Crutched with her knees to her chest Mia groaned, eternally thankful for not being fully aware of how many times she had died. The deaths were getting to her mentally, while she felt no residue pain from dying it was still putting a mental strain on her mind.

“Guuuuuh…”

She groaned, looking up from her knees to stare at the chest that laid idle at the end of the room. The mimic had killed her two more times, but she had figured out that if she left it alone it would not bother her. She decided to ignore it, not keen on a long-drawn-out fight, at least from her perspective, she was unsure if she could even beat it.

Her gaze then fell onto the remains of the one monster she had managed to beat, dubbed “Twiggy Nut” by Mia after all the twigs and the head sized nut that previously floated in the air, and decided to shake her head clear. To level she wanted to find more of these nuts, now with stronger stats they should be the perfect opponents to level, if she could find any.

“Mhph!” patting her cheeks a few times to pump herself up she leaped to her feet, checking her current health, 50/100, she decided that was a safe amount in case she ran into any monsters and turned towards the door “Hm?”

What greeted her she first mistook as a tall and thin human but taking a closer look she noticed how wrong she was. The human like figure was naked and had wood instead of skin, it reminded her of a wooden doll, like some shopkeepers used to display clothes… no it was exactly like that, what did they call it?

While distracted with her thoughts the doll rushed forward, its body breaking out into a full on sprint towards Mia. Panicked at the sudden reminder she was in a dungeon full of monsters, she tried to ready her axe, only getting so far as to grip its handle before her chest, and more importantly her heart, was pierced.

“Gah-!” she coughed, dropping the axe, she stared at the doll’s face as it slightly tilted to the right, as if questioning why she was still alive before everything faded to black.

“Yes.”

Not giving her panel enough time to alert her she had died she loaded, glancing back at her health to find it back at the value it was 40 minutes ago, 10. She smacked herself in the head, even with her increased stats that thing was unfair, she could barely react to it. She ran to the entrance, taking a quick look down both the hallways and ducking back into the room. She didn’t see the doll, which posed a problem.

Which way did it come from?

Speaking frankly, Mia wanted to avoid dying as much as possible, to the point she cursed her passed self for even bothering pointing constitution when everything in this damn place besides the Twiggy Nuts could one shot her, she should have done what she wanted and pointed dex. She shook her head, It was wishful thinking on her part that more health would give her a better chance.

“Pointless…” She sighed, she had a bigger problem, well, problems. Looking at her health and going of how it regened, she assumed she had around 40 minutes till that doll showed up and she did not want to be here when that happened, so she had to decide; to try her nonexistent luck on the path she had not been yet, or go back the way she came.

She frowned, she could always just load the moment she sees the doll but turning back to the remains of the Twiggy Nut “More importantly…” her other issue, the issue that deeply concerned her but she had been putting off. She did not want to admit it, in fact thinking about it scared her because she had yet to face the full reality of her situation, but she had to.

Thinking back to her fight with the nut she recalled she had a vague familiarity with the creature concerning that one move it did, a sense of DeJa’Vu, that caused her to leap away from it before the attack hit. That fact, combined with her skill description, could only mean one thing.

She had been here before and fought the Twiggy Nut, dying to it enough to trigger the vague remembrance quirk of her skill.

She wanted to roll up in a ball and cry, this was too much. Another thing was, if she was correct, the fact nothing alerted her to the mimic meant two things. 1, She never defeated the Twiggy and just died to that move over and over until she ended up avoiding it due to her skills warning or 2, wherever she encountered the nut a mimic was not present in the room when she defeated it.

Either way, it was safe to say she had been in this dungeon before. What lead her here was a mystery but thinking about it just gave her a headache. Like, why didn’t the traps set off any warnings? Why had it only been the Twiggy… She brought up her skill, staring at the [Log] but decided against risking it, dying over and over in the dungeon was already testing her sanity.

With that out of the way she looked back out into the hallway with no signs of the doll she decided getting answers was currently impossible, or at the very least very painful and most definitely suicide and chose to test her luck and travel down the unknown path.

Loading instantly as she saw the doll round the corner and immediately leaving the room and heading down the opposite direction.