Faced with the threat of evisceration, I panicked. I threw my arms out in front of me instinctively, and one of my low-level spells, Green Nature Bullet, activated. The results...were less than desirable. The armored bear was thrown off by the sudden appearance of the small, glowing, green orb of pure natural energy I fired off. It stopped charging and reared up on its hind legs. The projectile was slow, but it had a really big target.
My spell collided with the armored bear, and moments later, the horrific creature exploded into a rain of blood and gore. It went everywhere.
It splattered onto my face. It got all over my dress. There was even a fine red mist in the air. Faced with the overwhelming stench of blood and the disgusting feeling of it on my skin, I screamed.
Really, really loud.
I wasn’t proud of it, but that’s what happened.
The lower part of the thing’s body was still there, but the rest of it was blown to bits. Pretty much all that remained were its dumpy little legs, still in a standing position. In the game, defeated monsters disappeared into twinkling motes of light. In the case of animals, once they were brought down, there was a puff of smoke and then the animal’s body was replaced with resources like meat, horns, hide, or claws.
Maybe this wasn’t the game world. After all, I’d never seen a creature like that in Questonicia—it wouldn’t be cute enough to make the cut. Even the bigger, more powerful monsters in the game still had at least some of that adorable charm. But if this wasn’t the game world, then what was all this stuff from the game doing here? There was even a Way-Point Flower; I’d been lying on it when I woke up.
Wait.
THERE WAS A WAY-POINT FLOWER!
I’d been so disoriented when I arrived in this world, I didn’t even register it at the time. The huge blue flower I’d been lying on when I woke up—that was definitely a Way-Point Flower. In the game, you could register them on your map and use certain items and abilities to teleport back to them. Any race could use them, and they only ever spawned via random generation, so you couldn’t grow them yourself. Players tended to build things around them, since they were so convenient. They were useful when exploring an unfamiliar area too. Now that I had my tablet, I needed to hurry up and register it to my map.
I retraced my steps as I raced through the forest, heedless of the fact that I stank like fresh blood. There were other monsters around, but thankfully the blood warned them away. Normally, the scent of fresh blood would only lure in the carnivorous creatures of this forest, but the blood of this particular monster was actually a deterrent. It was a case of “If something made one of those bleed, you don’t want it near you,” so I went undisturbed. Of course, I knew none of this at the time.
At the end of my mad dash, I finally reached the Way-Point Flower. After I wiped some of the blood off of my hands, I quickly registered it to the map on my tablet. Then, since the flower was close to the river, I took the opportunity to freshen up a bit. The water of the river was cold, but my skin felt much better after I washed away the blood and gore.
Luckily, the blood also came off the dress I was wearing with surprising ease. In my previous life, I’d always heard bloodstains were really difficult to get out of clothing. Maybe it was the dress. It didn’t say anything about it on the status screen, but maybe it had some sort of magical resistance to stains. In any case, I was glad; I would have hated to have to throw it away or stop wearing it because it was covered in gore.
Once the blood was rinsed away, I returned to the Way-Point Flower. As I approached it, I noticed something unbelievable: Within just a few strides of the flower was a hollow tree.
Notably, the hollow was far enough off of the ground that I couldn’t reach it, but luckily I figured out how to activate the skill Fairy Wings. When I reached the opening, I peeked inside to see if anything was nesting in it. After my encounter with the strange bear, I didn’t want to be attacked when I inserted the Labyrinth Seed. There did seem to be some remnants of a bird’s nest inside, but it seemed like it had been abandoned long ago. Once I was satisfied that nothing was going to attack me from inside the tree. I took a Labyrinth Seed out of my inventory and set it right in the middle of the abandoned bird nest. Sitting there, it almost looked like a little brown egg. After a few moments, the seed started to glow, and the tree began its transformation.
I retreated backward to give the new labyrinth tower space to grow. The trunk expanded outward, swallowing up the trees around it. Whenever a Labyrinth Seed was planted, it absorbed most of the nearby trees and plants and incorporated them into itself. I watched the process unfold in person for the first time. If there’d been more time, I would have liked to find a hollow tree close to a field of flowers... Sprigian towers with flowers incorporated into them always looked way cuter. Just then, it was less of a tower and more of a small hut, though. The structure was currently a cube shape, with two rooms. One room was the entryway, and the other was the dungeon master’s chamber. Once I was inside, I’d be able to control the entire dungeon from there, and populate it with monsters. Well, by monsters, I meant Sprigian cuties, not gross uglies like that armored bear. At first, I’d only be able to summon Sprigoblin Irregulars.
Sprigoblin Irregulars were special squadrons of monsters that explored the area around a tower dungeon, and brought back food and materials. They were basically scouts. However, once the dungeon became self-sufficient, the Irregulars would usually shift their focus away from gathering items for the dungeon and devote themselves to my protection instead. At least, that was how it worked in the game. If I tried to summon something, would it really appear? If it did respond to my summons, would it listen to me? There was really only one way to find out...
Before I tried summoning anything, though, there was another pressing matter: I needed a bath. Not another quick rinse in the river. A real one.
A few minutes later, I was in the sealed dungeon master chamber. Aside from the mandatory Dungeon Portal, which was used to summon things, there was only one furnishing in the room—Fairy’s Enchanted Bubble Bath. According to the description, the magical bubbles in this warm bath automatically cleansed and revitalized anyone who bathed in it. In the game, I’d mainly used it to replenish health and stamina. Conveniently, it also cleaned itself, so I could jump right in without rinsing off first.
Moments later, I was completely nude. It was my first time seeing Lilac’s naughty bits. In the game, when you stripped all of the clothing off of a character, they still had some plain looking underclothes covering their intimate spots. When I attempted to bathe here, I was a bit surprised to discover that I was actually able to become fully naked. I kept my rings on, but everything else was on the floor.
Whoa, my skin is super smooth—not a freckle or mole in sight. My boobs were way more than a handful for my tiny hands, but I didn’t really have anything else for reference. Even if I wanted to tell you my measurements, I wouldn’t have been able to. I supposed to anyone who was able to peep on me (which I didn’t really think could happen), I would have an amazing assortment of bubbles covering everything important.