Following Matta’s guidance, reaching the first skull mark on the map doesn't take too long. It was very close to the entry point.

“Here are the mushrooms.” Says Matta.

I nod. “I know, I can see them. But why is the map warning about them?”

“Maybe they’ll explode when you get close?” Adds Berta. “You go in and then, BOOOM! Hey, hey,” she pokes me with her finger, “do you want to try it, Carles? I want to see your face when it happens, ahahaha!”

I ignore the flying bug’s provocation and glance at Matta.

She’s right in that if anything happens, she’s the only one who can save us because she has healing spells. This means she shouldn’t be the one to go inside to test what happens. But since Matta is so weak and can be easily killed, this leaves me as the only option.

“Alright… I’m going in…”

Before I leave, Matta grabs my arm and says. “Be careful, I smell danger.”

“I know, I wasn’t going to rush ahead blindly.” If the mushrooms are going to explode, I’d rather be as far as possible from the center of that explosion. “Well then, let’s solve the mystery…”

“Do your best, Carles! And don’t die! I don’t want to have to use Resurrection on you so early!”

She enthusiastically waves goodbye while retreating. They both take some distance from the mushrooms, to make sure they’re out of range of whatever happens.

“Let’s go…” I gulp. I step into the mushroom grove. I wait, but nothing happens, so I make another step. “There’s nothing happ–” I fall to the ground, incapable of finishing my sentence. Huh? What’s going on? Why did… “...I fall to the ground? Ah, I can talk again!”

There’s a greenish cloud surrounding me, is this what caused me to fall?

“Come back!” Shouts Matta. “Don’t stand in there, it’s a poison cloud!”

There’s no reason to keep taking damage now that I know what’s going on. “But why did I fall? Did you see what happened from here?” I say while retreating.

“I think it was–”

Berta’s annoying laughter cuts Matta in the middle of his sentence. “Ahahahaha! What’s wrong with you, Carles? Do you love the ground so much that you wanted to kiss it? Ahahaha!”

“If you find it so funny, why don’t you try going there? I’m sure you’ll find what’s going on without any trouble.”

“Ah, no, I…” Her eyes start to swim around, not sure what to say.

Matta ignores our banting and resumes his explanation. “As I was saying, there must be some other kind of mushrooms mixed with the poison ones. Check your combat log to know what’s going on.”

“Ah, right. I forgot about it.” I don’t usually use it, so I tend to forget it exists. “It was… Sleep. I was afflicted by sleep.”

“I see…” Matta nods. “It makes sense.”

When you’re afflicted by Sleep, your Champion falls to the ground and you’re incapable of doing anything until its duration expires or until you take damage. Then, the game creates a phantasmal version of you that nobody can see or interact with so that players don’t panic and can assess the situation.

But I didn’t stay in that state for long because the poison damage snapped me out of Sleep as soon as it triggered, I didn’t notice the change of perspective.

“Hey, Carles… I’m sorry to ask you, but do you mind…”

“Don’t worry, buddy.” I pat Matta on the shoulder, not allowing him to finish. “I too want to know what’s going on. They wouldn’t warn about the mushrooms if sleep and poison were the only thing they did.”

“Nice! But keep track of your HP. Come back if you take too much damage.”

We’re both on the same page here. We know it’s dangerous, but we want to discover why the other players fear these mushrooms so much. And since he can’t go, I must be the one to do it.

“You’re going again? Did you like the taste of the ground so much?” Berta snickers. “Do you mind if I film everything?”

“Hm… only if you come with me. Let’s go, Berta! To adventure! Hahaha!” I try to grab her arm, but she runs away.

“...you can do it, Carles! I’ll be cheering you from here, ok? Go, go! You’re the best!”

So easy…

Once again, I carefully tread into the mushroom grove. As the first time, nothing happens with the first step. Then, a green cloud pops up from a nearby mushroom on the second, but there’s no sleep this time.

“Maybe they only trigger once–” I fall to the ground at the same time a bluish cloud pops out of one of the mushrooms. Ok, maybe they don’t. It’s just that I didn’t reach the same point yet.

I struggle to move forward, advancing inside the poisonous cloud while constantly falling to the ground. After standing and falling so many times, I start crawling instead of walking. It’s faster this way. Meanwhile, I can hear a bug’s laughter coming from outside the grove.

Then, a cloud of a different color appears. This time, it’s a red one. Soon after, my body stands up and turns to my companions.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Huh…? Why did I stand up…?”

Matta and Berta observe me with interest, but as soon as I turn around, Matta exclaims ‘Oh!’ and runs away. Berta, on the other hand, stays there, tilting her head.

“Why are your eyes red, Carles?” She asks.

“Red? They should be golden. It’s the first time they changed color…”

“A-and why are you coming in my direction?”

“I’m not moving…” No, I’m wrong, my body is indeed running in her direction. Why? Why is my body moving on its own? “I can’t control what I do!” I shout, alarmed.

“What!?” She backs away, but I’m faster than her. “D-don’t come. Stop! W-why are you so fast? You weren’t this fast before.”

“I have no idea…”

I truly have no idea what’s going on, so I take a look at my status screen. Frenzy…? Did that red cloud inflict Frenzy on me? Then, it means I’ll spend the next… 8 seconds, it says?... chasing the closest unit, regardless of enemy or ally. It just happens the closest one is Berta.

Oh, no, I’ll have to attack Berta until the Frenzy debuff expires.

What a shame, to attack my ally… My precious ally, who’s been taunting and laughing at me since I made the first step into the mushroom grove.

What a shame I have to stand back and watch the show of her running around, with tears dripping from her eyes and snot from her nose. The true shame is this is a game and I can’t see those two things. But I can at least enjoy her panic.

“Kyaaaaah!” She shouts when I slash with my katana. “What are you doing? Stop! I’m your ally! “Nooo! I don’t want to dieeee!” She screams, making her best effort to avoid all my attacks.

“I can’t. I’m frenzied.” I say in a flat tone. “Aaah, why do I have to attack my precious teammate? Please, anything but this… This is the greatest shame for a samurai…”

“What samurai!? And why are you smiling!?”

Oops, I almost revealed my true thoughts. What a slip. I make sure to put on a poker face before answering. “Smiling…? Nah, it must be your imagination.”

My sword passes right by her nose, making her scream one more time. “Kyaaaaah!”

Aaah, some stress relief… This is so good.

My body keeps chasing after Berta for as long as the Frenzy debuff controls me. If she were thinking properly, she could have dispelled it and saved herself some trouble. But she didn’t, so I had some laughs thanks to her.

She drops to the ground, exhausted. “Haaah, I thought I was going to die…”

“My bad, it wasn’t on purpose… hahaha…” I make a fake laugh while scratching my head. I’m not lying. The fact that I enjoyed it doesn’t mean I was doing it on purpose.

We hear steps coming closer. It’s Matta, who, knowing what was going to happen, was hidden since the beginning.

“Hihihi,” he laughs, “I’m sorry, Berta, but I had to run away. I knew you would survive, but one or two lucky strikes would have killed me. I couldn’t fight back, either, since he’s our ally. So… you had to take him on.”

He makes an apology that, to me, doesn’t sound like one.

“You could have warned me instead of running away!” She complains. “I didn’t know what was going on until he attacked me!”

“You didn’t know? Didn’t you see the red eyes?”

“Of course I did! But I didn’t know what they meant. It’s your fault!” She punches him, causing ripples to appear on his tummy before crossing her arms.

“Umm… I’m sorry?”

I clap my hands to get their attention. “Why don’t we forget what happened and focus on the future, huh?”

“Alright…” She reluctantly agrees.

Matta looks happy to change the topic. “How did you see it?” He asks. “We only saw a part of it because we were far away.”

“Wait a moment…”

I was too focused on my HP bar and on my surroundings to keep track of the battle log. I had to check for traps and hidden enemies while my vision kept shifting due to falling asleep, so I don’t know everything that happened.

And talking about my HP… it’s almost at half. I only reached the halfway point before the frenzy debuff affected me, and I took so much damage… It’s ridiculous!

“Alright, so…” I start reading the log. “Poison, lots of it. And lots of sleep too. Then, some fire and ice damage… a resisted fear effect, and finally, the frenzy one. I didn’t see any traps or hidden monsters, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”

“So many? I now understand why do they warn about the mushroom areas in the map… Mystery solved.” Matta comments as he takes out his map yet again. “There are a few more skulls, we’ll find a few more areas like this one. Do you think it’s doable?”

I shake my head. “No. We should avoid them. It’s too dangerous.”

Berta can heal me and I’ll be back at full HP. But if we all three go through the mushroom grove, she’ll have to spend too much MP. It’s not worth it. And this is assuming we won’t find anything nastier in our way.

It’s possible we’re all afflicted with Frenzy at the same time and start fighting in the middle…

Matta starts planning our route taking it into account.

“If we avoid the skulls but want to see most of this dungeon, we can go this way, then turn left… We can’t see everything because it’ll take all day, but we can at least go through a big chunk of it…”

“Hey, hey! What’s this?” Berta points at the map. “Why is it colored differently than the rest of the map?”

I take a closer look and she’s right. There are a few small rooms in between the passages, and some of them are painted with a different color. I’m curious too.

“It says they’re safe areas. But there’s the forbidden signal next to the name. Why is it?” Matta tilts his head, not sure what’s going on. “There’s one very close. Why don’t we go and check it out?”

“All right.” I shrug. “What could be the worst that can happen?”

“Don’t say this!” Berta flies and stands right in front of me, pointing her finger at me. “Don’t you know everything turns for the worst after saying this!? Are you an idiot!?”

“Berta… I’m sorry.” I say, patting her head. “Good luck then, you’ll need it.”

“What? Good luck? Why?” She doesn’t understand why, but she starts trembling. “Why do I need good luck?”

“Well… I was the one to risk my life the last time, so this time it’s your time to do it.”

“What!? NO! I never agreed to it!” She tries to fly away, but she can’t because I’m grabbing her leg. My champion’s way stronger than hers, there’s no way she can get free. “Release me! Blockhead! I’m getting angry!”

“...where’s that safe zone?” I ask Matta. “We’re going to test it.”

“It’s this way. Follow me. Let’s go. To adventure!”

“To adventure!”

“No, shit! Release me! I don’t want to do this! I’m sorry for laughing at you, ok? I won’t do it agaaaain!”

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

Regardless of how many changes the Evil Mastermind made to The Mad Rat’s Lab, there was always at least one path to reach the laboratory area without having to cross a single one of the mushroom groves. The problem was that, depending on what path the players took, they had to take a huge detour to avoid all the mushroom areas. So, sometimes, they decided to try their luck.

Most of those players never made it through.