The dungeon's interior was white and snowy; just entering made Yoon-hae shiver.

The first thing she did was trying to get back out, and this message showed up.

[Unable to exit before the Dungeon is cleared.]

White puffs came outta her mouth; she clutched her arms and tried to restrain her tingling feet.

Like the usual beginning, she came across a soldier's corpse. His assault rifle was pretty much broken. There were signs of a struggle; he seems to die from a fatal strike to the chest.

Searching the corpse, she found a handgun, ammo packs, combat knife, plus hand grenades.

Just in case, I gave her [Inventory] to stash her loot.

She couldn't stand the rotting scent and the pool of dried blood. Looking at the gaping part on his chest made her want to hurl.

"What's a Caucasian soldier doing in here, and why was he alone?"

Before she could gather her thoughts, several wolf roars came behind. The pack had snow-white fur and crimson light in their eyes; putrid saliva slobbered from their mouths.

Fortunately, she wasn't late to react.

She shoved the soldier's corpse right in their direction and took distance.

The wolves were busy chewing and mauling the remains, while Yoon-hae observed their antics from a dark spot, where the wind didn't pass through.

As someone who never used a gun, she wasn't confident of sniping them. It might be possible to deal with if there's only one, but several were present.

She watched the wolves tearing the soldier's clothes and gnawing him until its just bones.

While it's disgusting, she could barely sympathize with others, when her life was at stake.

There's a silver lining when the wolves split up; only one stayed behind, sleeping.

Park Yoon-hae crept closer as silent as possible from behind. While it was risky since she didn't know whether its a trap—she had to move quickly and clear the dungeon or she would freeze to death.
As she got close enough, however—the wolf's nose twitched.

"Hiii!"

She was about to pull the handgun, but luckily manage to restrain herself from firing and screaming her thoughts out.

...but the wolf only rubbed its nose and rolled the other side; not noticing this girl even a bit.

"Phew...aybe it's because I had the same scent as the corpse?"

Yoon-hae observed the wolf; its peaceful posture was kinda cute.

"...but I wouldn't take the risk, seeing what you did to humans."

She unsheathed the combat knife; plunging it straight into the wolf's head.

The blade broke through the thick hide and skull; piercing its brain matter and ceasing its life, before it could even howl.

It quickly dispersed into light particles, which went inside Yoon-hae's pores.

She felt stronger and the cold didn't bother her as much.

"This is what leveling up feels like, huh..."

As if to reward her efforts, a panel appeared.

[Select the Level-up reward!

Basic Marksmanship
Basic Survival
Basic Health Regeneration]

If she's playing a game, she would pick [Basic Health Regeneration] and farm the entire dungeon until she's confident of solo-ing the Boss. She could grind the rest of the skills anyway.

...but right now, she needed to increase her combat options, so she picked [Basic Marksmanship].

The basics of aiming a projectile weapon such as guns and bows flowed into her mind. While she's still not confident to snipe the wolves, she'd be able to land accurate shots when they got close enough.

"Now, which way did the other wolves went to?"

From her position were several forks; all looked the same.

As she wasn't good at remembering details, she decided to just trust her gut and picked a random road.

It was a straight path ahead; the lack of enemies and traps made her uneasy.

She readied her gun; prepared to shoot the first moving target.

...but what came next was a dead end, with a treasure chest chewing another soldier. They seem to have died long ago, and the mimic took its time to digest, exposing its cover from the get-go.

First of all, Park Yoon-hae scanned her surroundings for weapons; there were none.

"Damn, I couldn't get myself an assault rifle again."

She didn't hesitate to unpin the grenade and threw it towards the mimic.

With its metal body, it might be immune to bullets.

She didn't know whether the mimic was able to move around, its abilities, and its reach. If the explosion would attract monsters, it may work to her advantage.

What came next baffled her.

The mimic's tentacles extend from its 'mouth'; eating the grenade whole before it exploded.

Boom!

"Really..."

To her knowledge, mimic's innards were its most vulnerable part.

Did it have no idea what a grenade was?

Park Yoon-hae was completely unamused, as the explosion blew both the soldier's corpse and the mimic apart.

She felt another surge of energy, but the sensation wasn't as strong.

"Probably since I leveled up once—ah!"

To her surprise, a secret passage formed due to the explosion. Since the mimic ate the grenade, its noise wasn't as loud.

From her [Awareness] check, no monsters seem to approach her way.

Again, no traps were present; no forks either. Inside the wall was a medieval prison. This place was quite eerie, with her footsteps making an audible echo. She's afraid of meeting undead, especially ghosts that couldn't be phased with physical attacks.

Most of the cells were empty; a few had only skeletons within. They seem to be unlocked, but Yoon-hae felt goosebumps about approaching them. Even to gain extra experience, it didn't seem worth getting jumped.

The schoolgirl started to regret her impulsiveness of coming here; even doubted her luck.

"No, complaining right now wouldn't solve anything."

She shook her head, clenched her fist, and took several steps forward until she came to a lone steel door.

While the sign was written in a strange language, she's able to understand it.

"Solitary confinement—damn, this kept getting creepier—I wanna go home...uuu..."

She crouched with her head down, and tears start welling up.

It looked so damn cute.

"Yoon-hae, you can do it...you're a big girl—you can do this."

It took her several minutes; she kept swallowing her saliva, and her throat was parched.

Knowing that opening this door would lead her closer to home, she turned the knob; the door opened with a rickety creak.

Seeing what's inside, Park Yoon-hae frowned.

"Dang, it was empty."

Despite her disappointment, she's actually happy, not having to encounter weird and scary things.

...but something wasn't right to her.

"Why would they create a pointless waste of space?"

She took a gamble and tossed another grenade and moved outta the way.

This time, the explosion was loud.

It formed a large crack, leading to a large room with lots of torches, and a giant treasure chest atop a pedestal.

Of course, the pile of blood near it wouldn't fool her.

She rubbed her head, "The same trick on that grunt mimic wouldn't work again, would it?"

Since she really wanted to go home, she just bet everything and tossed the remaining grenades at the huge mimic.

The schoolgirl ended up facepalming when the Boss actually ate them all. The consecutive explosion managed to start a quake, and cracks began to form on the pedestal.

...but despite the series of critical explosions, it wasn't enough to bring it down.

While she cursed under her breath, her lips curved up to a grin, when she saw a huge hole on the mimic; revealing its innards.

She opened fire on the gap; most of her shots were on target, due to its size. Each time the bullet landed, it dealt critical strikes, causing blood fountain to form.

Though her smile didn't last long, in a fit of rage the huge mimic actually jumped all the way into the prison, crashing into the dungeon walls.

Even the combined firepower wasn't enough.

"Weren't bosses normally unable to leave their rooms? Why is it so damn tanky!"

Fortunately, the Boss was pretty dumb. It would only charge straight ahead, allowing Yoon-hae to lead it into hard walls.

Eventually, its life ended after ramming deep into the snowy dungeon wall, and the falling debris wound it even more.

"Take this!"

She emptied the remaining ammo reserve before the Boss eventually dispersed to large amounts of light.

"Haa...haa..."

Yoon-hae fell on the snowy ground; it was enough action for today.

[Dungeon Clear!

Congratulations to Hunter Park Yoon-hae, for the first clear.]

While she felt overwhelming power that cured her fatigue, she's mentally tired to care about formalities.

She's more curious about the japtem; ignoring her string of level-ups aside.

A treasure chest appeared in front of her.

"Oh my goodness, not this shit again."

She immediately plunged the knife into it.

[The Dungeon Master, Trickster Mimic, has been defeated!]

"I knew it—but to think the Dungeon Master was this shameless and cheap, it didn't give me any japtem."

The snowy mountain reverted back to the usual hill behind her school.

...but it wasn't serene like usual.

The police; the military, even his schoolmates and teachers were all here.

"What--this place disappeared all of sudden?" one of the soldiers shouted.

Yoon-hae's teachers and classmates had a worried look, as they approached her ragged self.

Of course, she hid all her weapons at the [Inventory].

Her homeroom teacher, in particular, was really angry.

...but looking at Yoon-hae's exhaustion, she let her be with, "At least you came out alive. Don't ever do this again."

Originally, Yoon-hae were to be suspended for two weeks, but who knows what she'd be doing, since her parents were rarely home in the day, and the school couldn't monitor her.

She's also one of the civilians taken in for questioning that day, and she tried to be as vague as possible.

Since she didn't commit any crime, the police couldn't be harsh on her. After brief questioning, she was sent back home and rested for a whole day.

Though, an abrupt voice in the sky woke her up.

[Humans, rejoice.]

[For there is one to lead your species during the time of Great Cataclysm.]

[He is the one who cleared the first dungeon, Choi Jinmyeong.]

[Perhaps, your kind will be qualified to rule a higher world.]

"Geez..."

Seeing it wasn't important, Park Yoon-hae dozed off again.

Anyway, the schoolgirl actually got an invaluable japtem, from slaying the Trickster Mimic.

It randomly increased her stats by one point.

...but the thing--it went to her luck.

Well, I said the maximum for the stat was ten only at the character creation.

I never said it couldn't increase beyond, during the campaign.

She also got several stat points from leveling up so much.

So currently, her stats look like this.

Strength 5
Perception 5
Endurance 5
Intelligence 8
Awareness 5
Luck 11

Yeah, she put everything to Intelligence.

If I could tell her something--it's useless.

Raising intelligence wouldn't make her smarter, since she could at most, only be as smart as me.

...and I wasn't really that smart.

In any case, let's just make it--by raising intelligence, you can debuff other people's intelligence, making them brain-dead against the main character.

Easy peasy.

Now you might ask—why didn't she put everything on Luck.

It's simple.

If she maxed it out, her luck would be 14—an unlucky number.

As someone who relied on luck, she's kinda superstitious at times.

Anyway, I had enough of the campaign right now. Let me relax for a bit, and continue when I feel like it.