The Dungeon message hovers in my vision, awaiting an answer from me. Before answering however, I first consider the meaning behind what it says. Firstly, it asks if my “party of (1)” wants to challenge the Boss, which implies that if I had someone helping me, the Dungeon would recognize us as a group, possibly only letting in one group at a time? If that is the case, that would be fantastic, as that would prevent something interrupting my fight like the Moss Wolves did earlier. Additionally, while I am unfamiliar with what a Boss would be exactly in the case of the Dungeon, I can intuit that whatever it is will most likely be a powerful monster, a leader type perhaps?

This guesswork isn't getting me anywhere though, so I give an affirmative nod towards the engraved stone door, at which it immediately begins to open with a loud groaning sound. A bright light immediately begins to fill the dim section of the cave I'm in, illuminating it fully in moments. I have to squint for a few seconds to allow my sight to adjust, the sudden change from dark to light being something that [Nightvision] apparently doesn't help with.

After my vision finishes readjusting to the new lighting, I am met with a fairly expansive room covered in greenery. If there were no walls and a ceiling visible, I would have thought I had just walked outside once more. Lush grass covered the ground, A large version of the bright bulbous plant taking the place of the sun as it brightens up the room from the stone ceiling it clings to. At the end opposite me, a tiny island is sectioned off by a circular shallow creek that surrounds it, with a large tree in its center whose branches devoid of leaves stretch across the rock above, nearly touching the ceiling nearly two dozen feet above.

It’s this tree that my attention is drawn to, as a figure stands in front of it, staring right at me. The figure looks to have the appearance of a teenage boy, girl, thing? Their appearance is fairly androgynous, but the leafy apparel over their chest and waist makes me think they are female, possibly. It's honestly hard to tell, and the odd appearance they have doesn't help. They have skin nearly as black as night, with green hair flowing down to their neck. I say hair, but on further inspection, it looks closer to woven leaves intertwined with vines growing from the top of the figure's head. Their eyes share that shade of green in place of both the whites and pupils, leaving nothing but orbs the color of grass in their sockets.

The tingling feeling I have come to associate with something Analyzing me crawls down my spine to the tips of my tails, and a crash from behind me loudly proclaims the closing of the stone door I just passed through. I glance back for only a moment to confirm that the doors were actually what made the noise, before I turn back around and immediately use [Runic Vision] to find out what exactly I am dealing with, as the figure half my size continues to stare at me from across the room.

{Blackbirch Dryad Offshoot: Level 30}

[Highest Stat: Mana Control]

(Dungeon Boss)

The Dryad must have taken my use of the Analysis Skill as an act of aggression, because as soon as I finish skimming over the provided info, I see their emerald eyes flash brightly and step backwards into the tree behind them, merging partway through the trunk and gaining a bark-like quality to their skin in the process. As I process this first oddity, their eyes flash again, and a translucent green dome covers the section of tree they merged with, and the many branches reaching up to the ceiling begin to droop downwards like the limbs of the Arboros I have faced, except in much larger quantity than the pair that usually accompanies the now much less intimidating tree monsters, at least in comparison to the teenage-looking figure gazing at me with its emerald orbs.

Before the first tendril of wood reaches me, I intercept it with one of my tails, cutting through the branch with the tip that is still sharpened from my previous battle, lopping off the sharp point that had been racing towards me. The wooden appendage recoils from the slight dismemberment, but another of the dozens of branches swiftly replaces it, and I have to start wildly swinging both of my tails around to fend off the onslaught of attacks headed my way. I slash through several tendrils with both tail tips, cleanly severing any that get in the way, but that proves to be a mistake quickly. While the dagger-like tips are extremely effective at slashing through the branches with precision, using just the tips to fend off the much larger amount of branches is just too slow of a tactic, and doesn't fully utilize the complete length of my prodigious tails. Case in point, while I do manage to cut through a handful of branches, halting their advance with each severed length I remove, twice as many just weave around the deadly weapons, darting forwards to pierce a dozen spots on the massive target that is my body.

I dash to my left to avoid the barrage as best I can, but two of the branches manage to still hit their targets, piercing into my right shoulder and side all the way through. As the spike of pain reaches me, I conjure an axe out of light into my left hand for a moment and sever the wooden appendages, leaving the sections impaling me inside for the moment. Now seeing my error, I give up on the precise strikes with my tails and instead whip their lengths in wide arcs, [Tail Whip] turning the entirety of both limbs into weapons that slash through dozens of branches each. I continue doing this a few more times, breaking branches before any more can reach me, until I see all of the wooden limbs hover out of reach, many of which are already regrowing or sharpening themselves once more. A few that got severed by my tail tips during the [Tail Whips] start to have sickly black veins slowly spread down their lengths, the effect of the Tier 2 Unholy hex, but the Dryad controlling the tree notices quickly, and commands nearby branches to sever the affected areas so they may regrow properly. I'm a little annoyed at how effectively that counters the hex, but I soon comfort myself by reasoning that few things can just remove sections of their body to fix the problem… hopefully.

I'm not one to talk, I could do the same thing, even if the regrowing of an arm would take much longer than their branches.

I glance over at the Dryad, noticing that they are now scrutinizing me more as they hold back, looking for an opening of some kind. I use this momentary reprieve to remove the two pieces of wood impaling me, and I immediately cut off the bleeding by conjuring solid cylinders of light in the wounds to cauterize the entire length in moments. That takes a bit of concentration to accomplish, but the effect is worth it, as the bleeding stops much faster than it would have if I didn't have the solid form of [Light Of Justice] that I have now. The Dryad also notices the swiftness in which I closed both wounds, as their gaze narrows at the sight, at which they begin to lift both their arms up to their face. Not wanting to see whatever it is they are doing, I immediately begin dashing forwards, going on the offensive at last, my long legs carrying me closer and closer with every stride. The branches above dive towards me once more as the Dryad cups their hands together in front of their mouth, but I manage to deflect the improvised spears with my tails, their lengths only taking superficial scrapes as they dispatch of the wooden limbs, none managing to reach my body this time.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

I soon reach the shallow creek surrounding the island that the tree’s trunk and in turn, the Dryad, reside, and I leap across the small obstacle without much difficulty. The speed at which I can sprint means that I could reach the other end of the room in but a few seconds, but that is all the time the Dryad needed, as a green glow emits from their cupped hands and they blow a powerful gust of wind towards me as I regain my footing after the jump. The wind conjured from the Dryad isn't enough to knock me over or anything, it is more like a calm breeze than anything else, the problem comes from the plethora of glowing particles that begin to waft towards me from their hands, drifting in the breeze with ease. I run sideways once more, continuing to fend off the spears of wood above me with my tails, but the wind seems to follow me as the glowing particles of green light chase me at the same time. The first of the particles hits one of my tails, by happenstance more than anything, and then it… does nothing. Or at least it seems to do nothing, but when a second manages to touch a scratch on the tail, it begins to sting even more painfully, and dark green liquid begins to mix with the black blood coming from the small wound. The poisonous orbs chasing me now become much more worrying as I take into account the dozens of small scrapes and scratches all over my tails that had been negligible moments earlier. If all the particles manage to reach me, my low Level [Poison Resistance] isn't going to mean anything compared to the sheer volume of poison.

So, I keep running, now trying to keep my tails away from the green particles of magic chasing me while deflecting branches at the same time, partly successfully. Only a handful of the particles manage to reach open wounds before I get the idea to close up the wounds by activating [Light Of Justice] over and over again on each cut, preventing the poison from getting into my bloodstream directly, and based on the spots of unblemished skin touched by the poison particles, the poisons effectiveness is drastically reduced when it comes to just skin contact. I begin to slow my run and start dispersing the rest of the attack by covering both my arms in the non-solid form of [Light Of Justice] and waving them about, catching as many of the particles as possible and reducing their effectiveness as much as possible. Doing this, I see that besides closing up any cuts that the poison might get into, any of the particles that get too close to the glowing light would also grow smaller and disperse even without direct contact. After obtaining this knowledge, it only takes me a short while to get rid of the last bits of poison particles, after which I notice that the branches had stopped their assault at last. Turning towards the base of the tree, I see the green barrier that had been covering the Dryad dispersing as said Dryad starts walking towards me, no longer merged with the tree. Instead, they now have retained the bark-like skin they obtained when merged, and are now wielding a wooden buckler and shortsword, both of which covered in thorny vines all over dripping green liquid I can only assume to be poisonous.

“Taking the direct approach now, huh? Do you really think that is a good idea?”

I spread my arms out mockingly as the figure half my height continues to approach, shield up and sword at the ready. They don't rise to the bait though, and stay cautious instead of getting riled up by the mild taunt. They might not even understand me, even with the human/demon-like appearance, it is a Dungeon monster after all. Maybe they decided to fight me head on after seeing me able to deal with both the tree branches and poison breath with little damage taken. Yes, I am riddled with cuts and even have a couple of holes in me where I have been impaled, but I also have regrown limbs before, so my definition of harm has drastically changed in the short period of time since arriving on Dharta. Still, I probably shouldn't take the threat this Dryad poses lightly, even if it looks tiny in comparison, it is still two levels higher than me and I have most likely done even less damage to them than they have to me.

I form a pair of gloves with sharpened claws on their tips over both my hands, and crouch slightly to get ready to strike whenever, but it is with my tails that I start the melee. I whip both of them across from opposite directions as soon as the Dryad gets within fifteen feet of me, well within my range, aiming their sharpened tips at the Dungeon Boss’ neck and chest. The Dryad lifts its wooden buckler to block the tail aimed at its neck, and tries to slash at my other tail with its deceptively sharp wooden shortsword, but I manage to divert the strike enough that I avoid it getting sliced apart, but I miss hitting anything but air as a result. No matter however, as I started to charge forwards myself the moment I started the attack, and as my first tail digs into the wooden shield a good bit, I manipulate its shape slightly to give it a hooked end and yank my tail back towards me as I sprint forwards, managing to jerk the Dryads arm enough to have them stumble towards me with the unexpected tug. That stumble is enough for me to yank their sword out of their grip with one of my clawed gloves, my greater strength and stature allowing for me to wrench it out with little difficulty, even if I had to grab it by the blade to do so. Thankfully, the solid light holds up, so I toss the blade behind me as I punch the Dryad in the face with my other fist, sending it staggering back, stunned from the blow despite the barkskin it is covered with.

Then I punch them in the face again.

And again.

And again.

Until finally, the Dryad collapsed backwards, falling unconscious from the flurry of punches. I stand over them, breathing heavily as I allow [Light Of Justice] to dissipate, before sitting down right there in the grass. Yes, I could've used the claws I conjured, slashed through their armor with my tails, but something stopped me from doing so. As the fight continued, a feeling in my chest grew stronger and stronger as I got closer to the Dryad. Uncertainty.

Yes, I know that they are most likely nothing more than a monster, but even the pixie I took out before was less, well, less like a person. The Dryad sprawled out on the ground, with nearly pitch black skin now losing its bark-like quality and hair woven of foliage, looks too much like a person. A child not much younger than I am. True, they also tried to kill me, but as I approached and saw their face, I just couldn't go through with it. Maybe I won't get a reward from just knocking out the Dryad, and if not, that'll suck. But as I look down and see the face of a sleeping teen, my resolve to kill them fades away as I sigh dejectedly.

[You Have Defeated (Dungeon Boss) {Blackbirch Dryad Offshoot: Level 30}]

[Reward Drops Shall Now Be Generated]

[For Completing Nature’s Reclaimed Mineshaft For The First Time, You Will Be Granted A Bonus Chest]

[You Are Now In Relative Safety, Rewards From Combat Shall Now Be Distributed]

Well shit, looks like Dharta can be merciful after all. Thank Goddess.