by Neven Iliev
The first step was, essentially, the same thing it did against those guards.
Over on the Fleshmaiden’s side, things were going according to plan. She could only inflict ten to twenty HP worth of damage with her glancing strikes. After all, she was slashing at thin limbs rather than stabbing at hearts, so her damage was quite low. Still, she was quite confident she wouldn’t lose. Her miraculous regeneration was the product of her Mend Flesh Skill. It allowed her to essentially convert her massive MP pool into HP. Like this, she was completely safe as long as her MP held out and she avoided getting in dangerous spots that could overwhelm the speed of her regeneration. In the worst case scenario where she ran out of MP, she could still run around the room for a few minutes until she recovered a sizable chunk of it.
But it would seem that was not necessary. The Mimic had swung down at her with too much force and missed her completely. Its sword slammed against the ground and broke off at the handle. The Fleshmaiden smiled at this development. One sword less meant it could no longer attack nor defend as vigorously as it had until now. So far it had managed to keep picking up its weapons with regrown tentacles while keeping her at bay with the other two, but one of those was now useless.
The monster had permanently disarmed itself in its own over-eagerness.
The Fleshmaiden would not let this chance slip by. She moved in closer and, while staying wary of those teeth, cut clean through one of the tentacles, albeit at the price of a sword strike to the right side of her face. It didn’t deter her and she cut off the last tentacle, drastically cutting down on the Mimic’s attack range. It then predictably lunged at her in an attempt to bite her, but she was well prepared for it this time. The flesh-draped woman dodged nimbly to the left, going around its narrow side where those jaws had no way of reaching her. She was absolutely sure that nothing the Mimic could do would injure her in this position.
So imagine her surprise when she felt a sharp pain in her right side. That last sword hit to her head took out two of her eyes that had yet to grow back. Her limited field of vision meant she didn’t notice that the Mimic had stabbed her with her own mithril dagger. She had completely forgotten about the little ‘present’ she left inside its mouth during their first clash. But then the Mimic introduced yet another dagger to the situation, this one stabbed right through her neck. A sensation of piercing cold spread through her throat as it began to ice over.
The Fleshmaiden had no idea where that last weapon came from, but she didn’t have time to worry about it now. The weapons lodged in her started pulling her towards the Mimic, which undoubtedly wanted to eat her whole. Her instincts screamed at her to run the fuck away.
So she tried to pull away, much like the last time she was in this position. The dagger lodged in her side felt like it would slip out easily enough, but the one in her throat was different. The frozen wound caused by the enchanted weapon meant it was firmly stuck in place. It was an extreme decision, but she willingly detached her head to escape from the jaws of death that were rapidly approaching her.
The headless woman then ran away from danger at top speed. Most of the Fleshmaiden’s many eyes were hidden inside her black hair. The only ones remaining were those on the front of her ‘dress.’ She had to sacrifice her hearing, her expanded field of view as well as a chunk of her HP to get away, but it was far better than being gobbled up. She could grow as many heads as she wanted, but no amount of regeneration would save her from being digested inside the Mimic’s stomach.
And in a repeat of the last time this happened, she retreated up the wall. Her limited field of view was quickly rectified by several eyes that grew out of her back and shoulder. She was unused to creating eyes on those areas of her skin, so it took her an extra second to get them just right. It was important that she confirmed the distance between herself and the Mimic that was likely following her.
But when those eyes opened up, they revealed that she was wrong. The Mimic did not chase after her. Far from it, it didn’t even budge from its spot. What it did was far more unsettling.
The Fleshmaiden immediately recognized the face of that infuriating Pyromancer from earlier. That bitch was supposed dead, so how come she was sticking halfway out of the Mimic?! The skin, eye and hair color were completely wrong, but there was no way she would mistake that shit-eating grin for someone else! But wait, there’s more! The woman on the wall broke her tunnel vision away from that insufferable face and realized that the Great White Whore was pointing a cheap-looking staff in her direction and a weird aura of crackling electricity surrounded her body.
If she still had ears, she might have heard the Mimic finish chanting its Spell.
“Ebonfire ~♪!”
Black flames enveloped the Fleshmaiden. The impossibly dark fire that erupted from her skin seemed to suck in what little light there was in the dark chamber. The Mimic couldn’t even see her skin inside that localized inferno.
[Your target has been afflicted with Ebonfire.]
The target in question fell to the ground, screaming like a banshee. She rolled around, desperately trying to put out the flames. But she could not, for they were coming out from beneath her skin. The Mend Flesh Skill was working overtime to try to keep her body alive, but any new flesh that formed was immediately burned away. The heat was intense enough to overpower her rapid regeneration.
[Your target’s soul burns away at their flesh. Target HP -140.]
Overcome with exhaustion, the Mimic’s spider legs gave out and the bottom of its chest-like body slammed against the ground. The half-a-Xera on top of it went limp and fell forward under the influence of the accurately reproduced oversized breasts.
[Your target’s soul burns away at their flesh. Target HP -140.]
[Proficiency level increased. Power Overwhelming is now Level 2. INT +4.]
It seemed that spending every last drop of its 520 MP in one go proved to have a side effect on its body, but it was worth it. The Mimic had managed to surprise its enemy by secretly taking out an enchanted weapon from its Storage. It knew that, once driven into a corner, the Fleshmaiden would flee at all costs. Even if it meant sacrificing parts of her body to do so. A strategy she has used twice already. So it aimed for her head and forced her to leave it behind. All that was to buy it enough time to prepare the nastiest attack it could muster - a supercharged Ebonfire Spell.
[Power Overwhelming]
The Warlock becomes a bastion of arcane might.
Requirements: Level 10 Warlock, Ruin Mastery, INT 60
Type: Active
Activation Time: Instant
Cost: 20 MP
Range: Self
[Effects]
Ruin Spells will cost 400% more MP.
Ruin Spells will be 200% more effective.
The Ruin Spell effectiveness multiplier will increase by an additional 20% per Level of this Skill.
The effects of this Skill will last 20 seconds.
[Ebonfire]
Requirements: Level 3 Warlock, INT 20
School: Ruin
Type: Targeted
Cost: 100 MP
Range: 25 Meters
[Effects]
Engulfs your target’s soul in flames, burning away their body over 6 seconds.
Has no effect on Undead, Demons and Golems.
[Your target’s soul burns away at their flesh. Target HP -140.]
It was a gamble. Breaking its sword on purpose to lure her in, trying to get rid of those pesky eyes all over her head, pressuring her so much that she focused her whole being on running away - it was all done for this. Its one ace in the hole was that the Fleshmaiden did not know it could use magic. In some ways it was glad it passed on those first two chances. A half-baked Spell would have only revealed its identity as a Caster and ruined any chance of pulling something like this off. That much was made clear by her impressive last-ditch effort to dodge its spell.
[Your target’s soul burns away at their flesh. Target HP -140.]
However, unlike Fireball or Shadowbolt, this Spell did not fire out a projectile. The Mimic simply needed to focus on a target that was both within its line of sight and within range. Finishing the chant would then cause it to immediately catch on fire. The Fleshmaiden had absolutely no chance of pulling off a feat like dodging the chest’s eyesight when she was more than ten meters away from it.
And so, its improvised plan to confuse and befuddle the Dungeon Master came to fruition. Its rewards were a terrifying amount of damage being dealt each second and an unceasing torrent of screams. Truly a satisfying result that was almost as tasty as Snack.
[Your target’s soul burns away at their flesh. Target HP -140.]
But now wasn’t the time to laze around and bask in the afterglow. The Spell was about to expire and the Mimic had to be ready in case that persistent creature actually survived it. It hurriedly picked itself up off the floor and wobbled unsteadily towards the Fleshmaiden that was still clinging to life.
[Your target’s soul burns away at their flesh. HP -140.]
[Proficiency level increased. Power Overwhelming is now Level 3. INT +4.]
[Proficiency level increased. Ruin Mastery is now Level 5. INT +2. WIS +1. END +1.]
[Level up!]
[Level up!]
[Congratulations, you are now a level 16 Warlock! INT +4. MNT +4. END +4.]
But she did not make it. An increase in Job Levels was definite proof that something had died. And since the Mimic was still very much alive, that meant it was unquestionably the winner. All that was left of the former Dungeon Master was a charred pile of meat that was still gripping onto the handle of her mithril dagger.
The Mimic felt relief wash over it. It slumped back to the ground and reverted back to a chest that was battered and splintered all over. There would be no celebratory dance this time, it was way too tired for that sort of excessive celebration. The only thing on its mind was to rest, so it naturally returned to its dormant state.
The room seemed incredibly peaceful after that violent struggle. The Mimic had forgotten how quiet it could get in this dungeon. Its thoughts drifted off towards the way it had lived its short life until this moment.
Close fights like this were nothing new to this monster. It was forced to face off against groups of adventurers multiple times while it was still a resident of this place. Honestly, that guard patrol fight wasn’t even in its top five most dangerous scuffles since it walked away with most of its HP intact.
But all those close calls had one thing in common - the monster was able to overcome them through a combination of luck and its opponents fucking up in some way. It vividly remembered that one Caster-type adventurer. It was busy fighting with his friend and suffered numerous wounds before it drove a sword through his chest. The Caster panicked and fumbled his Spell, causing it to backfire and explode in his hands. If that adventurer had succeeded, then the Mimic would have died then and there. The fact all its coin tosses so far came heads-up almost seemed like a miracle.
Indeed, today wasn’t the first time it had to fight desperately to survive, but it was the first time it achieved victory completely on its own power. There was no lucky break and its opponent didn’t trip up over herself. The Mimic had driven the Fleshmaiden into a corner by using her own habits against her. It had won in a battle of wits, pure and simple. Thinking back on that intense struggle, it felt an odd surge of emotion unlike anything else it had experienced. It wasn’t the joy of winning a tough battle nor was it spite for the enemy that wounded it so badly.
No, it felt a very specific feeling. One that gave rise to two words, a phrase it never even knew about until just now. It focused its magical perception on the smoldering remains of that formidable enemy and it gave voice to that emotion.
“Thank you.”
It then drifted off into a peaceful slumber, which was just another in a long line of ‘firsts’ that had happened today.
Chapter Five
Catalyst
Part One
The Mimic woke up violently. It shot out several unrecognizable limbs from its underside that were perhaps intended to be spider legs, but they came out so malformed and unrefined that they looked closer to oversized noodles. They flailed and thrashed around for a few seconds before managing to tip the chest over and make it fall on its backside with a thud. The sudden impact with the ground seemed to snap the monster out of its haze and allow it to finally remember where it was and what it was doing there.
The root cause of its distress was that it had never experienced sleeping before. This sensation of waking up was vastly different from the time it slipped into a three day Rank Up coma. Back then, its mind seemed to wake up before the rest of its body did, which was the opposite of what happened just now. The whole slumbering monster thing was vastly different from the other times it took a break. After all, no matter how tired or hungry it was, its consciousness had never slipped out from under it like that before. It’s not like the thought of resting its body was strange, but this was the first time it needed to rest its mind.
Or, to put it in another way, this was the first time it had a mind that needed rest. Up until a few days ago, it was still a simple Lesser Mimic whose main concerns were not dying, how tasty things were and where it could get more of the tasty things. But now it was a Greater Mimic, a creature that could form coherent thoughts and had a much higher capacity for learning and understanding. Complicated emotions like gratitude towards an enemy were now also within reach. And that higher-performance cognitive ability demanded maintenance in the form of sleep.
That’s not how the Mimic saw it, though. It almost felt cheated, to be honest. Why did it have to suddenly lose consciousness like that? Didn’t such a thing make it incredibly vulnerable? If it knew about this sooner, it would have not allowed itself to sleep in the first place. Or at the very least it would have wanted to have its familiar around to guard it.
Eventually it would find out that it was actually quite a light sleeper and would wake up the instant it detected something within the range of its magical perception or felt an odd vibration through the ground it was ‘sitting’ on. It was just that right now, it had no idea about any of that. Such things were not present in this deathly silent chamber.
“Ack!” it exclaimed. It picked itself up off the floor and stood up. Or at least, as close to ‘standing up’ as a spider-chest could get. It quickly scanned the room and confirmed three points of interest. The dungeon core was still there, the former Fleshmaiden was still dead and the entrance was no longer sealed shut. Having made sure its safety was not in immediate danger, it allowed itself to relax a little. Only a little though, it still had things it had to do.
First of all, it leaped up in the air and did a backflip, then performed a few stretches and trial shapeshifts to make extra sure everything was in working order, which seemed to be the case. Its body actually felt strangely refreshed and full of energy. If these were the after-effects of a good night’s rest, then perhaps sleep wasn’t all bad. Well, it was still only day two in its life as a Greater Mimic. It would need more time to get used to its new species.
There was still the matter of the Fleshmaiden’s corpse, though. It went over to it and tried to use Cadaver Absorption, but the Skill failed to activate. Even if she did have a heart and brain, they would have been completely destroyed by the Ebonfire Spell. Her body was in such a horrible state that the Mimic didn’t even want to eat it the old-fashioned way. Which was a shame considering that the few pieces it bit off her during the fight weren’t half bad. Perhaps a bit juicier than it preferred, but tasty all the same.
It felt better about it when it remembered to take her other mithril dagger, though. That one clean stab she got on the inside of its mouth did a whopping 130 damage to its HP. It was therefore looking forward to seeing if these new weapons would serve it well. These weapons also had the added benefit of being shiny. Mithril was technically a precious metal also known as white gold, so the Mimic insti
nctively felt a certain amount of satisfaction when it put both of those things in its Storage.
Next it checked its Status. It remembered it had managed to become a Level 16 Warlock before drifting off to sleep, meaning it could unlock one additional Skill.
[Skill List: Warlock]
Unlocked Skills: Summon Familiar, Power Overwhelming
Available Skills: Blood Magic, Crystallize Magic, Demonology
You can unlock 1 additional Restricted Skill from this Job.
Once again its options seemed oddly limited. At Level 5 it could only pick Summon Familiar. At Level 10 it had a bare-bones choice between Power Overwhelming and Blood Magic. It chose the former because it seemed like the more useful one, even if it turned out to have bad compatibility with Stealth and Assassination. Not to mention the other Skill looked more than a little dubious.
[Blood Magic]
The Warlock offers up his own life force to power his magic.
Requirements: Level 10 Warlock, END 60
Type: Toggled (OFF)
Activation Time: N/A
Cost: N/A
Range: Self
[Effects]
Ruin and Domination Spells will consume HP instead of MP.
Reduces the HP Cost of Ruin and Domination Spells by 3% per Level of this Skill.
It was a Skill that demanded the Mimic willingly sacrifice its HP to use magic. There was no way the monster would agree to something like that, though. Preserving MP was important, but keeping HP above 0 was its top priority. It may have been a different story if it had the power of regeneration like that Fleshmaiden or maybe the healing magic that adventurers were seen using, but such things were beyond its reach for the moment. It might reconsider its choice if it gained some method of instantly recovering its HP.
And then realization hit it like a whale crashing into a rowboat.
Potions. The magical red liquid that would miraculously close wounds and restore HP. Those three vials it crunched yesterday would have been incredibly helpful in the fight it just went through. It finally understood why those humans kept the tasty thing bottled up rather than drink it immediately. Healing potions were not food, they were medicine. Okay, it didn’t use the word ‘medicine,’ exactly. That much was still a foreign concept, but at least it recognized them as ‘tasty thing that makes the pain go away.’ Close enough, right?