I sheathe my katana when the last monster falls to the ground. “Haaa… I almost died…” I say. “I never expected them to be this hard…”
Only 50 HP remains. The monsters started to hit extremely hard by the end… I got lucky to avoid a few of their attacks, or I’d be dead right now.
In the middle, another group of those four-legged flesh monsters came and the fight made a turn for the worse. But compared to the undying black-covered monsters they were nothing. Right now, they should be all dead. Either this, or they ran away. It doesn’t matter which one it is.
“To reach this point when fighting two basic monsters slapped together… Tsk, tsk, tsk…!” Berta clicks her tongue while shaking her head.
We realized the elf-dwarf monsters were a mix of the basic units from the two factions in the middle of the fight. She’s right when she says ‘two basic monsters slapped together’, but this name doesn’t justify how awful they were.
Furthermore, she’s so annoying… I won’t let it slide.
“You have no right to say this! I got their aggro and they never attacked you. If you had to deal with them, I’m sure you’d be dead!”
“Says the one who was cowering, supplicating them to stop attacking…” She puffs out her nonexistent chest. “Oh, right, you couldn’t see my gallant figure, who was bringing death from above, because you were running away…”
“What gallant figure? I only saw a child flying around.”
“What!? You’re saying this again!? I’ll teach you how to respect your seniors! Come here!”
She flies in my direction while making weird gestures with her hands. It’s as if she were grabbing something and then twisting it around.
“Stop it. Come here and watch this.” Matta interrupts us, signaling us to come closer. “I believe I know what happened. Carles, you were lucky and unlucky at the same time.”
I furrow my brows. “Both? How is this possible?”
“Of course, he’s talking about how lucky you were to survive. Ahaha!”
“Shut up, Berta…”
“Stop it for now.” Matta forces us to stop one more time. “Inspect this corpse and you’ll see what I mean.”
Inspecting the monster’s corpse, huh? It’s hard to do during combat because you need to focus on it, so the best time to do it is when they’re dead.
Alright, let’s do it.
I inspect the corpse, and the first thing that I read is the monster’s name. Unless you deactivate it in the settings, it always appears on top of the monster, so I already knew it, but I was too preoccupied with staying alive to remember it.
“Demonic Swarmers… A truly fitting name,” I shiver as I remember the experience of being surrounded by them on all sides. They wouldn’t die and were covered in a dark film, like demons out of a nightmare.
The next thing under the name is the stats, followed by the skills. I don’t care about the former, so I skip to the latter.
Demonic Revenge and Death Shield. Aha! So this was the reason they wouldn’t die and were growing stronger! After each death, the rest would receive a shield nullifying the next damage while getting a stat boost! Now it all makes sense!
But what a nasty combination. Who’s the crazy player who had such a nasty idea?
They also have the Dash skill, making them extremely fast as long as they have EP…
“Now I understand why they were so tricky to deal with,” I say. “But I still don’t understand what you meant, Matta. Both lucky and unlucky? Why?”
“As I’ve said before, you’re lucky because you didn’t die. Ahaha!” Berta proudly puffs out her chest once again.
How many times do I have to tell you? If you don’t have, don’t puff it like this. You’re only going to make a fool of yourself and make the others laugh at you.
Sigh… She never learns.
“He’s indeed lucky to have survived,” Matta nods. Hey! Not you too! “But I’m not talking about this.” I knew it! I knew you’d never betray me, my friend. “I’m talking about the initial Dragon’s Breath.”
“My first Dragon’s Breath? You mean the one I used at the start?”
It still doesn’t make sense to me. What’s up with it?
“Yes, that one. When you used it, thanks to the dwarf’s damage resistance, the monsters didn’t take enough damage to die. You left them near the door’s death and got their aggro for the rest of the fight, so Berta and I could kill them without having to worry about anything.”
“I don’t see any good part in all this…” I retort.
“It isn’t simple.” Matta continues his explanation. “You were lucky because your first attack didn’t deal enough damage to kill them, so they were left with very little HP. But unlucky because you got their aggro.”
“It would have been better if they just died with the first attack…”
“Wrong, Carles. If you had done enough damage to kill them, only the first one would have died, and the rest of the damage would have been prevented. You only survived because the rest of them had so little HP that as long as they didn’t have the shield, any attack could kill them. Do you understand now?”
Aaah, now I understand. It’s all thanks to me that we survived… Hahaha! Dragon’s Breath for the win!
But then… it means it’s all thanks to the upgrade I got the other day. If not for that upgrade, it wouldn’t have worked like this.
Dragon’s Breath - Fire - LV 2 (Activated skill) Skills that need MP to be casted deal 30% more damage and the chance to inflict status effects is doubled. When using those skills, 10% of the MP amount used is also reduced from the current HP. This skill can kill you. Deal (50 + 2 * SPI) fire damage to every unit in a 5-meter cone in front of you. Upgrades Double Burn: Increases the damage by 10%. The damage is now divided into two bursts separated by 0,5 seconds.
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Dragon’s Breath is one of the most amazing skills in the game because of how many available upgrades it has. It’s one of those skills that you’ll never regret investing extra skill points to upgrade it. They say that a Dragon’s Breath upgraded more than ten times is so powerful that even top rankers fear finding a monster with it.
The upgrade I got is amazing too. It’s a free 10% damage increase and it also goes around all those pesky one-time invulnerability skills.
Its only drawback is it deals less damage to those monsters with a skill that reduces the damage they take by a flat amount, but there aren’t that many units that have such a skill.
So, what Matta’s saying is that the first damage of the Dragon’s Breath reduced every monster to very little HP, and the second one killed one of them and triggered both the Demonic Revenge and Death Shield of the rest.
This means it’s all thanks to me we didn’t all die!
“Do you understand now, Berta?” I make a smug face. “If it weren’t for me, we’d all be dead. And you were laughing at me… such an idiot…”
“Idiot? You’re the idiot!”
“No, well…” Matta makes a weird face as I and Berta grab each other’s hands to prevent the other from attacking. “...you’re right we survived because of you, but… It’d have been a lot easier if we just killed one and ran away from the rest. They’d all die to their own Demonic Revenge after a while…”
What!? Is there such a method!? Then why did I have to struggle so much!?
“Ahahaha! Carles, your face! You look like an idiot! Ahahaha! Don’t move, I’ll take a screenshot!”
“Don’t fuck with me, you little…” I stop before grabbing her head for punishment.
Didn’t Matta say there’s a better method? We just need to kill one of them if we find another group, right? And it just so happens Berta is the only one with ranged attacks in our party. How convenient.
“...hey, Berta, come here. I have a great idea…” I make a nasty smile and get closer to her.
“No, wait!” She covers her chest and private parts. “I-I’m not ready! I’m not ready for something indecent yet!”
“Don’t worry, dear Berta. I have something better on my mind.”
Yeah, something a lot more entertaining.
----------------------------------------
“Kyaaaah!” Berta’s shout reaches Matta and I. “Do something, guys!”
She’s currently running away from a new pack of Demonic Swarmers. We found them after turning a corner and, as the only one with ranged attacks, the responsibility of killing the closest one fell on her. She got their aggro and is now being chased by the whole group while we watch everything from afar.
“Don’t worry, you’ve got this!” I cheer her with a smile on my face. Aaah, this is so good… moments like this are what I live for.
“Turn left at the next crossroads.”
“All right, boss!”
Soon, the path splits in two and I choose the left one, as Matta told me.
“Kyaaaah! Leave me alone!”
Although the one with the most trouble is Berta, we aren’t free to laze around. We have to run away from Berta because she’s coming after us with everything she’s got. We don’t want to get dragged into the demonic mob, so we’re forced to run away.
Sigh… I told her to go another way, but she won’t listen.
“Stay on this tunnel until I tell you. This area is tricky.”
“Alright.” I follow his instructions and ignore the other passages.
Since it’s impossible to look at the map and run at full speed, I’m carrying him in a princess carry while he keeps track of where we are. I don’t know if it’s because this is a game or because of his small size, but his fat champion is weirdly comfortable to the touch.
“Stop running away! Come here, save me!” She shouts, surrounded by the angry mob.
The monsters are faster than us, it’s impossible to evade them. The low ceiling forces her to evade their attacks, something she’s not used to doing.
“Don’t try to drag us into your mess,” I say, tired of her shouting. “It’s your fault they’re not dying yet!”
“If I had known, I wouldn’t have done it that way. This isn’t fair…! Help me, please!”
“No.”
The monster’s attacks rain upon her from all sides. She barely manages to evade on time, but the next wave of attacks is already upon her. I hope she survives, or we’ll miss our healer.
It’s her fault for flaunting her spells. We told her to kill one of the monsters so that the skill that gives them the extra stats triggers, and they die on their own. But she had to go and use her Magic Missiles on multiple targets instead.
The result?
She killed quite a few of them because of the multiple hits, and the duration of the buff ended up being a lot longer than we wanted, forcing her to run away.
And us too, as a consequence. The only saving grace is I’m faster than her, so she’ll never catch up to us and the monsters will ignore us.
“Now, turn right!” Matta points to a certain passage and I quickly jump into it. “It shouldn’t take too long for them to die now…”+
“I hope so.” I don’t want to keep running in this place. Who knows what we’ll find if we’re not careful?
“Save me I’ve said! Carleeeees!” The cries and annoying AaAaAaAa shouts from the monsters suddenly disappear, leaving only Berta’s voice. “Huh? They all died? Finally! Ahahaha! I’m the best–”
But I stop listening when I bump into something hard.
“Huh?” I fall to the ground and drop Matta.
He groans. “Urgh! Hey, be more careful… What’s this? A new monster?”
I raise my head, curious.
He’s right, we just bumped into a pitch-black monster. So dark it looks as if the light is now dimmer.
The monster slowly turns around, but instead of attacking it stays still, staring at us. A gigantic wolf head. Two long, menacing arms. And the worst of it all, a giant eye in its stomach. I can almost feel my soul being sucked into it.
“W-what’s this?” I manage to say after some effort. Is this a nightmare?
“I… don’t know…” Matta says from my side. “...but, it… doesn’t… look good… for us.”
“Ah, here you are! For a moment I thought I was lost… W-what’s this!?”
I can hear Berta gulping from a few meters away. I want to take a look at her, but my eyes are glued to the monster. I mean literally. As much as I want to turn my head, the game doesn’t allow me to do it.
We stay there, in silence, for what seems like an eternity. Until the wolf-like monster releases a deafening howl.
I run away.
“This is… Fear!” I can’t control my Champion, there’s no use struggling. “Matta, Berta! If you’re ok, chase after me! We shouldn’t split up!”
We’ve only been in this place for thirty minutes and so much bad stuff has happened already! What’s wrong with these tunnels? What twisted, player created all this stuff? And why do players like coming here so much!? Only bad stuff is happening to us!
Affected by the Fear status, my Champion randomly turns left and right, until I end in the middle of another mushroom grove.
“Fuck my bad luck…”
I drag myself outside the mushroom area. I fall asleep and am afflicted with a multitude of status effects, but I finally reach a safe area.
Then, I look around. There’s no sign of Matta or Berta.
“Matta? Berta?” I shout. I wait for a long time, but there’s no answer. “Yeah, I… I’m screwed.”
I have no map, no healing, and I have no idea where I am. How am I supposed to survive?
The only thing I can do is stand up, start moving, and hope for the best.
“Let’s go! To adventure!” I shout to motivate myself. It’s the same shout, but it doesn’t contain as much energy as before.
[https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]
“NEVER split up. Splitting up means fewer chances to survive. Splitting up means you’ll have to fight alone. Splitting up means you won’t have your team to support you.
There are times you won’t be able to avoid it, and there are several traps and monsters that’ll force you to split up. But when allowed to choose, don’t do it. Never try to save time by going to separate areas alone, or even worse, tackle multiple fights at the same time!
SPLITTING. UP. MEANS. DEATH! I warned you, so don’t complain later on.”
- Extract from the Chapter ‘Relearning exploration’ from ‘How to Stay Sane in The Mad Rat’s Lab’.