I stepped to the edge of the water and squinted into the glowing muck.

  “Hey,” I called out. “Mister Bwotnik. Can we talk?”

  No reaction.

  The light flickered like a lantern caught in thick fog.

  “I know you can understand me,” I said. “So why don’t you come on up and we can have a civil—”

  The water exploded in front of me. Slime-covered hands grabbed onto my ankles and yanked. I hit the ground hard. My head smacked something wet, but solid, one of my pistols slipped from my grip and fell into the mud.

  I aimed the other and fired three times—one, two, three. Each shot cracked like thunder and vanished against his barrier.

  Three bullets left.

  A face broke the surface—long and lumpy, a swampy horror show with eyes like moldy pearls and a beard made of weeds. It stank of wet earth, rotting meat, and stagnant water filled with things better left unnamed. The kind of smell that clings to your skin, gets in your hair, seeps into your soul. Was that just how things worked here? Some unwritten law that everything in this place had to smell like death?

  Vasil hadn’t exaggerated. If anything, he’d undersold it.

  I squeezed off another shot, but he yanked again and it went wide.

  Two bullets left.

  Then I was underwater. Murky, lukewarm hell closed over my head. Visibility: zero. Taste: awful.

  I squeezed the trigger again, hoping to shove a bullet right through his eye socket.

  Click.

  Of course the damn thing didn’t fire underwater.

  I kicked, thrashed, cursed mentally at every frog, god, and monster that had led me to this moment. He wasn’t letting go. I was being dragged deeper, arms flailing like an idiot. Wasted half my air in the process. Brilliant. I have to admit—I was starting to panic.

  Two bullets left. No way to fire them. Lungs burning. Air running low.

  Was I really going to die here?

  No. No no no. Absolutely not. Not like this. I didn't survive Menekrates, didn't get exiled, didn't eat swamp fish for a week straight, just to drown in lukewarm bog water because I tried to be polite to a fucking wet bastard with kelp for a beard.

  I kicked harder, fought harder, every muscle screaming, lungs burning, but he still dragged me deeper. Every instinct said breathe but there was nothing to breathe except mud and water.

  I wasn’t going to beat him with brute force, he was much stronger than I was. Kicking and flailing had only wasted precious oxygen. So what did I have?

  Two bullets left. A pistol that didn’t work underwater. No direct damage skills. No escape spells, and the air in my lungs almost gone.

  Mana. In fact, mana was all I had left.

  So what could I do with it?

  I thought of potion crafting—when you overload a mixture with too much mana too fast, it blows. Boom. You're dead.

  Good. That’s what I needed. The explosion. Not the dying.

  But would that work with bullets? Underwater? Only one way to find out.

  I gripped the pistol tight and shoved a burst of mana into the chambered bullet. The shell vibrated, mana building fast, unstable. Please let this work.

  I activated [Clean Entry]. His barrier wouldn’t save him this time (if it worked.)

  The bullet exploded from the chamber, firing just as he yanked me sideways.

  The shot ripped past his head and tore into the water behind him, blowing up a cloud of silt and swamp muck.

  Missed.

  And just like that everything went quiet. No fear. No burning lungs. No more panic. Just a single thought.

  One bullet left.

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  I checked how much mana I had—somehow just enough juice for one last shot. One last chance to live.

  He dragged me deeper. The light from the surface was gone now. I was in the dark, in the cold, face to face with death.

  I pushed my forehead into his, then jammed the barrel against his temple.

  I bared my teeth, screamed the last of my air into his face, and activated [Clean Entry], flooding the final bullet with everything I had.

  Lights out, fishdick.

  The shot ripped through his skull in a white flash. Blood, bone, and swamp muck exploded outward. His eyes went wide in surprise, then burst along with the rest of his head.

  [You have gained 1 Level.]

  [You have gained 1 skill upgrade point.]

  [You have gained 3 stat points.]

  The second I felt his hands loosen, I kicked free and swam.

  Up. Up. Up.

  Lungs burning. Vision tunneling.

  I broke the surface with a gasp. Air. Hot, stinking swamp air. I choked, coughed, sucked in everything I could get. Best thing I’d ever breathed.

  I was alive.

  “Did you get the crown?” Vasil called from the shore.

  I looked at him, still coughing up swamp water. “Seriously?”

  “The crown. Did you—”

  “I almost died!”

  “Right, but did you get it?”

  No are you okay. No good job killing that monster. Just where’s the crown. He was lucky I was still in the water and out of bullets.

  “No,” I snapped. “I didn’t get the fucking crown.”

  He looked like he was about to ask me to go back down and get it, then saw my face and thought better of it.

  “The bwotnik is dead,” I said, dragging myself out of the water. “You go get the crown.”

  He hesitated.

  “And check if there’s anything else in its hoard while you’re at it. I couldn’t see anything down there in the dark. You’re a frog. You get it.”

  He opened his mouth, closed it again, then gave a reluctant nod and hopped toward the water.

  Maybe he wasn’t so stupid after all.

  He came back up a minute later wearing a tiny golden crown.

  “Well,” I said. “Guess you weren’t lying.”

  He paddled to the edge, looking pleased with himself.

  “Anything else down there?” I asked, wringing swamp water from my hair.

  “Oh, yeah. Loads,” he said. “But most of it’s too big for me to carry.”

  I stared at him. “Aren’t you some kind of endless bag of holding?”

  “Yes. But it has to fit in my mouth.”

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded apologetically. “I’m a very small frog.”

  So he was useless. Infinite storage, but only if it could fit past his stupid frog lips. So, just the small stuff. The easy to carry junk. All the actually useful loot? The big, heavy, valuable stuff? No chance. He was basically a glorified coin purse.

  “Fine,” I sighed. “Grab everything you can carry and bring it to me. We’re not leaving without loot.”

  He saluted and dove back under.

  He came back up a few minutes later. Three silver rings, one gold. None appeared to be enchanted. Fashionable, maybe. Worth pawning? Definitely. I told him to swallow them for safekeeping.

  A tarnished silver locket. No enchantment, no curse, just a faded picture of some strangers inside. Most likely worthless. I kept it anyway.

  Single earring. Possibly magical, probably needed a twin to actually work. Useless in its current state unless I wanted to look like a pirate. (I didn’t.)

  The most interesting items however were a dagger with a handle made of polished bone, and bracelet with tiny suns engraved around it. These were definitely enchanted somehow. I could feel the magic radiating off them.

  Unfortunately Vasil had tricked me into taking [Soul Index], which only worked on living things, and the point I gained from leveling could only be used to upgrade skills, not unlock new ones. So I had no idea what their items did.

  He told me there was a big locked chest still down there, along with some armor pieces, a sword, and an axe, but they were too large, and heavy for him to carry. The armor probably wouldn’t suit me anyway, and I sure as hell wasn’t going back down there to check. I kept the chest in mind in case I was ever in the area under better circumstances. Like with someone else to do the diving.

  He also mentioned he found a handful of coins, some silver, some bronze, unfortunately no gold. He’d already swallowed them for me, of course.

  Or so he claimed.

  What if he was lying? What if he had found gold and decided to keep it? Or something better? An enchanted gem? He could be hiding a whole vault in his guts for all I knew.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. Suspicious. Very suspicious. I made a mental note to keep one eye on him at all times, and maybe threaten to dissect him if anything went missing. Just to keep him honest.

  For now, I’d let him hold the coins. Less for me to carry, and if he tried to keep anything, I’d just shake him upside down until it all came out.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “You owe me two gold.”

  ***

  By the time we got back to the hut, the sun was already setting behind the trees.

  Phisto looked up from where he was lounging on the armoire, tail flicking lazily. “Well?”

  “Monster’s dead. Got some loot.”

  “Spirit,” Vasil said, then hopped in behind me and immediately winced. “Ugh. Smells like old men’s armpits in here.”

  Phisto ignored him. “You look like the monster won.”

  “That’s the look of victory, Phisto, you wouldn’t know it,” I said.

  I turned to Vasil. “Alright. Pay up, frogbag.”

  He horked up the coins and dropped them onto the table in a wet pile. Some bronze, silver, and exactly two gold.

  I squinted. “Still just two gold, huh?”

  “Two gold for a job well done,” he said. “As agreed.”

  I eyed the coins as I scooped them off the table. Still warm. Still wet. Still suspicious.

  Maybe he really didn’t find any extra gold. Or maybe there was a secret stash of treasure still sloshing around in his gut, waiting for me to stop looking.

  I gave him a long stare. “Well, unless there’s anything else—like, say, some gold you totally forgot to mention—you may leave my domicile.”

  Vasil hesitated. “Actually, there is one thing.”

  I knew it. Nothing gets past me. Not swamp monsters, not shady clients, and definitely not scheming frogs.

  I gave him my best I’m onto you look. “Go on,” I said, already preparing my triumphant smirk for when he confessed.

  Vasil shuffled his feet. “You seem like the capable sort. You did get my crown back, after all.”

  Here it comes. The big confession. My purloined gold.

  “Would you be interested in taking on another job?”

  Oh.

  No hidden gold. Just more work.

  Phisto let out a short, sharp hah—like he’d read my mind.

  “Well,” I said, “don’t leave me in suspense. What do you want? And more importantly, how much does it pay?”

  “I want you to help me—”

  Knock knock knock.

  I froze. Phisto’s ears perked up. “That’s not a frog.”

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