The Dungeon's Worst Little Mistake

"Where are we going?" Susan eventually asks as she is following Bug through the Dungeon.

Having left the Safe Room a while ago, they had been simply walking, with Susan following along as Bug leads the way in silence. Susan had assumed that they would have headed down the stairs to the next floor. But instead, they had left in the opposite direction.

Bug looks back at her, peering over her shoulder and moving a wing out the way, "You're asking that now?"

Susan doesn't respond and just keeps looking at Bug, waiting for her answer. Of course she didn't ask earlier. If Susan can avoid it, she'd rather not talk to Bug at all. But you can only follow someone for so long without direction before you eventually have to ask.

Bug just shrugs and returns to looking ahead.

"Dungeon kidnapped three of my minions a while back and I have been trying to get them back. I got two out of three of them back so far. One of which you destroyed; still angry about that…"

"So, we're heading to get the last one? Is this why we were able to catch up with you? Because the Dungeon was distracting you?"

"Yup…"

"You're a dumb-butt. Wait, I can't even say a-gluteus maximus!? It's not even a curse word!"

"Apparently you think it is…"

"Wait… It has to do with my perception of the word? Not like some magical list of things I can't say?"

Bug just shrugs and keep walking. She has been oddly quiet since leaving. Something which Susan has appreciated.

Susan decides to try and focus on this cursing problem for a bit and goes quiet as well, the two of them just walking in silence with Bug a couple of steps ahead. Elaine is currently zooming around and having the time of her life with her new toy.

So, I can't say ass because I am intending it as a curse. But I can call her a butt, because while they are the same thing, one is obviously not as bad as the other. In fact, calling someone a butt is just silly, even if it's intended as an insult. But compared to other words, ass isn't that bad, right? It's hardly even a curse… What about?

"Dang. Dang… Dang? A wall that is used to block off a body of water is called a damn. Ha! I said it! Another name for a donkey is ass. Ha! I got around it!"

"Cool…"

"Bug, you are an as-donkey. Fudge! Why didn't that work?"

"Probably because, subconsciously, you knew that you intended the word to be a curse, regardless of the definition you try to apply to it. It's the intent behind your words that makes it a curse, not the word itself. For instance, say the word, fuck. But don't say it with any negative intent behind it, but rather for what the word is. Another way of saying, to have sex."

"You just cursed. You promised you wouldn't…"

"Don't be petty, Susan. It isn't cute."

"Fine… Fuck. Well fudge me, that works."

They both go back to walking in silence, Susan sulking with her hands in her pockets as she watches Elaine zoom past and then go skittering up a wall to race around on the ceiling. Bug just smiles as she watches her go by, not saying anything.

Turning another corner, Bug apparently knowing exactly where to go despite not having a map in her hands, they come across another wandering group of Undead. Not the first that they have encountered, and by this point, Susan has finally stopped tensing up and trying to reach for a sword that isn't there anymore.

The zombie Lizard Men don't even look their way and just continue to aimlessly wander about. They don't even react to Elaine as she goes riding past them on her skeletal mount.

With not even a gesture or verbal command from Bug, three of her own zombies under her command move forward and surround the wild Undead, grabbing them by the arms and pulling them into a little group, before surrounding them. The zombies don't resist in the slightest and let themselves get pulled around and guided off to the side of the hall.

Susan and Bug go walking past them as Susan turns and watches. Behind them, the new group of zombies gets swallowed up by the growing horde that is following them. Without even so much as a word or a spell on Bug's part, her army's numbers had grown yet again. And all she had to do was go for a walk…

"It's no wonder we lost…"

"Hm?" Bug hums back as she looks over her shoulder again.

"This. Being able to make an army out of almost nothing. You aren't even trying, are you? Kings would kill, literally, to be able to do what you are doing right now. It's no wonder that the Church forbids the practice of necromancy. It's not just the desecration of people's corpses. I can only imagine how much destruction would spread if a king could send endless armies of the Undead to attack their neighbors…"

Bug just peeks back at her horde of zombies and shrugs.

"Yeah, makes sense… They're all trash though. If a whole army can't even stop four people, then they aren't worth much. But trash still has its uses. Throw enough of it at a problem, and eventually the problem will get buried."

Another turn and they fall into silence again, the only noise being an army of footsteps shuffling behind them, and Elaine's giggling as she plays a game that only she knows the rules of.

Left with nothing else to do, Susan can't help but to go back and think about that day and how they lost. The conditions that led to this outcome that she is currently stuck in.

It wasn't a matter of numbers.

Bug is right. The army behind her is trash depending on how you look at it. While on a battlefield against conscripted farmers with spears, or against rooky adventurers, these Undead would be a formidable and life-threatening force. Against someone like Susan and her companions, they were just trash that they had to cut their way through. Susan could slaughter them all day long so long as she paced herself and had coverage from the others. Especially without the threat of poisons and those mushrooms to worry about.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

But that's how Bug got them, isn't it?

Because they could slaughter her army, they had felt confident. They could keep pushing forward because they were winning. They kept going because their hunt was running away. When Bug kept asking and telling them to leave, that had only emboldened them further.

Sure, it sent the image of Bug just not wanting to bother with fighting them. But it also planted another idea in their heads. What if the big bad Necromancer is scared that she can't win?

It started to look more and more like they could win the closer they got and the more that Bug tried to keep them away.

They started to take more risks…

Cutting their way through numbers of Undead, which they should have been able to get though without injury, they rushed through. Taking hits here and there.

Then there was the timer. The ultimatum.

Rather than allowing them to approach her at their own pace, Bug forced the fight to happen on her terms. Forced them to have to rush even faster and wear themselves out. Take even more risks. Burn more stamina and mana and bleed just that little bit more when they originally shouldn't have needed to at all. Ideally, they would have ambushed her instead, but any possibility of that happening had failed when Bug detected them through her minions…

...

They arrive at the underground lake, the very same where they had fought, and make their way for the docks. The halls are clean now, the Dungeon having eaten everything left behind after the fight days ago.

Susan's mind goes back to the fight that happened here. How much was planned out by Bug? Forcing the fight to happen here, where Bug clearly had the option of fleeing at any moment into the water. And Susan is certain that the little monster is a capable swimmer now, just by having seen her up close. Susan wouldn't even be surprised if Bug can somehow breathe underwater.

From start to finish, Bug had complete control over that fight. Didn't she?

Climbing onto the raft after Bug finally manages to get Elaine to safely bring herself onboard and sit her mount down, Susan can't help but to look back at where the fight happened and ask, "Did we even have any chance of beating you?"

Bug looks up from untying the raft from the dock towards Susan, and then towards the same place as she is. Turning her burned face away, she goes back to untying and just shrugs.

"Of course you had a chance. You managed to hurt me, no? Even I wasn't sure I could win. After all, you guys destroyed my Undead Cleaner, and that thing almost killed me."

"Cleaner?"

"Giant spider." Bug says simply, and Susan instantly understands that Bug isn't referring to the Undead boss spider, but the other one. The one that single handedly almost killed everyone and survived being lit on fire, exploded, and falling an entire floor's worth of distance without ever stopping.

Susan shudders just remembering that dead thing's gaze. How its eyes had looked at her and all she could see was a machine built for death and destruction. Cleaner. An apt name, Susan feels.

"No, we didn't kill that thing. We ran away and nearly got wiped out by it."

"No? But it died? My connection to it was severed and the only way that could happen is if it got destroyed, or if a more powerful Necromancer overrides my control."

"Is that how you knew we were coming? But, no, we didn't kill it. The Dungeon helped us escape with a whirlpool in a lake. When the Cleaner got caught in it, I think the Dungeon closed the hole on it and crushed it."

"Huh… cheating Dungeon. Should have expected as much… Hah~ Anyways. No, I think you guys had a good chance of killing me." Bug says as she pushes the raft away from the dock. "If we had fought on even terms, and I didn't have my minions… just me versus the four of you… Hmmm, I think you guys would have won."

"Really?"

Behind them, the Undead are dropping into the lake. Several of the Undead Lizard Men swimming over to start pushing the raft forward at a good speed.

"Yeah. Your sister would have been able to counter Inflict Pain with her Light magic if I used it on any of you. Did she have a spell called, Lion's Heart?"

"Yes… How do you know that?"

"I know a lot about magic. Especially the ones I'm weak to… But anyways, I didn't bother using it on you guys because of that. Plus, you are probably pretty used to pain, so you would have probably just pushed through anyways. I had to save it for when I had a chance to disable her. The Fire mage gave me issues, but he sucked at close quarters combat, so I just had to get close." Bug says as she itches at the scabs on her face.

"The real issue was you and the big guy. Obviously, you aren't just going to let me attack your backline, and every second I waste on fighting you is just another spell getting slung my way. Eventually, I would have made a mistake and taken a hit from one of their spells, which would have made it easier for you to finish me off…"

"What about your poison and mushrooms?"

"I could have, but I already knew that you were willing to fight to the death. If I had poisoned one of you, you would have only fought with suicidal abandon, determined to take me down with you until the poison becomes too much. I didn't want to risk it until I could find a safe opening to use it for a surprise attack. As for the mushrooms… to slow. I would have to be touching you to make them grow on you, and even if you got the spores on you, it kills slower than the poison would have. Plus, with a Fire mage throwing fire everywhere I didn't want to risk him just saying, screw it! and blowing us all up to finish the fight… Honestly, he could have just killed me at almost any point with a large enough explosion if he was willing to sacrifice the two of you while you kept me busy. I just needed to never force his hand into doing so until I could finally kill him…"

As the raft cuts through the water, Susan watches as Bug just sits there on a pillow. The little Necromancer goes silent as she is probably contemplating the different ways that the fight could have gone.

Riding the raft in silence, Susan watches Bug think.

It's quite frankly… horrifying.

For Susan, seeing this little monster being not just strong and incredibly deadly, which is normal and to be expected of monsters, but to also be smart, is truly scary. A monster that can think is a threat like no other. A monster that can plan is a threat that can overwhelm even the best defenses.

A hunter doesn't fear the bear because he knows it to be strong. The hunter plans how to kill the bear while avoiding its strength after all.

But if the bear could think and plan like the hunter does? Leading the hunter into a trap of its own and turning hunter into prey…

…

After a while of the two of them just sitting in silence, Elaine gets bored and complains.

"I'm bored. Are we there yet?"

Bug just gives her a smile as she is pulled from her ruminations.

"Bored, huh?"

"Mhm, I wanna play!"

"Hmmm, can't really play chess on the raft. Pieces might fall in the water… How about I help you earn some skills? We can start with knot tying." Bug says as she pulls out some rope from thin air. Susan still can't get used to her, and now Elaine, being able to do that.

"Is that fun?"

"Hm, let's find out. Here, let's see how good of a knot you can make, and I'll try to undo it. You win if I can't figure out how to untie it, ok?"

"Ok!"

Getting comfortable to sit through the rest of this ride, Susan watches as Elaine and Bug play together, with Elaine sticking her tongue out as she concentrates on tying some of the worst knots that Susan has ever seen. But she's having fun, and it is keeping the little girl from being bored.

Near the end of the ride, Elaine cheers.

"I got a Skill!"

"Yay, congratulations, Mimmie. Good girl!"

"Yay! Hehehehe~"

"Ok, seriously. What is with these things you guys keep mentioning? Are you ever going to tell me?"

Bug just looks to Susan and shrugs.

"Yeah, sure. We've got a walk ahead of anyways. I might as well tell you as much as I can about the S%$#3&. I better not get in trouble with Redacted for this, though… Mm, anything they don't want me saying will probably just get censored anyways, so it should be fine. I think? Redacted, if you don't want me to tell her, now is the time to send me a message! Preferably with more cookies, please! I'm starting to run low…"

Susan just watches as Bug is yelling up at the ceiling like a crazy person and then proceeds to stare off into space. She blinks and gets this surprised look on her face.

"Oh, she actually sent a message. Hold on, Susan, gotta read this first. And she included a gift! Oh! What is a cake!? Yesssssss!!!! ThankyouRedacted!!!!"