“...and this is all I can think of. Oh, a fire-breathing rabbit mixed with a dragon would be nice too! Hmm… yes, this was the last one.” Clara nods at her own words.

Oh my god! I thought I was going to die before she finished speaking! The rabbit list was so long…

“You’ll create them all, right?”

“You know, Clara… Don’t you think this is too much? I have better things t–”

“But you said you’d do whatever I ask. And what I want is this!”

Is this what you want? Are you sure, Clara? Because I’ll take your word for it. *Fiiuuu!* I exhale. I dodged a bullet here. Who knows what else could she have asked me to do…

While this is annoying and I’ll need quite some time to do it, this is nothing compared to other things she could come up with. I must agree before she changes her mind.

“Ok, I’ll do it,” I say.

“Yay!”

“But… don’t you think this is too much? How about I make the five you like the most instead? Of course, it can’t include a monster I can’t capture or use, those that are too strong or expensive.”

“But five is too little… how about ten?”

“... Ok, I’ll create ten of them.”

“Yes!”

After struggling for a while, I finally agree to her demands. Well, this is at least something I won’t have to suffer from. I’ll need some time and effort, but that’s all.

Looks like I and my Lab Assistants are going to be busy for a while. I’ll drag the Panicky Spitters into this mess too. They were created for this exact purpose, after all.

But this does make me ask a question: what the hell am I going to do with so many rabbits and wererabbits? Because I can’t only create one of each…

“Oh, and you must create create at least three of each so I can play with them.”

Yep, I can’t create only one, I must create three. But it doesn’t solve my question.

The only thing I’m entirely sure of, is that I’m not going to put them all in the rabbit area. It would be too messy and defeat its purpose. Should I create an isolated area that isn’t connected to the rest of the dungeon? That should fix this problem.

Or… I could also dump all the rabbits and wererabbits I don’t like into the failed experiments area. There are already quite a few of them, so who cares if there’s even more?

Yeah, let’s do it like this. Doing it like this I can appease Clara and improve my dungeon at the same time. It’s good to have an area where I can dump anything and it’ll fit the theme.

Failed experiments, get ready for your future neighbors!

The weather forecast warns of a heavy downpour of rabbits, not less than three per currently inhabited cell!

*Khm!* Marta makes a fake cough to get our attention.

“Are you finished now? “She waits for us to nod. “Let’s continue with the dungeon review then.”

“Where were we…?” My voice trails off, trying to remember what was the last thing we talked about. “Oh, yeah. The tunnels go next.”

“Yes, the tunnels.” Marta nods.

“I like them a lot.” Hey, thank you, Clara. “Sometimes, I’ll find some enemies, and sometimes, different ones. When I go into this area, I never know what’ll come next, so it’s fun!”

“I’ve only seen them once, but yes, I agree with her. They’re unpredictable. Too unpredictable, even…” Marta crosses her hands and adopts a teacher-like pose. “Which isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

I frown my eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“From what I’ve seen, the only ones who have a fixed spot are the environmental hazards and traps, and the monsters are allowed to move freely… Am I right?” She asks me.

“Yes.”

“This can work sometimes, but more times than not it can create boring situations where no monsters show up, or extremely dangerous ones when all the monsters show up at the same time.”

Yeah… this rings a bell. It’s one of the complaints most people have. Not when the monsters don’t show up, but when they attack all at the same time.

But I always thought they were exaggerating… I mean, who believes that half the monsters attacked the player party at the same time? They wouldn’t fit inside the tunnel, after all! It’s simply impossible!

Maybe they found the Monster train and didn’t know any better?

“Clara, listen to this too. It’s important advice in general.” Marta continues her explanation. “You can’t make everything random. If everything is random, it’s hard for players to enjoy the dungeon invasion.”

“But it worked so far for me…” I complain.

“If it worked, it’s because you’re lucky. If I’m not wrong, there’s all this competition with players going into your dungeon and then showing off how easily they reached the end, while better players complain about how difficult it is, right?”

“...you’re right, but–”

“No buts!” Marta interrupts me. “As I was saying, this is caused because your dungeon is too random. It has worked for you so far, but if you keep adding more random stuff, it’ll sooner or later blow up in your face, and no more players will come into your dungeon. Clara, you should learn from his errors and don’t do it.”

“Ok, I’ll follow your words, teacher!”

It’s incredible how neither of them feels shy about this ‘teacher’ stuff. They’ve been at it since Marta started training us, but I never expected it. I mean, I would die in shame if I had to call Marta ‘teacher’, or the other way around.

Sure, I’ve called her teacher once or twice too, but it was in a mocking tone. Sarcasm. It isn’t the same as doing it seriously.

“So what do you mean?” I ask. “Should I change everything so that there’s nothing random? It’ll take a lot of effort, and I don’t really want to do it… Also, my dungeon might never be the same again…”

“No, no.” Marta waves her hand to signal her disagreement. “It’s too late to do something like that. If you did it, it would upset your invaders. After all this time, they kind of expect it.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Then what do you want me to do!? I can’t change everything, but keeping it as it currently is, is even worse… Am I supposed to start everything from scratch!?”

Removing randomness from my dungeon is going to be a pain in the ass. After all, almost all of it is random right now!

And I can say with certainty it works! At least, I believe it works.

But I don’t want to lose everything if the players get tired of it… My dungeon is gaining popularity, and I’m having a lot of fun creating it. The last thing I want is for everything to disappear in a smoke cloud because the players get tired of the random elements…

I hide my face behind my hands. Aaah, I don’t know anymore… should I get angry at her criticism or cry out of desperation at having to change everything?

There’s also the option to beg for her help and guidance. I would really hate it, but if it’s what’s needed to save my dungeon…

Clara pats my back, trying to cheer me up.

I’m sure she’s doing it so I don’t forget about the rabbits, but I’ll take it anyway.

“No, you dumbass.” Sitting on the chair right in front of me, Marta kicks my leg in annoyance. “Do I need to tell you everything? Why are you reacting like that?”

Instead of complaining, I say: “Please, illuminate this foolish one on the path to victory.”

I grin. Heh, with this, I’ve won her collaboration. She might insult me in return, but who cares? As long as I get what I want, she can call me anything she wants.

After all, I know she doesn’t really mean it when she insults me.

…she doesn’t, right!?

*Sigh!* Marta sighs. “It’s about moderation. Moderation! Do you know what this word means!?”

I cutely tilt my head to the side to show confusion.

Well, at least I believe it’s a cute gesture. Clara does it to me all the time, and it always works… except when we’re inside the game.

“Agh…! Why are you acting like that now!?” Marta kicks me again. “Moderation means you shouldn’t make everything random. Add one thing that is random, or maybe a few, but not everything! And avoid using randomness as an excuse for laziness.”

Oh, she’s good. Really good. She got me with the lazy part… Many times I leave things unchanged because I’m too lazy.

You just need to take a look at my to-do list. I think I’m already at the fourth iteration, and I never completed the previous lists…

“For example, in the mossy and moisty cell area, having some of the doors opened randomly is okay, because the players will always know when it happens thanks to the sound. Also, the monsters will always be the same.”

“That’s wrong.” I chime in. “I’m going to keep adding more in the future.”

Marta sends me a death glare. Oh, boy, if looks could kill…

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, sir. I know, sir!” I reply.

“We know, sir!” Clara imitates me from my side.

Not now, Clara… What if she gets too angry because of you and stops giving me feedback? What am I going to do, then!?

Marta’s glare switches to my little sister. Heh, welcome to the club, Clara!

“I sometimes don’t know why I’m trying so hard…” Marta mutters to herself. “Ah, let’s forget about this and move on… Ok, so as I was saying, the monsters will always be the same, so the players will know what they might find after hearing a door opening.”

She’s right. The players will know something is after them as soon as they hear the ‘Blip’ sound. They won’t know exactly what, but it will be from a limited list. They won’t be completely unaware.

“But on the other side, having monsters randomly move through an area is laziness. It doesn’t take you too much time to set a fixed path. Or to change the dungeon parameters so no more than a certain number of monsters are in the same area, or set a minimum distance between groups… There are lots of options. Heck, you’re studying computer science! I’m sure you could change their AI so that they work a lot better than they currently are!”

I could. Well, not with the ones that have very low Intelligence, like the Stitched, but I could change the other behaviors.

“Hmm… I see what you mean…” Her arguments make sense, but I’m still not convinced. “But didn’t you have the most trouble when the randomness hit you harder? What if… what if this is exactly what I want for my dungeon?”

She goes beet red at my words, though I’m not sure if it’s because of anger or shame. I sure hope it’s the latter. As I said before, I don’t want her to get angry and stop helping me.

“T-this and that are two different things! Especially with the blinking monsters, you were incredibly lucky there. If they didn’t appear right next to a place with lots of tunnels, they would have been useless. You don’t want that to happen, so that’s why you should fix their behavior.”

In the middle, she doesn’t forget to kick me once again. Oh, boy… My leg is starting to hurt now.

Oh, I see… I think I’m starting to understand what she means with ‘removing randomness’. She’s trying to tell me I should fix the monster’s behaviors so that they work to their own strengths. Until now, they could start fighting the players in places where they were clearly at a disadvantage, but if I do as she says, I can make sure they are always at their best.

In short, she’s telling me to make my dungeon harder, and I’m very happy to oblige.

I like it. I really, really, really like it! If I can fix my dungeon problems and at the same time make more players cry in despair, isn’t it a very good thing to do?

It’s one of those win-win scenarios, isn’t it? For me, I mean, of course.

Randomness, get ready because I’ll soon deal with you!

“You’ve convinced me. I’ll try to do the best I can to remove as much randomness as possible.”

“Hmm… just in case you misunderstood. By removing randomness I don’t mean making the dungeon harder, ok?”

Making the dungeon harder, making the dungeon harder… I’m itching to start.

Oh, sorry, Marta. What did you say? Well, who cares? I already heard what I needed to know.

I nod to signal to her I understand.

“Are you sure?” She looks at me with skepticism. “Well, okay. There are two more things I wanted to tell you. First, the Freezer zone. I think you should make this area optional instead of part of the main path.”

“Why?” I ask.

“It’s because it’s filled with gore. You shouldn’t force players through an area like that unless it’s the theme of your dungeon. It’s the same as your fear of the Abyss. How would you react if you found yourself in the middle of Abyss monsters when diving into a human dungeon?”

Abyss monsters, where!? I shudder. No thanks. “Yes, I understand. You don’t need to tell anymore…”

“But I like that area. It’s a nice change of pace!” Complains Clara.

“That’s why I told him to make it optional and not to remove it.” Marta turns to look at me before continuing. “You could reward the players that clear it however you like, but don’t force the players to go through it. Not everybody can stand gore. And coming to a dungeon famous for the unpredictable monsters, only to be forced into something else you don’t like isn’t funny.”

“Yes, yes. Don’t worry. I understood it perfectly when you talked about the Abyss. So… what was the last one?”

“The last one is to add something else inside the boss room or make it smaller. I’m not sure how it’ll be when the boss is still alive, but if the players manage to kill it, the room ends up being too empty and boring.”

We all know the reason it was boring, so don’t feign ignorance now, Marta. If you didn’t kill the boss in a single strike, you could have seen how it was when the boss was alive! But, well… I understand it was boring.

“She’s right, Andreu.” Says Clara. “It was tedious to come and go through the area because there was nothing other than laboratory equipment and water canals.”

“Yes, yes… I’ll do my best.”

I have no idea what I can do with this. Not at all.

I look at Marta hoping to find a solution, but she only crosses her arms and says nothing. Well, here go my hopes of an easy way out.

“You still haven’t said if you liked my dungeon or not, Marta. I know what Clara thinks because she came a few times already, but you didn’t say anything yet.”

“You mean… in general? In general, what do I think of your dungeon?”

“Yes. With as few words as possible.” I nod.

It takes a while before she answers my question. “Unpredictable. Annoying. And too random. Way too random.”

I like that assessment! And it comes from a ‘pro player’!

Fufufu! Hahaha!

[https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]

“Which faction do I like the least? When it comes to invading a dungeon of that faction it’s undoubtedly the Flesh Monstrosities.

Why is it like that? Do I really need a reason to hate them?

…But you’re right, I do have one. And it’s because every time I enter a Flesh Monstrosity dungeon, it brings back awful memories of when I went into The Mad Rat’s Lab. I’m sure you can understand what I mean.”

- Interview with a random DMA player.