The Mad Rat’s Lab

This chapter focuses on Andreu watching A Lil’ Demoness’ progress during the Dungeon Battle.

 

“Hahaha! Here it comes, my chance to get revenge! I’m going to watch you as you suffer, despair and finally die… Fufufu! Hahaha!”

After the usual flash of light, I find myself in her dungeon. This time I want to keep a close look at her expressions and how she loses the battle, so I’m going to keep watching her progress all the time.

It looks like her dungeon didn’t change that much from the last battle, since I find myself inside a banquet hall, the same from the last battle.

When she enters my dungeon, the first thing she does is look around the initial tunnel. She is using the same champion as last time, the succubus. Three imps follow behind her.

I didn’t say before, but you can bring any amount of units with you during dungeon battles. Though they still use the same cp budget, so the more you bring into attack, the less you can use to defend the dungeon.

Until now, I focussed everything on defense all the time, as most of the players I played against did. But on higher levels, it’s common to bring some mobs with you.

After looking around, she immediately starts to move forward, at a relatively fast speed. The imps follow her from a certain distance. Around maybe five meters?

“Does she think this is going to be easy? It doesn’t look like she is looking for traps or ambushes… Hehehe… It’s getting close! Only a little bit more and…“

She walks under the first Falling corpse trap, just behind the second turn of the tunnel. The trap is activated and the corpse falls on top of her… but she disappears.

“...wait, what!?”

She appears a meter in front of her previous position, and the corpse falls to the ground. It hurt nobody.

“...huh… Is this even possible? That was the Blink skill, right? Even if she can move away on time, she shouldn't know there was a trap, right? What’s more, activating the skill in such a short time after triggering the trap…”

She continues walking, as if nothing happened. Soon, the imps walk over the fallen corpse, not having to worry because the trap has already been activated.

“I call this a stroke of luck! It’s the only way she could have avoided that trap! She must have noticed something weird and activated Blink on instinct! Yeah, I’m sure it’s like this…” By the way, no, I’m not sure. Just trying to convince myself here.

“Ok, the next one is a sleeping plus poison mushroom trap. She can’t avoid this one too, can she?”

The mushrooms are hidden behind a part of the tunnel that protrudes from the side she is coming from, so they can’t be seen. And when she reaches the spot from where she can see the mushrooms, it would be too late: they would have already triggered.

And sure enough, at the moment her foot comes forward, the mushrooms release the poison and sleeping clouds. And she… disappears again.

“Again!? How can she know when to activate the Blink skill? Does she have some kind of trap detection skill? Hmmm… no, as far as I know, they don’t exist. Then… is she hacking the game!? Because it’s the only way I can think of! Isn’t she ashamed of playing dirty, yet again!?”

She continues to move forward and blink at every trap when triggered.

Blink is one of those skills that are incredibly useful… as an escape mechanism to telegraphed attacks. And for other special combos like getting close and grabbing the enemy, but otherwise… It’s usually a dead skill because of the cooldown.

It’s one of those skills that looks incredibly useful, but you need to upgrade it before it actually is. Meaning it’s usually taken only by high level players… So why did she take the blink skill?

“Ok… I give up… With the blink skill you can literally ignore all the traps in this area, if you know when they activate…” I say in a defeated voice. “She somehow predicted that the Blink skill would be very useful. Not sure why, because usually nobody takes it because of the cooldown… I can only rely on the Fiery Flies now.”

 

She is close to the place where the Fiery Flies are waiting. I expect that they’ll be able to do something.

“At least do something! You have my hopes placed on you!” The fly doesn’t disappoint. It does deal some damage, but not as I had intended…

The fight goes like this (dialogue made up in my imagination).

‘Found you dirty demon! You're gonna die by my flames!’

The fly gets close to the succubus, and she gets some damage from the In Flames skill. Then, she swings the whip and strikes the fly, crushing it into small bits.

‘You killed me, but I’m taking you with me! Hahaha!’

And as it dies, *Booom!* a huge fire explosion occurs. But when the explosion reaches her, a semi-transparent red barrier appears in front of her and she takes no damage.

“...” I have no words, so I can’t say anything. “...Again!?”

What’s even worse than her not taking damage, a second fly was caught by the first’s explosion and died too. Making it two flies that were killed by the meager amount of damage she received… Is it 30 HP damage? In total.

The skill she used is the Fire Protection skill, another skill one would normally not take. Unless you already knew you were going to use it for sure…

“This is getting more and more suspicious as it goes! How could she know that she needed the Fire Protection skill!? This is an even more niche skill than Blink because it requires the enemy to use strong fire damaging skills for it to be worth the skill point…”

“Wait a moment…! The Lab assistant also uses fire skills to deal damage! Isn’t it going to be useless too!? The Fireball skill! Shiiiiit! Let’s hope she gets crushed in the second room, and doesn’t reach the Lab Assistant!”

I start to pray to a god, any god, who might hear me and ask for her death. ‘Please, whatever god you might be, let my minions kill her in this dungeon battle. And prevent me from being humiliated… again.’

“At least both Blink and Fire Protection are going to be useless in the next room.” Then I continue praying. “Please, let her die… Please, let her die… Please, let her die…”

 

She walks inside the second room and sees it’s empty, and that there’s a closed door at the end.

I can’t believe what she does at that moment. She starts running through all the room and triggering all the hidden enemy traps at the same time.

“Heh! Not so smart now, huh? You are begging for a swift death by doing so!” It looks like my prayers have been heard.

But what happens next, makes my mouth hang so low, I could swear it touches the ground.

“...w-wha-wha…. wh-whhaaaaaaat… w-w-wha-wha-whaaaaaat!?” Andreu.exe has broken.

One of the imps goes to the center of the room and uses a skill I’ve never seen before: I’m The Bait. I might have missed it when looking at the skill list, there are so many of them…

I think you can understand what I feel right now, right? I feel so useless, so empty, so devoid of life… What has my life been for? Why is everything I do useless…?

Let me explain what happens in detail, just in case you didn’t figure it out yet… The imp activates the skill, and all stitched start spitting poison towards it. ALL of them. Not a single attack goes towards the succubus or the other two imps.

And this lasts for a while, until all the stitched kill themselves with the Blood Power skill. And then the imp also dies by the skill’s effect.

For making even more fun of me, A Lil’ Succubus actually takes this time to relax, sitting on the ground. With an expression on her face that says ‘This has nothing to do with me, so quickly die so I can move to the next room!’ She actually didn’t do anything in this room other than running through it to awaken all the hidden enemies.

The door of the room opens and she stands up. MP fully recovered, and ready for the final fight.

“...just what did I see? …I want to cry…”

 

As she enters the third and last room, I look around myself. I’m not making any progress here… Maybe it’s because I watched the enemy player too much, but I’m stuck.

“Everything looks the same! I don’t even know where I went and where I didn’t!”

I’m currently in a maze-like repetition of rooms. The dungeon battle started the same as the last battle: the waiter-hellspawns and the imps hiding behind the portraits.

But then, I crossed one of the room’s doors and soon found myself in a series of interconnected tunnels. And those tunnels lead to rooms identical to the first one, up to the smallest and insignificant details.

And since everything looks the same, I quickly lost my way. To make matters worse, there are still some imps appearing from behind portraits… I don’t even know where I am anymore!

“I don’t think I can find the exit any time soon… Let’s hope she dies first!” I continue with my prayers. “Please, let her die… Please, let her die… Please, let her die…”

 

A Lil’ Demoness enters the third and last room, and what she does immediately after entering is… throwing the two remaining imps at the two lightning rods.

“Isn’t this… the Throw an Ally skill? It’s the first time I've seen it in battle!”

This is one of those skills that are rarely used on mobs, because they don’t really know when or where to throw their allies. But in the hands of a Champion, controlled by a player instead of an AI… you can achieve some interesting things.

“Ok, so you threw the imps, but now they are going to die because of the impact, and you won’t manage to destroy the lightning traps… Uh, ok, nevermind…”

It looks like the imps have the skill God's Intervention, which prevents them from dying the first time they would, and makes them invulnerable for a few seconds.

Then, the Lab Assistant throws a fireball and, as I already imagined, is negated by the Fire Protection skill. Oh, and of course the imps take no damage because they are currently invulnerable.

“Yeah, why not? I don’t even care anymore…” I say in a sullen voice. “With so many tricks and prepared skills, it’s clear you are playing dirty. The question is how? Because I could understand if you hack the game to know the location of traps and mushrooms, and maybe you prepared the Fire Protection skill in foresight, for both the Fiery Flies and the Lab Assistant’s fireball… But this doesn’t explain in any way how she knew about the second room and how to ‘easily’ clear it!”

She casts Hellfire, targeting one of the lighting rods and the lab assistant at the same time. This time, she maintains the Hellfire activated for a while, until the lightning rod is destroyed.

Hellfire has an initial burst damage and a Damage over Time effect that can be kept active for as long as the user wants. So the ten ‘hits of life’ of the Lightning Rod are quickly depleted.

Meanwhile, the lab assistant has decided that killing an invulnerable imp is a better option than attacking the vulnerable champion, so he’s doing nothing helpful. Well, true, she is taking some damage from the Fire Aura, but it’s a negligible amount compared to the damage the assistant is taking from her.

It would have been better for the assistant to just stand still than attacking an invulnerable enemy. For its own dignity. 

“Then, it means that she got the whole info of the dungeon before the dungeon battle even started… Does this mean she hacked the game even earlier?”

The battle continues, and she casts another Hellfire, this time targeting the other lightning rod and the lab assistant. She doesn't forget to attack the lab assistant with the whip between casts.

“Nah, this wouldn’t make sense… Because the only thing she could know was the dungeon layout. The traps, mushrooms and units are selected during the battle preparation phase, so it’s not possible…”

Finally, the invulnerability of the two imps disappears and they immediately die to the Fire Aura. But by this time, the lab assistant is almost at half HP, and the succubus has almost full HP.

At that time, she casts another Hellfire, which triggers the lab assistant’s Frosty Retribution skill. They are quite far apart, but the ice nova still reaches where she is. And as the ice wave comes towards her, she disappears again with Blink and completely avoids the skill. And the following Fireball is negated by the Fire Protection skill, yet again.

“Yeah, why not! What else can go wrong?! I think the only thing that could happen to worsen the situation is that I die before she destroys the dungeon core...”

From then on, the battle develops into a melee battle, since both have no MP remaining to cast spells. But the whip’s attacks have more range, and also sometimes make the lab assistant stop moving for a second. This, added to the fact that she has more HP, makes this a matter of time before she wins.

“Haaaaah…. Please, somebody explain to me what's happening! I don’t understand anything anymore!” I shout while pulling my head’s fur. Because I don’t have hair, you already know. “How can this be? She knew everything! EVERYTHING!”

Some time later, she manages to kill the Lab Assistant. Then she goes towards the dungeon core, and destroys it.

“Ok, I’ve lost. Again. But this isn’t important. The important thing is ‘How did she know about everything I was going to use!’”

I’ve discarded the possibility of hacking, so this only leaves the option that she somehow knew everything from the start. Even from before the dungeon battle started.

I’m sure it must have been Ricard. He is clearly the most suspicious person. But he has another player nickname, so he can’t be the one I’m fighting against… Then maybe he told everything to another person?

While being paranoid about how this situation could come to be, I receive a message from her.

 

[A Lil’ Demoness]

‘Fufufu! This time it was even easier than the last! You know, the next time you want to face somebody in a dungeon battle, you should make sure that your opponent doesn’t know about your plans beforehand.

I’m your shadow, I feed on your dreams. Did you really think I wouldn’t know that you asked for help to plan this dungeon battle? You shouldn’t have, because thanks to this, I could know everything! Fufufu!’

 

“....” I have no words.

How far do you go into roleplay to send this kind of message? I know succubus are supposed to attack you while dreaming, so the shadow and dreams part makes sense in a way…

But of course, the part I can’t ignore is the last one. She knew everything because I asked for help?

“... Doesn’t this mean she’s a spy? And she’s always following me? Maybe a stalker? Since when…?”

“No, wait. Don’t be stupid, Andreu! There was another person other than Ricard when you were planning the dungeon. And she’s a woman!”

As if to confirm my suspicions, I get another message from A Lil’ Demoness.

 

[A Lil’ Demoness]

‘By now I suppose you already suspect it. Yes! It was me all along! I’m Laura! I was just playing a little with you. Did you like my dungeon? I did like yours. It was… easy! Hehehe!

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but when I tried to tell you today, you asked me for help to design your dungeon and couldn’t hold myself back from thinking you were being unfair. So I chose to be unfair too. Hehe!’

 

“Y-y-you… You DEMON! How could you do this to me? You knew I was looking for help and instead of helping me, you used this chance to utterly destroy me!! Aaaaaagh!”

“Fuck! Shit! Why didn’t I suspect it before! Now that I’ve heard her confession, it was clear that she was behaving weirdly today! How could I be so blind!”

 

[Disguised Koala]

‘You traitor! I thought you were my friend! Why did you do this!? Do you know how bad I felt when everything was set against me!? The injustice! The feeling of everything I planned going wrong!

I demand a rematch! And this time it’s going to be a fair match! No extra info and no banning and crippling the other. I’ll show you that you won only because you cheated! This time, it’s going to be you who feels worthless!’

 

What I’m most angry about is the fact that she was the one who proposed most of the ideas for this second battle. So, obviously, everything she told me was so that she could better crush me later.

 

[A Lil’ Demoness]

‘Ok, ok. Don’t be like that! It was a prank. I’m sorry that you took it so bad.

If you want a rematch, it’s fine by me. But you must know that the reason why I resorted to such tricks was because I’m lower leveled than you. So it would have been almost impossible to beat you in a straight fight… Anyway, let’s talk about it tomorrow, ok? See you!’

 

---

 

This conversation happens before the dungeon battle, at a moment when Andreu is not present.

 

“So… when are you going to tell him that it’s you who’s playing as A Lil’ Succubus? I know it’s fun to taunt Andreu, but if you continue for too long… he might get really angry.”

“Awww… Just this one time. I don’t want to make him too angry, I just want to have a laugh before he realizes the truth. Also… he was planning to take advantage by asking us for help, so I’m going to punish him for playing dirty! I’m going to tell him after the match.”

“Then I’ll wait until you finish the second match. If you don’t tell him by then, I’ll be the one to tell him...”

 

After the initial anger faded away, I was tormented by shame. Shame from losing the battles against a lower level player, and even more shame for being deceived like a fool. But it quickly faded away when I started to plan the revenge match.

‘Fufufu! Hahaha! You’re going to regret making the Mad Rat mad! Well, madder! I’ll make you despair! I’ll make you suffer the same as I did, or even worse! Just you wait! Hahahaha!’

These were my internal thoughts while planning the nastiest experience I could imagine.