“Watch out!” I shout. At the same time, I push Clara to the side.

“Wha…?”

A white light beam passes where my little sister was standing a second before, barely missing her. One of my minions, standing behind her isn’t so lucky, and more than half its HP disappears.

*Tsk!* This is why I didn’t want to bring weak mobs with me. They’re so useless…

Clara looks around, trying to understand what happened. “W-what’s happening!? Why did you suddenly push me?”

I’m sorry, but I can’t explain the situation to you right now. I must improve our position first.

“Spread and hide!” I give instructions to my minions. “You too, Lemon. Tell your minions to hide behind the rocks!”

“Y-yes! My cute slippery minions, go and hide behind the rocks!”

Cute…? No, Marta, I can’t get distracted by this. I must show my expertise to my little sister.

I decide to focus all my attention on the attacker. Hiding behind a closeby mushroom, I pop my head out.

“The beam came from that direction… I see it! A mushroom…? No, it moves. It’s a… a turtle with a mushroom on its back.”

What’s wrong with your brain, Andreu!? Why are you always creating such stupid-looking monsters!? Can’t you create a normal monster once in your whole life!? Well, it isn’t exactly true as that goblin-imp mix and those guys with the lab coat look normal… at least they properly fit together.

But the rest are full of suboptimal choices. Are you doing this on purpose, to trigger me off!?

Calm down, me. I shouldn’t think about him right now.

What we encountered is a turtle that can fire light beams. By how the beam looked, there’s a high chance it was the Light Beam skill. If so, and given how much damage it dealt to my minion, the skill must be upgraded.

Also, the delay from when I saw the light condensing to the time the beam was fired was slightly shorter than it should have been…

The only way to achieve reduced casting times is by reducing the cost of the skill, so the turtle must have an upgrade that reduces the MP cost too. It’s hard to notice the reduced casting time, but for a pro player like me, it’s like the difference between the earth and the sky.

I’m sure of it: we’re dealing with a double upgraded Light Beam.

“But, the turtle is too far away… It must have the Sniper skill too…” In less than three seconds, I’ve analyzed our enemy. Now, I have to plan how to deal with it. “I can’t see any more turtles, but this doesn’t mean there’s only one.”

Usually, against a powerful artillery unit, the best option is to get close and attack in melee range.

But my fucking brother used a turtle for this unit, so who knows what defensive skills it has. At least, it must have the Shell skill, a bad match for melee combat because melee attacks don’t generally deal large amounts of damage.

What’s more, that mushroom on its back gives me a bad feeling.

This is why I hate him so much! It’s as if he always knew what I thought and planned accordingly! Even worse, sometimes it looks like a trap, but it isn’t, and then I fall into his trap as soon as I believe I’m safe.

Returning to our current situation, I don’t want to risk being in the crossfire of multiple of those turtle’s Light Beams. I could manage it, but I don’t believe Clara could. And certainly not our mobs. I don’t know if there are more or not, but the wise choice is to avoid this situation at all costs.

Whatever we do, one thing is clear: we must get closer. We can’t do anything as long as the turtle stays outside our attack range.

“I’ll go deal with it,” I say. “You stay here and take care of our mobs.”

“No! I’m going with you!” Clara complains and crosses her tentacle arms to show her disagreement.

“This isn’t the time to act spoiled. I’m serious here–”

“I’m serious too!”

I don’t want her to get angry at me now that we’re finally playing together, so I don’t have any other option but to agree.

“Haaa… fine… Come with me. But no fooling around.”

“Sure thing, hehehe!”

I’m not sure about this… will she really behave? How does our stupid brother manage to keep her in check? I hate to admit this, but I might have to ask him someday…

I give a few instructions to my support mobs before leaving them behind. I hope they’re still alive when we come back.

The only saving grace of today’s invasion is that I could convince Clara to allow me to use the lowest of the lowest of all the angel units, the Angel itself. Even if it’s the lowest, 500 cp isn’t so bad.

…but it’s so weak compared to my usual Seraphim…

I wanted to go alone so I could fly and defeat the turtle, but now I can’t do it with Clara following me. We now have to cross this treacherous, irregular terrain.

*Sigh!* If only I could use my Clairvoyance skill… what I shame I couldn’t give it to this weak champion.

I lead the way. It’s my chance to show my little sister that I won’t be defeated by Andreu anymore.

Five minutes later, we reach the place where the turtle attacked us. Since I memorized everything, it’ll take less than half as much time to go back.

“The turtle isn’t here, what are we going to do now?” Clara grabs my arm and starts shaking it.

“Stop shaking me.” At my reprimand, she immediately releases my arm. “Look there,” I say, pointing with my finger, “it’s the turtle. It didn’t move very far away.”

“Ah! You’re right! I didn’t see it because it’s camouflaged with the other mushrooms!”

“Ha, ha, ha! It’s impossible to fool me!” I boast.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“You’re right! Hehehe!”

It feels good to be recognized by my little sister.

But there’s one thing bugging me: we didn’t encounter any trap on our way. Maybe, there aren’t any traps here?

No, no! I can’t lower my guard! I can’t assume there aren’t any traps just because we didn’t find any. Doubly so in Andreu’s dungeon.

“I’ll take its aggro. Wait until then to attack from behind. Ah, umm… your DoT skills might have little effect on the turtle because of the Shell skill. Use as little EP and MP as possible.”

The Shell skill reduces the damage every time the monster takes damage, so it’s the perfect counter to DoT skills.

“Ok!”

I’m sure she’ll do fine. I’ve been the one to train her, after all.

I rush at the turtle.

As soon as it spots me, it casts another Light Beam skill, which I evade. It’s easy to avoid such a skill from this close.

It tries again, but I too avoid that Light Beam.

“Did you run out of gas? Pathetic!” If my estimate is close enough, the turtle should have MP to cast the Light Beam spell three to four times in total. “Let’s see how you fight at close range!”

I step close to the turtle, make one attack, and step back. Immediately after, an orange cloud appears, surrounding the turtle in all directions.

Luckily, I decided to move away.

“Tsk! Paralyzing Spores… I knew it couldn’t be this easy!”

“W-whats that?” I hear Clara ask me, hidden behind a rock.

“Paralyzing spores,” I warn her. “Don’t get close until I tell you.” It would be a disaster if she gets the aggro before I do and gets paralyzed on top of it.

“O-ok.”

The worst situation would be to be paralyzed and the turtle to shoot a Light Beam at that time. The problem is I don’t have a lot of ranged options, and the same goes for Clara.

There’s always Divine Wrath remaining… But the Divine Blood’s exclusive skill is too expensive to use against such a monster.

Divine Wrath (Active skill) Cost: 20% Max MP Deal (5 + 0,2 * Max MP) light damage to every unit in a 5-meter radius area. Allied units aren’t affected by this skill.

Luckily, the turtle’s MP won’t allow it to continuously cast Paralyzing Spores. I’ll wait until they disappear before attacking.

It won’t look amazing from Clara’s perspective, but it’s better than getting paralyzed and receiving a Light Beam.

If only I had my Seraphim… I wouldn’t have to worry about the Paralyzing Spores at all!

“We’re waiting until they disappear,” I say to Clara. “Then, we’ll attack.”

“Sir, yes sir!”

I keep the turtle in check by making rounds around it while avoiding the spores. Five seconds sound like nothing, but in the middle of combat, it feels like an eternity.

Finally, the spores fade off. I don’t waste any more time and jump at the stupid turtle.

I’m the best when it comes to melee combat. Nobody can beat me. Not as long as I have my Parry.

Parry (Active skill) Cost: 20 EP + ? EP If you hit an offensive attack or skill at the moment of impact, you negate it and take no damage. This skill costs 1 extra EP for every 10 damage negated. This skill can only be used if you wield a melee weapon.

Parry has such a small window to activate it that is considered the hardest skill to use in the whole game. Most players that use it, usually end up wasting the 20 EP and taking the hit anyway.

Though, for a pro like me, it’s an easy feat.

Of course, there’s the normal parry, which is completely different from the Parry skill and only depends on the player’s skill, ignoring stats. But the normal parry can only deal with physical attacks. Projectiles are very difficult to deal with, and there’s nothing you can do against spells. Also, you can’t parry a fist from a monster that’s twice your size. It’s physically impossible.

But what you can’t do with the normal parry, you can do with the Parry skill. And since I’ve mastered both, there’s nothing to fear! Ha, ha, ha!

“Lemon, you can come now!”

Clara starts attacking the turtle from behind.

“It doesn’t work!” She complains.

As expected, her DoT skills aren’t capable of dealing a lot of damage.

“Don’t worry,” I calm her. “Just keep your Decaying Touch activated, and make normal melee attacks.”

“All right, I’ll try my best.”

If only she was this docile during the dungeon exploration…

*Plof!* The turtle drops to the ground.

“It took longer than I expected…” I say, inspecting the area. “Though we took no damage whatsoever. It’s a perfect clear!”

Then, I notice Clara is covering her face. “I feel so useless! Nothing I did worked…! I want to cry…”

…Isn’t this the time to show my older-sister awesomeness!?

I sprint to her side and pat her back. “Don’t cry, Lemon. It’s normal to feel useless against a monster that counters your build. This is why you make teams or bring support mobs with you. And don’t worry! As long as I’m here, I’ll solve any problem you can’t!”

Heh, how is it? Do you feel my greatness?

“B-but…”

…no? You don’t feel it? Hmm… oh, I know what to do!

“And I’m sure that, when we find a situation I can’t do anything about,” Ugh, it hurts to say this… “you’ll be the one to help me then!”

“Y… Y-yes! I’m sure I will! I’ll help you and show everyone how good I am! Hehehe!”

That sudden mood change… Suspicious. Did she fake it?

“Well then, shall we go back?” I ask.

“Yes, I miss my babies.”

We decide to go back to where we left our support mobs. On the way back, Clara suddenly stops and points somewhere in the distance.

There, there’s a similar rock formation as the one that caught our attention earlier. A few tall rocks, surrounding a bigger one. It’s like a holy site, but I’m sure Andreu wouldn’t have put something so simple in his dungeon.

The previous one was a fake trap, so this one must be the real one. Or maybe this one is another fake trap. It could also be a real trap hidden behind a fake trap to make me think the trap isn’t dangerous, but then it turns out the next rock formation is a deadly one. Or it might be this one that’s deadly…

“Hehehe! Let’s go!” Clara starts running in that direction without waiting for me.

What the fuck, Clara!? Don’t you see this might be one of his extremely convoluted traps!? What am I going to do if I can’t save you on time!? It’s hard to show my good side when you act like that!

“It’s ok if you want to investigate it, but at least we must reunite with our support mobs first!” I shout.

She stops when she hears me. “Oh, right! My babies!”

Aaaargh! Between her and Andreu’s nefarious plans, I feel like my head’s about to explode.

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

“...

And did you know all the Dungeon Invasions and Dungeon Battles are recorded? The game company decided they wanted to prevent abuses and other nasty stuff, and the best way to do so was to record them. Of course, this doesn’t mean anybody can access the records, as you need permission from the company or the players to see those videos.

A good thing about this is that you can access any of your replays whenever you desire, a quick and easy way to publish your games and show your fans how you play.

This is why it’s so important to use a nickname when inside the game, even if you’re playing alone or with your friends. If the video somehow reaches the public, it’s best if nobody uses your real name. Unless you don’t care about it… but it isn’t recommended.

…”

- Fragment of one of Ricard’s random ‘knowledge drilling’ sessions.