The tentacles emerging from the lava pool snapped at me like whips, forcing me to jump backward away from the lake.

Some of them still followed me, so I drew Helheim and Pandemonium and gave the tentacles some scratches. That's all that I could manage. Those things are fast! But it seems that Pandemonium's infection-like abilities are working. The wounds on the tentacles are gradually turning green...!?

While I was busy fighting the other tentacles, one unharmed tentacle snapped at the infected ones and cut them off. Seriously? And they proceeded to cut off the tentacles that I'd harmed with Helheim. AKA, the tentacles with the non-healable wounds. Guess I'll...

OH, COME ON! The tentacles grew back! And without the wounds that I oh so diligently inflicted on them. How rude!

The idea of "regenerating tentacles" wasn't too far-fetched, so I didn't pause at that sight and continued to fight the tentacles as I steadily increased my distance from the lava lake. But then something else caught my attention. Damn my broad line of sight...

"S-stoooop!!" - Macho dwarf

"Kuh! K-kill me!" - Macho dwarf knight

"NOOOOO!!" - Black Bone

...the tentacles are attacking the dwarves...and even Bones. I'm gonna be sick...UGH?!

Damn, those blasted tentacles. They attacked me while I was about to throw up from that nasty...sight...

Why aren't they attacking? The tentacles, I mean. They started to retreat to the lava lake after getting that lucky blow...hey! Drop those! Those are my daggers!

Before I could even stand up, the tentacles had already retreated into the lava lake. I could also see other tentacles doing the same, they all carrying fancy-looking equipment such as Bones' magic staff made out of some fancy metal...

Don't tell me that was their goal? Stealing the items? Wow, that's a whole new level of nastiness, even for tentacles. 

But too bad for you~. Both Helheim and Pandemonium come with a "return to the user"-function according to the items' descriptions. I've already tested it, so no problems there. Hehehehe...he...

Why aren't they returning? Helheim? Pandemonium? Your sweet mistress is calling for you......

No reaction. Not good...

"Who-hoooo!"

"It's the lord of the lake!"

"Everyone, get the knights! Today's gonna be a festival!" 

Unlike me, the dwarves around us are making a ruckus. I caught one of them and demanded..., asked him some questions.

"It's the lord of the lava lake! They appear randomly to feed on equipment from the surface after they've exhausted the ore-veins at the bottom of the lake and evolve into the new lord after the last one died." 

Meaning, it's something like an "event monster"? Haven't heard about something like that before, but that seems like the case here. I then proceeded to ask the dwarf about the items that the "lord" stole, but...

"Ex-rarity items!? You're not joking here, lass?" 

"No...hey!" - Garami

The dwarf then dragged me into some office-like building near the lake that was protected by some barrier-like items from monsters. Tons of other people had already gathered. I could see even Aino and Bones in the crowd. 

The dwarf, however, ignored the crowd and dragged me to the building's second floor and into a... quite a messy office. Both documents and weaponry were scattered all over the floor, making it difficult to move without stepping on something.

The owner of the room, a dwarf with a pure-white beard, was busy looking through some sorta old document...ish sheep skin. It's big enough to cover his notably large desk. 

"Boss, this lass here had some Ex-rarity items stolen by the lord!" said the dwarf who dragged me here to the elder dwarf. 

"By Odin's beard!" the elder dwarf exclaimed... Is he real in this game world? I gotta check that out.

"Lass, is this true?" - Elder Dwarf

"Yes," I started, expecting that this may be some sorta verification so that they could confirm I'm the owner of the daggers and return them after the (presumed) extermination of this "lord of the lake". That wasn't the case.

"Excellent work, lass! Ye can expect a big share of the alloy metal!" - Elder Dwarf

"...alloy?" - Garami

"What, ye didn't know? Take a look, lass," said the elder dwarf as he showed me the extra-large document. It showed a huge, frog-like monster with several tongues coming out of its mouth. These tongues were carrying stuff like shields, swords, and other metal objects...

"Is this the lord of the lake?" I asked the elder dwarf, who smiled and nodded at my question.

"Yeah, my lass. This beast, the "Giant Over-Furnace Toad" is a beast unlike no other. He eats and melts any ores, weapons or not, inside his belly. Killing him will give us that smelted ore, which has been refined into the most precious alloy of metal you could ever imagine!" - Elder

"...my daggers are Ex-items..." - Garami

"That's what makes this beast worthy of being crowned a "lord", lassy. The heat of his guts is strong enough to even melt those kinds of precious-" - Elder Dwarf

*BANG!*

My palm hit the desk with enough force to break its bones, cutting the elder dwarf's words short. What did he say? Did he say that f*cking frog is melting my precious daggers as we speak?

"Wh-wh-wait a sec, lass!" said the elder dwarf while trying to calm me down (it's not effective). "This isn't as bad as it looks like!"

"......explain. Now." - Garami

"Y-yes, ma'am!" shouted the elder dwarf. He went from "lass" to "ma'am"...

"*Cough*, the alloy created by the lord of the lake won't have its purity diluted by eating too many low-quality ores. Rather, it only takes the best part of what the lord eats and equally disturbs those positive traits to the rest of the alloy." - Elder Dwarf

"...if that f*cking frog ate a mountain of worthless trash, but also a single holy sword, then he'd produce a mountain of alloy to make holy swords?" I asked the elder dwarf while trying to keep my rage in check.

"Y-yes..., that is exactly like that. As your daggers are likely to contribute the most to the alloy, we will grant you a larger amount of alloy metal, along with a healthy reward of Sol. Or would you like these "skill-up potions" that you Migrants always seem to be after?" - Elder Dwarf

The dwarf pointed at a huge crate filled with some recognizable blue bottles. Skill-up potions. Depending on their ranks, it may be acceptable as part of the fine...

"I need weapons." - Garami

"O-of course. Our lads are among the best blacksmiths in Umbral. As part of the recompense, we'll prepare-" - Elder Dwarf

"No, I need weapons now." - Garami

"Now...?" asked the elder dwarf with a look on his face that would work well with some question marks flying above his head. 

---

"So, you only want to take revenge on that giant toad?" asked Aino as we waited with the other members of the subjugation squad.

"It's not just her!!" shouted Bones as he held up his borrowed magic staff into the air. And it's not only him. Several other players and dwarves who had been fishing when the "indecent incident" took place rose their weapons and voices in complete harmony with Bones.

"Any complaints?" I asked Aino, who just shrugged with an exasperated look on her face.

"Not really. I'm just trying to earn your grudges." - Aino

Hey, you're saying that to my face? Whatever.

"Everyone, stay still and be quiet," said the dwarven knight who acted as the commander of our "unit". Seems it's time for a resume of our battle plan.

"Our goal today is to hunt down the lord of the lake, also known as the Giant Over-Furnace Toad, and obtain the alloy he has developed by consuming the various mineral sources of the lake, everyone's equipment included.

"The first part of our operation is to lure the Toad out of the lava lake. To do that, we of the Lava Lake Fishing Organization have provided a mountain of unusable weapons. Their qualities may be a little low, but the quantity should be enough to lure out the Toad.

"The second part is simply to jam in the harpoon cannons we have acquired just for this day. This will leads us to part 3: attacking the Toad with everything we have! 

"On a related note, we will try to wait for the Toad to finish eating enough of the trash weapons so that it can develop more ore, but its defeat is our #1 priority. Do not forget that!" Dwarven Knight

Everyone made a (silent, so that they wouldn't warn the toad) shout of arrangement to the dwarf's plan.

Most of the items from the office building, including the stuff from the elderly dwarf's office, had been hauled to an empty plot of land that had been cleaned free from other monsters. Everyone else is hiding behind crags and rocks, natural or formed from skills. The toad wouldn't know better, is the reply from the officials of that whatever-fishing organization. 

I grabbed the borrowed daggers with an intent to kill, waiting impatiently for the bait-placers to do their jobs and lure the toad out of the lake. Come on, come on. Let me kill that fat bastard already...

*SPLASH!*

After what felt like an eternity (around 3 minutes), a huge splash came from the lava lake. ...hey, that's too big! The Toad, it's big enough to eat cars for lunch! Still not as big as the mantis that appeared in the 1st official event, but still big enough.

The Toad lazily looked around as it used its many tongues to pick up the trinkets from the ground and eat them before it saw the gigantic mountain of scrap metal the dwarves had prepared for the "event". With heavy steps, it moved over to it and proceeded to greedily eat it all.

"FIRE!"

After around half of the mountain had entered the belly of the beast (literally), the dwarven commanders ordered the cannoneers to fire at the Toad. Huge harpoons penetrated the bloated monster's flesh and fat, with heavy chains preventing it from moving.

"Now! Go, go, GO!" 

Everybody started to launch magic and ranged attacks on the Toad the moment they got the clear sign for it.

Bones did some impressive magic that created a shark made outta tons of bones he'd asked the whatever-the-name organization for and had it chomp at the Toad.

In response to the attacks, the Toad started to hurl clads of molten metal and fire at the attackers, but a wall of fire blocked most of them. Those are Aino's flames, aren't they?

As for me, I went to the closest of the harpoon cannons and jumped onto the chain connected to the Toad, which now doubles as a free path to the stinking piece of filth. Nyx, who I'd summoned to be my aid, joined me as we ran toward the Toad's unguarded back. 

As we got closer to it, I could feel the heat emitting from the Toad's body. No wonder they call it a "furnace". But I bit my teeth and forced myself to slash at the Toad's back. 

Huge slashes emerged on the toad's back thanks to my borrowed daggers. Do these have higher attack power than Helheim and Pandemonium? The promised replacement weapon the elder dwarf promised me is starting to look more promising than ever.

The Toad's tongues started to flock towards me and Nyx who was scraping up the flesh of the Toad's back, so we jumped down and allowed the other players to bombard the beast. That attracted the tongues' attention, but some other players mimicked me and attacked the Toad by walking across the harpoon chains. 

Instead of going for another round of slashing again right away, I decided to wait until the Toad was getting distracted again. I have my Evil Eyes anyway, so it doesn't hurt me to take a break and glare at the Toad. Plus poor Nyx's claws seem to have been burned from the heat. The poor thing is blowing on her hands. 

Just for satisfying my curiosity, I tried Identifying the toad's stats... It had 10.000 HP originally. Now it's been reduced to 8.000. A small relief is that its other stats are way lower, but...this is gonna take a while.