With the zombies gone, escaping the rays of light and the coming morning, Mikan was now safe to escape her hastily made safety shelter without dying. As she promptly remembered a meme once shared to her, of beginning Minecraft players hiding in a small hole underground from various night-time enemies, she frowned upon noticing a horde of slime approaching her again.
"Ah, fuck, I hate surviving in the wilderness," the girl muttered, putting her structure back to its magical barrier-making form, shutting the slime out.
As they drew closer, some smacking into the invisible wall of her safety shelter, the girl rubbed her chin before opening her inventory again.
"You know, I might as well as actually see what else I can do asides from chopping down trees and building stuff."
The first thing she noted was that it seemed she was equipped with wings. This confused her greatly, because there definitely wasn't anything attached to her back. But perhaps... Upon the intent to fly forming, she noticed from the corner of her vision - while looking behind her - that weak-looking wings suddenly sprouted from her back. And it didn't even give off any freaky, tingling sensation too - it was as if they were a parasitic equipment that sensed her intent to fly and did so for her, without actually having been planted into her body.
Mikan's eyes widened. "Whoa, sw-" The girl then flew upwards and, in less than even a split second, crashed into the shelter's barrier-enforced ceiling. Pain surged through her head, and despite no actual damage being done, she felt like half her life had been smacked away from her health bar, if anyone could see it at all.
Hissing, the girl settled down again and her wings disappeared.
I can't believe I hurt myself in this safe space that's around my height, the girl whimpered mentally.
That was humiliating, and hopefully, this does not spread to anyone.
...now that she thought about it... I wonder if the others back home are watching and making fun of me, the girl thought. 'Character watches story' wasn't that common of a fanfiction idea, but she's seen a fair amount of that sort of thing, and now that she herself was in an insert story, her family/clan/something members that weren't put into this world were probably watching her like those stories and criticizing her every second.
"...well, I'll kick their asses once I finish this Terraria game and get back to them."
Opening her inventory once more, she moved on to another item that piqued her interest.
Some sort of circular, head-sized mirror that, upon pulling out, she had to hold with both hands. Gazing into it, she felt a strange sensation growing inside her - and thus she quickly put it back into her inventory screen. "Nope. Nuh uh. Not doing any of that weird psychic bullshit," she muttered. Narrowing her eyes at the item once more, a description box popped up on the screen.
'Magic Mirror: Gaze in the mirror to return home.'
The girl blinked. "...huh. Convenient, but I don't need that now, I suppose." The girl shrugged and attempted to move on, before she paused and glanced back at the slot. "...wait, actually, these could come in really handy, and if I accidentally lose them, I'd be fucked..." the girl whispered. Realizing how useful the duplication shtick this world let her play with was, the girl pulled her Magic Mirror and her Fledgling Wings out the inventory and equipment slots, navigated herself to the item research function, and plopped them in.
Minutes later, she had blindly put all her other items in the research function slot and replicated them back into her inventory.
Knowing how easier her life hr probably became, the girl gave herself some mental pats on the back. Smart thinking, me. Then, glancing at another slot, she wondered what it did, having duplicated it blindly without actually examining it.
'Finch Staff: Summons a baby finch to fight for you.'
"...ooh, this is neat," the girl thought. "Finch... finches are a kind of bird, right? Wish I had ravens or crows, though, those are cool," the girl said. "But I guess I won't complain with being able to summon a helping fighter... creature... thing... thing-a-ding-ling. Partner, yeah."
Grabbing her staff and pulling it from her inventory, the girl smiled and prepared to summon her new combat partner (or something on a smaller scale, but it didn't hurt to try to be epic about it) before she remembered something.
One, she was in a safety shelter basically the size of herself. There's really no extra space here, unless she wanted some kind of inappropriate comedy just for the sake of it, which, in her family, is seen as unnecessary fanservice.
Two, there's a huge mob of slime outside, all piling up trying to attack her and being blocked by the barrier, practically covering the entire of her shelter and preventing her from seeing anything outside other than colorful blobs.
Three... well, there's no actual third point, but the girl supposed she'd come up with something eventually.
Mikan then raised an eyebrow. "Wait, what if I could summon this thing outside..." The girl blinked a few times before smiling. It's worth a try, ain't it? With a very small and not epic swing of her staff, magical aura flew from her staff out the barrier, the small decorative finch on top soaring along, before puffing with smoke into a real finch outside her shelter. "Sweet!"
Then, as if programmed like a robot, it quickly detected the horde of slime and began soaring around the infestation, knocking various slime of different colors around. Mikan's smile brightened, realizing she could just sit in here and let her partner do all the work - what a genius she was! - before, upon squinting her eyes slightly, she noticed the health bars belonging to the enemies and how they were decreasing very, very slowly.
...uh oh, this could take hours, the girl thought exaggeratedly, as her loyal finch continued smacking away the slime. Then, for a few seconds, it retreated back to her head to rest on a nest that magically formed on her head, before flying back outside to continue its work.
Mikan frowned. Fuck that, she thought and pulled out her iron-enforced short sword. Holding her pickax in her other hand, she got rid of the ceiling layer of her shelter, causing a slime on top to fall on her. The girl ignored the sizzling pain that briefly plagued her body, and charged herself upwards, the set of Fledgling Wings she was equipped with sprouting forth to bring her to the skies.
...or, at least, a barely decent amount above the ground.
"...this is lame," she noted, before her body began descending. Panicking, she positioned herself to hopefully move her somewhere away from the slime horde.
Except she was just falling down straight back into the shelter she made, now with a slime inside it. Huffing, she spread her legs to stand atop the pillars she made, then jumped again, this time with a direction in mind. As the mob of slime sensed her return and retreat towards another direction, they began hopping towards her as well.
Her summon finch flew back to her to rest on her head, and Mikan smiled. "Hey, little fella. Ready to rain hell on these slime? I'm going to be fighting too," she said. The finch simply sat in silence, not responding, so she sighed. "Oh, well. Guess you're not like a Pokémon. Man. Whatever." She landed somewhere a short distance away and turned back to the horde, brandishing her Iron Shortsword once more.
Similarly, about to head back to its battle for its summoner, the finch got off the nest, which disappeared in a poof again.
Mikan smiled. "I'm going to call you Fino. Let's put these slime out of their misery!" And with that, she let out a (weak and more adorable than terrifying) war cry, rushing straight towards the colorful mob of sludge.
Fino, her new pet finch, unnoticed by the summoner herself, then let out a chirp before rejoining the battle.