“Haa…haa….haaa…”

Out of breath and panting Mia stood over the corpse of the knight, not believing it herself that it was finally over.

She clutched her head as she stumbled back, a splitting headache that felt like someone was carving their way from the inside of her skull reminded her of its existence. She went down on her knees, forcing herself to remain conscious as her health ticked down. It was status recoil, something she had experienced multiple times and had almost died to in the past, she would have liked to avoid it, but she didn’t have a choice.

She lacked the fire power to deal the final blow to the knight, that damned knight…

Strength left her arms as she stumbled forward, landing in the dirt. She tried to get up but it was useless, only managing to scoot herself forward. “Aaah!” she yelled out in frustration, before going limp. She was still conscious, but unable to move…that damned knight…

With nothing else to do she recalled the fight, at first she stupidly tried to take them all on at once as soon as they arrived, that… obviously did not end well. The one knight, the smaller one…Jay? teamed up with the main knight, the captain she thinks, and easily cornered her.

So she waited, sat through their whole spial and attacked Jay as he got close. She got some damage in, a dagger inserted into his side but was halted when the captain rammed into her with his shield.

She was starting to get annoyed at this point and went after the weak looking one and got blasted by light magic a few times before killing him easily, only to get stomped by the remaining two.

But after that she learned three things, one was that for what ever reason they did not see her as an active threat until she made a move, which made sense, to them she was nothing but a low-level beast who couldn’t even fight back. Two how easily she could kill the weaker one, a well-placed dagger was all it took.

And three, she leveled up by killing him, and thanks to being the fox tribe’s hero title [Shrine Maiden] she got a LOT of stat points.

This laid the groundwork for a plan…which immediately fell apart as killing the weak one first did not make it any easier, she never had any time to allocate stat points before her face got kicked in by the other two, those two together were a problem. So her target shifted to Jay, as going after that captain did not seem like it would work because of his shield.

This presented it’s own problem, Jay reacted to her surprise attacks a lot better than the other one, and it took time to reach him to deal any damage, and by then he would have noticed her.

After a few failed attempts at different timings, she finally remembered her ice magic had other uses than making weaponry. A few more attempts and she finally found a timing and attack combination that worked, taking him out in two clean shots with her magic and brought her attenti- nope, blocked and slashed down by the captain.

Pelting him with magic didn’t work either, she already used two shots to kill Jay, and only had enough mana for ten consecutive shots, other spells she could think of didn’t work, he’d just block them and counterattack, rushing forward and cutting her arm off as she tried to dodge.

These attempts continued, Mia relying solely on her magic at this point. She found the captain would do two things, prioritize the protection of the weaker knight, and dash forward once she was out of mana. So she mixed it up a bit, preserving her mana she fired one shot at Jay and finished him off with dagger from behind.

This worked surprisingly well, as the captain appeared to be confused once he registered what was going on, deciding this was a good chance she saved and then she tried to take out the weaker knight with a spell but that was blocked and after a pause the captain charged.

Mia felt her arm throb as she remembered what happened next, the dumb captain had cut off her arm numerous times, she was unable to dodge it despite her speed… the pain was horrible, what made it worse was it was not always a clean cut, depending on how she tried to dodge she would either lose the arm entirely or getting cut halfway into it, leaving it dangling.

It was weird, she was sure she was faster than him, but up to this point whenever he swung his sword or attacked, he would get a boost in speed to insure it hit… it was annoying…

Thankfully she had just gotten three levels from killing Jay, dumping the full amount into dex… and in the next moment waking up in the void, dead from either the recoil itself or being finished off when she passed out… she had to pace this.

She’d pass out if she put in more than 100, and after many lost arms she needed 70 to dodge the first hit… yes, the first hit. His onslaught after words led her to getting slashed a few times, he was predicting where she would be and slash there, her small size and speed helped but it wasn’t enough, she needed more.

So after the initial 70 she slowly increased the stat while she dodged, she started getting recoil but she ignored it, thankful it seemed to fade or not be as bad if she paced it out, not like it mattered in the end because suddenly one of his downward slashes exploded everything in front of him. Enough repeats and she learned it only exploded the front, using this chance she dashed behind him and with the newfound opening finally took out the weakling.

That just left him, she saved at this point and the long battle began…or so she thought it would, instead he abandoned the fight with her and would just try and kill Hiiro…and she just saved… No matter what she did with her current stats he would reach Hiiro and finish him off. She didn’t know what to do…

She had to stop him before he reached Hiiro, she was fast enough to catch up but he was too on guard, she could not get a hit in, she was stuck.

Her head pounded, remembering her gamble, she had to overpower him and the only way she could think of to accomplish that was to stat up Int, increase the power her magic and take him down but that had it’s own issues, too much and she would faint and lose… no, forget that, it was the only way. So she began raising her stats at a decent pace, everytime she would pass out she would load and start again, going slower until she got used to it, ignoring the captain who would just run off and kill Hiiro, she felt bad but that was the only way at the time.

The finally came the load where she managed to stay conscious after dumping 200 points into it. She had felt horrible, her body and head screaming, her health rapidly draining, the slightest loss in focus would cause her to faint, but she endured. She endured and pelted the captain with her magic and dealing the final blow with her dagger.

She let out a sigh, the headache was waning after her recollection. She never wanted to experience this again, it was worse than dying in her opinion. With enough of a clear head she inspected her status, to see the full results of her fight.

====

Name: Mia

Status: Status Recoil (severe)

Age: 8

Race: Fox Beastman

LVL: 6 > 15

Points: 0 > 250

HP: 173/1100 MP: 7/100

Str: 81

Con: 110

Dex: 250 > 350

Int: 150 > 350

Mnd: 10

Lck: 1

Skills: [Ice Mastery: 4] [Early Riser: MAX] [Willful: 4 > MAX] [Packer: 2] [Dagger Mastery: MAX] [Common Language: 1] [Magic Craftsmanship: 2] [Battle Dancer: 3] [Martial arts: 3] [Critical Eye: 3] [Battle sense: 1 > 2 ][Disguise: MAX] [Lying: 2] [Presence detection: 1] [Trap detection: 1] [Acrobatics: 3] [Cooking: 1] [Cleaning: 2] [Petting: 1] [Threatening aura: 3] [Axe arts: 1] [Sword arts: 1] [Bow arts: 1] [Sneak: 1 > 2] [Danger sense: - ] [Pain Tolerance: 4]

Titles: [Unlucky Child] [Shrine Maiden] [Torturer] [Jester] [Easily Manipulated] [Critical Striker] [Trophy Maid] [Goblin Crusher] [Bramble Crusher] [Toy Wolf Crusher] [Cat Beastkin Crusher] [Human Crusher] [Rabbi Spider Crusher] [Slime Crusher] [Peblet Crusher]

Hidden skills: [time: 2]

====

The status used to be critical, she hoped severe meant it was going down. As for her health… all that loss was from the recoil… she definitely did not want to do that again, losing almost one thousand health simply because she put too many points into one stat at once was brutal. Mana… not much to mention there except it used to be empty, she had poured everything she had left into that final ray of ice, so she regened some mana back every minute or so? How long has she been laying here…

Moving on, her level went from six to fifteen, she had used most of the points in the fight as she progressively leveled up from the two kills, what she had left was from the captain two hundred and fifty points… how do other heroes deal with all these points? She felt like it was too many, how do normal people even compete?

Questions for later.

“Mia…? Are you alive? Did you win?”

With her headache clearing she noticed a faint voice, right, Hiiro. “Yes,” she tried to move her arms and legs, finding herself able to do so with some difficulty “hurting, status recoil…can move a bit.”

“Ah…okay.” There was a pause before he spoke “Don’t want to rush but we have to keep moving, more will come.”

At his words Mia forced herself up, her limbs feeling like wet noodles. He was right, they had to move, and right now she was the only one able to. She limped over to him, his eyes still shut, and he had pained breathing. She sighed, kneeling down and lifting his shoulders up, pulling him to the forest.

He let out some groans, but she ignored it, this was the only way she could move him, and they did not have time to waste. While she dragged him, she continued to look at her status.

[Willful] had maxed out, while curious now was not the time to look into it in detail, she had to at least dedicate some of her focus to moving Hiiro and not fainting. Same deal with the next thing that caught her eye, [Sneak] had leveled up. She questioned why when she was not really sneaking… maybe she was using it at the start of the battle to make the surprise attack? Would make sense.

Next on the list was a new one [Pain Tolerance] that was already at lvl4… her splitting headache, her aching limbs, and just all-around poor state made it very clear how she managed to get this skill, and while she wanted to confirm it she was pretty sure this skill was the only reason why she managed to stay conscious.

Next were her titles, nothing changed here, no new ones or any thi-wait.

Wait wait wait wait wait wait?!

She double checked, triple checked, she nearly dropped Hiiro in her panic as she could not believe what she was seeing, or lack of seeing. “It’s gone…” She whispered to herself, a small smile spreading on her face “ha..aha…haha…” she couldn’t contain her excitement as she started laughing, giggling even as she was overcome with joy, not even noticing she was now moving Hiiro with renewed vigor, causing him some distress as he was violently pulled around.

She didn’t care, it was gone! One of her titles she absolutely hated was now off of her status page, [Indecisive], was no longer there! What caused this change? Who cared! The pain from the recoil was all worth it for this moment as she began to cheerfully hum, giggle, and laugh to herself as she dragged a protesting man nearly twice her size into the nearby forest.

Truly a very odd sight for any potential onlooker.