novelraw Chapter 103: Rock Crab
Chapter 103: Rock Crab
When the thing hiding under the rock finally revealed its true form, Leon drew in a sharp breath.
“What a huge hermit crab.”
Yes, it was a crab hiding under the rock, but unlike the crabs Leon was familiar with, this one’s shell was made of solid stone. Its entire body was a bright orange-red, and its size matched the rock behind it—about half a meter across. Which meant the crab itself was also about half a meter wide.
While Leon was making his remark, the Rock Crab didn’t waste any time. Whether it was acting on instinct to defend its territory or simply annoyed by Leon’s pickaxe strike, it reacted instantly.
Its eyes, peeking out from beneath the stony shell, locked onto Leon—the obvious outsider who didn’t belong in the cave’s ecosystem. Then, with its rocky shell raised like a shield, it charged straight toward him.
Its speed was shockingly fast. Worse, it moved in a straight line—completely ignoring the usual sideways gait of its kind. The unexpected movement made Leon raise an eyebrow, but he dodged to the side in time to avoid the charge.
After evading, Leon wasn’t about to stand still and wait for a second assault. He bent down, his Galaxy Watermelon Knife brushing along the ground, then snapped it upward in a clean, single-handed slash aimed straight at the Rock Crab’s underside—exposed between its eight jointed legs.
But the Rock Crab saw the motion. That primal sense of danger flared, and it instantly retracted its legs and body back into the rocky shell.
With its support gone, the stony shell dropped to the ground, once again perfectly camouflaged among the surrounding rocks.
Leon’s blade struck the stone with a sharp clang. The impact jolted up his arm, making him frown as he pulled back and stepped away. The Galaxy Watermelon Knife had hit squarely on the shell, yet it remained completely undamaged.“So the shell’s invincible property works in real life too, huh.”
Leon had called it a hermit crab, but he knew perfectly well what it was. After all, he was a regular in the mines and had slain more Rock Crabs than he could count. He even remembered that the crab he once sacrificed had been dropped by one of these creatures.
In the game, Rock Crabs weren’t much of a threat—once they poked their heads out, a single blow could kill them. But in their camouflaged state, they were nearly immune to all but pickaxes and bombs. Any direct weapon strikes would do next to nothing.
And if you used a pickaxe, they’d wait for the perfect moment to ambush you. Classic dirty tactics—purely designed to be infuriating.
If Leon had a bomb, he could blast away its stone shell, stripping it of its best defense. But right now, the only thing that could break the shell was his pickaxe—and getting close meant risking a sneak attack. That gave him pause.
Only for a moment, though. Then a solution came to him.
The Rock Crab might be “invincible” in its shell, but Leon didn’t believe in true invincibility. If it wanted to play dirty, he wasn’t going to be polite either.
Under his control, the Galaxy Watermelon Knife in his hand swelled in size. This time, it didn’t turn into the four-meter door panel from before. He stopped the growth when it reached two meters in length and forty centimeters wide—half a door’s breadth.
It was heavy, sure, but still within what he could handle.
“Ever heard of hitting so hard a brick flies, buddy?”
With the oversized blade held in both hands, Leon took a running step forward. Using the momentum, he spun his body, swinging the massive knife in a smooth arc. The blade came down like a battering ram, smashing straight onto the camouflaged Rock Crab’s shell.
“Bang!”
The Galaxy Watermelon Knife, heavy and backed by Leon’s strength and momentum, sent the Rock Crab flying. It tumbled end over end for five meters before crashing into another rock. Now upside down, its legs flailed helplessly like a turtle flipped on its back.
Leon shrank the Galaxy Watermelon Knife back to its normal form, shaking his hands to ease the numbness from the impact. Then he rushed forward and brought the blade down in one clean stroke.
The sharp edge split open the exposed belly of the Rock Crab. Grayish-red fluid sprayed out, though thankfully in a different direction from where Leon stood—saving him the trouble of dodging.
That strike clearly took its life. The body stiffened, its stone shell crumbling away and sinking into the cavern floor. The crab’s flesh began to wither.
Moments later, the once-massive Rock Crab was gone. In its place lay a plate-sized crab.
“Crab (Fish): A marine crustacean with two strong claws.”
“…?”
Leon stared blankly at the description. Sure, it was a crab, but it came from a Rock Crab. Why did the system say it was marine? Was this just a template for all entries?
Or maybe there really was a sea down here in the mines—a Mongolian Sea invisible to outsiders.
He had plenty of complaints, but the system wasn’t going to answer them. So Leon tossed the crab into his System Backpack and went back to breaking rocks.
Thunk.
Another stone shattered, but this time, instead of the usual empty space, it revealed a pit leading to the second underground level.
The ladder was still there. Leon no longer found that strange. After confirming it was sturdy, he climbed down.
The second floor’s terrain was different again. If the first floor was like a wide, flat football field, then the second was a twisting, winding maze.
Narrow corridors, each less than two meters wide, branched off in all directions. After a brief pause, Leon picked the leftmost path.
The ground was still littered with the same-colored rocks he was used to. He smashed them without hesitation—there was no other way to find the way down to the third floor.
Squelch. Squelch.
After just a few strikes, Leon heard a strange sound. It was like someone pulling their foot out of the muck in a swamp—wet and sticky, echoing close to his ears.