblin quickly lied down onto the grown and reached out his hand. “Take my hand!”

The goblins quickly grabbed each other’s arms, with the others joining to pull out their stuck comrade. But it was too late, the frogmen had noticed us from across the lake and commanded their enormous frog beasts to attack us. The monsters took giant leaps towards us, jumping through the lake effortlessly, letting out an earsplitting cacophony of ribbits and croaks.

As the goblin was rescued, the look of relief upon his face quickly faded as the frogs quickly gained on us. We could not run away, the terrain was too extreme, so we had no other choice but to stand our ground.

“Fire your arrows!” I commanded.

The goblins quickly obeyed my orders, and launched a small volley of arrows, their months of hunting had polished their skills somewhat, so most arrows had landed on their target, yet these frogs had tough hides, only a few arrows managed to pierce through their natural defences.

I quickly put on the magical red helmet and activated its skill. “Crimson Arrow!”

I felt a small amount of my blood drain from my body, and the red arrow instantly appeared in front of me. I directed the spell at a jumping frog, and the arrow launched itself. At first, it missed the descending frog, but the arrow flipped mid-air and stabbed the frog at the back of its head, killing it. There were still around 12 frogs left, leaping towards us, and this spell had a long recharge time. I quickly cast [Disks of Stone], and from the earth arose 3 circular slabs of rock, which began orbiting around me.

Rugum had summoned his snake before entering the bog for such an occasion. He commanded it to attack an approaching frog. The stone serpent leapt at the beast, landing a bite into its flesh. The monster’s movements slowed down, giving me enough time to use [Stone-Shaper] on one of my orbiting stones. I shaped it into a sharp arrow and launched at the frog stabbing right through it. The other goblins were launching one arrow after another into the approaching frogs, their blood tipped arrows slowly thinning the stampede of swampy beasts.

Another monstrous frog shot its slimy tongue at a goblin standing slightly further away from the group, I quickly reacted by directing my orbiting disk in front of the hapless goblin, protecting him from the frog's tongue. The beast pulled and pulled the stone back, but I was holding it back from my magic, straining my mind and body. The distracted frog was quickly dispatched by a goblin’s spear.

An enormous frog, with darker skin and a thicker, wart ridden hide jumped towards us, its leaps shook the land and sent ripples across the entire lake. It let out a deafening croak and lifted its arm ready to sweep us away.

“Spiral Jaw Jasper!” A set of canine jaws instantly manifested at my right hand, and I mentally signalled them to attack the monstrous giant frog's arm. The jasper fangs mercilessly crunched down upon the giant frog’s limb, breaking its arm, causing it to croak in agony and stumble backwards.

The goblin who fell into the swamp, Gatrom, stood covered in goop, aiming his hand towards a pack of frogs. “Bombarding Cannon Beryl!” The goblin launched a powerful crystal cannonball at the frogs, upon making contact with one, the projectile exploded, completely obliterating the frog into visceral shreds.

The frogmen stood quietly far away on the other side of the swamp, one of them let out a low and long croak. At once the giant frogs began to slowly step away. Too many of them had died, and if any more do the reward wouldn’t be worth it. We tried scaring them away by violently waving our spears at them, warning them to not approach us any closer. The giant frogs gave timid ribbits and hoped away, leaving us to let out sighs of relief.

Interface You gained 120 experience. Level 6 Experience 122/729

We decided to leave as quickly as possible, our search hadn’t yielded any results and we had come across a powerful enemy. At that moment, the tribe could not afford any loss of manpower, so it was better not to risk things. As we quickly trudged our way out of the nasty bog, a small croak caught us off guard, we immediately drew our weapons, but no giant frogs were in sight. Right next to us was a much smaller frog, albeit the size of a wolf, timidly rolling around in a pile of muck. It must have been a runt of some sort, upon seeing us it hid its head under the mud.

There was no point in killing such a pitiful creature, I doubted it would give much experience either. Not to mention, it was amusing to see such a cowardly frog after our near-lethal encounter with the giant ones. One goblin took pity on it and handed it a piece of snake meat. The frog slowly raised its head, and quickly scarfed the food down, giving a little satisfied burp in the end.

“Chieftain, I got a new skill [Beast Tamer].” The goblin spoke in surprise. The other goblins murmured in surprises then proceeded to pat his back and congratulate him.

“Does this mean this frog is tamed now?” I asked, rubbing my pointy, stubbly chin.

The goblin tamer looked the frog into its eyes and then shrugged “I guess so.”

I snorted frustratedly at the half-hearted response. But my mind began racing with ideas, it was a very stimulating day, so it took some time to process things. Could we tame more of these things? In what capacity would they be useful? Did they require special food? What should I do about this? Could we use our own tamed frogs against those frogmen?

“What’s your name?” I asked the tamer.

“I am Zotnik, my Glorious Chieftain.” He responded.

I patted his shoulder with vigour. “Well, Zotnik, I’ll be leaving you in charge of this frog. There is a lot of potential in having trained animals, so you will be responsible for taking care of them, training them, studying them, and perhaps getting more of them. Understand?”

With a look of awe on his face, he quickly nodded. “Yes! It would be my honour.”

On our journey back to the camp, the tamed frog happily hopped behind Zotnik, and he occasionally gave it treats and such. This frog was much more amicable compared to the ones we fought, perhaps it had something to do with its size? I did not see the combat potential of this frog, but perhaps we could farm it for meat?