Lord: Starting from a Goblin Nest

The Mad Frogman King let out a deafening roar as a blood-red glow enveloped its body, much like the rage Sera often unleashed in battle.

Bathed in this red light, the Mad Frogman King all but ignored their attacks. It frantically swung its giant club, raining blows down upon Aive and Sera.

”Command Skill: Stand Firm—Don’t move!”

The light in Victoria’s eyes flared. Ethereal threads emerged from the void, instantly binding the Mad Frogman King’s limbs. The others seized the opportunity to press their attack.

The Command Magic didn’t last long, however. The Mad Frogman King soon tore through the threads and resumed its assault.

”Command Magic—It’s no use! I can’t control it anymore!”

Victoria tried to cast it again, but this time, the threads disintegrated under the swing of its club before they could even connect.

Still, thanks to Victoria’s brief intervention, the damage the Mad Frogman King had sustained was several orders of magnitude greater than what Ron and the others had taken. If they kept up this momentum, the Mad Frogman King would be the first to fall.

”Go down!” After being forced back again, Sera took a running start, leaped off the cave wall, and brought her giant axe crashing down, embedding it deep in the Mad Frogman King’s flesh. In return, she was struck by a sweeping blow from its weapon and slammed into the cave wall with a thunderous crash and a spray of rock fragments.

”Damn it, I think my left arm’s broken!” Sera cursed, prying herself from the wall with her good hand. But the sacrifice of her arm had not been in vain.

”ROAR!” The Mad Frogman King let out an agonized howl. The berserk light in its eyes began to flicker. Under the relentless barrage of damage, even the wildest barbarian would struggle to maintain such a bloodthirsty frenzy. Clearly, it couldn’t hold on much longer.

”Nice one, Sera!” Aive had already started cheering for her, but what happened next was almost inexplicable.

An earthen-yellow glow suddenly flared from the cape on the Mad Frogman King’s back, enveloping its entire body. Its once-unfocused eyes snapped back into focus. Its body began to swell, only stopping when its head scraped against the ceiling. And that wasn’t even the worst of it—

As its body grew, so did the reach of its powerful, heavy attacks, now capable of sweeping over the entire party at once!

”Shiel—” Ron had only just managed to raise his Shield Magic before he was sent flying out of the cave as if he’d been hit by a dump truck.

If Victoria hadn’t managed to cast a Healing Truth Words on him at the exact moment her own shield shattered, Ron would have thought he was about to transmigrate all over again.

”What’s going on?!” Sera was dumbfounded. Her axe was still embedded in the creature! Now that it had grown so large, she had no way to retrieve her weapon. ’How are we supposed to fight this?!’

”Those scraps on its back!” Ron’s voice came from outside the cave. ”There’s obviously a Magic Item among that junk!”

”I’ll go get it!” Delaford shouted. Seizing the moment as the Mad Frogman King recovered from its swing, he took a few quick leaps and climbed onto its cape.

The cape, which had previously dragged on the floor, was now a good distance off the ground. But Delaford wasn’t fazed. He dropped his shortbow and dagger, using both hands and feet to cling tightly to the fabric as he searched for the activated Magic Item.

”Delaford, hurry up!” Aive felt a sweet taste rise in her throat. While her tower shield protected her from direct hits, the sheer impact from the giant weapon was unavoidable. If this kept up, even she wouldn’t last much longer!

”Don’t rush me, don’t rush me... Found it!” Delaford’s body was flung into the air along with the cape as the Mad Frogman King moved, but he used that moment of weightlessness to spot the Magic Item.

It was a brass ring, completely inconspicuous among the other tattered trinkets. If it weren’t for the earthen-yellow glow it was now emitting, no one would have ever noticed it.

”Command Skill: Fall Down!” Victoria grit her teeth and cast her Command Magic again. This time, the spell took hold. A mass of red threads erupted from the ground and forcibly dragged the Mad Frogman King down.

”Got it!” Delaford, who had also tumbled down, scrambled to pry the ring off. He leaped away just as the Mad Frogman King started to rise.

But they soon discovered that once the glow faded, the Mad Frogman King, though still barely breathing, could no longer get back to its feet, no matter how much it struggled.

Sera pulled her axe from its body and delivered another fatal blow to its head.

As the Mad Frogman King’s life faded completely, its body rapidly shrank back to its original size.

”Giant Transformation Magic... What in the world was that ring?” Aive plopped down on the ground, taking her waterskin from behind her tower shield and downing several long gulps before catching her breath.

”In my nearly twenty years of adventuring, I’ve never fought anything so ridiculous!”

”Same here... *Phew*.” Sera let out a long breath as she received healing from Victoria. ”So damn hard to kill!”

”That was because of the ring,” Ron said. He opened his Weaving Introduction, and the Identification Magic inherent to the Magic Book activated, targeting the brass ring in Delaford’s hand.

”The wearer gains the [Indomitable] effect. Upon receiving a fatal wound, their injuries are instantly stabilized, preventing immediate death or unconsciousness. Simultaneously, a concentration-free Giant Transformation Magic is triggered, lasting up to one minute. When the effect ends, all damage sustained during that period is doubled. This effect can only be triggered three times, after which the ring becomes an ordinary brass ring.”

”It only has one use left.”

”Nice item. Its last two owners weren’t so lucky, though,” Sera clicked her tongue. ”Looks like some poor bastard had this ring and still got himself killed by a Mad Frogman.”

”The doubled damage afterward... most people wouldn’t survive that,” Victoria said, looking ruefully at the fragments of her shield on the ground. ”My shield is broken. I wonder when we’ll find an armor merchant...”

”Easy for you to feel sorry for your shield,” Aive said, glancing at her own tower shield. Its front pattern was scraped up and the paint was peeling. ”Don’t you have Repair Magic, by the way?”

”There’s a size limit. This shield is too big for Repair Magic,” Victoria said, shaking her head. ”Besides, are you serious? It’s shattered to pieces. There’s no fixing this.”