Chương 10: Of Walking Corpses and First Dungeons

I wake up to the deeply offensive realization that I am, in fact, sleeping on hard wood. Unacceptable. My joints ache, my muscles protest, and my brain feels like someone shoved bright lights, adrenaline, and mild regret into a blender and hit purée. For a moment I simply lie there, staring blankly at the hollow ceiling like it personally inconvenienced me. It probably did.

Slowly, reality filters back in: the faint moss-glow leaking through the doorway, the cool damp air of the Mist-Veiled Grove, and the comforting, smug weight of my tail curled around me like a self-satisfied cat. … also, my hair is a disaster. Tragic. I sit up, stretching with all the grace of a cat that knows the world owes it admiration. Checking the tutorial countdown reveals I slept for about five hours. Great. Eleven hours one night, five the next. Consistency? Never heard of her. Annoying.

I stretch again, glaring at nothing in particular—mostly out of principle. My internal human-world sleep schedule—the one that dutifully dragged me out of bed at 8 AM like a responsible person—is now utterly demolished. Replaced by… whatever unhinged logic stamina operates on. A system mechanic that determines when I sleep based on mysterious cosmic vibes? Deeply disrespectful. Even worse, for the second night in a row, I went to sleep with full stamina. Full. Yet—somehow—I was still tired.

Apparently, Inspect believes Stamina only prevents physical fatigue, which implies that mental exhaustion from navigating procedurally generated RPG nonsense, questionable balancing decisions, and terrain placement designed by a sleep-deprived level designer does in fact count as a legitimate way to suffer. Wonderful. One ear flicks. The movement contains layers. A concerto of emotion. Somewhere between resigned defeat and existential annoyance. Then again…

perhaps the smug foxgirl capable of melting steel with fire, folding gravity like a fitted bedsheet, and weaponizing starlight like an overachieving mythical cryptid should refrain from criticizing balance. My ears shoot upright. My tail joins them in spiritual enlightenment. Revelation achieved. Starlight. I look at my hair—the tragic battlefield upon which physics, humidity, and bad life choices have waged an unrelenting war. It is less "hair" and more "sentient briar patch with attitude."

My eyes drop to my hand. A plan forms. I nod at myself. Good. Excellent. Truly, a genius at work. Starlight gathers in my palm. Attempt one: geometry personally knocks on my skull and asks me who gave me permission to insult its lineage. Attempt three: I have… silverware. Not a comb. Not a brush. But a fork. Progress. Technically. Attempt seven: finally—something functional. A comb. Barely. Spiritually resentful in shape, but usable.

A brush would've been ideal—but testing skills costs stamina, and there is an entire forest of hostile flora and fauna waiting to be politely and elegantly introduced to the business end of my sword, so I accept the lesser tool with the grace of a queen forced to drink store-brand tea. And so, I begin the delicate archaeological process of excavating my hair from chaos. 140 stamina… for a comb. Worth it. Absolutely. Probably. … Yes. Worth it.

The new, inconveniently expressive additions on top of my head make the process… complicated, but after approximately thirty minutes of combing, battling, threatening, and possibly negotiating, I manage to detangle my hair— —mostly. Predictably, the comb's performance reflects its origin: rushed design, experimental geometry, and the haunting energy of "good enough." Its work leaves much to be desired, but compared to the tragic disaster it was moments ago, it's an undeniable improvement. I will tolerate it.

For now. Mentally, I add improve starlight manipulation to my already bloated task list. It goes near the top—obviously. There are universal truths in this world, and one of them is that I must remain impeccably groomed at all times. Next task: my tail. I prepare myself for round two, only to discover… it's already nearly perfect. No knots. No tangles. No chaos. Just soft, immaculate fluff. Apparently Foxkin tails achieve—and maintain—peak fluff with the same effort most people use to breathe. Incredible.

I must learn how to harness this power. For science. Onto the task list it goes—right between become unstoppable and acquire more loot. With the casual elegance of someone discarding a deeply disappointing prototype, I toss the misshapen comb into my spatial ring and stand. My ears—traitorous, expressive liabilities—perk up the moment I move. They immediately flatten again the second a foul odor drifts in from the fogged woods ahead. Rot. Decay. The smell equivalent of a low-budget horror movie.

My tail freezes—likely conserving emotional energy for whatever nonsense is about to arrive. I follow the stench, noting that the mist has thinned. Visibility is now around fifteen to twenty meters instead of the barely ten I suffered with last night. Annoying. Predictable. Apparently even fantasy fog respects atmospheric science. Disappointing.

"Four out of ten," I mutter. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Absolutely unacceptable. At the bare minimum the mist should be forming ominous tendrils and attempting to mislead me into a tragic yet aesthetically pleasing demise. I came to this world for dramatic fights and interesting scenery, not bargain-bin horror ambience. And clearly, I am not the only one disappointed. Two figures shamble through the treeline toward me.

I stare at them with the emotional energy of someone forced to attend a mandatory training seminar. They continue walking. Rude. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Lesser Zombie (Level 6 | Tier 0) x2 Species: Undead A low-ranked undead creature created through improper reanimation. Individually weak, but dangerous in swarms. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I nod to myself. Yes. Excellent. These are clearly the undead the Tutorial warned me about.

Which means "Day 3" is literal— the actual third calendar day —not seventy-two hours from when we arrived. Which also means the Tutorial counted the four measly hours of daylight we got on the first day—after spawning here at around 4 PM—as a full day. My tail snaps like a judge declaring a sentence. Crimes are now possible. I am becoming increasingly confident that this Tutorial was designed specifically to induce brain hemorrhages in anyone capable of critical thought.

I make a vow—solemn, dramatic, fueled by irritation—that this injustice will not be forgotten. I will speak to the manager. … eventually. Unfortunately, zombies lack the social grace—and basic narrative awareness—to understand that I require a proper dramatic beat before combat. So while I was mentally preparing my entrance monologue, one of them wandered far too close, with the second shambling behind like an underpaid backup dancer.

The moment the first crosses within five meters, it abruptly lunges—far faster than something that structurally resembles wet cardboard should be capable of. It reaches me and snaps for my throat with rotten teeth— —and promptly phases straight through me. A beat later, a blade whispers through the air and slices cleanly through its neck. The attack remains invisible right up until the moment the zombie suddenly becomes two separate pieces.

The headless body, powered only by stubborn momentum and poor decision-making, continues forward… and in a flawless display of slapstick timing, kicks its own severed head. Beautiful. A masterpiece. So—note made: zombies can close distance fast once they commit. I watch its remains collapse into a tragic-yet-hilarious pile and suppress a very dignified giggle.

The second zombie—having observed everything, retained nothing, and arrived at zero conclusions—finally reaches its attack range and lunges in the exact same way. Same result. Illusion. Miss. Sword through the neck. Cleanup. Truly, a learning experience for absolutely no one involved. Illusions are wildly overpowered against anything operating at the intelligence level of a disgruntled root vegetable. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ You have slain Lesser Zombie (Level 6 | Tier 0) x2 You have gained 12 Tutorial Points.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Twelve more points, and it's only been five minutes into the new day. Honestly? A perfect morning—if you politely disregard the mounting existential despair caused by atrocious game design. But at this stage, continuing to be angry about it feels less productive and more like enthusiastically beating an already thoroughly deceased horse. Therefore—moving on. Which tragically means more running.

This time accompanied by the constant aroma of decomposing undead, like someone spilled a dumpster into a fog machine. At least they're easy to track. Hard to hide when you smell like the very concept of poor hygiene itself. So—naturally—I farm them, sprinting through the misty woods like a smug, fox-tailed ballistic missile powered by pride, momentum, and the unstoppable dopamine drip of rising numbers. Two hours pass before the level transition finally appears.

In that time, more than twenty zombies fall to my blade, along with an assortment of woodland wildlife I declined to acknowledge beyond "in the way." A deer. A lynx. A swarm of butterflies with an inflated sense of destiny. All defeated. They each tried something—claws, teeth, ominous sparkling wings—but my Star aspect is disgustingly versatile and, more importantly, I am faster than anything they've ever seen.

Then—finally—progress: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Your race has leveled up to level 7 Your class has leveled up to level 7 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Points into Dexterity. Quick stamina check. A brief moment of smug satisfaction as my Tutorial Points continue climbing. Then: onward. For the first time in hours, something other than trees and disposable wildlife enters view—a random hill sitting awkwardly in the otherwise flat forest, with a cave mouth carved into it. Pitch-black. Ominous.

Radiating the subtle artistry of a level designer running on caffeine fumes and apathy. My ears flatten in quiet judgment. But I've moved past expecting quality. Or logic. Or anything remotely resembling thoughtful design. So I skip—yes, skip—toward the entrance to confirm the obvious. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Dungeon Detected You have encountered an Instance Dungeon. Size: Tiny Recommended Level: 8 Would you like to enter? Options: Yes / No ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Naturally—I press Yes. Multiple times.

Because patience is a virtue, and I unsubscribed from that belief system years ago. With an animation so overused it may qualify as a war crime, darkness surges forward and consumes my vision. Because apparently showing the transition would be too immersive. My nose registers the change before my eyes even finish adjusting. The air is different—stale, stagnant, like it has been sitting untouched for centuries. A heavy musk clings to it, edged with the metallic bite of rust and… fur. Again with the fur. Wonderful.

My ears react next—metal scraping against metal, echoing through a confined space. Sharp, rhythmic, industrial. Not ambience—machinery. Only then does my vision finally clear. And the dungeon comes into focus. Sleek, metallic walls. Dim overhead lights cast in that oddly aggressive shade of yellow every sci-fi builder uses when they want the environment to feel "caution-adjacent."

Strange machinery is scattered everywhere—along the walls, bolted to the floor, even hanging ominously from the ceiling like industrial chandeliers no one asked for. And me? I'm standing on a metal catwalk suspended over everything. In a massive factory. Of course. Because when I imagine "mystical fantasy dungeon," my brain absolutely leaps to OSHA violations and poorly maintained industrial equipment.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ You have entered the Instance Dungeon: Forgotten Factory ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ So… a factory. Inside a cave. Which itself is inside a mist-choked forest with zero signs of civilization—and wildlife that wakes up every morning fully committed to writing you out of the story. My ears tilt back. Peak suffering achieved. Truly. None of this makes any sense. Not even a little.

Honestly, I need to start lowering my expectations, because thinking too hard about any part of this Tutorial feels like getting repeatedly punched in the soul by reality. Fortunately, salvation arrives in the form of distraction—the fur smell grows stronger, now paired with the harsh scrape of claws dragging across metal. Finally. Enrichment. I hop down from the catwalk—because ladders are cringe and subtlety is optional—then follow the sound. Whatever's ahead clearly knows where I am.

It's heading straight for me without line of sight. So either excellent hearing, smell, or some cosmic cheat sheet labeled: Foxgirl Here → Kill. Rude. As I weave past half–destroyed machines, something catches my eye. Runes. Not one or two— all of them. Etched into the frames, panels, even the bolts holding everything together. I compare them to the runes on my boots and ring. Not even close. My ears perk. Fascinating.

Something to study once I'm done dealing with whatever is about to— A furry arm enters my vision first. Thick fur, ending in a hairless paw tipped with long, blunt claws that look suspiciously un-blunt when you imagine them embedded in a ribcage. Inspect fires before the rest of it appears. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Mole Scavenger (Level 8 | Tier 0) Species: Subterranean Digger A blind predatory mole adapted to underground tunnels and soft earth. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ … It's… a mole person.

Well—more mole than person, but close enough that I owe that one star something alcoholic and cosmic. It's huge—easily tall enough to dunk on a professional basketball team and built like a furry refrigerator with claws longer than my forearm. Definitely bear-tier. Possibly worse because it looks like it has opinions about my existence. Also: blind. Which means: no illusions. My ears droop—not in sadness, obviously.

I would never experience emotional distress over losing the chance to trick something with my favorite combat strategy. Never. Anyway—moles dig through earth. Inspect agrees. The metal floor beneath us: distinctly not earth. I sigh. Then unsheathe my sword and sprint, hoping efficiency will spare me further annoyance. The mole instantly disagrees with my plan. Its fur shifts to an earthy brown and my blade rebounds like I tried stabbing a boulder. Rude.

It retaliates—wild, unfocused, swinging its claws in my general direction because eyesight is a social construct it does not participate in. I step back easily. Tilt my head. Then resheathe my sword. My fingers curl. Starlight gathers—condensing, sharpening—until a vaguely knife-shaped construct forms in my hand. Not perfect. But workable. Starfire flickers along the blade, humming with malicious enthusiasm. Round two.

The mole's fur darkens again—but this time, my blade slides through it, piercing deep before the resistance even registers. The notification arrives immediately. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ You have slain Mole Scavenger (Level 8 | Tier 0) A slight experience bonus has been awarded for slaying a monster 1 level above you. You have gained 10 Tutorial Points. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I nod. Expected. Efficient. Mildly satisfying. Then I turn back to the actual treasure here. Runes.

Etched across the machinery—some active and glowing, others dead and silent. My tail curls upward, delighted.

"Time to figure out how these work."