The Mad Rat’s Lab

“Krut, you take the left.”

I nod at the leader’s orders and start walking towards the left side of the cave, the one that contains the closest entrance to the Rabbit Area, leaving the rest of the group behind.

“I’ll kill the ones at the far end. Dag, you keep Diq safe while dealing with the closest ones.”

“I’ll protect our dear comrade as you said, sir Orc!”

Gnabadag, our archer, stays to protect the mage while killing the remaining enemies in the area, while our leader and I, our two bruisers, go kill the rest.

It’s a surprise that he has started calling our leader in the same way as Miuzcogdiq does… Do they like to play lords and nobles? I don’t care.

As soon as I get close to them, I start fighting the Beam Turtles. I follow our leader’s instructions, slowly but effectively killing one after the other while advancing. Without their strongest and deadliest attack, they’re easy to deal with, even if melee attacks, my forte, aren’t very effective against them.

Slow and steady. Make no mistakes, and everything will go as planned. That’s my motto.

The left side of the underground lake, which roughly splits this cavern into two, always contains fewer monsters than the largest, right side. But there is always one or two monsters hidden near the far end. By the time I finish and return, everyone else is already waiting for me.

“Finished?” Our leader asks when he hears my steps.

“Yes.”

“Good!” He happily laughs. “See, Diq? I told you it’d work. Nothing will stop us today, huh, huh, huh! ”

“Oooh, yes. I never questioned it; I always trusted your idea. You’re the one with the most knowledge about the Evil Mastermind’s plans, and if someone were to discover their weaknesses, it’d obviously be you!”

“Of course, huh!” He starts kissing his biceps.

“But this makes me think…” Miuzcogdiq continues talking. “...Isn’t this method completely different from the usual ideas you bring to us? It’s almost as if… A-almost as if it were someone else’s idea!”

Our leader hesitates to answer, awkwardly turning his head away. “Uh, t-that… O-Of course it’s mine! I just had an epiphany the other day…!”

How unusual. And suspicious. But I don’t care.

After another short exchange, our leader leads us into the Tunnels.

Right at the entrance, he orders Miuzcogdiq to apply a spell on us. A buff to increase our resistance to status effects like madness and fear.

“See? With this, there’s nothing to fear! Today, we are unstoppable!”

Our leader swings his enormous axe as if to prove the point, and Miuzcogdiq nods next to him. He looks like a child when placed next to our leader. The size difference is too much.

“A wise idea indeed. But I kind of miss my Goblin Magic and spells… I would love to be of help while also using the magic that defines our tribe…”

Our leader snorts.

“What are you talking about, Diq? This is just a phase. A phase! When we grow stronger, you’ll have enough skill points to use both at the same time.”

“Ooooh! How right you are, sir Orc!”

“Huh, huh, huh! Everything is calculated,” he says, pointing at his head.

Gnabadag repeatedly glances towards the two. It’s evident that he wants to join their conversation, but he’s still slightly uncomfortable around us, this being the third time he has joined our group.

Thanks to the buff spell, we safely cross some mushroom patches and defeat a few monsters. We also kill The Tunnels’ Nightmare, the first time we achieve it without severe casualties or the whole party being split up.

We continue like this until a pack of Hauntlings shows up.

“Come back and fight like a man! Stop running away like a chicken!”

It happens right when our leader swings his battleaxe towards one of the monsters. The weapon hits nothing, as the monster teleports away just in time to avoid the attack.

“Not agaaaaaain!” He pulls at his hair. “They’re so annoying…!”

“Sir Orc. Ranged attacks might be more effective against them—”

“No. A true man fights with his arms. You must see your opponent’s sweat and smell their blood on your face!”

“…” I agree with that.

Gnabadag slowly lowers his bow, unsure what to say. He’s, by far, the one who has killed more Hauntlings. But he admires our leader too much to deny his words.

It’s right then that something white catches everyone’s attention.

“That’s… new?” Gnabadag tilts his head, expressing everyone’s thoughts out loud.

Everyone gulps at the same time.

A new monster... The Evil Mastermind’s new creations are always a huge source of headaches. Until you know how they work, or what they can do, you must proceed with caution…

The white monster starts moving. Its movements look like an incoherent dance. White light flows from its hands.

“Dieeee!”

Alarmed, our leader releases a Phantasmal Weapon towards it, but his reaction comes too late. Whatever the white monster was doing, it had enough time to complete it.

The transparent axe flies forward. At the same time, the atmosphere changes. A pressure weighs over us as light falls from the ceiling, blinding us.

The ground shakes. All sounds fade, replaced by an angelic chorus.

I’ve seen this skill before, this Divine Wrath!

Is our perfect Dungeon Invasion going to end like this? We, the Champions, will likely survive, but I can’t say the same for our support mobs. According to our leader, we’ll need them later.

“This is bad...” I mutter between teeth.

Miuzcogdiq and Gnabadag panic in synchronisation.

“S-sir Orc, what do we do!?”

“Sir Orc!”

But, perhaps, the one most affected by our current predicament is our esteemed leader.

“Nooooo! Not like this! My perfect plans. My stolen ideas…!”

Divine Wrath takes full effect, and our visibility returns. The first thing I do is check around us. My troll is doing fine. Miuzcogdiq’s personal orc guards are fine too. Even Gnabadag and our leader’s goblins, to not say anything about the orcs, are still alive.

Not only that, but our HP bars haven’t changed at all.

A few meters ahead, the corpse of the white monster lies on the ground, surely killed by our leader’s Phantasmal Weapon.

“Nothing… happened…? Sir Orc, what was that—”

Miuzcogdiq is the first to recover from the shock, tilting his head. But right then, a Hauntling who appeared from who knows where pounces on our leader, sending him to the ground.

I check the battle log. It indeed was Divine Wrath. But it dealt less than ten damage.

“Evil Mastermind…!” Still on the floor, our leader clenches his fist and grinds his teeth. His powerful tusks shake with anger. “You’ll pay for tricking me again like this! I swear upon my name! I swear upon my orc honour! You’ll pay for this humiliation…!”

That’s what he always says. I wonder when that will become true.

“Diq, are you ready?”

Almost as if he could read my mind, right when I’m thinking about him, sir Orc asks me a very important question.

“Yes! I’m ready!”

“Perfect then. Huh, huh, huh!” After chuckling, sir Orc raises his head and starts talking to the ceiling. “Watch and learn, Evil Mastermind! Watch how we destroy one of your nastiest and useless tricks!”

Yes! The time to show my worth has come once more! I’ll help sir Orc achieve anything he wants!

“Dag, Krut. Leave this to Diq and me. Just make sure no surprises interfere in the process, alright?”

“Yes, sir Orc!”

Dag nods enthusiastically, and Krut simply nods his head.

Then, Sir Orc approaches our objective. Our target: the black and white cat lying lazily in the middle of the pure white room.

“Huh, huh, huh! Do it, Diq.”

“Yes, sir Orc!”

I approach him and cast my spell. A spell called Levitate.

Sir Orc came up with the magnificent idea to use Levitate to clear this puzzle room. He said that, if we can’t touch the cat, and the cat can’t reach the destination on its own, we needed another approach. Using Levitate and pushing the cat around without inflicting damage with his axe, we will be able to force the cat through the labyrinth safely.

We’ve come so far today….

We defeated the Beam Turtles, which can sometimes kill a few of our mobs without a single casualty.

We crossed the Tunnels safely, even killing The Tunnels’ Nightmare, the single cause of most of our defeats.

We even safely reached the Botanical Garden and found one of the access cards! …Though not before the hydra ate two of our orcs and all our goblins died to one of the elemental treants’ attacks.

But thanks to Sir Orc’s innovative ideas, we’ve safely reached the last room before the dungeon core.

This is the end. The final stretch towards our inevitable victory! Today, all of sir Orc’s wishes will become true at last! And I’ll have played a major role in them!

Levitate makes the cat, the Infinity Cat, soar. Sir Orc carefully places his axe next to it and applies force with the flat side, pushing it forward.

We wait with bated breath. We carefully keep an eye on the cat’s HP bar. It doesn’t budge.

“It works, sir Orc! It works!”

“I know. I knew my idea would work, huh, huh, huh!”

Weapons aren’t part of the unit wielding them. If an attack hits a weapon, the unit takes no damage. Applying the same logic here, the axe doesn’t count as part of Sir Orc, so the cat’s skill doesn’t trigger, and it doesn’t take damage for being in contact with another unit.

“With this… Huh, huh… With this…! With this, my victory is all but guaranteed! Victory at last! My muscles are itching in happiness!”

“Victory, Sir Orc! Victory!”

Oh, how long has it been since last time? I’ve always followed behind his wide back, cheering and helping him as much as I could. In the meantime, we did achieve some victories… Phyrric victories. Victories that don’t count as one.

But today… Today, at least, Sir Orc will finally get what he deserves!

If this were reality, happy tears would fall from my eyes right now.

“Waaaaaaaaa! Let’s go, everyone! Let’s go, my dear comrades! To victory! Greeeeeeeeen Gang!”

““GREEN GANG!””

Sir Orc charges forward, unafraid of the hundreds of traps, and we charge after him. The true Savage Horde way.

In an indescribable show of skill, Sir Orc wades through the spinning blades and flying arrows, through the spike pits and poison clouds, through the minefields and fire-spewing machines… Not a single one touches the cat.

When he can’t avoid them or can’t relocate the cat’s position in time, he takes the hit with his body, like a true man.

His skin turns red, his speed increases severalfold. We struggle to keep up with him, even when we don’t have to care about anything but ourselves.

“We’re almost there, Sir Orc! I can see the finish line!”

The ugly, zombie-like cheerleaders wait for our arrival. They wave their pompons, and huge ‘welcome’ banners fill the walls at the end of this last stretch.

Sir Orc makes a short pause and inhales deeply.

“Haaa… This is the last and hardest stretch. I can do it.” He talks to himself. “No. I WILL do it. I will do it, and show the Evil Mastermind what I’m made of. He can’t play with me! He can’t—”

He stops, his face twisted in horror.

I, Dag, and Krut do the same, as a white and black creature, a cat we are all way too familiar with, falls to the ground. We can see it all as if in slow motion, due to the Levitation spell slowing the cat’s fall.

The damn cat jumped off Sir Orc’s axe on its own!

“NOOOOOOOOO…!”

With a loud shout, Sir Orc reaches out to the cat. At first, he reaches out with his axe, used to wield it around to control the cat, but he rethinks it quickly. If he smashes it at high speed, it would have counted as an attack, making the cat split.

Changing immediately, Sir Orc lets go of the axe and extends his hand at an absurdly fast speed.

What reflexes! What decisiveness!

We all know. The cat’s self-inflicted damage takes a while to scale up. It’s possible to cross the few meters remaining without having to worry about it.

*Swiiish!*

The most horrifying sound of all makes a shiver run down my spine. The sound of an arrow.

In DMA, an arrow is nothing. At most, a basic attack from a monster or Champion. At least, a trap that deals up to 10 damage, which is nothing to high-level characters. They can be avoided, parried, or tanked without much trouble.

But this arrow is different. This arrow is the worst that could have happened. The end of the world.

The arrow and the cat’s trajectories intersect in the worst luck possible. We hear a *pop* sound, and the cat splits into two identical but smaller copies.

After splitting, my Levitate skill stops working, and the two scatter around, immediately running into other traps and splitting even further.

*Pop. Pop pop. Pop.*

Before we can react, the whole floor is filled with tiny cats, the size of my fingernail, scattering and hiding everywhere.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Sir Orc screams. “I was so close…! So CLOSE!”

“C-calm down, Sir Orc, we can still do it. There’s always another way…”

I do my best to calm him, but he pushes me away and instead starts punching the wall with all his strength. Blades and arrows hit him as he does so, but he ignores them.

Dag approaches Sir Orc carefully.

“Sir Orc. Diq is right. We can still do it. I read it in the forums that you can clear this puzzle if you kill all the cats…”

After listening to him, Sir Orc turns his head towards him, glaring at him fiercely. “Do you know how long it took me the last time I tried that, huh?”

“Uh, I… I don’t know…”

“It took me three hours. THREE. FUCKING. HOURS!”

“Three hours? I-I…”

“The cats hide in the worst places imaginable. They walk voluntarily into the traps, and any damage you deal to them only increases their numbers. You have no idea… You have NO IDEA how hard it is to kill them all!”

Dag is left without words, repeatedly opening and closing his mouth. Krut and I exchange a silent look, not sure what to do.

“Why does it keep happening only to me? Am I that unlucky? Am I jinxed!?” Sir Orc repeatedly slams his head on the wall. “How!? Why!? Was all this also planned and predicted by the Evil Mastermind!?”