The Dungeon's Worst Little Mistake

Bug very nearly pisses herself.

She can't look away, not even if she wanted to.

It isn't so much the absurd level of the thing floating in the sky, but the sheer, demanding presence that it exudes upon the mind and body of everyone around it. The thing has such a physical weight tied to its very existence that the entire world is seemingly bending around it, with the air shimmering as space is warped and entire buildings and wooden skyscrapers collapsing just from being too close.

And Bug isn't the only one in the faux cathedral that seems to be stunned by the arrival of it. Every rat and even Susan are all staring, mouths agape and having frozen from picking themselves up off the floor.

Like deer in a headlight, no one can move. No one dares to, as they are fearful that even the slightest twitch might set the thing into violent motion, every nerve in their bodies tightening to the point of nearly snapping.

The still lasts for what feels like minutes but was no longer than a couple of seconds, every face dripping with a cold sweat. The tense peace is broken as the first of the collapsing wooden skyscrapers finishes falling. Like the first domino hitting the next, everything seems to spring into motion.

Someone, somewhere where Bug and the others can't see further into the city, orders the artillery to fire.

Explosions bloom on one corner of shimmering glass and crystal, perfect edges of a body made from angles of exactly 15, 30, 45, and 90 degrees and not even a single millimeter off. The perfect surface of blue diamond isn't even so much as singed, cracked, or marked by the explosions, but instead reflect the green lights of the explosion with is perfectly mirror polished surface and glows for a moment as the smoke fades away into the air.

The artillery fire continues, however ineffective it may be against the unyielding structure of crystalline perfection, with explosions hitting its shimmering surface over and over again with enough fire power to blanket half a battlefield in hellfire. They continue to fire and fire and fire, over and over and over again until the barrels are surely running hot enough to nearly melt, the sky filling with smoke until the thing is almost entirely obscured from vision by black clouds. The entire time, it never retaliates. Simply floating perfectly and unmoving in the sky. Dead center in the middle of the city and positioned exactly at the halfway point in the sky between floor and ceiling.

No one moves an inch. Not even when the artillery finally stops firing. Everyone simply staring up at the sky and waiting for something to happen. Anything.

…

A second pulse, stronger than the first, rips out and clears the smoke in an instant. With it, more of the city of scrap wood collapses and crumbles. Yet again Bug and everyone else get thrown back, entirely unable to resist the wave of pure force smashing against their bodies. Bug herself, despite digging her claws into the floor, gets sent tumbling tail-over-head and smashes through a pillar, bringing down some of the weakening ceiling in her wake. The entire structure groans as it somehow remains standing, probably only due to its distance from the epicenter of the blast.

By the time everyone is picking themselves back up off the floor again, they only just barely get to catch sight of the thing firing some kind of attack into the city. At the cathedral, all they get to witness is a blinding flash of radiant blue light, with many of them having to shy away and block their eyes, lest they go blind from the glorious incandescence of perfection.

When the light fades, exactly - no and no less than - a quarter of the rat city had been removed. Reduced to nothing but carbon and heat exactly nothing else. Even the Dungeon's nearly indestructible stone was not spared from the attack.

What? Is all Bug can think as she witnesses something that has just defied everything she has ever known.

Where there once had been Dungeon, there is now just open space. Beyond where the walls used to be, Bug, with her enhanced vision, can see layers of severed pipes and wiring that used to run behind the brickwork, all glowing red from where the intense heat had perfectly seared through them. Steam billows out from the pipes, water starts to freely fall, wires spark with electricity, and behind it all, nearly ten kilometers away, Bug can make out the distant glowing hot surface of natural, deep underground stone wall. A perfectly flat and squared cliff face that most certainly was not there before.

Is that… outside? A cave? Just how much did it destroy with one attack!?

This, after a second of everyone being utterly stunned, seems to finally get people to realize something. They need to get the fuck out of here!

A lady rat near the back of the cathedral screams and breaks for the door, shoving aside a child that was in her way, and not a moment later everything dissolves into uncontrolled chaos as everyone starts to run like rats caught in a barn fire.

Bug would have liked to believe that she'd have more control over herself than most people, but she is quick to start fleeing as well. It is only when she suddenly remembers that she wasn't alone here that she stops and turns, frantically looking around.

Mimmie, Susan! Where are they?

Pushing and shoving fleeing rats out of her way, Bug quickly manages to find Susan. The Ghoul is kicking her legs in the air with half her body stuck in a wall.

"Get me the heck out of here!"

"Hold on, hold still! Give me sec!"

Grabbing her by a leg, a strong yank pulls Susan out of the failing woodwork. With splinters tangled up in her crimson hair and dust covering her shirt, she lands on her butt with a grunt.

Before she can even get back up, Bug is in her face and asking, "Where is Mimmie!?"

"Ach, she was just here with me. Where did she go?"

"Mimmie! Where are you!?"

"Elaine!"

"We need to find her and get out of here, NOW! We can't fight that thing. Quickly!!!"

"I'll look over there, she couldn't have gone too far. I had her bone-" Susan tries to say but gets interrupted as a rat in a wedding dress comes flying out of the crowd, screaming like a banshee, and tackles Bug into the wall where Susan had just been freed from. They break through and go flying outside into where the park used to be, now just an open area of stone and fake trees made from nailed together planks like props on a stage.

"Bug!" Susan yells as she moves to follow.

"Find Mimmie! Go!"

Susan only stops to debate for a moment before nodding and running back inside. Outside, Bug wrestles with her assailant, the pair of them getting their white dresses dirty as they roll on the floor. After some struggle, Bug ends up on her back, all four arms fighting to push Isabelle off of her.

Despite clearly having more limbs, and even with Isabelle having such a thin and weak looking build, for some reason, Bug just can't seem to get the girl off of her. No matter how much she fights back and tries to shove her, the girl somehow manages to keep her pinned. It defies all logic, but it takes everything Bug has to not get herself captured by the girl.

"Be still my love! Be still! It's not too late. If you become the Dragon of Chaos, we can overcome this situation. Any situation! No one will be able to stop us, my love, hahahaha~!" Isabelle laughs as she somehow manages to pin three of Bug's arms and both her wings with just one hand, her legs and tail pinning Bug's own and forcing them apart beneath her, leaving Bug splayed out on the floor.

Bug tries to rip the crazy girl's grip off of her arms with her one free hand, but the rat girl's fingers are like steel cuffs. No matter how hard Bug tries to pull, she just can't seem to get them free.

"There is no need to fight, love. Soon you will understand. Hahahaha~ Ahhhh, I'm sure our honeymoon will be wonderful~" Isabelle says as she takes her hand and cups Bug's face, playfully teasing squeezing her burn-scared cheek.

Bug freezes at her touch, body paralyzed with a strange mix of horrifying emotions and feelings that all mix into what can only be described as chaos. She can't even move as Isabelle runs her fingers down Bug's face and to her neck, over her collar bone and then down to her chest.

With a hard grab, Isabelle gives Bug's chest a painful squeeze. She shouldn't even be able to feel pain, but yet it hurts, like the crazed rat is trying to crush her breast into a paste.

"AAAAaaaaahhhh!"

"Hahahahahaaaahha~!"

All Bug can do is scream as Isabelle laughs. When she is done tormenting her there, she moves her hand further down, gliding down Bug belly and to her parted legs. Bug starts to breathe faster, struggling against her paralyzed body as Isabelle smiles down at her with her rat face, sharp teeth all on display like a hungry beast.

Hand going under her dress, rat fingers on scale covered thigh and sending dangerous feelings up Bug's core, Isabelle speaks with a crazed look in her eyes. "I can't wait for you to put a baby in me. Our children will be gods! Together, we shall rule the world!"

Confusion, weirdly enough, ends up being enough to give Bug enough freedom to at least be able to talk.

"What the hell!? I can't put a baby in you. I'M A GIRL!"

Isabelle's smile only grows bigger and even more menacing.

"Don't worry, love, we can fix that. With the power of Chaos," She licks her lips, and hungry eyes go down to Bug's lower half, "anything is possible~"

Feeling those fingers inching closer to her groin, Bug is somehow able to regain control over her body at the last possible moment. She doesn't know how, and she doesn't care. She just does the only thing she can do, and punches Isabelle in the face.

Her head getting rocked back, Isabelle laughs as she pulls her hand away from Bug's thigh, fingers going to her nose and coming away wet with blood. She licks the crimson liquid off her fingers with her long pink tongue and then smiles, blushing, back down at Bug again.

"I like it rough, but let's save that for tonight~"

"Get the hell off of me!"

Isabelle reaches behind her back and somehow comes back with a crown in her hands, having pulled it from nowhere. A dark aura radiating off of its seven twisting horns and ten glowing gems, tentacles and thorn covered roots playing over the rat's arm and fingers.

"And where would the fun be in that? Now, just hold still my love. I just need you to wear this, and then everything will be better!"

"NO!"

Bug tries to hold her back from putting the crown on her head, pushing with all the strength in her little body as Isabelle pushes down on her, giggling louder and louder as the crown draws closer to Bug's sweat drenched head.

With the thorny tendrils digging into Bug's arm and through her scales, she screams. Her blood is on fire with pain, but at the same time it is the most intense pleasure that she has ever experienced. It is almost enough to make her give in, but she just barely manages to regain control and keep pushing back as the crown is inches from her head.

With tentacles playing through her hair and wrapping around her own horns, the crown trying to pull itself onto her, Bug screams.

"Somebody, get this crazy BITCH off of me!!!"

Suddenly, a blade flashes across Bug's vision. Isabelle screams and blood flies through the air, spraying Bug's face. The crazed rat reels back, her arm now missing, and lashes out with a kick that cracks the air.

With a grunt, Susan gets sent flying back, folded over and tumbling across the fake park like a shot from a cannon.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

With all the desperation in her body and soul fighting back in revulsion, Bug tears the crown from her head, ripping some hair out in the process. Managing to get a leg free, she pulls back and sends a kick up and into Isabelle's gut, finally managing to send the rat flying back and off of her body.

Moving in a mad scramble and fumbling around like a drunk whose entire body won't properly listen to them, Bug somehow manages to get to her feet, the crown still clutched in one hand.

She tries to toss the thing away, but it roots are buried inside of her arm. She can feel as the wriggling and searching things continue to dig through her flesh, working their way up her arm and gradually taking control.

She can't move her own fingers anymore, and by the time the roots make it to her elbow, she has to fight to keep her own arm from attempting to place the crown on her head against her will.

Even with three arms and two wings fighting to keep the arm from moving, the fight is slowly being lost with each passing moment. And it only gets worse as the roots dig deeper and take over more. With each inch they gain, her rebelling arm only grows stronger, the pain only grows deeper, and worse of all, the pleasure only becomes more blinding.

If it continues like this, it won't be long before she is placing the crown upon her own head, willingly or not. The pleasure. The promise of more. Of power. Of EVERYTHING! The temptation to just give in and let chaos take control. It's everything she ever wanted.

With this, Bug could kill the Dungeon. She could go to the surface and live under the Sun's light. She could have anything and absolutely everything that she could possibly desire.

And all she has to do is wear the crown.

With the last bit of fight and will she has left in her, Bug tries everything she can do. Magic isn't working. She can't transform her limbs into blades. She can't even break her own arm despite fighting it with five others.

All she can do is watch as the crown draws closer and closer, the temptation to just give in growing all the stronger.

Hit.

Another pulse tears across the fake park and slams into Bug's body, sending her flying across the brick floor and coming to a tumbling stop. She had completely forgotten about the Deus Ex Machina thing that had appeared earlier and ended up getting hit by a third wave.

But strangely enough, the crown in her hand seemed to have not liked that. Despite not having a visible mouth, the crown hisses and screams as its dark aura steams off it, tentacles flailing in the air. Inside of her arm, she can even feel as the roots had been stunned and slowed. Something about the pulse clearly hurt the crown, and Bug can't let this chance slip her by.

This gives her enough time, just barely enough time, to let go of her arm and grab the crown with two hands, ripping it out of her own grip and trying to tear it away. With thorned roots still attaching it to her arm through her flesh, the crown hisses and pulls, fighting to pull itself back into her grip.

Bug pulls and slowly tears the roots out as she screams, fresh pain tearing through her body with every bloody inch that gets dragged out of her flesh. Laying on the floor, having to bring her legs up to brace them against the crown and try to rip it away like that, she pushes with everything she has. But it just keeps fighting her, the roots refusing to leave no matter what and only digging in harder.

Bug looks to the side, quickly, desperately. She finds Susan there, pulling herself back together as her spine pops back into place. Isabelle's kick had been hard!

"Susan! I need a blade. Throw me your sword, now!"

"K!" She grunts as her spine snaps back into place. With one hand going to her side, she draws her curved sword and tosses it across the park, the blade scrapping across red bricks as it spins over to Bug.

Reaching for the sword, Bug spots Isabelle getting back up, the rat girl looking pissed as she clutches the stump of her arm. With a limping sprint, she makes for Bug just as she is snatching up the sword.

"Get! OFF!"

-Slice!-

For not the first time, Bug has cut off one of her own arms. Normally, a new one would already be growing in to replace it, but right now her magic is not working. All she can do is sputter in pain and cringe as she pulls the arm away from her bleeding shoulder, bloody thorns covered roots wiggling around in the severed limb as she quickly tosses it away in disgust. With both Bug and Isabelle's severed arms still attach to the thing, it goes tumbling across the park and comes to a stop with its seven horns sitting up right.

Susan is just now picking herself up off the floor. Bug and Isabelle both freeze, look at each other and then at the crown.

Isabelle moves first, sprinting for the twisted thing as Bug quickly gets off the floor and charges at her, Susan is quick to follow and is hot on Bug's tail.

Meanwhile, off in the distance, another perfect quarter of the rat city and good chunk of the Dungeon and surrounding earth gets deleted in a flash of light. Only half the city remains. Deus Ex Machina rotates exactly 90 degrees like a gear clicking into place and faces the next quarter.

Bug slams into Isabelle and the two go tumbling to the floor, Susan's sword getting stabbed into her chest as Bug rides her to the floor. Isabelle, seemingly not even registering the sword in her body, reaches desperately with her remaining arm to try and grab the crown, her little rat claws scraping against the bricks as she drags her whole body, plus Bug, towards the crown.

Susan arrives and grabs the rat by one of her legs, desperately pulling with all her Undead strength as she digs in her heels and pulls.

But with every inch closer that Isabelle gets to the crown, the stronger she seems to get, its dark aura feeding into her body as it seemingly calls her forward. The ten gems that adorn the crown are like eyes, watching with impatience as the three slowly draw closer, their faces all reflected in those glowing surfaces.

Even with the two of them fighting to stop her, she continues to drag the pair forward, closer and closer and closer still.

Meanwhile, the pair of severed arms still holding the crown start to twitch and twist around. Their flesh splits and opens and bones break as roots move through them and change the flesh into a malformed pair of clawed limbs.

With tentacles searching over the ground and it's two new limbs lifting it up, the crown awkwardly moves towards the wrestling trio.

Bug goes wide eyed and nearly screams when it jumps at her, her remaining arms moving up to try and stop the thing from landing on her.

But yet…

It never reaches her.

A long grey tongue suddenly snaps through the air, and much like a frog catching a fly, snatches the jumping, flesh fused crown and pulls it away with a snap.

*Crunch*

"A!"

"Huh?"

"What!?!?"

Everyone stops fighting and turns to look. Sitting there on the ground is a fancy looking treasure crest happily chewing on the snack it just snatched out from the air. With a pair of big red eyes on the top of the chest, seemingly smiling at them all from how it is looking so happy, the Mimic audibly swallows and then licks it treasure chest lips with satisfaction.

Isabelle repeats herself. "WHAT!?!?!?"

Bug just snorts out a laugh at what just happened, "Pfft! Mimmie sure does love her hands."

Susan adds, mostly to herself, "I hope she won't get sick from eating that…"

Isabelle seemingly needs a second to register what she just saw, but after a bit she snaps back into it and elbows Bug in the face.

"Get off of me!"

"Bitch! Ah, my freaking nose!"

She manages to slither her way out from under Bug and Susan, with Bug quickly grabbing Susan's sword that is still sticking out of Isabelle to try and stop her. The sword comes sliding out with a pull from Isabelle and she doesn't stop moving, quickly making for Mimmie. The Mimic just looks up at her with curious eyes like a child being approached by a stranger, as she quickly draws near.

"Give that BACK!" Isabelle screams down at the treasure chest, spittle flying from her lips in a rage.

Mimmie, looking a little frightened, closes up completely and audibly locks shut with a clear click. Just a regular locked treasure chest. You don't have the key, please move along and ignore...

Obviously, the furious rat isn't going to be tricked, and she lunges for the chest.

Bug is scrambling to her feet with one hand holding her broken nose, Susan is already moving after her. No weapons, but the Ghoul, swordswoman or not, is more than ready to wrestle if it means saving Elaine.

Deus Ex Machina, it releases another pulse.

Suddenly, Mimmie is flying through the air like a cannonball, the poor remains of the bone spider finally giving out and shattering as the pulse rips across the fake park. Isabelle ducks and nearly gets her head takes off by a flying Mimmie, getting hit by the pulse right after and sent flying as well. Susan, knowing full well what is about to happen, jumps for Mimmie and catches the flying chest with her own chest. Feeling as most of her ribs suddenly snap and crack from the impact, she goes flying.

Bug, who had been the furthest back and still in the process of getting up as her body is still weak from everything that just happened, can do nothing but sigh and spit some blood out of her mouth as she sees the pulse come slamming into like a tidal wave.

With everyone sent skipping and tumbling across the park, the underground world lights up with a flash of blinding light. Another perfect quarter of the city and a chunk of the Dungeon had just been deleted.

Deus Ex Machina rotates again like clockwork, facing the final, remaining segment of the city.

Isabelle gets to her feet, her wedding dress a ruined, bloody, and torn mess. With blood leaking from her nose and mouth, her hair a ruined mess and half covering her face, she moves to go after Mimmie again, practically having to drag herself forward as she moves with a limp and hugs her severed arm to her chest. But before she can take more than a few steps, she gets stopped by the old priest rat running over and grabbing hold of her. They argue, she points at Mimmie with a quivering hand and screams, but he shakes his head and tells her they need to run. He points to the flying thing of perfect geometry and blue diamond in the sky and begs her to run.

Isabelle is clearly torn, her gaze darting back and forth between Bug, Mimmie, and the thing erasing her city piece by piece. With a mournful look toward Bug, she turns and runs away with the priest.

As for Bug… She's not doing so great.

Unable to heal herself, her missing arm is bleeding pretty badly right now. Combine that with whatever the heck that crown had been doing to her, and her body is now a mess. She isn't even supposed to be able to feel pain right now, but guess what? She can! As a Half-Undead, blood loss shouldn't even be effective against her. At best it should just slow her down a little.

You had one job, System! Ah, what the hell… today sucks…

"Come on, get up! We need to get the heck out of here!" Susan yells as she pulls Bug up by one of her arms.

Susan's other hand is full with carrying Mimmie by a handle, and when Bug is unable to properly get herself back onto her feet, Susan has to scoop her up and hoist her little body onto her shoulder.

"Woah!"

"Hold on and don't complain! And don't drop my sword!"

"O-ok… I got your swooord… IS thris what blud losh feel like..? I don't like it…"

Susan turns and runs with all the speed her Undead body can give her, her legs threatening to break with every step as she quickly jumps over the river where she had sat and talked with Gary for a while. Gary isn't there anymore, and for some strange reason, Susan can't help but to hope that the big croc had somehow managed to get away.

Running past collapsing buildings and fleeing rat people, Susan does the only thing she can think to do. She makes for the edge.

She has no idea where the exit door is at. Not after the Dungeon had changed the Boss Room around so drastically, so finding it would just be impossible. Not to mention, it is doubtful that the door would do anything to stop the floating thing in the sky from just blasting them straight to heaven.

Bug would go to hell. Obviously. But Susan would like to believe that the Goddess would still let her and Elaine into heaven if she repents enough.

Still, Susan doesn't want to give up here. Not yet! Not while she and Elaine still have a chance at a future in this life!

In a daze and getting shaken around on her shoulder, Bug can do nothing but look around as she tries not to pass out. Looking down at herself, she finally notices the white dress she is wearing.

"Hey… Why am I… Why dressss?"

"Huh? You don't remember?"

"Hmmmmm?"

"You got married!"

"Wha? Who!?"

"That rat you were fighting!"

Bug just slumps over Susan shoulder, utterly defeated. "Ah, nooooo… Todayh shucksss!"

"HAHAHAHAHA! Yup! Now hold on and no dying! Elaine would be sad if you do!"

And then, they clear the city.

Suddenly cutting off into an abyss, Susan sprints and jumps past a house that had been severed in half and is now also on fire for good measure. Not stopping to slow down in the slightest, she is suddenly in open air, the Dungeon's exposed guts and innards laid out beneath her as she soars through the air, eventually dropping into a free fall.

With both arms full with carrying Bug and Mimmie, the only thing she can do is kick her legs as she falls, the entire next floor passing by in a blur as she plummets.

I really hope we survive this…

Really, Susan didn't have much of a plan beyond this… Her top priority was just to avoid the next attack. Now that that is done, well, now she just needs to figure out how to survive this drop…

Bug is out and even if she wasn't, Susan doesn't know if she could even fly them all to safety with her wings. Heck, Susan doesn't even think that Bug uses them to fly anyways.

Rather wasteful if you ask me… Wish I had wings…

Another floor goes zooming by, the Dungeon having been carved away at an expanding angle from the thing in the sky. If she had jumped off closer to it, the drop would have been much shorter, but Susan didn't want to get anywhere near it. Even just looking at it sends her entire body on edge a hundred times worse than that Undead spider thing had done to her.

Another pulse rips through the world and slams into Susan, sending her tumbling end over end through the air as she desperately holds onto her charges. A moment later, light fills the world. The remaining quarter of the rat city disappears. Now, surrounding Deus Ex Machina is a perfect square carved out of the earth with a pyramid above and below it carved out of the Dungeon.

It shimmers and flashes, the perfect geometry of its body shifting in ways difficult, if not simply impossible, to perceive. And then, just as it had arrived, it vanishes.

With Deus Ex Machina's role complete, it has exited stage left.

One moment it is there, and the next, it is simply gone. Chaos has been removed from this place and order and law have been forcefully restored through an excessive application of perfection and violence.

Unable to get her feet back under herself, all Susan can do is flail through the air as the ground draws closer and closer through flashes of vision. With a hard blow she hits the ground, her entire lower half simply exploding on contact. With Mimmie held to her chest and an arm holding Bug to her shoulder tight, she bounces and continues to go down the side of the pyramid, flying past yet another entire floor of the Dungeon's exposed innards of uncountable pipe and wires and carved open rooms where monsters stare dumbstruck at the outside world.

On her shoulder, Susan can hear Bug mumble, "Become Weapon…"

With Deus Ex Machina gone, her magic returns, Bug just barely managing to push through her grogginess to cast her spell and heal her arm. It isn't enough to bring her back to full, but being half-Undead means that this won't be enough to finish her off yet.

Wrapping her arms around Susan and unfolding her wings, Bug manages to flap them once and slow their fall slightly.

They land hard again, Susan losing more of her torso and Bug her legs and tail as they hit a severed section of pipe, the two holding on tight to protect Mimmie with their bodies. Tumbling and tripping downhill, Bug loses both her wings as she tries to dig them into the ground, the long limbs getting torn in half as they catch on some lose wires and fail to stop. With a final tumble, they hit an open section of Dungeon and fall back inside, rolling, hitting a wall, and finally stopping as they splash into a pool of water formed from a spilling pipe leaking into the Dungeon.

"Finally stopped…" Susan sighs with much relief, so glad that she couldn't feel any of what just happened to her. Being Undead has its advantages.

"Bleh… Get off of me…" Bug complains, stuck under both Susan and a heavy treasure chest.

"Can't. Ain't got no legs…"

"Eh. How's Mimmie?"

Susan grunts and looks at the chest hugged to what is left of her bloody chest. "Elaine?"

She gets greeted by a pair of red eyes that blink up at her, a grey tongue coming out to give her a lick on the cheek.

"She's good."

"Good… now get off of me."

"Can't…"

…

"Okay. I'm going to sleep."

"… That sounds like a good idea. I think I will too…

"Mm, night…"

"Night…"