While pouting, Clara crosses her arms and shouts at me.
“It doesn’t count!”
This is the first thing she says once Marta and I disconnect from the game.
What doesn’t count? I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. You’ll have to elaborate a little bit more.
I tilt my head to the side to show her my confusion. “What do you mean–”
“What do I mean!?” She interrupts. “Do you really don’t know what I mean!?”
Oh my god! The dreaded question. If a woman asks you this question, or something similar, it means she’s angry and you screwed up.
The problem is that it usually doesn’t help at all to know exactly where you screwed up… so now I’m in a situation where I must feign I actually know what she’s talking about.
I look at Marta, asking for help. She stares back and mutters: “I knew this would happen…” Then she covers her face with her hand and doesn’t say anything else.
You’re smiling, aren’t you? Yeah, you’re smiling. Instead of helping me, you’re laughing at me!? How can you be so evil!? Why can’t you help your little brother when he’s in need of help!?
Clara stomps her foot a few times in annoyance, waiting for me to say something.
I turn my head to Marta once again, hoping she’ll reconsider helping me. But instead, she opens her mouth and moves her lips to form a phrase.
I believe she said: ‘You brought it upon yourself.’
What did I bring upon myself? What did I do… this time? There are so many possibilities, I don’t know which one might be…
“Clara? I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
“Don’t lie! It’s you who said you wanted to go into my dungeon to help me improve it, but then turned off all senses…” Ah, now I understand, it’s about that. “...and I wanted you to see it. You lied to me! You never wanted to come!”
She pouts and turns her head away. Heh, cute.
In case you don’t understand what’s happening: she was watching our invasion as the owner of the dungeon, so she knows everything that happened while we were inside.
“But we already talked about this, didn’t we? Didn’t we agree I wouldn’t have to come into your dungeon ever again?”
“That’s not true! What we agreed is that I would never ask you again! It isn’t the same!”
It isn’t? It sounds the same to me… But now isn’t the time to argue about this, I must first calm her down.
“That's why I went into your dungeon. I just… um, I just, disabled my senses so I wouldn’t have to see the monsters. You know, because… I, I’m scared of them.”
“Oh, so it’s like that. I thought you were just stupid and wanted to annoy me.” Says Marta from the side.
You’re not helping, Marta. If you’re going to spout bullshit and add to the fire, you better stay quiet… And you already knew the reason I did it, so don’t lie!
Clara continues to look at me with an angry face as Marta quietly laughs at me, her hand still hiding her face so Clara can’t see it.
“I don’t care.” Says Clara. “It was you who said you wanted to help me improve my dungeon, but you didn’t keep your word.”
“I…”
Oh, come on! I said it to avoid the training session! I really wanted to avoid the training session, because I not only had to follow Marta’s lead but I also had to fight against you!
I’m about to complain and say this, but manage to stop myself before doing it. Wow, that was close…
I look at Clara, then at Marta. Yeah, I don’t think it’s a good idea to say the truth. I mean, if I said I wanted to skip the training in any way possible, even if it meant having to go to Clara’s dungeon when I actually didn’t want to go into it ever again… I would anger both of them at the same time. Instead of solving the current issue, I would create two more.
And I really, really, really don’t want that.
The worst is I know I’m right. I have the right to not like something, and I shouldn’t have to suffer because of it. But, and it’s a very big BUT, who dares to say it to my angry little sister and demon-like older one?
Maybe you…? Because I don’t. We can switch places anytime you want.
“*Sigh* Ok…” I slowly start to speak, dragging my words so that, I don’t know… a miracle, maybe?, happens before I can finish my sentence. “I’m sorry Clara, I won’t do it again. The next time, I won’t turn my senses off.”
Clara’s face brightens for a moment before returning to her previously angry expression. She can’t completely stop the tips of her lips from curling upwards.
“Then, you’ll go into my dungeon right now, right? And after dinner, we’ll have the review session as we were supposed to, right?”
This… is what I like to call coercion.
Who volunteers to take my place? No? Nobody?
“...yes. *Sigh*”
Clara claps her hands and, with shiny eyes, asks. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Really, really? You promise?”
“...I do.”
“Yay!”
“... But you’ll have to come with me again, Marta.”
“Me…? Why me!?” Marta’s smile disappears as soon as I mention her name.
“Well, there’s no way I’m going alone…”
“Perfect! If you both go into my dungeon again, I’m sure you’ll find everything that I need to improve.” Clara makes a victory pose.
“B-but why me!? I just came out of it! Why do I have to do it again, only because of his stupid actions!?”
Heh, bad luck, Marta. There’s no way you can get out of this deal now… unless you want to make Clara sad. I forced you into this mess, hahaha! Also, don’t insult me, please.
Still… I want to cry.
Hi there, nightmares. Did you miss me? I didn’t. In fact, I hoped to never see you again. But shit happens, and it seems we’ll meet each other sooner than expected.
Well then, until we see each other tonight.
With love,
Andreu
PD: If only you could leave me alone, I would really appreciate it.
Clara clasps her hands together as if praying. “Why don’t you get yourselves get killed because of MP drain so I can get both xp and the Despair, pretty please?”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
No way. No way, no way, no way, no way… There’s absolutely NO WAY I’m going to stare into one of those aberrations until I die.
“Pretty please…?”
Clara makes puppy eyes at me, trying to force me into it. But I have my secret weapon against this tactic. It’s called ‘fear’.
I already said this before, but puppy eyes don’t work when I’m scared to death. Though I would prefer to be in a situation where they worked…
“No, I–”
“All right, we’ll do it.” Says Marta.
“Nice!” Clara jumps in excitement around the room after hearing Marta agree.
Nooo! Why did you have to agree, Marta!? Is it payback for forcing you to come with me?
“I’m sorry Clara, I don’t think I can–”
“Let’s go, Andreu. We don’t have much time until dinner. We have to hurry up.”
Marta interrupts me and puts the virtual helmet on my head before turning it on.
“Wait, I never agreed to this. I don’t want–” Again, I can’t finish speaking.
Noooooo! I don’t want to do this! If I had known it would turn out to be like this, I would have done it properly from the start!
I now regret my previous actions... But only a tiny bit. It was worth it to get Marta annoyed.
----------------------------------------
As soon as we finish eating dinner, Clara sits on my bed and asks me. Her current expression and behavior are exact opposites to the one she had when I turned off my senses.
“So, how was it? Did you like my dungeon, Andreu?”
Marta furrows her brows in annoyance. “Hey, why do you only ask him? Why don’t you ask me instead?”
“I… I, I…” I shudder. “...I really don’t want to remember.”
I finish my sentence with an empty look. I hope I can sleep tonight… I don’t want another sleepless night filled with nightmares.
Marta takes this chance to take the lead, while I try to recover from the horrors I saw not so long ago.
“Ok, so I, the great pro, will go first!” She turns her head to me with a triumphant look on her face before continuing. Yeah, as if I cared. “Clara, the first thing I noticed in your dungeon is that it’s too short.”
“Too short…? But I thought it was ok with this length.”
Mine and Clara’s thoughts overlap, but for very different reasons.
Too short!? Fifteen minutes of cosmic horrors is ‘too short’ for you!?
I’ll admit it’s kind of short for a player-level 5 dungeon, where they usually take about one hour to clear. But when it comes to the Abyss creatures, the shorter the dungeon is, the better. In fact, even a single second is way longer than it should be.
“Yes, too short. How do I say it… It’s like… when I was starting to get immersed into it, I could already see the dungeon core, breaking the illusion. And it was even clearer the second time.”
“Then I’ll make the dungeon bigger!” Clara pumps her fist before cutely tilting her head to the side. “But how much bigger?”
“About four times bigger. Players expect a dungeon of your level to take an hour to clear on average.”
Marta smirks at me as if saying ‘Aren’t I amazing?’. No, you aren’t that amazing. I knew that too, you know? Ricard made sure to drill it into my head some time ago…
“That’s easy! I just need to add more stuff and I’ll be done! Hehehe!”
“It isn’t that easy, Clara…” Marta rubs her temples with a dry smile. “Have you ever been inside a dungeon where everything was the same? Where there was no change from the start to the end?”
“I do. But they were all boring as hell…”
“See, you got your answer.”
“...What answer?” Asks Clara, tilting her head to the side again.
Marta and I exchange a glance. Sometimes, Clara can be like this. I like to see her as cute, but since they’re talking about aberrations and horrifying stuff, I can only see her as air-headed right now.
I’ve come to suspect she does this on purpose so that I lower my guard and she can do whatever she wants with me. But what can I say? I’m a sucker for her.
*Sigh!* Marta suspires before continuing. “That you can’t make the whole dungeon look the same! What else could it be?”
“Is that so? Then, I’ll create a bunch of random areas and stick them together, as Andreu did with his dungeon! We’ll be the same! Hehehe!”
Clara raises her hand up high and looks at me, waiting for a high five. Reluctantly, I raise my hand up when I shudder. And this time isn’t because of the Abyss stuff.
What’s going on? I look around and quickly understand the reason.
Marta is sending me a death glare. What did I do to you now? I swear I didn’t do anything! I’m not trying to poison her with my actions, ok? She’s poisoning herself, ok!? I swear it’s her who wants to do what I do and not the other way around.
So ignore me. Leave me alone. Shivering. Alone. I repeat alone twice because it’s important.
I quickly retreat my hand. I’m sorry Clara, she’s currently scarier than you.
Marta resumes talking. “It doesn’t work like this, Clara…”
“It doesn’t?”
Yes, she’s right. You can’t just simply put random stuff together and hope for it to work! Like I did. But it doesn’t work! Usually.
That it worked for me doesn’t mean it’ll work for you!
“It doesn’t. What I think you should do is create different areas. With new monsters. But we’ll talk about this in more detail the next time, in our next training session. Now let’s move to the next thing I wanted to tell you.”
“Bring it on!”
Isn’t Clara way more excited than usual? I’m starting to get worried. Does she really like those aberrations so much, that she’s excited about Marta teaching her how to improve the dungeon?
It’s… kind of suspicious.
She usually only gets like this when it comes to doing something with me, like playing together. But they’re talking about the monsters I fear, so it can’t be related.
It can’t… right? I’m sure it isn’t. Yeah, it can’t be. It’s impossible.
…Right?
“So the next thing I noticed is both a lack of monsters and variety.”
“I know…” Clara awkwardly scratches her cheek. “But I couldn’t decide which new unit looked cuter, so I didn’t unlock any…”
See? Air-headed.
While Clara and Marta talk, I continue to tremble. My fear of the past slowly turns into fear of the future. The fear of ‘What I’ve seen’ slowly turns into ‘What I’ll see’.
What the hell are you doing, Marta? Telling Clara to make the dungeon longer and adding more monsters to it!? And new zones!? What if I ever have to go back into it!? I won’t survive!
And I’m not talking about the game but about my mental sanity!
…Why do you despise your brother so much?
As expected, they ignore my inner thoughts and continue talking.
“There’s a problem with how you use your monsters too. I’m sure you don’t receive much Despair from the invaders, do you?”
“I don’t… but how did you know?”
“It’s easy, it’s because most of your monsters are hidden until the players get close. This is nice for ambushes and maybe killing the invaders, but this won’t give you any Despair.”
“Ah, so that’s why I was getting so little! I got almost all of it when I invaded other dungeons…” Clara looks sullen as she lowers her gaze to the floor.
“I suppose it is.” Marta pats her chest to show her superiority. “But don’t worry, with my help, you’ll soon be swimming in Despair! I’ll teach you everything you need to know to bring the most fear and despair to your enemies!”
“Yes!”
No.
“For example, putting the monsters in plain sight but too far away to attack, so that the invaders have no choice but to walk in weird poses to avoid looking at them or to have their MP reduced all the time.”
“Ooooh, I like it!”
Please, no.
“Or like rising the monster’s defense with skills, to increase the time their passive effect works.”
“Nice!”
Like this, the ‘battle report’ session between my two sisters ends and we can go to sleep. Or try to, because I’m sure I won’t be able to sleep today.
“...”
“...”
…Or maybe this isn’t the end.
Marta and Clara are looking at me. The latter one, with an expectant look.
“...what? Weren’t we going to sleep now?” I ask.
“What are you saying, Andreu!?” Shouts Clara. “Now it’s time for you to give me feedback!”
I don’t want to. I don’t want to remember what I had to go through inside your dungeon. I’m sorry, but I can’t.
Now, it’s my time to stay silent.
“... Hey!”
I try to stay silent, but Marta kicks me.
“Don’t be like this, it was you who wanted to do this.” She says. Please, let’s not return to this topic yet again… “I already did my part, so now it’s your turn.”
“Pleeeease.” Adds Clara, making puppy eyes, from my side.
Ugh, it hurts! My heart hurts! My heart (love) and brain (fear) are now fighting each other. Why did you have to be so cute, Clara!?
Should I? It’s my responsibility as the older brother. Plus I was the first one to suggest this. But… I really hate having to think about Abyss stuff.
I did come up with a few changes she can do to bring as much despair to the invaders as possible, mostly because it’s stuff I would hate to happen to me. That’s why I’m so reluctant: I would HATE for it to happen to me.
But I’m sure I won’t have to go inside her dungeon ever again. So it should be ok, right? RIGHT!?
“Ok… I’m going to tell you how you can improve your dungeon to give your invaders as much despair as possible.”
“Yes! Thank you! I love you!”
Clara kisses my cheek. Well, maybe… it isn’t so bad?
“Hey, why didn’t you kiss me, Clara!? Isn’t this discrimination?”
All right! It’s time to show the ‘pro’ how the ‘real stuff’ is done! Fufufu! Hahaha!
[https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]
“It wasn’t a surprise to anyone that I regretted my decision to help my little sister sometime later.”