The Mad Rat's Lab

"Hehe, this is fun– Whoaah! I almost slipped."

When Clara's foot touches the ground, the lack of friction almost makes her slip. But maybe because of her reflexes, or because of the unusual shape of her feet, which is formed by tentacles, she quickly regains her stability. Usually, at this point, she would have turned to look at me, grinning foolishly and expecting a pat on her head, but she knows there's no time to waste, so she just giggles and keeps moving.

"Look, brother! This is so easy! It's nothing compared to our sister's training!"

She's… right. I refuse to acknowledge it, but she's right.

"Go, Lemon! You can do it!" Laura cheers from my side.

"Yeah, you can do it!" Just don't make me look in your direction, or we'll have serious trouble.

"Remember to keep an eye on the ground. The slippery parts must have a special sheen that should be easy to distinguish from the normal ground," points out Ricard, loud enough so that Clara can hear him. "This light doesn't make it easy, but if you identify the slippery parts ahead of time, you won't have to worry about falling off."

"Follow Baldy's advice, Lemon!" I never thought I'd say this.

After our first encounter with the Disintegrating Beam (temporary name), Clara volunteered to cross the first narrow stretch. This part is one of the revealed areas, so we already knew what to expect. But knowing doesn't make it easy.

It's something that resembles a bridge, composed of several solid platforms hanging over an endless abyss, which just happens to be an instant-death falling trap. The bridge is made up of a combination of normal and slippery ground. Oh, and there are gaps between the platforms.

The combination of the gaps and two kinds of terrain makes this very tricky, as a single mistake will send you to your death.

After this bridge, there are several straight zones, where we'll have to run to have a chance to cross without being hit by the beam, as well as a few 'mystery gaps' in the dungeon map. I hope there isn't anything too dangerous there. It isn't until further ahead that another known trap zone awaits us.

Luckily for us, Clara not only volunteered herself, saving us from having to take the highest risk, but she's also our best player against traps (certified by our sister Marta). Furthermore, she has her tentacles to help, an advantage only she possesses.

Clara should clear this in no time…

We observe Clara. As usual, she looks like she's fooling around, but deep down, I know. I know she's taking this more seriously than any of us.

"Look, brother! With no hands and no feet, hehehe!"

She's taking this seriously, right!? She isn't just fooling around, right!?

"Lemon, run! The time's almost up!"

Right after Laura tells Clara to speed up, I open my eyes wide. From the end of the straight dungeon, an unmistakable light is growing in intensity. It isn't that the time is running out; it has already run out!

"This shouldn't be possible… The wind-up is almost complete, and the machine is going to fire again right now. It's earlier than I calculated!" Ricard panics. "Is there more than one machine? Otherwise, there must be something we're missing…"

Clara looks around in a panic. Even if she finishes crossing the bridge, there won't be anywhere to hide in the immediate vicinity. To hide, she'll have to move further up, but there's no time to reach that place.

"We must hide. Now!" Laura pulls Ricard and me towards the closest crevice in the wall, safe from the light beam.

"But my sister…"

Laura grabs my face and pulls it closer. "She'll have to find a way out by herself. But we must survive regardless of her fate. Come."

"Fine…"

"What went wrong?" Ricard mutters in a corner. "I must find the reason. Did my calculations miss, or is it something else? Could the machine have a cooldown range instead of a fixed one…? Ugh, there are so many options! It's the Magic Engineers, they can build anything they want, which makes things difficult…"

I ignore Ricard and turn to look through the gap. The bright light beam soon floods everything outside, leaving nothing on its path. It's beautiful. Dangerously so. It's so beautiful you might die just watching it. I mean it literally.

"Lemon…" Goodbye, my dear little sister. We'll miss you so much…

"Hehe, that was sooo close!"

…huh? She's alive? How!?

"Lemon is alive?" Laura locks eyes with me. "Does she have an invulnerability skill?"

"I… don't know?"

Did she level up and didn't tell me? It'd make no sense. Our Champion's skills are fixed from the moment we started the preliminary matches; there's no way she suddenly picked a skill we don't know about.

Then… how the hell did she survive!?

"Hehehe! Brother, I'm doing fine, don't worry!"

Clara's laughter is just making me even more curious. How the fuck did she survive!? I want to know! No, I need to know!

"...variable cooldown… A fake cooldown…? No, that would be astronomically expensive, it isn't possible…"

As soon as the light beam disappears, Laura and I rush out of the crevice, leaving Ricard behind. But what we see is exactly what we expected: an empty bridge.

"Hey, Lily. Is it a bug? Why can we hear my sister if she's dead?"

"I don't know…"

Clara's voice breaks the awkward silence created between the two of us. "Heeeyaah! Ugh, this is harder than I thought! Why can't I climb back up by myself?"

Climb back up? …from the underworld? That's kind of scary... Does Clara want to join Ricard's faction? Because if she wants to… I'm against it! I'll never allow my cute (albeit horrifying) little sister to be corrupted by him!

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"Lemon?" I ask. "Where are you?"

"Brotheeeer, save meeeee! I'm here, under the bridge! Can you help me? I can't climb up without help!"

It isn't until she says that, that I realize there's something on ground level, on one of the last platforms before the bridge section ends. They're a pair of wriggling hands formed by tentacles…

Ugh, disgusting! It's like one of those nightmares…! No, stop, Andreu! You can't treat your sister like that! You must treat her properly, as the 'perfect older brother' you are, regardless of how terrifying she looks!

But how did she survive? Why didn't she die?

Hmm… My eyes scan the area around Clara's tentacles.

It seems she intentionally fell off the bridge, holding on to the edge, to let the light beam pass over her. But now she's hanging right under the platform, and she can't climb back up by herself. She'd need to let go of one hand to do it, and she must be too scared of falling off to try it.

Now that I think about it, the beam has never destroyed anything on ground level. There must be a gap of at least two or three centimeters.

So that's why my sister didn't die! There's a gap between the ground and the light! Not big enough for anyone to hide, but big enough for a small tentacle!

…Wait. Doesn't this mean I might be able to use the RATT protocol? Not right at the center of the passage, because a rat is too big for that. But, maybe, if I were to hide near the corner…

I'll try to keep this in mind.

Not more than five seconds have passed since the last light beam disintegrated everything on its path. If I rush, I can still save my sister and cross the bridge together. Let's do it!

"Alright. Wait for me, Lemon, I'm going to save you!"

But before I can take the first step, Laura grabs my shoulder. "Wait. Did you memorize the correct path?"

Does she mean if I remember where the slippery parts are? "Eh, uh… Yes?" I mean… No. But does it matter?

"Then you go first. I'll be right behind you. We'll cross together. Something is wrong with the machine firing the lasers. The faster we clear this dungeon, the better."

It's only then that I realize our single remaining support monster, Laura's Imp, is riding on her back. Since there's no fatigue in this game, and the Imp's size and weight aren't significant – Imps are children-sized – there shouldn't be any problem with this arrangement.

"Good luck, Mad Rat. You'll need it." Ricard pats my shoulder, grinning. "I, too, will follow after you. Remember my tips and it'll all go smoothly, hahaha!"

Is he encouraging me, or mocking me? At times like this, I'm not sure.

Well, as this team's leader, I guess it's time for me to take action. It's time to secure everyone's safety. It's time to rely on my infallible tactic that has always brought me to victory… the infallible tactic of 'dashing ahead brainlessly while leaving everything to luck'.

"Lemon, here I goooooo!"

Laura quickly follows after me. With her Blink, she shouldn't have any trouble. Although Blink won't work on the Imp, Laura herself won't fall off the bridge that easily, regardless of what happens. On the contrary, Ricard…

"H-hey, wait for me! We must cross this together! I'm not as fast as you two!"

Did Ricard just say something? Bah, it must've been my imagination.

*Clunk, clunk* My fist knocks on the invisible wall in front of me. Then, I repeat the same actions to my right and left. *Clunk, clunk. Clunk, clunk.* There, too, my fist stops upon touching something invisible.

"Tsk. Another dead end." I turn my head around in annoyance and ask. "Baldy, Lemon. What about you? Any luck there?"

"No, my side is a dead end too–"

Before Ricard can finish speaking, Clara starts jumping and waving her tentacles around, seeking attention. "Here! Here, brother! This is the right path!"

"Good job, Lemon. Keep going while we retrace our steps. We'll be there in a second."

With my hands raised before me, I start walking as fast as I can, but not fast enough that I smack my face into any invisible wall I might find on the way. Do I look stupid walking like this? Sure. But hey, I at least won't make an even bigger fool of myself by face-testing the walls.

As Laura predicted, there was indeed a labyrinth made out of invisible walls inside this dungeon. The invisible and magical nature of those allows the light beam to freely pass through, without destroying them, which has been a source of headaches for us. Furthermore, there are spring traps scattered everywhere, which can throw us over the walls if we aren't careful. It has happened a few times, and it wasn't pretty.

The labyrinth, though, isn't impossible to clear. Although it's very long, it's wider than the light beam, which means that as long as we aren't in the central zone when it fires, we won't die.

This sounds great and all, but… there's a large problem with this. Since the walls are invisible, they don't show up on the map. We have to remember the layout, and a single mistake can cost us our lives.

Luckily, my memory isn't that bad, and I find the path to reunite with my little sister. It's the same for Ricard.

"Wheew… We're all back together. Good job not falling into the traps, everyone." Not anymore, I mean. We've suffered from them quite a bit earlier, when we didn't know what kind of traps we were facing.

"Hehe, we're almost there! Is it just a third remaining?"

"It should be…" I nod. But who knows? Maybe, the path will wind around, back to the start…

I hope it doesn't.

"Less talk, more walk," Ricard starts pushing us from behind. "We have almost no time. The machine will fire anytime now, and we still need to find a safe spot."

Knowing he's right, Clara and I resume advancing, our hands pointed forward to check for invisible walls. When the path splits, we divide into two or more groups and check for the correct path. Since the labyrinth is so narrow, although there are lots of dead ends, it doesn't allow for simultaneous and multiple long paths. All the secondary paths are quite short, which is this labyrinth's only saving grace.

"Ooh, look! Lily is very close to us!" Clara suddenly exclaims, towards Laura, who's coming from the opposite direction. "We're almost there! Heey, Lily!"

"Hello, Lemon!"

Clara and Lily wave to each other, shouting things so the other can hear. It looks like they're just five or so meters apart, but there are invisible walls that block the sound between them.

I ignore them and continue searching for the correct path.

There's a reason Laura is coming from the other side. It's because she's a cheat and has OP skills.

No, seriously. In this labyrinth where all the walls are invisible, she can just move straight forward, and every time she finds a wall, she can teleport a few meters ahead to overcome it. Blink only requires sight to work, and although it has a cooldown, she's had plenty of time to reach the end of this labyrinth while we took the 'normal' route.

After reaching the end, Laura has been doing the same as us, but starting from the end to speed up our search. Once we meet in the middle, she just needs to guide us towards the end, saving us an enormous amount of time.

I hate to admit it, but she's got a great memory for this kind of thing. Way better than mine, at least.

"Fucking overpowered skill. If only I had it too…"

"...the cooldown is getting shorter and shorter… It must be that, right? Yes, I can only think of that. It's the only plausible reason… Huh? Did you say anything to me?" Asks Ricard.

"No, I was talking to myself. You can keep doing your thing…" whatever that thing is.

Ricard has been like this for a long time, focused on understanding what's going on with the Death Laser (temporary name). He's annoying. But I can't really complain because he's finally doing his job adequately, which is to analyze and provide as much information as possible.

"...but what if I'm wrong, and I give my teammates false information? I must be sure…"

Let me repeat it because it's important. He's annoying. VERY annoying.

Distracted by my thoughts and Ricard's continuous, machine-like noise, I stop paying proper attention to my surroundings. It's then that, *Click!*, the dreaded sound plays right below my feet.

"O-oh, shit!" Immediately after, the ground lifts. The spring trap sends my Champion effortlessly flying through the air, towards the entrance of this labyrinth. "Not this agaaaaain!"

"Noooooo! Brotheeeer!" Clara shouts as her horrendous figure grows further and further.

Oh, well… At least there's something good about my current situation.