The Mad Rat's Lab

I run, chased by three robo-dogs as tall as me. As expected from the Magic Engineers, they aren't easy to deal with. With lasers on their eyes and large steel saw-teeth, a single bite of which can cause severe bleeding, they're a true menace.

"Now, Lily!"

Right after shouting, I activate the Rat Transformation skill and slip into a gap between the gears thanks to my reduced size. The robo-dogs are too large to reach me here.

"I'm on it! Hellfire!"

Black fire rises from the ground, burning the metallic bodies of the robo-dogs. But as expected, this isn't enough to kill them, and, unable to reach their original target, they turn around and charge at Laura. They start by running out of the black fire, and then stop momentarily to release their deadly lasers. The robo-dogs' eyes glow red, and a red beam comes out of them, leaving deep gashes on the metallic surfaces they touch.

To aim, they turn their heads around, looking, in my honest opinion, quite silly. But hey, looking silly doesn't make them any less dangerous!

Targeted by six lasers, Laura is forced to use Blink. Knowing they'll charge at her right after, she aims for a higher position over another gear, making it more difficult for the robo-dogs to reach her, and buying herself time to strike with her whip.

But instead of taking the long route, the robo-dogs approach Laura in a straight line. Then, thanks to their metallic bodies, they do a powerful jump, snapping their powerful jaws to bite her.

We didn't expect they could jump so high!

"Mad Rat, your turn!" Laura shouts, jumping away to avoid the unexpected attacks.

"Squeak!" 'I know, I know…'

Somewhat reluctant, I come out of my safe hiding place and transform back into my humanoid form. After much training, I can transform into a rat and back into a human with just a slight dizziness – that's, of course, assuming I don't spend much time transformed and don't move much in the meantime.

"C-chain Lighting!"

My arm wobbles when aiming, but my spell strikes true. Marta forced me to practice this until I couldn't stand up anymore… It was true hell, but at least I improved, so…

…Yes, I still hate it. Working hard isn't my style.

Lightning jumps from one dog to the next. You'd expect machines to be weak to lighting, right? Well, not in DMA. They do take a large hit, but it's not nearly enough to kill them.

The robo-dogs turn their menacing red eyes towards me, having successfully grabbed their aggro, and soon, six deadly light beams are pointed in my direction.

"Oh, shit…!"

Immediately, I scramble away, using the metal gears as cover. But lasers are fast, moving… well, moving at the speed of light, and the robo-dogs only have to turn their heads to aim them. The only saving grace is that the dogs can't aim the lasers independently, moving in pairs that are easier to avoid.

Before the shooting stops, I feel two searing lines burning my leg. "That hurts!" It doesn't, because it's a game, but I shout so Laura knows she'll have to heal me later.

After the once immaculate gears around me are turned into swiss cheese, the robo-dogs run out of laser juice and sprint towards me, barking with their menacing metal jaws.

"It's time to play hide-and-seek!" I run even further away, buying as much time and distance as possible. "Hahaha, catch me if you can!"

Right before they get to me, I transform into a rat and slip into another gap between the gears. During my transformation, I feel a metal jaw snap right where my head was an instant ago.

That was way too close for my comfort…!

Now, it's Laura's time to strike. Watching through the gap, I see black fire rise from the ground once more. The dogs, unable to reach me, whimper and turn around, their metallic barking noises getting further and further away. It isn't until then that I come out and transform back.

"Fools! You'll never catch us, hahaha!"

Yes, you're right. Laura and I are playing ping-pong with the robo-dogs to avoid being shredded to bits by their bites. It's a shame this tactic isn't as effective when the enemy also has ranged attacks, though.

We came up with this tactic during one of Marta's training sessions, where she forced us to defeat several maximum-level melee monsters. Since getting caught by them meant instant death, we had to come up with a way to slowly wear them down, making them run in circles.

If Ricard or Clara were here, we could deal with the robo-dogs more easily, but both Laura and I lack defensive and melee skills, forcing us to use the ping-pong tactic. Also, their bites are dangerous, and I mean it seriously. When I got bitten at the start of the fight, I got a bleeding status effect equal to a quarter of my maximum HP, as well as a slowing debuff to make avoiding future bites even more difficult.

But not everything is bad. If we keep up like this, we'll eventually kill them… and without taking too much damage, at that!

"Mad Rat, your turn!"

Ah, right. I was lost in my thoughts... "I-I'm on it! Chain Lightning!"

Shortly after my attack, the three dogs change their target to me, and the process repeats. Two ping-pong rounds later, the three robo-dogs fall, stunned by my Chain Lightning, and Laura kills them with her whip. Our coordination has improved significantly the past few weeks.

"Aah…" I exhale, exhausted. "That was a harder fight than I expected."

Didn't my sister say that dungeons designed to split the enemies would be easier? How are those giant robo-dogs, moving in a group of three, any easier than usual?

"I know what you're thinking. Your sister never said it'd be easier, just that the dangers would be more spread out. Didn't you notice? We haven't found any other enemy other than these three metal dogs. The monsters aren't weaker, but their numbers are lower."

"It makes sense…" I nod. Wait! Since when can Laura read minds…?

Laura shakes her head. "It was written on your face… Forget it, let's continue. Wasted time is wasted points."

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"Sure, let's go."

"Lasers, powerful bites, speed, and… Presence Detection? Yes, that must be it." I move away from the large dog golem's corpse, sighing at my depleted HP bar. "I miss Lily's healing."

Creating specialized monsters to track and chase down a split party makes complete sense; it's a classic tactic in the manual. I, too, would have done the same if I were on the opponent's side.

But that isn't the part that worries me the most.

Mad Rat and Lily… They should be together. I saw them entering the same portal. Lemon… I hope she's doing fine. There's the possibility she's the one who has it easier, having safely reached the end of the Gear Elevator.

"Mat Rad, Lily, Lemon. Wherever you are, don't fall for the compressing trap." You should be able to detect its danger before it's too late, after all that training. "That isn't a normal trap, don't even approach it."

I wish I could warn them, but my voice won't reach them, only attracting monsters towards my position.

Traps are designed to surprise the players, activating at the worst moment to kill or block their advance. Without enemy presence – or sometimes, any presence, even allied –, they do nothing. Furthermore, regardless of the trap, there must be at least one way to overcome it. It can go from a gap between blades, to a time constraint, to even a password that deactivates the trap completely, which must be found in a previous zone, but there must always be some way to overcome or avoid it.

But that doesn't hold for the Magic Engineer's shifting dungeons. They can freely create perpetually moving pieces, regardless of the player's presence, as well as unavoidable dangers. As long as there's another path to the dungeon core that isn't blocked by similar devices, it doesn't matter: anything is possible.

Two times already, I've found a passage filled with gears. They, slowly but surely, moved towards the center, eventually connecting with the other gears and creating impassable terrain, permanently blocking that path. Staying inside means certain death, and crossing means not knowing where you are, risking an ambush without anywhere to retreat to.

"You can't fall for them, team. You must remember my words during training…"

"It's suspicious." Says Laura, standing next to me.

"Yes," I nod, "It's suspicious. Why would there be a wall of gears blocking the way?"

Layers upon layers of gears, constantly moving at different speeds, are blocking the path. Why so many? And why are they blocking the path? This was one of the parts revealed before the match started… It makes no sense.

I turn around, shrugging my shoulders. "Well, there's nothing we can do. Let's find another path."

"...Sure." Laura follows after me with a pensive expression.

We retrace our steps until we reach an unexplored path to search, filling the empty dungeon map as we advance. Not long after we choose the new path, we hear the metallic barking from the robo-dogs. At least two of them, from how it sounds.

"Do we run away?" I say.

Fighting here would be… unwise. This stretch of passage has almost no gears. If there are no gears, I can't use them to hide, and Laura can't Blink away, utilizing them as obstacles. We can't use our ping-pong tactic here.

"Do you think it's safe running around in unexplored terrain?" Laura counters.

"Well… Isn't it safer than facing a robo-dog pack head-on?"

"Alright. Let's run."

We spring at our maximum speed, running in the opposite direction of the barking sounds. But, regardless of what path we choose, the robo-dogs give chase. We can't see them, but we can hear their distorted metallic barking getting closer.

I swear, these robo-dogs must have a keen sense of smell like the real-life ones, because they start chasing us even before they can see us. Once they catch our scent, there's no way to get rid of them without a fight.

We keep running, searching for a proper place to fight. But instead, what we find is another passage filled with gears.

I don't know if it's a coincidence or if the gears started moving after detecting our presence, but all the gears are moving, sliding towards the center as if wanting to create an impassable passage like the previous one.

"Shit! What now? Do we… go in?" I ask, panicked. I know, from films and anime, that nothing good happens when you put a human between two giant gears' teeth.

"We're going back. You can't be serious about going inside–" Laura's usual playful smile disappears when, from the corner, another group of three robo-dogs appears, blocking our retreat. "We're trapped. We must choose… Fight or run?"

Fighting or running? The result is clear, isn't it? Hahaha!

"I'd rather die than work hard. Let's try our luck with the gears!"

If it were an open space, we'd have a chance, but in this narrow corridor without obstacles? Fighting the laser-shooting robo-dogs would be an awful idea.

"Sigh… Fine. Don't die on me, Mad Rat. I'll be angry if you do."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." I wave her off.

The gears, making a ticking sound like a clock, although much louder, look imposing. With them coming from all sides, including the ground, there's nowhere safe to put my feet.

I struggle to move forward, using the moving pieces as ground, my increased reflexes and agility playing a large part. Otherwise, I'd have long discovered what happens when two giant gears crush your foot inside the game.

…I'd rather not discover it anytime soon.

"Ouch! It hurts!" I shout when two lasers burn my back. "Stop shooting, jerks!"

The robo-dogs, undeterred, have chosen to chase after us. They, too, are jumping through the gears while shooting lasers. But unlike before, there's no effect when the laser touches the gears; they are clearly indestructible.

As we cross the gear-filled passage, the gap between them becomes smaller, further constricting our movements. There seems to be no end to this passage…

Unexpectedly, a large gear, faster than the rest, stops moving. Placed right in the middle, it completely blocks the path. No person can pass through the tiny gaps it leaves.

I look back. Between the dogs and the gears, it's impossible to go back. "Shit! We're trapped!"

Without answering, Laura jumps, grabs the large gear, and looks through the teeth towards the other side. Then, she disappears without warning.

Right! Blink! She just needs to see the other side to teleport…

"Hey, what about me!?" I shout. "How am I supposed to– ah, right. The RATT protocol!"

I activate Rat Transformation, and the world enlarges. I slip through the bottom teeth of the large gear and, thanks to my small body, safely reach the other side. Then, I start using the gears' teeth as platforms to jump around.

U-uooh, I'm getting dizzy… So many pieces moving… Wait, am I upside down? …Large and dark objects come at me from everywhere, I don't know what's happening!

Like a drunkard, I continue to run, avoiding whatever moving objects I can see. I scurry through the gaps, avoiding the dangerous gears' metal teeth, and, I'm not sure how, end up inside a large open space.

Did the robo-dogs die, crushed by the gears? What about Laura…? I don't know, nor do I care. I'm not in the right state of mind.

I undo my transformation, lying on the ground. "Don't, feel good… Want to, puke…"

Slowly, the world stops spinning. I stay still, recovering, until a large shadow appears above me, followed by a familiar voice.

"Mad Rat, run!"