Mia repeated her exploration of the dungeon, ducking through the wooden archway, triggering the root trap and crawling under it, ignoring the room with the moss monster, carefully navigating over pitfalls that lead into more moss pits, leaping over a swinging root, holding her breath as she passed by a strange tulip, sacrificing one of her knifes to trigger a log crushing trap and jumping over the resulting pitfall…

She was making progress and was getting used to this dungeon’s traps, all of which were plant based. But it was not without its price, Mia felt exhausted from all the repeats. While it didn’t show on her status, she just felt tired, a loss of motivation. She had died at every new trap she encountered, the worst so far being that damned tulip, every time she thought she figured something out something new surprised her.

Which brought her to her current predicament, in front of her was another wooden arch, this one creaking, that lead into a room larger than the rest. That alone wasn’t all that impressive, but what caught her eye was a lone chest sitting at the opposite end of the room, treasure, but the chest wasn’t alone in the room, in the center was also…something…

A bunch of long twigs twisted and turned into a round cage with a floating brown ball at its center. While odd on its own the ball took it a step further, having a yellow eye on it’s surface facing towards the entrance. Mia was sure it saw her, as the eye followed her movements, but it didn’t take any actions against her.

Not counting the moss monster, this was the first monster she had encountered, but how should she approach this? “Hrm.” She held her last remaining dagger in her hand, not strong enough to wield the axe as a weapon, she decided to test her chances. Knowing the arch was a trap she leaped into the room, half expecting to fall through the floor but was pleasantly surprised when she didn’t.

“SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE-!”

Her attention was drawn to the shrieking monster, it’s eye now glowing a bright green, she was still some distance between the two, and Mia waited to see what I’d do while preparing to counter.

The core in it’s center started rocking back in forth, angry at the intrusion of it’s home. It’s branch prison rattled in response, then small pieces broke off from it and floated lazily in the air.

Mia blinked, taken aback by this odd behavior before the core thrust itself forward in it’s cage, causing the broken off pieces to launch themselves at Mia at high speeds. “Ah!” She yelped, shielding her face as the barrage of shrapnel pelted her, scratching her skin in a relentless rain. She glanced to her side, pulling up her status screen seeing her health steadily drop, she needed to move.

She leaped out of the barrage, the creature shrieking in protest as it rammed it’s core against the branch prison, slowly the rain of shrapnel started to change direction. Acting fast Mia charged, running to the side to avoid the barrage she approached the creature, her knife raised to strike down at it.

“SHIAAAYA!”

Mia felt a shiver down her spine, getting a vague feeling she shouldn’t be near it she jumped back, just in time as the core hit the bottom of it’s cage, causing all the branches it was intertwined in to spread out with it’s sharp points pointed out in every direction. Mia gulped seeing this, that would have skewered her. She Looked at the core, jumping in its now open cage as the branches slowly retracted into place, she looked towards her hand, flexing it a few times “Odd…” She wondered why she knew that was coming…

“SHIIII!”

The screech again, the creature started scattering its wooden shrapnel into the air. Putting aside her question for later she started running around the creature as it thrusted its core forward, sending the shrapnel flying towards her. Mia noticed its aim was getting better, some of the shrapnel hitting her back and causing damage.

She gulped, she’d have to finish this before she got pelted to death, she ran towards it, keeping herself from going in a direct path to avoid some of the wood chips, but again when she got close enough the creature let out a screech and slammed into the bottom of it’s cage, causing the wooden branches to spread out.

“Mnph!” Mia stepped back, avoiding it but wincing as one of the branches scratched her side, she ignored the pain and thrust her dagger into the mess of needles, gritting her teeth as her arm was cut into but the cost was worth it.

“Sh-shi?!”

The creature let out a surprised shriek, before Mia felt her a wet squelch. She looked up, her knife had penetrated the creature’s eye, the light fading from it. “Did it?” She blinked, watching the light fade from the creature’s eye, and its branches falling limp on the ground.

*DING*

“Did it!” She leaped up, letting go of her knife, celebrating her victory. She winced, bringing her cut up and bleeding arm into view, it looked bad but… judging from her ten health she will live, like it or not she was getting used to pain. She opened her status, she had fifty points to use, and this room seemed safe enough to think about it, the chest could wait.

She briefly considered dumping everything into dexterity again, going fast and being able to react faster would certainly help with the traps of this place, possibly even allowing her to dodge out of the way, but no, she needed to be more rounded this time. She wanted more range to her attacks, and right now the only way to achieve that was her axe which she could not currently lift.

There was also magic to consider with her already high intelligence, but there remained the issue of not knowing how to cast a single spell despite her [Ice Magic] skill so she put it to the side, for now. Another thing she wanted was not to be so squishy, even more so now that she wasn’t going to be super-fast. With an idea in mind, she spread out her stat points, ending up with:

Name: Mia

Status: None

Age: 8

Race: Fox Beastman

LVL: 2

Points : 1

HP: 10/30 > 10/100 MP: 100/100

Str: 3 > 25

Con: 3 > 10

Dex: 5 >25

Int: 50

Mnd: 10

Lck: 1

She nodded approvingly to herself, deciding to keep the 1 extra point unspent keep everything looking nice, ignoring the nagging feeling she should spend it. She then took the axe off her back and gave it a few swings; she could now lift it without issue but felt herself being pulled towards were ever she swung it towards, still, it was better then not being able to wield it at all.

She went to retrieve her knife, still stuck in the eyeball, upon hearing a snap and lifting up the handle without the blade she sighed, it was a good thing she could use the axe now. “Should save…” thinking this was a good spot to do so now that she finally leveled up, she saved “Now…” She brought her attention to the chest sitting at the end of the room.

She didn’t have any tools to check for traps, nor any to lockpick, but she did have an axe. She approached the chest, lifting her axe above her head and swinging it down, breaking a hole into the top of the chest.

“Shaaaah!”

The chest screeched, startling Mia and causing her to lose her grip on the axe’s handle as it was yanked upwards, the chest opening to reveal a squishy inside and rows of sharp teeth “I hate this dungeon!” she screamed as the mimic opened wide, biting into Mia’s side, reducing her health to zero and killing her instantly.