Chapter 110: SWAMP MATH AND GOLD COIN INFLATION

Murkwater Swamp at night was, frankly, a visual anomaly that deserved praise from the environment design team.

Ankle-deep black water pooled between mangrove roots that jutted up like a giant’s ribs. A thin greenish mist drifted low, glowing faintly each time a swamp-gas bubble burst on the surface. The moon reflected in the puddles like scattered silver coins, and the only sounds were the chirping of night insects and the occasional splash of something moving beneath the water.

As a player accustomed to calculating everything, I noted three things the moment I set foot on this muddy ground. First, effective visibility was only about forty meters. Second, the soil’s texture absorbed the sound of footsteps, which meant this was ideal habitat for ambush monsters. Third, the faint sulfur smell of that mist was almost certainly the source of a debuff deliberately designed to force players to carry antidotes.

"Area warning," Lumina opened her book and read in a careful tone. "Swamp Miasma. Effect: ten percent reduction in HP regeneration, plus a mild poison that stacks every thirty seconds."

"Confirmed," I muttered. "And the list of remedies?"

"My Purify skill, or Swamp Antidote potions. Three silver per bottle at the StoneBrook market."

I almost laughed. Three silver per bottle, times six members, times the number of hunts per night. A classic money sink designed so that gold earned from this swamp would flow straight back into the city treasury. I took a cloth pouch from my inventory and handed five small glass bottles of murky greenish liquid to each of my companions.

"Homemade Swamp Antidote. Same effect as the market version, with ten extra minutes of duration. I brewed it this afternoon while waiting for the villagers to finish praying."

Alya stared at the bottle in front of her paw, then looked up at me with her fox eyes round. "Sis Syl made this while also founding a cult?"

"It’s not a cult," I hissed. "It’s a temple."

"It’s a cult," Yuna repeated flatly, downing the contents of her bottle.

I chose not to continue a debate I clearly couldn’t win.

Before moving further, I took the time to open the details of the Moon Bow: Titan’s Crescent for the first time since the fusion. As a player who lived on data, I refused to fire a single arrow with a weapon whose specs I didn’t fully understand.

Moon Bow: Titan’s Crescent (Legendary)Type: Compound Bow Base ATK: 1,420 (level scaling: +38 per Level) Bonus Stats: DEX +85, INT +60, AGI +22 Unique Passive: Moonlit Sight, effective sight range +30% and accuracy +15% under moonlight. Unique Passive: Silver Tether, critical hits slow the target by 20% for 3 seconds. Durability: Unlimited.

I read the list twice, then let out a short sigh.

The base ATK of 1,420 alone was twice that of the previous Titan Bow. And with scaling of +38 per level, every level gained would automatically add to this weapon’s power. That meant I no longer had to replace my bow every fifteen or twenty levels. A one-time, lifetime investment, and I’d gotten it just by cleaning a dirty temple.

The Moonlit Sight passive made me raise my eyebrows even higher. This swamp, with its short visibility and thick mist, was the most unfavorable terrain for an archer. But with a thirty percent sight bonus, the forty meters I’d calculated earlier became fifty-two. A tactical advantage that couldn’t be bought with gold.

"Developers," I whispered, stroking the silver-glowing curve of the bow, "I’m starting to forgive that 15 SP paywall."

Ting!

[Blood Sense (Mira): 3 Entities Detected, Radius 45 meters, Northwest Direction.]

"Formation," I said, and every member moved at once without needing to be told twice.

Yuna stepped forward with her great shield raised, her tall body half crouched. The dragon scales on her cheeks gleamed under the moonlight. Alya followed on the left with her three tails glowing a faint blue, Foxfire beginning to blaze at the tip of each tail. Flora crept along the right on her tangle of roots, her pink petals closed tightly like a wary bud. Lumina stood behind Yuna with her staff raised, ready to ignite Heal whenever needed.

Mira and I took positions in the middle. I slowly drew the bowstring, and the Moon Bow vibrated faintly in my hand.

"Twenty-seven meters," Mira whispered, her reddish eyes glowing dimly. "Lv 31, Marsh Gator. Lv 32, Miasma Toad. Lv 33, Rotwood Treant."

"Target order?" Alya asked without turning.

"Treant first," I answered quickly. "Rotwood type, minimal fire resistance. Foxfire damage should be multiplied by one point five. Gator second, because its tail attack has knockback. Toad last. Its poison is weak if Lumina keeps Purify active."

"Hear that, Flora," Yuna said. "That Treant is your distant relative."

Flora’s petals quivered with annoyance. "That’s a dead tree. I’m a living plant. Different class."

"Ten seconds," I cut in. "Ready."

From behind the mist, three large shadows slowly emerged. A mangrove tree four meters tall with a mossy trunk and red eyes glowing in the hollows of its bark, a six-meter swamp crocodile dragging its tail through the mud, and a giant toad the size of a cow with a poison sac bulging at its throat.

[Rotwood Treant Lv. 33]

[Marsh Gator Lv. 31]

[Miasma Toad Lv. 32]

"Now!"

Yuna slammed her shield into the ground with a ringing roar, triggering the Provoke skill, and all three monsters turned toward her at once. In the same second, Alya’s three tails swung in a wide arc, releasing three pillars of blue fire that struck the Treant’s trunk with a wet pop.

[Foxfire: 2,840 Damage (Weakness Bonus!)]

[Rotwood Treant HP: 82%]

Just as the rotten-wood roots began to lift to strike Yuna, Flora pulled her own roots from the ground. Dozens of green tendrils burst out and wrapped around the Marsh Gator’s legs, holding it in place. The Gator roared and thrashed, but Flora’s bindings didn’t budge an inch.

"One tamed, ready!" Flora’s voice sounded proud from behind her petals.

I used the opening. My eyes locked onto the fragile point at the base of the Treant’s trunk, where its wood cracks ran deepest. I drew the bowstring fully, held my breath, and released my first arrow.

Ting!

[Critical Hit! 6,420 Damage]

[Silver Tether: Rotwood Treant slowed by 20% for 3 seconds.]

"Six thousand?" Yuna glanced back with a raised eyebrow. "That’s not an arrow. That’s artillery."

"Focus," I answered, though the corner of my lip lifted slightly.

The Treant staggered sideways. Mira emerged from the mist with Blood Veil wrapping her body in a thin red haze, slipping behind the Miasma Toad as it inflated its poison sac. Her two knives stabbed in succession, then she snapped her fingers and a blood needle pierced the sac at close range.

[Crimson Needle: 1,980 Damage (Backstab)]

The poison sac burst and thick green fluid sprayed in every direction. I heard Lumina cry out softly, then a gentle white light swept across the entire formation, clearing the stacked poison before it could take effect.

"Purify active!"

"Mira, Bloodlust?" I asked without taking my eyes off the Treant.

"Nine percent!" she answered, leaping to dodge the splatter.

"Good. Stay under twenty until the next fight."

The battle lasted less than two minutes. The Treant fell first with the roar of snapping wood, followed by the Marsh Gator, unable to move in Flora’s root snare, and lastly the Miasma Toad, which burst into a puddle of green slime the moment my second arrow pierced its head.

Ting!

[Party Defeated Rotwood Treant, Marsh Gator, Miasma Toad.]

[Party EXP: +42,800 (Guild Bonus +2%, Level Difference Bonus +60% for Mira).]

[Mirabelle Reached Level 21!]

Mira blinked, then looked at her hands, which now glowed briefly. A broad smile bloomed on her face, and she turned to me with eyes sparkling like a child receiving the gift she wanted most.

"Syl, I leveled up! From just one group!"

"Level difference bonus," I answered, resting my bow on my shoulder. "The greater the gap from the monster, the more EXP it earns. Level 20 against Lv 33 yields a sixty percent multiplier. The system deliberately designed this so weaker players can catch up. Of course, with a risk of death that rises in proportion."

"And since we have Miss Yuna and Sis Syl, that risk is nearly zero," Alya grinned with her wide snout.

"Don’t be overconfident," Yuna muttered.

I only nodded and began scanning the spoils.

The drops from the three monsters were collected in the guild’s shared inventory, and I opened the Guild Storage to see the list. Eighty-two silver coins, four Poison Sac Slimes, two Rotwood Fragments, one Marsh Gator Fang, and a Green Stone of unknown use.

I calculated the total in my head.

Eighty-two silver coins were less than one gold coin. From hunting three Lv 31 to 33 monsters that had drained several antidote bottles and two minutes of six people’s full concentration.

I took a long breath, then began calculating rationally. The Prayer Hall Expansion at the Silvergrass Temple cost 800 gold coins. If regular drops yielded only 0.8 gold coins per group, I’d have to defeat a thousand monster groups. At a rate of one group per two minutes, that meant thirty-three hours of nonstop hunting for a single facility. Not counting the Healing Altar, Archive Library, Bell Tower, and Mirror Pier.

"Inflation," I muttered flatly.

"What, Syl?" asked Mira.

"This game’s economic system is deliberately designed so that gold coins are hard to get from ordinary monsters. Regular drops are only enough for daily needs. Big money flows from only three sources: Elites, Bosses, and player transactions." I tapped my chin. "So our strategy has to focus on Elites. Otherwise, I’ll spend the rest of my life as a bankrupt Saintess."

"I heard earlier there’s an Elite in the middle of the swamp," said Lumina, opening her book again. "Its name is Venomtooth Matriarch. Level 36. Gold drops average forty to sixty coins, plus rare materials."

"Forty to sixty," I repeated. "That means I need thirteen to twenty Elites to cover one Hall Expansion."

"Sis," Alya looked at me with slightly concerned eyes, "are you really calculating how many times we have to kill Elites just to build a temple?"

"It’s the only rational way to solve this problem," I answered, stepping toward the northwest. "Mira, can you detect that Elite?"

Mira closed her eyes, and her Blood Sense swept the mist. A few seconds later, she opened them again.

"Found it. Eighty meters north, in a mud basin. It’s staying still."

"Good. We hunt."

The mud basin Mira indicated turned out to be a large pool of pitch-black water with a surface flat as glass. No bubbles, no ripples, even the night insects seemed to avoid the area. In the middle of the pool, only one small protrusion was visible, resembling a round rock.

"That’s not a rock," Mira whispered.

"An eye," I corrected. "The Elite is lurking beneath the water."

I stared at the pool for a moment, my brain calculating probabilities. The protrusion was about one meter, meaning the creature’s head might be two meters. If the Marsh Gator’s body proportions were any guide, this Elite’s total length would be around nine meters. The standard attack pattern for this type of monster: the first phase would be diving and ambush attacks, the second phase, when HP fell below sixty percent, would be area poison sprays, and the third phase at thirty percent would be a rampage mode with sweeping tail attacks.

"Plan," I said in a low voice, and began explaining while drawing a simple diagram in the mud with an arrow tip.

"Yuna, you’re here, at the pool’s south edge. When the Matriarch ambushes, she’ll surely attack the target closest to the water. Use Provoke before she fully dives. Flora, plant your roots in the mud bed around the pool. Once she moves, your roots will restrict her body’s circulation. Alya, keep twenty meters’ distance and use Foxfire to suppress her surface movement. Lumina, keep Purify up continuously. Mira, use Blood Sense to track her position underwater and give me her coordinates every three seconds."

"And you yourself?" asked Mira.

I raised my bow. "I’ll pin her down."

No one protested. They knew I rarely miscalculated, and over the past few minutes, they’d learned that following my plans usually produced cleaner results.

Yuna stepped to the pool’s edge. She slammed her shield into the ground.

[Provoke!]

The pool’s surface trembled. One second. Two seconds. Then a giant black wave exploded upward, and a nine-meter crocodile with dark greenish scales and venomous fangs as long as a human arm lunged out of the water, jaws wide open toward Yuna’s head.

[Elite: Venomtooth Matriarch Lv. 36]

Yuna’s shield caught the lunge with an ear-splitting clang of metal. The ground beneath her feet sank ten centimeters, and Lumina immediately cast Heal without pause.

"Coordinates!" I shouted.

"Two meters left, diving!" Mira answered in a single breath.

The crocodile pulled its body back into the water to attack from another side. But Flora had already planted her roots. Green tendrils burst from the mud and wrapped around its tail just as it was about to turn. The Matriarch growled in fury, her body held at the surface for about a second.

One second was more than enough.

I released the arrow. It pierced the mist in an almost invisible straight line, lodging precisely in the gap between scales at the base of her jaw.

[Critical Hit! 8,150 Damage]

[Silver Tether: Venomtooth Matriarch slowed by 20% for 3 seconds.]

[Venomtooth Matriarch HP: 88%]

"One-eight!" Alya cheered, and three pillars of Foxfire struck the crocodile’s back in succession. The Matriarch writhed, trying to dive, but Flora’s roots and the slowdown from Silver Tether kept her from escaping.

The fight lasted about three minutes. In the second phase, when her HP fell below sixty percent, the Matriarch sprayed area poison just as I’d predicted. Lumina countered with Purify right on time, and Mira emerged from behind Blood Veil to stab the creature’s throat with two consecutive blood needles. In the third phase, when the monster went into a rampage and began sweeping its tail at insane speed, Yuna blocked every blow with her shield even as her feet dragged through the mud.

"Ten percent!" cried Mira.

"Alya, finish it!"

Alya leapt high with her three tails blazing bright. Blue Foxfire gathered at the tail tips, forming a huge fireball that fell on the Matriarch’s head with a blinding explosion. The nine-meter crocodile slammed into the mud, convulsed briefly, then went limp.

Ting!

[Elite Venomtooth Matriarch Defeated!]

[Party EXP: +186,400]

[Mirabelle Reached Level 22!]

[Yuuki Reached Level 33!]

Drops appeared as golden light flowing into the Guild Storage. I quickly opened the list.

[Gold Coins: 47]

[Venomous Matriarch Fang x2 (Rare Material)]

[Elite Crocodile Hide x1]

[Glittering Swamp Stone x1]

I froze for a moment, staring at the number 47.

Forty-seven gold coins. Enough for one-nineteenth of a Hall Expansion. I rubbed my temples with both hands and let out a long sigh.

"Nineteen more Elites," I muttered softly.

"We still have plenty of nights, Sis," said Alya, licking the tip of her paw contentedly.

"And plenty of Elites," added Yuna, who for the first time tonight was smiling truly wide.

I nodded, letting them rejoice, and stored all the drops in the storage. Inwardly, I had already begun redrawing the hunting schedule: two hours at Murkwater, then moving to an area with higher Elite density, matching rare materials to demand in the player market, and recalculating the profit-and-loss ratio of each route.

But in the middle of those calculations, Mira suddenly tensed beside me.

"Syl."

"What is it?"

Her eyes were closed, her fingers moving slowly in the air as if feeling for something unseen. The red glow of Blood Sense swept far wider than before, through the mist, through the mangroves, into the depths of the swamp that moonlight couldn’t reach.

"In the middle of the swamp," she whispered. "There’s a much bigger mark. It hasn’t moved. But... I feel like it’s sleeping."

The red glow around us pulsed once, and for a moment the swamp mist felt colder.

I slowly lowered my bow, my gaze narrowing.

"What level?"

Mira opened her eyes, and the reddish light there looked darker than usual.

"I can’t read it," she said quietly. "The mark is just a question mark."