I didn’t understand why this abandoned asylum, filled with monsters, needed such a high ceiling. Or why the passages were so wide.

But, now, I know.

“Uaah…!” I exclaim, impressed by the sight in front of us. “You were right, this must be a boss monster.”

“Now that we’ve seen it, can we go back?”

“Shush, stay quiet.”

Berta pulls on my sleeve. She doesn’t want to be here any longer than needed, but I don’t care and instead continue looking at the monster.

The lack of light makes it difficult to see the details, so I’m sure I’m missing something. But even considering the lack of light, the monster is impossible to miss. With at least twice my height and four times my width, its colossal frame makes the passage look small.

Matta, who’s as interested as I am, analyzes the monster.

“A troll… no, the head is too small. A troll and an… orc? The head has the same green tone. It also has lumps all around the body, what might they be? That mouth in its belly reminds me of some monster I met before, but I can’t remember which one.”

“I’m sure it’s from some nasty monster,” I say.

“Why are you so sure?”

“Because every single monster in this dungeon is nasty.”

“... it makes sense. But how strong is it?” He looks like a child with a new toy. “Do you think we can deal with it? Since it has a troll’s body, I’m sure it’s a tank-like boss, one of those that takes a lot of time and effort to bring down. But what else will it have? Can we go closer? I want to–”

Suddenly and without any warning, Matta falls to the ground. His body, heavy for a goblin because of all the fat, falls onto the passage with the boss monster and makes a loud splash.

Is he dead? What killed him?

But there’s no time to check, as the giant boss monster turns in our direction, attracted by the sound and movement.

“Oh, no…”

“What are we going to do now!? What are we going to do now!?” Berta spins around me while shouting. “We’re all going to dieeeee! Kyaaaaah!”

“Stop it, you moron! You’re going to get its attention…”

“ROOOAAAAH!”

The monster roars. Then, it starts moving again, this time in our direction.

Berta’s shouts caught its attention. If she stayed silent, maybe it would have ignored Matta’s corpse, but now we can’t avoid conflict.

I grab Matta’s dead Champion and push it behind me. At the same time, I prepare to use Dragon’s Breath.

“What are you doing!? We should run away while we can!” The flying bug starts pulling on my sleeve one more time, panic written on her face.

“Stop it!” I shake her off. “Let me check how strong it is first! If it’s weak, we can defeat it and there’s no need to run away.”

She calms down and stops screaming. She then moves to Matta’s corpse, getting ready to resurrect him.

At the same time, I release a burst of fire from my mouth, filling the whole passage, and drowning the monster in flames. Two seconds later, the boss monster emerges as if nothing happened. A chunk of its HP bar is gone, but it’s quickly getting healed by the troll’s Regeneration.

My strongest skill only did that much damage!? How much HP does that boss have!?

“Tsk! I don’t think we can do this, Berta. Let’s run!”

“Run?” She raises her head to look at me. Her hands are glowing green right now, a signal she’s getting ready to use Resurrection.

“We don’t have time for this. Come on!”

“But Matta… Are we leaving him behind?”

“No.” I grab his corpse and put it over my shoulder. “I’m bringing it with us. Now, let’s go! It’s almost here!”

I take the lead and start running first. My actions are so sudden that Berta is left behind, staring at my back. When she finally reacts, the monster is so close to her that she starts screaming like a madman.

“Kyaaaah!” She shouts, flying after me. “Why did you leave me behind!? I almost dieeeeed!”

“It’s your fault for standing still.”

“Dumbass! Idiot! Blockhead! Why did you leave me behind when you’re faster? You only care about Matta but not me? Did you never hear the phrase ‘ladies and children first’!?”

I turn my head around as I run to stick my tongue out. “Oh, yes. Now that you say it… I’m sorry, Berta. I forgot children should take preference in emergencies.”

“You’re a jeeeeeerk! Kyaaaah!”

Oh, no! I’m being chased by two monsters now. One small, flying bug; and a giant, monstrous troll.

“Kyaaaaah!”

And the one I fear the most is the first.

We continue running through the dark passages, chased by the unrelenting boss monster. Luckily for us, it’s slower. But I don’t know the layout and oftentimes end up running in loops, so we can’t shake it off.

“Fuck this!” I exclaim when the boss monster appears in front of me after turning a corner. “I thought we left it behind this time.”

“Uaagh!” As I suddenly stopped, Berta ended up hitting my back. “Couldn’t you give me a warning?”

“I’m sorry, my lady.” I mock her with a reverence.

“No, uh, I…” She doesn’t know how to respond. But there’s no time, so I grab her and start running one more time. “Kyaaah! Don’t grab me–”

*Baaam!*

She shuts up when a giant fist slams the place we were standing a second ago. My body was hiding the monster from her, so she didn’t know how dangerous it was.

I release her and ask. “Do you remember the dungeon map Matta showed us? Do you know where the exit is?”

“Uh… no…”

As we always do, the one who had the map was Matta. He’s the weakest, as well as the only one who knows how to detect danger, so it’s the perfect role distribution. The problem is that since we always rely on him, we never have a map of our own.

It’s rare to split up in Dungeon Invasions, so we never got into trouble. At most, we only needed to resurrect him first. But it seems this dungeon is special even in this regard.

I facepalm. “Fuck this… Then we have to go around randomly until we find the stairs…”

The only thing I remember from the map, and only because Matta pointed it out, is that we must find the stairs to get out of this place.

“Stairs? I saw them a while ago.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Why didn’t you tell me when you saw them!?” I grab her shoulders and start shaking.

“R-release-e-e me-e-e! I-i didn’t kno-ow you-u-u were lo-o-oking fo-o-or the-e-em! I-i-i wa-as fo-o-ollowing you-u-u!”

I release her. “Fine… But do you remember in what direction they are?”

“Um… I…” She looks away.

So you don’t. Perfect… This means we have to continue this chase, risking our lives.

“You at least have the two key cards we found, right? You didn’t lose them while running away, right?”

We found a second key card in a random room. We couldn’t find any difference between the two and have no idea what they’ll be used for, so we’re keeping them both until they’re useful.

“O-of course! Who do you take me for?” She proudly sticks her chest out and shows me the two cards with the rat’s head with the lightning logo. “I’m the most responsible of our group!”

Yeah, sure. Responsible my ass!

Aren’t you the one who’s been shouting all the time, getting the boss’ attention every time we managed to lose it?

And aren’t you the one who has been wasting her mana by casting spells on the boss, calling it ‘poking’, when all damage was healed immediately by its regeneration?

Berta crashes into my back when I suddenly stop after seeing movement in front of us. There’s something big hiding in the shadows.

“Ugaah…!”

“Sssht! Stay quiet, Berta.”

“Fine…” She nods while rubbing her nose. Come on, you didn’t hit me that hard.

What’s in front of us? I hope it isn’t a strong monster. The boss is chasing us, we don’t have time to waste.

The shadow grows bigger as it gets closer. After a short moment of waiting, I recognize the monster’s appearance. It’s a two-meter-tall spider with a mushroom on its back. It reminds me of the turtles in the giant cave because it has the same purple dots.

“We’re retreating,” I say.

“But there’s the boss behind us!”

“I know, but there are multiple paths. What’s the chance we’ll choose the one the boss is using? Also… we don’t have the time to fight that one.”

It took a long time to kill the first of those spiders. They’re designed for stalling for time, and time it’s what we have the least right now.

“Alright… let’s go back.”

We retreat until the passage splits up. With the noise created by the spider chasing after us, I can’t hear the boss’ steps. I’ve been listening to them for evasion, but now it’s useless.

“Shit… Do you remember which way we came from?” I ask.

“I’m not sure. Was it the right passage…? Maybe…?”

Any guess is as good as another. “Alright. Let’s go left then. I’d like to avoid being sandwiched between them.”

We follow the left passage, chased by the spider. We turn around at a corner, and there, we find the worst possible scenario.

“ROOOAAAAH!”

My eyebrow starts twitching.

“Hey, Berta. Didn’t you say we came from the right? If so… why’s the boss in front of us, huh? Do you think this is funny!?”

“N-no! I-I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear! I… I didn’t remember which way we came, so I said one at random… Tehe!”

She sticks out her tongue and makes a silly face. But when I glare at her, she panics and stops fooling around.

I ignore her and analyze the situation. In front of us, the boss monster. Coming from behind, the spider one…

We’re fucked.

“Not everything’s lost yet. We’ll try to distract the boss and pass through it, leaving both monsters behind. I’ll take the lead, follow closely.” I prepare myself for the craziest action I’ve ever taken inside the game.

“Are you crazy!?”

“...maybe.”

If we stay here, we’ll have to fight both monsters. We’ll die.

If we go back, we’ll find the spider. The boss will chase after us.

I know the spider has an entangling skill. If we fail to run away and get entangled, we’re done for. Our only chance to survive is to move through the boss and reach the other side. It’ll be hard because it fills most of the passage, and we have no idea what skills it has, but it should be doable. After all, it’s better to try this than accept our doom.

“Here I goooo!”

After unsheathing my katana, I strike the giant troll-like monster. It retaliates with a fist of its own, which I don’t bother to try and avoid.

“Now! Go and reach the other side while I got its atten– What’s that!?”

I stop in the middle when the monster’s belly mouth opens and comes at me. I’m so close to the wall that it’s impossible to avoid.

“Carles, watch out!”

“Shit…” I have an extremely bad feeling about this. “Aegis!”

The last charge of my skill vanishes as an almost invisible film covers my whole body. At the same time, a disgusting crunch sound comes from it, created by the mouth and teeth that are about to eat me.

Generally speaking, the stronger attacks in DMA have high noise or flashy visual effects. It’s to help players identify which attacks are dangerous and which ones aren’t. Given how loud the crunching noise was, and how many sparks were released when the teeth touched the Aegis barrier, this was an attack on a similar level to the pro player’s ultimate attacks.

That bite was no joke… Without Aegis, I’d be dead right now…

“Uah, that was close...” The problem is I won’t be able to move for the next ten seconds. “Quickly, Berta, you need to distract the spider for the duration of my skill. Don’t let it get close!”

We can’t hope to run away if we have to avoid the boss while at the same time making sure we aren’t entangled when turning around.

“F-fine, but… what am I supposed to do?”

“Don’t ask me, it’s your job! I don’t know, just… fly around it like an annoying bug.”

“I’m not a bug!”

“Then, as an annoying little flying girl!”

“Fine…” She reluctantly flies back towards the spider monster. “But why do you have to add annoying all the time…?”

She mutters something as she flies away, but I can’t hear it properly because of the crashing noises coming from the troll’s fists on my barrier.

Eight seconds remaining.

I observe her tiny figure as she flounders around, doing her best to avoid the spider’s attacks. Then I watch as the spider releases something and Berta falls to the ground.

“Shit, she got entangled!”

But just a second later, she starts flying around like an annoying bug one more time.

“Ah, yes, I forgot. She can cleanse abnormal status effects… I knew she was the best for this job. The best at being annoying, hahahaha!”

Four seconds remaining.

The boss monster continues to pummel me with its useless attacks. I stare at him with a smile on my face, as if mocking it.

Three seconds. The clock ticks down.

Two seconds.

“Come back! It’s almost time!”

Berta comes flying at her maximum speed. As usual, she keeps shouting. “Carles, I’m back! I almost died, but I did my job perfectly. Did you miss me?”

I take a look just in case, but she only lost half her HP in that fight. Why’s she so melodramatic?

My Aegis disappears, and my combat with the boss resumes.

I wait for her to fly over the monster. She makes a disgusted face when doing so because the ceiling is so close to its head that she’s forced to fly near it, but I ignore her actions and focus on my situation.

“I’m safe, Carles!”

I’ve checked the monster’s patterns, and seen how it moves around. Every five strikes, it takes a step back and makes enough room to move between its massive body and the wall and reach the other side. But I’ll only have a single chance before the spider reaches me.

It’d be a lot easier if I didn’t have to take Matta’s corpse into account. It’s ridiculously oversized for a goblin, really.

The boss continues its assault. I receive every hit without moving, concentrating on its actions. My HP is reaching a dangerous level, but I don’t care. Then, at the fourth fist attack, I start running.

“It’s now or neveeeer!” I run as if my life depends on it. Which it does.

The troll misses its attack and roars in response. I take this chance to sneak between its colossal leg and the wall. Everything’s going perfectly fine until Matta’s corpse hits the wall, making me lose balance.

It’s so stupidly fat!

I almost drop him, but manage to grab his ankle in a desperate attempt. This makes him dangle behind me as I run at maximum speed.

“You did it!”

Berta comes flying as soon as I reach the other side. She opens her arms wide to celebrate with a hug, but I push her away.

“Not now. We have to run! Run, you fool!”

“Yes!”

We resume our chase, this time with two monsters in our tracks. Luckily for us, both are slower than us and have bigger bodies, making them have a hard time keeping up.

“The stairs! Carles, it’s the stairs!”

Berta shouts and I stop. It was close, I almost missed them again.

“Nice job, Berta! Let’s climb them immediately.”

“Yes!”

We leave the flooded asylum-like area filled with scattered corpses – most of them created by us as we killed the monsters inside – and start climbing the stairs. They’re slippery, dark, and covered by the same green substance that covered the walls and ceilings. Also, there’s no light coming from the top.

But, they feel so safe…

It’s the first time in my whole life I’m so glad I can climb some stairs.

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

“Nowadays, if you want to experience terror yourself, there are a few things you can do. But my favorite, and by far, is to go into DMA and enter a scary dungeon. If you need some recommendations, these are the two I liked the most: ‘Ten things you wished you never knew’, and ‘Demomore’s Night’.

But sometimes, the most impactful experiences come when you least expect them. I’ll always remember that time at ‘The Mad Rat’s Lab’ being chased by the boss monster in the failed experiments area, for example.”

- Excerpt of an interview with a famous content creator.