“So this is the laboratory, huh?”
Marta looks around as she enters the laboratory. This is the first one, which only has a single Lab Assistant. She sees a half-dwarf half-elf monstrosity, wearing a laboratory coat and holding a notepad and a pencil.
“I feel that monster is stronger than the ones so far. But I’m not sure… they’re all weaklings to me.”
“Do you feel superior or something?” I say. “Come back with a champion in our level range and we’ll see if it’s strong or weak then. It doesn’t count when you compare it to your stupidly overpowered Champion. Everything’s weak in comparison!”
“All right, all right… I’ll stop saying they’re weak…”
“Thank you, it was getting annoying.”
“You’re right, it is stronger than the others. But, um… you should… no, it’s nothing.” Clara wants to add something else but stops. I’m sure it’s because Marta told her to stay quiet.
The Lab Assistants continue to be the strongest mobs in my dungeon. The only one that’s stronger is the Minitaur Queen… but it’s a Boss, so it doesn’t count.
Now, the fact that they are the strongest doesn’t mean anything when they have to fight against a ridiculously overpowered player. The only saving grace is that my sister has a -60% damage penalty for the next five minutes.
Maybe, if the stars align and she isn’t too aggressive, will the Lab Assistant survive for ten seconds? I’m not sure… It’ll depend on how her support mobs act.
“Let’s do this.” Marta unsheathes her sword and flies toward the Lab Assistant.
I think this is the first time I’ve seen somebody fight against it with so many stacks of the curse. Usually, the players avoid killing the rabbits after the first time, or they wait until the curse wears off before continuing.
My sister really is different. In a not-so-good way.
When I created the Curse Rabbits, the idea was to use them to give the players a headache. To confuse them. To make them think between attacking the Not A Rabbits preemptively, and maybe getting cursed instead, and ignoring them and risking to take a surprise attack.
But my sister ignored everything. Something that shouldn’t have been possible.
The funny thing is that the reason Curse Bugs – which, if you forgot, are the original critter unit that gives the curse debuff when killed – were initially implemented to counter behaviors like hers: to prevent players from blowing everything up regardless of the situation.
So she didn’t fall for my evil plans, but they worked anyway.
The Lab Assistant reacts as soon as Marta enters its detection range. It jumps into the air and both of them clash in the middle, before touching the ground.
“Only this little damage?” Marta complains after seeing the Lab Assistant’s HP bar. “This curse is too much, Andreu! I can’t understand why more players don’t complain and give you bad ratings.”
Oh, but they DO complain. Only that they accept their own failures and don’t put all the blame on me.
Also… generally, they don’t continue the exploration until the debuff wears off. Unless they didn’t notice.
By the way, she’s complaining because her normal attack only dealt about a fifth of the Lab Assistant’s maximum HP as damage.
Let me repeat, just in case you didn’t understand it correctly.
She’s complaining that her ‘normal attack’ – which deals the absolute lowest damage possible in the game –, added to her 60% damage reduction curse and to the Lab Assistant’s 20% innate damage reduction – which, by the way, stack, since one affects the attacker and the other the defender –, and my strongest mob (excluding the boss) only received 1/5 of its maximum HP as damage.
It’s like… I don’t know. Like complaining it took you only three seconds to run 100 meters because you were running on one leg.
Crazy…
After hearing her complain, Clara tries to join the fight. “I’ll help you!”
“I don’t need help, I can do this alone.”
Yep, she doesn’t.
“...but I want to help anyway…”
“*Sigh!* Ok, come here. Let’s fight together…”
“Yey!”
I’m kind of sorry for the Lab Assistant now. It’s going to be a two versus one now.
…not like it would make any difference.
----------------------------------------
Unlike every single player I’ve seen so far, my sister actually went and looked out for the Monster Train. What’s more, she’s actually defeating all the monsters and will surely emerge victorious. She’s got help from her mobs, but still… isn’t it too much?
‘What about the mushrooms’, you ask. She forced her way through. Her stats are so high that some poison damage can be ignored.
And what about the Tunnel Mimic? Not worth mentioning. She ended up inside one, but she killed it from inside within a few seconds of it closing its mouth. It was so fast that she emerged in the same place where she got eaten. It didn’t have time to move at all.
I didn’t even see what happened because there was no camera inside its stomach.
But The Tunnel’s Nightmare sure made her despair, right? Nah, I wish it did, but… she’s got a resistance skill. I don’t know which one, but she’s got one.
Clara had more trouble, but since she knows how everything in my dungeon works, she also knows how to fight against it. She broke the forced-look skill by walking behind a wall and then moving far enough so the howl didn’t reach her.
Pretty smart, in my honest opinion.
The fact that you’re forced to look at it doesn’t mean you can’t move. And if you move behind a wall, it breaks the skill’s effects and you can move normally from then on. An overpowered skill like this one is bound to have some way to counter it.
They only lost three support mobs from the encounter, two of which came from Clara’s side.
But not everything is going smoothly. For them, I mean.
“Hooo… so this can be possible, too. I never expected it to go like this.” I chuckle.
“Fuck this! How can they teleport through walls!? The game doesn’t allow this shit!” Shouts Marta.
Yep, you’re right. In the middle of the fight between my sisters and the Monster Train, a group of Hauntlings decided to pop up and wreak havoc.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
And this time, I’m not exaggerating. They’re truly wreaking havoc.
The Hauntlings, the meat-bags with four legs but no head or any other features, are running and teleporting as they wish in the middle of this battle.
They behave as I set them to: they start by pouncing on their victims, then teleport away to pounce again. And then repeat everything from the start…. or until their HP is low at which point they retreat for a while to heal.
At first, it was only one that casually walked near this place. But then, thanks to the shared senses, a few more soon joined this chaotic battle.
My sisters don’t know about this, but they happen to be in one of those places where several tunnels come near each other. It’s only because of this that the Hauntlings can move as they please, appearing and disappearing like phantoms.
“Andreu! I’ll report you! I don’t know how, but you’re clearly cheating!”
I ignore Marta’s complaint and continue to enjoy the show. Where is my popcorn…?
In the cramped tunnel, filled with my sisters’ mobs and a large amount of Stitched from my Monster Train, there’s barely enough space to move.
But this doesn’t stop the Hauntlings from teleporting, sneaking a few hits in, pouncing on some unlucky support mob or one of my sisters, and then teleporting away to heal.
First of all, I didn’t expect them to be so resilient.
“Why aren’t they dying? My mobs have hit them a few times, but they don’t die!”
If Marta could see their HP bars, she would notice they do take damage, but they soon recover thanks to the Regeneration skill. The problem is there are way too many units in this closed space, so the HP bars are all bunched up and it’s difficult to see anything.
In fact, there’s one dead Hauntling. Though its corpse is covered by the Stitched’s corpses and can’t be seen.
Second point. I didn’t expect them to be so annoying, either. But this is a good thing.
“They can escape from my tentacles! Muuu, this isn’t fair…”
“Agh, I can’t target them like this, there are too many of those disgusting zombie-like mobs.”
It was you who wanted to fight the Monster Train after asking Clara if there was something else in this area. Don’t complain now. If you can’t focus your attention on the Hauntlings because there are too many monsters attacking you, it’s your fault.
And the last point, something I wouldn’t have imagined, not even in my wildest dreams, is that they’re coordinating flawlessly.
“Stun-lock? I-is this a stun-lock!? How can they stun-lock me like this? Did you change their AI? How did you do it!?”
For some time, Marta has been trying to cast the same light ball as before. But every time she tries, one Hauntling pounces on her and she’s stunned, interrupting the casting.
This might actually be the first time she’s trying to blow things up when it’s actually needed instead of it being caused by a burst of anger. But they don’t let her do it, hahaha!
*Sigh!* This sister of mine, always blowing up stuff…
“Hey, Andreu… will you help me to create something similar to this for my dungeon? I want my cute monsters to be as intelligent as these headless doggos. Pretty please?” Clara begs me.
I shudder at the image of abyssal horrors teaming up. But she’s asking me a favor… Haaa… well, I guess I can’t disappoint my little sister.
“Ok… but I’ll only tell you how to do it. I won’t come inside your dungeon.” I reluctantly agree.
“Yes! Thank you, I love you.”
Clara sends me a flying kiss. Ugh…! It isn’t the same when you’re using your champion, you know?
The Hauntlings might be the best measure against overpowered and higher-level players. From what I’ve seen so far, nothing could really stop or bother Marta… until now.
Now that I’ve seen how strong can the Hauntlings be, I’m surprised there weren’t more complaints about them in the forums.
What can be the reason…? Maybe, they weren’t so bothersome because the other players weren’t so strong compared to my sister? If the Hauntlings killed the invaders with a few attacks, they wouldn’t be too annoying.
They’d be lethal, but not annoying.
No, this can’t be the reason. If they killed the invaders too easily, then the complaints would be about that.
Hmmm… I don’t know. So instead of thinking about it, I’m going to enjoy the show.
“Andreu, you little shit! Even if you’re my brother, I swear I’m going to report you for cheating. How dare you do this to me!?”
“Don’t run away, doggo. Let your big sis hug you to death…!”
Where was I…? Oh, yes, my popcorn cup. Here it is.
----------------------------------------
“Hah… it was horrible!” Marta shudders as she remembers the fight she just finished. “It’s impossible to change the AI of any monster so much that you completely redefine how they behave. How did you do it, Andreu? What cheats did you use!?”
Marta is lying on the floor, complaining. Right now, she looks similar to all the corpses surrounding her champion.
Cheats? I didn’t use any. Hell, I wouldn’t know how to cheat even if I wanted to.
“We beat them! Hehehe!” Clara spins around in glee. “Until now, I had to run away every time I found them. But this time, we fought and survived! It’s all thanks to you and your mobs, Marta. It was amazing!”
“...thanks.”
Marta waves her hand at Clara before dropping it once again, going back to her corpse-like posture.
“Shared senses…? Is this the reason they could teleport through the walls?” She asks me after inspecting a Hauntling corpse. “...why are you always so lucky? Why do all your crazy and stupid plans always work when it’s against me…? This is so ridiculous!”
I’ll ignore her insults.
“You’re right! It’s thanks to this skill that they can teleport through walls. There are other tunnels close to this place and they were going back and forth all along.”
Marta doesn’t reply and keeps playing dead.
I feel kind of bad for her being so depressed… I’ll have to taunt, umm… I mean ‘motivate’ her somehow.
“But it was really fun to see, you know? To see my ‘amazing’ sister struggle like that until she managed to turn everything around and achieve victory…”
When did the situation turn around? It was when the damage reduction curse wore off.
From then on, Marta could defeat the Stitched from the Monster Train in a single strike, significantly reducing the time it took to defeat them. After clearing a chunk of space around herself, Marta started to kill every Hauntling that dared to come close enough.
After hearing me, Marta twitches but keeps ignoring me. Hmm… this isn’t enough? I’ll have to try harder.
Meanwhile, Clara keeps poking at her with her tentacles and chuckling to herself. Do you want a stick, Clara? Maybe it’ll help you.
“But I must say it. It’s amazing what you did there. It’s the first time I’ve seen somebody annihilate the Monster Train and survive to tell it. A few of them blew everything up, killing themselves in the process, but it doesn’t count. You achieved what nobody else could!”
Maybe with this…
“Hah, of course. There’s nothing that can stop me. If I had to struggle like I did, it means nobody else could beat them.”
She finally reacts. But soon closes her mouth and returns to her previous posture.
Not enough? Let’s take the heavy weaponry, then.
“But what a shame… You struggled so much with my amazing stuff that now you’re exhausted.” Her eyebrows twitch. “You couldn’t cope with my weak Hauntlings and almost got done in…” She clenches her fists as her expression warps. “Being reduced to this state… this means I won yet again, right?”
“You wish!” Marta stands up with a jump. “This was but a setback. This is nothing! You’ll need a lot more to beat me. Who says I lost!? You must be blind if you think I lost!”
Ooooh. As expected, it worked. Sooo easy. Too easy.
“I like this spirit!” Let’s taunt her a little bit more. “Now, let’s see how far you can go before you face despair again! Hahaha!”
Marta raises her right hand and takes an epic pose.
“There was a time I could do nothing against your random schemes. But I’ll show you. I’ll never fall for any of your tricks ever again. For I’ve been training too long for this day. I was taking this easy because you were my brother… but I’ll change to serious mode now. I’ll show you what a true ‘pro’ player can do!”
As she finishes her monologue, Marta starts to walk back to the laboratory area. Confidence and power can be felt from each step.
Is this the pressure released by a pro player? I feel… Intimidated. Kind of. It’s as if I awakened something I shouldn’t have.
Maybe, she’s really going to crush everything in my dungeon now? Well, at least I hope I’ll get decent feedback from it…
“Oooh, how cool! Can you teach me how to talk and take a pose like this one? Pretty please?”
*Puff!* Like that, the epicness of Marta’s speech is shattered. Clara… you need to learn to read the mood.
[https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]
Andreu didn’t know yet, but the reason there were few complaints about the Hauntlings was that there were too few of them. In the vast tunnel area, it was hard for less than ten monsters to be close enough to share their senses. Most players who found them found them alone, or at most in pairs.
But this would soon change. It would change as soon as Andreu created a few more of them. At which point it would become a lot more dangerous… for the invading players, of course.