"KISHAAA!"
The Mimic leapt in place, its wooden body rattling as it celebrated.
It had acquired. Its first meal since spawning.
But the joy faded quickly, Its entire hunting ground was soaked in blood—dark pools spread across the stone, streaked with shattered bone and torn fabric. The Mimic knew how this looked. If another adventurer wandered into this corridor, they would grow suspicious.
Not that it could see.
Mimics had no eyes—but that didn’t matter.
Through Mana Perception, it could perceive everything in a 5 meter radius.
Satisfied no immediate threats lurked nearby, the Mimic returned to its meal.
It sprang forward, its tongue snapping out like a tentacle. The tongue coiled around one corpse’s waist and dragged it into its gaping maw. Three heavy bites were enough to swallow the body whole, chainmail and all.
The second corpse followed.
This one was softer.
The robe’s texture was… pleasant.
The Mimic paused briefly, then continued chewing.
After having its fill, it had to clean up its mess. It tried licking up the blood with its tongue but it constantly had to jump around from one place to another. But how else could it move?
The Mimic thought for a while trying to think up of a better way to clean up the blood.
"hashya!" the Mimic exclaimed, it thought up of something. You could almost see a bulb lighting up on its head.
Another strange window popped up into its consciousness. Although it somehow understood the words, it simply lacked the brain capacity to process their meaning. Not that it had any intention of doing so right now. It still had to try out its idea.
"Shakshusk" it chanted.
"..."
"Shakshus!" it tried again.
"SASHUSH!" while it only vaguely sounded like 'Status', it was somehow recognised.
A blue screen appeared in its mind. The Mimic was very confused at what it was seeing, it only tried chanting status because it saw plenty of adventurers doing the same thing.
After using its single brain cell to try and read its status it could only come up with one answer...
That it was more stupid than it thought. It barely understood anything written.
It took the attribute gain as a confirmation for its rather obvious deduction. Such leaps of logic were truly extraordinary for most dungeon monsters.
Even if Intelligence (INT) improved its memory capacity and Wisdom (WIS) helped the Chest put its knowledge to use, It was still a stupid Mimic.
After struggling to focus on reading its species for a while, a screen appeared.
The words meant something, but not enough. Chest—object. It understood the shape of it. Wood, stillness. Mimic—copy. It had copied shape before, but the idea of copying something else was unclear. Lesser—small. Weak. That part made sense. But what was it supposed to become? The description offered no answer.
Stolen story; please report.
It then tried focusing on the word Mimic and another screen appeared.
Predatory. Hunt. Survival. Those ideas were clearer. Entity, something that exists. Shapeshifter—change, but when did it ever change shape? deception, pretending to be something else was harder to grasp. The meaning remained distant.
After it was satisfied with its research, it checked its status's skill list and there was one skill that caught its non-existent eye's attention.
Woodshaping. Manipulation. Reshape wood. Higher levels… advanced forms. Energy cost. SP. When SP was gone, something else was taken.
It read the words again. Then again.
Change. Shape. Its body.
It tried focusing on its bottom and imagined legs forming.
The wood beneath its body creaked, planks shifting and bending. The underside thickened and formed two blunt ridges, not legs, but enough to grip the stone. It then grew on its back a lever-like shape with a flat tip that it could control, pushing it against the ground.
The Chest scraped forward with a harsh grrrrk, wood grinding against dungeon floor.
It stopped.
Tried again.
push. Scrape. Stop.
Slow—but it worked.
"KISHAA" the Mimic celebrated.
It now had a more convenient method of transporation, even if it was slower it now no longer had to jump constantly.
It instantly got to work. It opened its mouth and let its tongue drop out It then spent the next several minutes pushing itself around the place, determined to remove all evidence of anyone dying here. The blood was lapped up and the ripped up fabric stuck to the wet tongue. The tongue wrapped up around the wand before swallowing it whole. It then attempted to pick up the iron sword the same way but held it too strong and cut itself.
"ACK!!"
It let go of the sword making it drop on the ground.
It then remembered that the adventurer held it from the handle, so it tried doing the same and it worked.
The Mimic then thought what it should do with it, obviously it cant eat it, and its tongue is too large to wield it correctly, so it tried thinking up of a way to dispose of it.
It started looking around the area.
The Mimic pushed itself around while dragging the sword on the floor. It was searching for a good place to hide the sword or dispose of it. thats when it found a large rope bridge above a seemingly bottomless pit.
It went next to the pit and dropped the sword into it.
"..."
*
*
*
The sword hit the 'bottomless' pit and made a high pitched sound that reverberated through the area.
"Uh, did you hear that?"
"Yeah what was that sound?"
The distant voice made the Mimic freeze.
"Not sure, lets go check it out."
It then heard another voice, even if it didn't understand what they were saying, it was sure the voice was coming closer to him.
it quickly started pushing itself towards its spot, as it heard footsteps coming towards its direction.
it managed to reach its spot in time.
It removed the two ridges and the lever, then returned to being a seemingly normal chest, it sat down and closed its lid.
Two sets of footsteps came, the Mimic followed its instincts and kept perfectly still. A man and a woman entered the area.
The black haired man held an iron dagger that glowed with a strange blue light, and he wore light iron armor that protected only his vital parts. the woman had dark green hair, smooth curved wooden horns growing from her head, colorful flowers growing around her body and light brown bark-like skin, she was also wearing a long light green robe and was wielding a wooden staff with a green orb that had mana swirling around it.
A wooden chest? the man asked.
"A wooden chest!?" the woman said excitedly.
"Woww its so cute." she said as she crouched next to it.
"Look at those details.. those curves, and hinges..."
She continued admiring the.. 'beautiful' chest as she tapped her nails against it, and felt its 'majestic' wooden exterior.
"Taron can i take it home!?" she said as she turned toward him.
"Huh what?"
"The chest! Can i take it home?"
"Lyra did you forget? Dungeon Chests are made of mana, they dissipate into nothing if they leave the dungeon."
"Oh righ—"
"..."
"KAH! KOFF" she sputtered green blood. The Mimic pierced right through her chest with a wooden spike!
"Healing lig—" the Mimic pierced another hole through her stomach.
"KOFF! KOFF!"
"..Tar—"
"..."
She slumped forward.
"...Lyra."
The Mimic then slowly pulled the wooden spikes back into its body, dragging its victim right into its waiting maw.
"LYRAAA! NOOO!"
*
His beloved Girlfriend, that childish, smart and optimistic person was now being eaten infront of him, green blood and guts gushed all over the place.
"YOUUU!"
"YOU ARE GOING TO PAY FOR THAT YOU PIECE OF SHIT!"
Taron then threw his only weapon at the Mimic.
**
The dagger quickly cut through the air.
it got deflected off one of the Mimic's iron straps.
"KOFF! KOFF!" Taron sputtered blood. The dagger was deflected right back into his neck!
Suddenly the ice magic infused dagger glowed brighter, and ice started forming.
“Hh—hah—hhk—!” he clawed at his neck, unable to breath.
**
"..."
"YASHAAA!!" the Mimic hissed, celebrating its victory. Completely unaware of how lucky it was.
After devouring the man, licking up any blood and crushing their weapons, it started pushing itself back to its spot. Until, it suddenly felt like something staring through it.
