Draft: 40 Time For a Nap

54 minutes and 7 seconds later, James reappeared outside the dungeon’s cave. And it was like breathing in fresh air for the first time. She hadn’t realized how stifling the dungeon’s green mana was to her Mana Sense. While it still lingered around her, the mana didn’t feel as condense as it did there. Finally, she could sense the world again.

Remembering her lessons from the dungeon, James tried to observe the world around her for threats. Despite feeling some lifeforms, though, it seemed like the mana the dungeon was releasing deterred any large animals. Or at least anything with an overly large mana pool, which she assumed meant they weren’t overly dangerous.

Feeling a lot more secure now that she had settled that front, James began to make her way back to the treehouse. While the original intent of her trip to the dungeon was scouting, she figured she could continue on another day. When she was feeling better.

That was James’s perspective, at least, but if anyone were watching they’d probably be confused. After all, she was a young woman in a forest wearing a flowy skirt with a complicated looking cream sweater. While the outfit did work, it seemed James at least did have some sense of style, it didn’t work in this setting.

After all, she was in a forest.

But as she walked, the sight became even more strange. Picking up speed as time went by, and occasionally with mistakes, James was switching clothes. Or rather, making them appear on her out of thin air at the exact moment her other clothes disappeared. Flowy skirt, to leather pants, to a dress, to a tight top, it was like she was on a runway. In the forest. While being incredibly bruised and injured.

She couldn’t have been stranger if she tried. Well, she probably could, this was James after all, but not much stranger.

Filtering her way through the trees, James considered what she had learned from the dungeon. Because she couldn’t pretend the near-death experiences hadn’t changed her. For one thing, when she had started the Tutorial, she was still keeping track how many times she almost died in a day. These days she didn’t find the point. She was still alive, wasn’t she?

Her approach to death overall had evolved. Just days ago she had promised herself to never forget the type of sledgehammer her Mana Blast was. Told herself she wouldn’t experiment needlessly. And she held by that. But her experiments had made her better able to survive in the dungeon. If she hadn’t learned how to reduce the cost of each Mana Blast, she would have surely perished in the second dungeon level. Without the Skill a lot of things would have ended differently.

As far as lessons from the dungeon, there were probably too many to truly count. But even her constant vigilance now was a byproduct of it. So was her insistence on rest instead of continuing on in her original scouting goal. James wasn’t in any position to fight, and she wasn’t going to force the issue if she didn’t have to.

She wondered how Arthur and a team from the clearing would have done. They were certainly better trained than her, and presumably used to working as a group. So the first level would have probably been fine, especially if Arthur took on the largest of the nutria. To be fair, she didn’t really know of anyone else. On the second level, they wouldn’t have had as much trouble as she did with their endurance, probably because their base stat was higher and because they were working in a group and could spread out who did what.

The third level might have been hard for them. That third nutria had been tough, and despite being so large, there still wouldn’t have been enough space in the boutique for the group to attack together. They probably would have gotten in each other’s way, making it a real challenge. Additionally, all the goblins she’d seen were in groups and a much lower level, so she doubted they would have been used to fighting a single enemy, or one with its abilities and stats.

James certainly wouldn’t have survived the dungeon without her Mana Blast Skill. It was so overpowered that as long as she rationed her mana usage, she would have been fine. She did need to find out if there was cool down period for the Skill, some time after activating it that she had to wait before using it again.

Finally, she got to her tree, seeing its weird mana patterns with her Mana Sense. They had gotten slightly brighter and more defined while she way away, making her excited about how the tree would transform. She’d come back to it later though, it was probably smarter to clean herself off in the river before she stank up her tree house.

Changing into her underclothes in an instant as she jumped into the River, she let out a full body shudder as she registered the cold water again. Her shorter hair was easier to wash though, and the coldness of the water did reduce the pain she felt throughout her whole body.

Stepping out and getting some clothes on, she went back to her treehouse. Grinning a little despite the soreness still permeating through her body, she climbed up to her space. With a twinkle in her eyes, she took out some pillows and a blanket she found in the boutique.

None of them were completely clean, either with dust or with some small splattering of blood from her fight with the nutria, but she couldn’t really complain. After all, she was finally going to be able to sleep comfortably! She had never been camping before the Tutorial, but whatever she was doing before now, it certainly wasn’t very cozy. And while all of these items were really meant for decoration, they were all better than nothing.

So, James took a nap. She figured she deserved it.