“This is it! My greatest creation! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

I make my epic laughing pose as soon as the monster pops out of the Advanced Giant Operation Table.

“You and I, together, will conquer the world! The puny, genetically inferior human nations will stand no chance against us! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

As usual, lightning courses through the laboratory equipment. I cast Chain Lightning too, to make it look even better.

Why am I so excited?

I’ve finally managed to get almost everything ready to upgrade my dungeon.

And more importantly, I created my first Amalgam ever! In case you forgot, the Amalgam is the upgraded version of the Hybrid, using three humanoid units instead of two.

After their invasion into my dungeon some time ago, my sister Clara asked me to put a monster you had to run away from in the sealed area, and Marta agreed to the idea. This monster I just created will fulfill that role.

“The unkillable monster! The eternal roamer! The monster that grows more dangerous the more you fight it! If you want to survive, you better run away... Fufufu! Hahaha!”

I wasn’t sure what to do with the second boss slot. I could create the monster that ruled the sealed area, or add something else in the first area, the caves.

It took me some time to decide but, in the end, I decided I’d use this monster as a boss. After all, there’s already a boss-like monster, though hidden, in the caves. As it’s the first area, there’s no real need for a boss, I’ll leave it as it is for now.

And this means… you guessed it right! This means that this already stupidly strong monster will have all its stats doubled when other players come to invade my dungeon!

Oh, by the way, here are the monster’s basic stats, without any buff applied.

Overgorger (Lv 5) HP 1.792 (1.280) STA 144 (103) SOU 78 (56) EP 1.232 (880) MP 728 (520) STR 114 (82) CON 110 (79) AGI 86 (62) SPI 58 (42) WIL 105 (75) DEX 93 (67) SPD 5 INT 5 COM 3 Skills

Active: Blurry Strike, Rotating Swipe. Triggered: God’s Intervention, Survival Instinct - Lv 3 (Powerful, Unrelenting). Passive: Blood Power, Bloodlust (Innate), Gluttony (Innate), Regeneration (Innate).

Yep, the stats are starting to reach a ridiculous level, though it’s balanced in its own way. This monster costs over 1.000 cp; with the extra cost for the Amalgam, it’s 1.050 cp to be exact.

And this is without the level-up costs!

I still remember the time when I had to search for specific units to reach high Dexterity to use them for automatic unit creation… Now, with the three monster’s stats added together, almost any unit will do.

I have no intention of using the Overgorger for that, though. If I put it in the lab, it’ll stay there when the dungeon instance is created, messing with all my plans.

Alright! Let’s go over this as quickly as possible! I’ve got a lot more stuff to show you today! Fufufu! Hahaha!

“Ooh, my cute, ugly, unkillable monster… I’m going to enjoy the invader’s reactions so much…” I say, rubbing my face on the monster’s thigh. It feels a little disgusting because of the fat clumped randomly all around its body, but I do it anyway.

Yeah, this monster is quite tall, my head only reaches its thigh.

The Overgorger goes like this: you can’t kill it and you shouldn’t fight it. That’s it, simple, right? Hahaha!

Thanks to the units used, the Troll, the Chief – one of the orc units – and the Glutton you just saw the other day, the Overgorger brings the ‘don’t touch it’ concept to another level. Why, you ask? It’s because of how all its skills work.

First, is the Gluttony skill. The more you hit it, and the more it hits you, the more energy it accumulates, charging until it can one-shot any invader. This by itself isn’t much, but if you add to it the troll’s Regeneration, which extends the fight, making it last longer…

“Good luck surviving the charged Gluttony skill! Fufufu!”

Of course, this isn’t all. Did you really think it would be this easy!?

The real danger comes when the Overgorger reaches the 50% health mark. At this point, both the Bloodlust and Survival Instinct skills kick in, and the Overgorger turns into a true killing machine.

If you remember, Bloodlust raises the attack speed and damage; while the upgraded Survival Instinct…

Take a look by yourselves.

Survival Instinct - Lv 3 (Triggered skill) When you have less than 30% HP, regenerate 1% HP per second. Upgrades Powerful: Raises the HP regenerated to 2% per second. Unrelenting: Raises the HP threshold to 50%.

Yep, it’s like an extra Regeneration once the HP goes below 50%, raising the total to 7% maximum HP per second.

I’ve calculated it, and with the champion’s buff, the Overgorger will recover around 230 HP per second. Can you imagine it? It’ll recover more HP per second than the maximum HP of most of my monsters!

“Good luck bringing such a monster down! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

The two active skills are there to fill the Overgorger’s gaps without increasing its fighting power too much.

Blurry Strike makes its attacks harder to avoid – I learned this was important when training against my older sister.

Blurry Strike (Activated skill) Cost: 30 EP Your next attack is blurred, making it harder to avoid.

And Rotating Swipe is to deal with hordes of enemies. Gluttony is single-target so it needed some AoE skill, and Rotating Swipe is perfect because it’s cheap and weak while hitting all units in melee range.

Rotating Swipe (Active skill) Cost: 70 EP Deal (5 + STR) physical damage to every unit in a 1-meter radius around yourself.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

But the tip of the cake is the Blood Power skill. Do you remember my Braindead Assassins, who attacked until they killed themselves with this skill? They’re still somewhere in my dungeon, though I don’t remember where… I’ll have to look at it later when I update the dungeon…

Anyway! The relevant part of Blood Power is this one: it allows the Overgorger to continue using skills even after running out of EP and MP, using HP instead.

Sometimes, if you can’t hope to defeat a Troll or similar monster, the best course of action is to stall for time until they run out of EP, the Regeneration skill will then stop, and you can kill them easily.

Well… this won’t work against the Overgorger, because it’ll use HP instead. And since it regenerates so much HP every second… It’ll never die!

“Haaa… I think I’ve fallen in love…” I say, caressing the Overgorger’s thigh. “I must thank Clara for asking me to create such a monster… Who would have known her idea of a ‘monster you have to run away from’ would turn into such an amazing monster.”

This grotesque four-meter-tall troll, with a disproportionately small orc head, fat clumps all around its body, and the Glutton’s mouth in the stomach area, is my greatest creation.

“But I’m sure I’ll surpass myself in the future… Fufufu! Hahaha!”

----------------------------------------

“Alright, this should be all… Fiuu, it took me longer than I expected. But it was worth the time!”

Until now, I’ve been postponing the dungeon changes. The only part I did was changing the first, big cavern with the turtles and the hidden boss-non-boss monster and adds…

Ah, right! I’m sorry, but what I said was wrong!

I also moved The Freezer, turning it into an optional area. In the first laboratory, there are now two doors, one which leads to The Freezer, and one that leads to the second laboratory.

In exchange, I added another entrance to the sealed area at the end of The Freezer. Those players who don’t mind gore and being swarmed by Stitched now have another option to get there. They can avoid the Panicky Spitters and the second Lab Assistant, as well as only having to cross the Minitaur Queen’s area one time.

It’s also a measure to appease those players complaining about having to chase after the Panicky Spitters for hours…

If they mess it up and the Panicky Spitters escape, they can now choose The Freezer’s route instead.

“Alright! So, to recapitulate… *Khm, khm!*” I hope I didn’t miss anything because I want to finish this already. “...The entrance’s slide is finished!”

There are no changes in the entrance except for the slide that leads to the underground lake, to the closest point possible to the cave’s entrance, for those players who are impatient.

There’s also a slight chance they’ll be dropped into a random place inside the tunnel area; and an even lower one they’ll end up inside the Sealed Area.

Shhht!, don’t tell anyone, ok? It’s a secret!

“The cave was finished long ago, so the next area is the tunnels. Hmm… the important parts were the Demonic Swarmers, the mushrooms, and… ah, yes! The Tunnels’ Nightmare! Fufufu! Hahaha! This is going to be fun.”

This is the part that took more time.

There are now lots of Demonic Swarmers in the tunnels, where should have been from the beginning, and a lot of Goblimps everywhere in the dungeon except for a few very specific rooms, like the laboratories.

It took a long time to capture enough units to create so many Demonic Swarmers and Goblimps, especially the Goblimps. Not because they’re harder to find but because of how many I needed.

I put Goblimps inside the Minitaur Queen’s room and The Freezer too....

And they can now follow you inside the Sealed Area after you open it…

They’re like cockroaches! They’re everywhere! It doesn’t matter how many you kill, there will always be more! Fufufu! Hahaha!

As for The Tunnels’ Nightmare, what’s even more terrifying than a monster that can appear at any time, and scatter your party because of the fear effect?

This is a very easy question. It’s worse if you have TWO of them instead of one!

Hahaha!

No, seriously. The tunnels are getting bigger over time, and a single one of them isn’t enough to cover them anymore. There were lots of players who never found The Tunnels’ Nightmare a single time during a dungeon invasion, something I can’t allow to happen. A second one will make sure this doesn’t happen anymore.

I changed the game’s settings so that they never get close to one another, so… the invaders may never know there are now two of them!

“Unless they kill one and then find the other…”

Shut up, you idiot! Don’t ruin my expectations!

“...ugh, I’m sorry…?”

Hmm… were was I…? Ah, yes! The mushrooms.

I took this chance to unlock a few more types. My favorites are the Frenzy mushroom, which increases all stats but makes the unit affected attack the closest unit for a short time; and the Fear mushrooms, which inflict, duh, fear.

But I also unlocked the Freezing and Burning ones. You know, the normal mushrooms you can find anywhere…

“As for the other changes… The Overgorger is the new second boss, the reason why the Sealed Area was… well, sealed… Ah! The reinstauration of the Silent Kidnappers and the upgraded Monster Train, I almost forgot!”

I’ve concluded that getting extra units without having to lift a finger is good for my mental health; to save a lot of time if I’m lucky.

But what about the problem of them clogging my Stasis capsules, you ask? I solved it. Now I have a perfect way to get rid of them. A way to get rid of the extra, useless, garbage units.

Like humans. Or humans. Did I mention humans?

Of course, when needed, I can use them to create Fleshlings or Flesh Golems after I unlock them, but this isn’t the best approach.

From now on, I’ve decided that, when I need to free some space, I can simply use them to create more units for the Monster Train. It doesn’t matter if they’re weak or useless, because their numbers are the only important part of the Monster Train.

It’s perfect for the garbage human units!

“*Whooo, whoooo!* Human garbage! Welcome aboard the Monster Train! Hahaha!”

There were fifty Stitched in the Monster Train at the beginning, and now their numbers have doubled thanks to all the garbage I got!

By the way, it’s possible to create a Hybrid between a human unit and another human unit as long as it isn’t the same… Don’t ask how I know it, I’m ashamed of myself for trying it.

But this is what’s important: as you might expect, the resulting unit is as useless as the originals. Fufufu! Hahaha!

“...Fucking humans, they’re so useless!”

The Stitched don’t have an innate skill either, so they’re equally useless. I’ve always said it, right? The Stitched are useless. And ugly, and slow, and stupid, and… let’s leave it at this or we can stay here until tomorrow…

“The last change is, hmm… the Rabbit Paradise, right? Yep, this is the last part.”

*Sigh!* The Rabbit Paradise… I shudder.

My sister didn’t stop pestering me until I created such a thing. As it previously did, the Rabbit Paradise connects to the first laboratory, allowing the invaders to skip the tunnel area if they so wish.

The Rabbit Paradise is now so big, that I put the entrance directly into the first caves, on the left side next to the underground lake.

I… I would recommend against going there.

I’d rather face the random stuff in the tunnels, the mushrooms, and the two lords inside it – this is what I like to call The Tunnels’ Nightmare, since they aren’t actual bosses – than go into that abominable area.

If I were an invader, that is. I even added a sign saying ‘Do not pat the rabbits!’ just in case…

Apart from ‘seemingly harmless’ rabbits, there are now Octobbits, the rabbit version of the Octocat. Let’s ignore them because the relevant new units are the others.

There are also more Not A Rabbit and Curse Rabbits than before, but they’re the minor of my problems. The actual problem is those mixed with the abyss units Clara pestered me to create.

Remember that horrendous monster with multiple eyes that turned into mouths and vice versa, growing in and out of its bulbous body?

Yeah… You’re right. I’m sure you can imagine the rest.

As long as they stay in their rabbit form, they’re ok. But once they transform…

If you pat one of them, thinking ‘how cute this rabbit is’, it’ll transform and you’ll have nightmares for weeks to come.

The worst part, for those unaware of the hidden aberrations under the rabbit’s skin, is that passive skills keep working even when they’re transformed. So invaders that come inside the Rabbit Paradise will have their MP constantly drained by them.

“A true, true nightmare.” I shudder.

Apart from these two, there are also tree-wererabbits now. These, cousins to the Treants – though the actual unit is another, weaker one –, come close to you before entangling you with their roots and draining all your HP and EP.

There are two angel-wererabbits too.

If they spot an isolated target, they transform, pick it up, and drop it from above, usually killing it. Then, they return to the ground and hide between the other rabbits.

In short: every new wererabbit is a monster mixed with something new and dangerous, but you’ll never know which one you’re dealing with until it’s too late. You can’t run away because of the orc-wererabbits, you can’t look at them because of the abyss-wererabbits, you can’t allow them to get close to you because of the tree-rabbits, and you can’t split up because of the angel-rabbits…

…and you can’t kill them because of the Curse Rabbits.

“There’s nothing you can do! It’s better to ignore this area and go through the ‘normal and predictable’ tunnels, don’t you think? Fufufu! Hahaha!”

The Octobbit? What about it? It’s a Creepy, so it’s inoffensive. Did you expect it to be dangerous, too?

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

“ALWAYS bring some mob to act as bait, and protect it so it doesn’t die. If you ever hope to clear the sealed area, you’ll need it. The boss isn’t fast. It isn’t smart, either. This might as well be the ONLY SINGLE F*****G MONSTER in the WHOLE F*****G DUNGEON that fights you without any tricks, but there’s ABSOLUTELY NO WAY you can defeat it! Believe me, I’m not kidding.

So don’t f**k around, use your bait, and hope it’ll keep the boss occupied for long enough. If you want to try your luck, you better stick a poisonous mushroom up your a** or go say hello to a group of Bombers. NEVER touch the Sealed Area boss! The more you fight it, the stronger it gets; and the stronger it gets, the more horrible death you’ll get.

And if you’re not sure your bait will be enough… BRING. A. FEW. MORE! Just in case.”

- Extract from the Chapter ‘Important things to look out for’ from ‘How to Stay Sane in The Mad Rat’s Lab’.