Chapter 9: Chap. 8 : Field Testing

Zoemie looked at her full set of equipment. It had been a few more days, now, and her equipment set was complete. Sword, mask, top, skirt, leggings, gloves, sword. Everything was here, gleaming and crackling with power, almost as if on the edge and about to burst, small arcs of white mana erupting with regularity. Zoemie smiled with satisfaction. All this time and effort had been worth it.

The sword was massive, exactly as planned by Zoemie. It had a pink blade, brown hilt and silvery white guard and pommel. The top looked like a thick, pink and purple striped shirt, with a silver collar and sleeve tips.

The leggings and gloves were also silver, both of them seemingly made from the same material, and they had in fact the same material combination. They both looked rather thin, but because of curses they was both comfy and very tough despite its appearance.

The mask was the most noticeable part, however. It was pale pink with silvery white earmuffs, a pitch black, wholly opaque visor, which was cursed to allows Zoemie to see normallly through it. Its shape was generally triangular, covering not just the eyes, but also the upper part of the nose.

Beyond the face coverage, the upper part extended around Zoemie's head, reaching and covering the back of her neck as well, and had a withdrawable jaw protection, colored pale purple. The equipment also had a curse that prevented anyone other than Zoemie and anyone she authorized to use it. It was mostly a safety option to prevent any kind of theft. You never know.

The outfit as a whole was very much to Zoemie's aesthetic tastes, she was quite happy with her results, the aura the outfit emitted being good at keeping threats away. Now only one thing remained – trying her equipment out on the field. And to that end, Zoemie was now out of the dungeon, standing at the entrance and looking at her surroundings.

Zoemie comtemplated the surroundings, slightly flabbergasted at the beauty of the woods. She hadn't taken the time to real look at them, and now that she had a bit more at her disposal, she could truly take in their beauty. Shaking her head and focusing herself, Zoemie approached a lone tree.

It's a tree, alright. Zoemie did not know much about trees. Oak ? Poplar ? She couldn't tell, nor did she care. She wasn't a dendrologist after all, but she could see one thing : It was a big, tall tree. Zoemie circled around the trunk, trying to find a good position to slice it down.

Zoemie grumbled as she conjured her sword from her storage spell. Current mode, slice. Activate anti-friction spell... The teenage girl swallowed back a bit of worry as she changed her stance, clearly showing her unexperience at swinging the thing around, even despite her experimentation.

There was something oddly bizarre about seeing a seemingly frail and slender girl like Zoemie lift an enormous sword like she was doing. Zoemie breathed in, focused, and swung the enormous blade right through the tree, slashing straight through the trunk and almost tripping over her own feet as the momentum carried her away.

"Gah !" she screamed in surprise, jumping to the side to avoid the enormous tree, which fell down with a loud thud. Thankfully, there were no other trees around, the massive trunk instead resting uneasily on the mountainside.

"Yeah, okay, that's no more tree alright. Gonna need a place to shove this monstrosity, because who knows ?" Maybe its wood will have uses. Better have it and not need it. "Still, that blade packs one helluva punch." said Zoemie, satisfied, as she pondered what to do about the fallen tree. She couldn't exactly leave it here.

Zoemie teleported it into the storage room, which she expanded a bit to accomodate the massive trunk. Let's try that sword on something that moves, now. As Zoemie wandered through her territory within the forest looking for something to hunt, she found it eerily quiet.

"This place is a lot bigger than I thought." she said as she reached the end of her territory, behind which she had no ownership of the forest. "I can definitely increase the size of my territory." I'll do that tonight, Zoemie decided as she went out of her the dungeon.

Zoemie went a bit further in, reaching the top of a mound of dirt, and as she looked down, she saw a large monster. An enormous slothlike creature, with the head of a bear and 35-centimeters-long, pitch-black claws. Zoemie drew slightly closer to the enormous, moss-furred beast, who was seemingly completely unaware of her presence.

Its black claws gleamed eerily in the pale light, the whole beast feeling utterly out of place in such a enchanting area. Yet, it was far from the deadliest being prowling those woods, beneath whom it currently stood, as Zoemie thought about how to approach it.

Zoemie switched her sword to crush mode, activated the enchantments, and jumped down at the creature, swinging her blade horizontally. The sword smashed in the back of the monster's neck, destroying its brain stem and killing it on the spot.

"Silent and deadly." The silent part was questionable, but in the vastness of the forest, it was but a normal noise. What better place to hide a needle than a pile of needles ? And any being that heard the sounds would not find it unusual in any fashion.

In the forest, it was the law of strength that ruled. The stronger killing the weaker, again and again, in a gruesome hierarchy of violence, no stranger to the self-replicating nature of hierarchies. The beasts in this forest might be stronger than those in others, but that did not change the rules.

Zoemie looked at the monster's corpse, and teleported in the storage room. She had no knowledge of what kind of being it was or what to do with it, and did not care either way, so she once again played it safe. Maybe it's edible ? Zoemie thought about it, and decided against it. I can't even eat steaks tougher than patties, so game meat...

---

Zoemie had wandered a bit, and was now looking at her next target. She had found two more monsters, and killed them both. Right now, she was staring down seemingly emptiness, her sword at the ready.

Zoemie empowered her sword with magic, speeding up her slash further, and swung horizontally, smashing straight in the charging creature's jaw. The beast's head jerked back, crushing its own spine and dying on the spot.

The beast she just killed was an enormous quadruped, much like a sabertooth, with an enormous, singular, curved, pure white horn, similar to a rhino's. The horn was completely undamaged, despite the beast's brutal fate. Zoemie didn't realize it, but she could easily sell it for her own weight in cash. And even is she knew, she wouldn't care.

Zoemie picked up the off-yellow carcass and threw it in the storage room as she went into thought. So far, this is easy. Only two of them even saw me, and neither landed a hit on me... Let's go home. Although Zoemie had gotten the feeling that even if they did, she would've taken little damage.

Still, Zoemie returned inside her dungeon a successful huntress, and promptly changed herself to normal clothes. She then sighed, throwing her head backwards in satisfaction as she looked at the ceiling.

"Equipment acquired. Alright. Now if bastards try anything funny I can beat the shit out of them easy." Convenient. Zoemie stayed here a while, staring at the ceiling, out of it. What now ? Zoemie wasn't sure. Gaming was going to return as her primary time investment, most likely. She might have finished that All Challenge Epic 100%, but there were plenty more to do.

Zoemie's backlog was big and she had plenty of games to play. Mokepon Mystery Dungeon Recruit'em all ? More Domini ? GemDefender ? Yggdrasil Odyssey ? DrakeQuest Creatures Joker ? The second one ? DrakeQuest 9 ? Maybe not that one... Zoemie stayed here a while, thinking about the future.

And that was just the games she knew about, of course. She teleported into her room, happy, and shook around on the bed for a while, moving her body left and right and playing with the pillows as her mind raced through the various possible games she could play and complete. It'll take a bit of time for her to find the next game – it always did. But that was how Zoemie rolled.

The most important thing for Zoemie is that she no longer had to bother worrying about her equipment anymore. It meant she could focus on other things, like sending the messages to her father and Nethany. Zoemie decided to do that now, actually, although first she reread her letters.

Once that was done, Zoemie sighed and focused. Dad first. Unlike Neth, Zoemie was sure that her father would welcome the letter. She printed the letter using magic – Zoemie's handwriting was atrocious, hance her decision to computer-type it instead, wrapped it in an envelope, wrote "From Zoemie" on it, and focused to teleport it into their flat's living room.

The envelope disappeared as Zoemie felt the mana drain from her again. Once the drain was over, Zoemie nodded. Nethany's letter would be sent later, when she had recovered some mana, which wasn't going to be in a while. She could use the skirt to force that mana through, but she didn't want to overuse it now that there was no pressing need for that extra regeneration.

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Zoemie considered her next move. Other than Neth's letter, she didn't have anything to do. Which means more time for gaming ! Let's go. Zoemie teleported into her bedroom, opened her laptop, and started gaming.

---

What Zoemie referred to as "gaming" was a somewhat broader definition that most people would accept. While it did involve playing games, it also involved for Zoemie things like "planning out builds", "gathering informations" and "ingame experimentation", applicability depending on the game.

Right now, Zoemie was reviewing building layouts. While she may not have a network connection, a now missing video with a nice picture of a pink haired anime girl taught Zoemie an important thing, and that was to download and backup anything that may be useful or that she liked. Zoemie very much was a data hoarder, although she did not know of the concept.

Zoemie spent all of her time when on Internet on sites dedicated to games she played, and therefore was very ignorant of broader Internet culture. She didn't know what a meme was, by example, and considered these a waste of time and energy. Although if it amused them, she wasn't going to play killjoy.

Then again Zoemie never posted anything at all. After all, the Internet never forgets. One lesson she had taken to heart, Zoemie was the archetypal lurker who read every thread without having an account or even mailbox. Zoemie did eventually open a mailbox but it was only because her father had asked her too.

Zoemie's rather peculiar Internet usage also meant she had very little porn on her computer or Internet history, even counting in private browsing, and most of it was found by accident. Zoemie had known she liked girls for a long time, or rather she never found boys or men attractive. She couldn't think of a single man she liked, while for girls there were quite a few she found pretty.

Nethany would be the most obvious example. Although, she's probabl not interested in me. I mean, nobody could. I'm short, not pretty, and have a really horrible personality... At least Dad didn't give a fuck that I like girls. Something which didn't surprise Zoemie, he always had been that kind of fellow that takes people as they are.

He never scolded Zoemie for her defiance and always took her side, always. Hell, it was him who bought the flat and got her out of there. Zoemie wasn't quite sure what made him realize something was off, but she certainly didn't complain one bit. Made her life slightly easier. Slightly, because the other kids were still major dicks, but to be fair that would've been true regardless of school.

His sole reaction to learning that Zoemie got a one-week ban from school was to take her on a family vacation. A very nice vacation, if some would say a bit modest. Best week of my life. Although he did call the school when he got the full version from Zoemie herself. She had tried to tell the faculty, but of course they didn't listen, going "lalala we don't give a shit".

Zoemie wasn't very sure what he said exactly, but she did hear mention of lawyers, so whatever her father did, it worked. When she returned next week, the faculty where much more willing to listen to her. And a few of them seemed rather spooked by the whole mess, although for Zoemie she was in the right. How true that is depends on one's opinion and the version they've heard.

Nethany at least had also listened to Zoemie's version after she had returned and taken her side, and she had used her post as representative to make her displeasure towards their response clear as well. Glad she missed that whole mess, though. Didn't want her seeing me like that. Why wasn't she in school again ? Ah, right, stomach bug.

Zoemie decided to distract herself from reminiscing about things she'd much rather forget by remodeling the dungeon a little. The first thing she did was to go to the entrance. She conjured a large door from another magical alloy, cursed it to increase its toughness further, and went to figure out the entrance.

---

Zoemie looked at the remade entrance, satisfied. She didn't want a lock that could be broken or picked, so she had went "Hmm... how am I gonna do th... I know ! A magical keycard lock." Zoemie had promptly conjured the appropriate equipment, set the door in place, to the side of the entrance.

What was once simply a hole in the mountainside had now a waist-high wall, like a prison parlor, with a locked door to the side. Said door had not only received a curse, but also the dungeon's reinforce feature. Although Zoemie didn't know it, the door was resilient enough to stand up to basically anything.

Zoemie sighed with satisfaction. It would make for a nice entrance, the corridor inside the dungeon was higher than the clearing outside, making Zoemie stare down guests. She then turned around, and focused. What she did next was extend the dungeon further, her crescent line-of-sight closing behind the mountain and turning into a circle, which she extended further still, until she was satisfied again.

Zoemie didn't quite know how much surface she covered, but it was a pretty big amount, now.That said, she still didn't find any less dense forest, so she was probably still deep in. To be more exact, it would take one around one and an half hour to move from the edge of the forest to the borders of Zoemie's dungeon, and an extra hour to reach the mountain.

The closest town was around an hour from the forest's edge, meaning that coming from that town one would take around three and an half hours. None of the town's inhabitants even knew there was a dungeon in the forest – they were more worried about the normal monsters in the forest, most of which were very threatening to an untrained peasant.

And they had no reason to go deep into the forest either – the trees were basically impossible to chop down, even with a modern high-performance chainsaw, let alone a lumberjack's axe. They mostly ignored the forest and focused on things that mattered more to them, like their next harvest.

Zoemie smiled as she returned inside, unaware of all that. She instead decided to take a nap, tired. She could've started gaming, but she'd rather do that when fully awake. She had nothing but time now, anyway. No need to rush.

---

When Zoemie woke up, she first went out to grab some water. She was always thirsty after waking up, but to her it was normal. Once that was done, Zoemie sighed. Time to send Neth the letter. She could feel her body tense up at the idea, like it was an unwanted intrusion in Nethany's life.

But, well, she kind of wanted to. Is that selfish ? Yeah, definitely. But then again just that bit of selfishness wouldn't be too bad. Zoemie sighed, focused, and decided to get it over with. She visualized in her mind Nethany's face again, and teleported the letter to her.

Zoemie's mana drained again, as the letter disappeared and she sighed. That was that. No more of this, now. Zoemie didn't have any reason to think about any of her classmates anymore. She hoped they would rot, or fail that at least leave her alone. The more they celebrate my fuckin' absence, the better.

She smiled. She had plenty of gaming and peace to look forward to, now. No more dealing with assholes – she had a place to stay and the power and weaponry necessary to force them out as soon as they came. And if she did have to put them to sword... Well, Zoemie could live with that.

Zoemie looked around, before she decided to start gaming for a few hours, until more or less it was food time. After which she'd grab food, clean up, and game again. I like that plan. So, Zoemie got to playing, opening up her computer, looking around on the desktop at what to play next.

Once Zoemie found a game she was interested, in playing, she booted it up. Let's get this one started, Zoemie decided as she looked over her old notes, reminding herself of the meta and checking over data.

She's playing again, Xajymzia constated as she observed Zoemie a little, before returning to her experimentations. The ability to move things between worlds... This should be my starting point. Xajymzia looked over at her quote-unquote "recording" of the magical energies involved in sending the letter.

She would have to test it on her own, too. But what to send that wouldn't be out of place ? Or maybe focus on bringing items over ? This is probably a smarter approach, actually. Dungeons had built-in functions for avoiding litter, handling corpses disposal, and similar things. Xajymzia quickly considered the monster corpses Zoemie brought earlier in the day, as she prepared the meal for Zoemie.

All of the monsters' meat was technically edible, but Xajymzia's magic indicated to her Zoemie would dislike it. Therefore, she had simply decided to remake the spinach-egg-cheddar cream dish again. Zoemie has a truly uncanny ability to eat the same thing three times a day every day if she likes it enough. Still, best to vary dishes.

What could I bring from the other side ? The items she had conjured when Zoemie arrived were brand new, and while Zoemie's own knowledge was limited, magic could gather it anyway through... complicated phenomenons involving collective knowledge. But here, she was thinking about bringing an actual item instead of just conjuring it straight.

Xajymzia's plan for that was to use junk from a landfill or junkyard. Nobody would notice if some of it went missing. As she continued to prepare the food, Xajymzia quickly checked on her charge. Parallel thinking is quite useful... Xajymzia nodded as she sensed Zoemie about to teleport for dinner. She would probably just game afterwards, then go to sleep at her usual time.

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