Since we started investigating this enormous labyrinth, we’ve encountered two groups of players. The two times we coldly stared at each other, not sure how to act, until one of the two groups decided to move on.

We’re in the early phases of the Mystery Event, so there’s no need to take unnecessary risks by facing an unknown danger. It’s better to steadily accumulate points by defeating monsters instead of taking the gamble of facing other players.

Furthermore, since we can’t team up with other players to defeat a third team, the risk is even higher.

Why am I suddenly saying this? Well, it’s because…

*Swish, swi-swi-swish!*

Several ice projectiles fall from above like rain. They clatter upon impacting the walls and floor, shattering into smaller particles before vanishing.

“Everyone, take cover!” I shout.

We scramble to hide behind the closest rocks we can find. Thanks to our immediate response, the damage we took is minimal.

“Is everyone okay? Did you see where the attack came from?”

Given my reputation, I naturally took the leadership position. Who else is going to do it as well as I? Balmy? Please, stop joking.

“I-I saw it!” Unexpectedly, is Balmy the one to raise her hand, pointing ahead. “There, hiding in the elevated platform connecting to that other tunnel. I saw someone moving.”

So she can be useful, huh? Who could have guessed? I thought the only thing she was good at was screaming right next to my ear.

“Ah, you’re right! Come here and fight with us instead of hid– Mmmfh, mmmgh!”

I cover Muribelle’s mouth before things take a turn for the worst. I’m already used to the sizzling sound and pain.

“We don’t have time for this, remember? Shut up and let’s go before something worse happens.”

I release Muribelle to avoid taking more damage and she immediately protests.

“We aren’t going to retaliate? Are you kidd–”

“Remember?” I repeat. “We don’t have time.”

“Ah, right! I forgot!”

“Let’s run, everyo–”

Before I can finish my sentence, we hear the annoying sound of someone clicking their tongue.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk… How lame, Evil Mastermind. And to think I prepared this welcome gift for you… What a shame. A true shame indeed.”

The voice comes from behind the corner, right below the player who attacked us. There, we can see the shadow of a player. He slowly shows up, revealing his face.

“Wait. That voice! That face…!” I scratch my cheek in though. “Yes. As I thought, I have no idea who you are.”

“Stop joking around, Evil Mastermind! We both know you could never forget the voice of your nemesis.”

“Ah, yeah… my nemesis… what was your name again?”

“Brainiac! I’m Brainiac!” Why does he sound so altered? I did nothing to him. “You truly know how to taunt me, as my nemesis should. Khm! Anyway. I thought I saw you from afar and I was right. Now, let us continue with our duel! The one whose team defeats the other wins and will be proclaimed the best player. I’m sure you’re fine with it.”

I lower my head. “I’m sorry, but we’re in a prickle. If you don’t mind, we must leave immediately. Umm… Brainiac, you said, right?” I joke again with his name, but the only reaction I get is his glare.

Alright, alright… I’ll stop fooling around.

Is it the aura around Brainiac or is it the fact that they’re tense? I don’t know, but the rest of my team stays silent, observing the interaction between us with great interest.

“Hey, Moo. Isn’t he Brainiac, the one who’s always following Incognita, the top ranker?”

“I think so. Koala might be a more important player than we thought. Moohahaha!”

“He’s still a meanie who makes fun of my height all the time! I’ll never accept him, regardless of how famous he is! Hmph!”

Alright, maybe not so silent. But they at least stay out of our conversation, which is something. We have no time to waste, after all.

“Trying to run away?” Asks Brainiac. “Of course, you’re in trouble. You’re facing me after all! Be prepared to die! Hahaha!”

No, I mean… We’re in a hurry, but not because of you. But I’m sure he won’t listen, so I stay silent instead of complaining.

Brainiac makes a gesture with his hand and the ice storm resumes, forcing us to take cover. Right after, the rest of his team shows up. They aim their spells and weapons at us, but instead of attacking they stay put.

Huh, how weird. Are they waiting for us to act first? They suppress us with ice and wait for us to come closer. But it makes no sense. Brainiac knows I excel at ranged attacks. It’s a waste of MP and time to keep us here.

What’s his plan?

He makes another gesture and the wall behind us disappears, revealing another passage.

“An illusion? No, wait. Monsters!? Fuck!”

An avalanche of monsters pours out from the revealed hole. They’re a mix of slimes and skeletons. And I don’t mean a mix of the two groups, but literally slimes with a skeleton.

How is that possible? I don’t know, go and ask the DMA developers instead of me.

“How do you like it, Evil Mastermind? How do you like my little present? I learned this kind of trick from you.”

If we stay behind the cover, the monsters will surround us and we’ll have to face both them and Brainiac’s team at the same time. We can’t allow this to happen or we’re dead.

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

“Everyone!” I shout, in panic. “We’re breaking through!”

“W-what!? Are you crazy!?” I hear a high-pitched noise near my ear.

“Agh, shut up! Don’t shout near my ear!” I wave my hand around to get rid of Balmy. “Moo, can you take the monster’s attention for a while? Keep them away from reaching us for a moment. And Balmy, make sure he doesn’t die.”

“I’ll try my best, mooooohahaha!”

“I won’t follow your orders. But I guess I can’t let my teammates die… Ugh, fine…”

I then say, pointing at Brainiac’s group, and ignoring the little fairy. “Muribelle, time your Fireball with me. We’re blasting them away.”

“Yes! Finally! It’s time to burn some people! Fuhahaha!”

Muribelle and I start casting at the same time, aiming at Brainiac’s current position.

He and two of his teammates are blocking the way forward. If we want to break through, we must do something about them first. There are too many monsters to go the other way, and there’s that thing chasing after us on the other passage. We can’t take any other route than the one Brainiac is blocking.

“Yeah, struggle the best you can, Evil Mastermind. This is the only thing you can do. Feel your impotence.”

What is he talking about? He doesn’t know how much danger we all are in, does he?

*Swoosh!*

Fire bursts from our hands and flies toward Brainiac’s group, exploding and burning everything. To avoid taking damage, they have no choice but to move to the side, creating a narrow gap between them and the entrance.

“Another one. We must widen the gap.”

“Fuhahaha! Fine by me!”

As soon as we finish casting the first Fireball, Muribelle and I start casting a second volley.

“How lame, Evil Mastermind. To waste MP pathetically like that. You’re truly unworthy of the nickname. Don’t you know that when fighting other players, the most important thing is to save resources? The first to run out of EP and MP is always the loser.”

Brainiac looks at me with a mix of pity and envy, shaking his head. If only he knew what is coming, he might stop spouting bullshit.

The second Fireball volley widens the gap, completely clearing the way forward.

“Now! Everyone, RUN!” I give the order.

I and Muribelle, side by side, start running towards the cleared path, with Balmy following closely. She keeps shouting “Kyaaah!” as usual. Moo is the last, followed by the monsters aggroed by him.

With monsters attacking from behind, and ice falling from above, we take a significant amount of damage while running away. But this is nothing compared to dying. We take advantage of the gap created and slip through the previously ‘sealed’ passage.

“Shouldn’t we stop them?” One of Brainiac’s team members asks a logical question.

“There’s no need to. A cornered rat bites the cat. We will let them get tired first and strike when they can’t resist. This way we can stay in this Mystery Event for longer and accumulate a lot more points.”

“Oooh, it makes sense. You’re amazing, Brainiac!”

Yeah, sure. Keep dreaming.

Me and Muribelle are the first ones to enter the new tunnel, followed closely by Balmy. Moo, though, is delayed because he has to avoid the monster’s attacks while running.

The monsters, aggroed by Moo, ignore Brainiac’s group completely. But when they are next to Brainiac’s group, I give him an order.

“Moo, use Shockwave!”

“Okay. Moooooooooo!”

With a weirdly realistic cow sound, Moo slams the ground with his feet, creating a shockwave that throws the chasing monsters, as well as Brainiac and his two teammates, a distance away. The monsters, startled and pushed into each other, take a while to recognize what’s happening, stopping for a moment.

We resume running.

From behind, Brainiac’s voice reaches us. “Do you think you can run away from us? You’re as unpredictable as you’re pathetic, Evil Mastermind. Sigh… and to think they consider you a better player than m– What’s that noise?”

A rumbling noise fills the whole labyrinth, quickly growing in intensity. Soon, we can all see it: a large wall of water. Like a tsunami, it obliterates everything in its path. Wood and rock fragments, Brainiac and his team… Not even the group of momentarily confused skeleton-slimes is spared.

Thank god we ran away on time and didn’t reach us.

The water makes a loud crash when it hits the labyrinth’s wall. When it clears up, the only thing we can see is Brainiac’s figure sticking to the wall. This is where the water slammed him into.

Heh, he’s like in one of those old cartoons.

“I’ve finally caught up.” We hear a voice coming from the disaster area. It’s a voice we hear for the first time. “It took me a while. You’re quite good at running away, huh? Regardless, my job is to kill you all.”

That must be the voice of the Calamity that has been chasing after us for a while. We’re not sure how he kept track of us, but in our minimap, we could see a star marker going in our direction since long ago. It was Balmy the first to realize it. If it weren’t for here we might have been caught unaware.

“Huh, this…” Brainiac shakes his head and looks around. When he sees the player in front of him, he furrows his brows. “A Calamity? Why is a Calamity here…? Evil Mastermind! I knew you were playing the fool all along! It was your plan since the start! I promise you I’ll get my revenge! Next time, it will be you the one to lose!”

I laugh while running.

Enjoy your time with that Calamity, Brainiac! It’s my gift to you after the nice welcome party you prepared for us! Hahaha!

Mad Rat 1 - Brainiac 0.

I like how the score is turning out. And yes, our previous match was a draw, so it doesn’t count.

“Thank you for your help, Brainiac!” I lower my voice and put my hands together in prayer. “Rest in pieces, my self-proclaimed archnemesis. If only you would have listened to me…” I shake my head.

If he watches the replay of the Mystery Event and happens to hear this, I’m sure he’ll have a heart attack. If so, serves him right! For meddling unnecessarily.

“We aren’t safe yet,” I say. “Let’s use them as a decoy and widen the distance as much as possible.”

“Y-yes! We aren’t ready to face a Calamity yet. We must find some allies first.”

“I wanted to pay them back, but I suppose they got the end they deserved. It’s a shame I couldn’t burn them to death, though.”

“Hey, Koala. Was that guy your friend?” More like a nuisance instead of a friend. “Send him my thanks for that heroic sacrifice, ok? Moooohahaha!”

They all agree to my suggestion, in their unique ways.

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

“...

Did you know there’s a trick to identify which kind of slime from the Amorphous faction you’re fighting against?

When it comes to slimes with special innate troublesome skills, you just need to look at the color. Shade, transparency, and texture. Those three will tell you everything you need to know.

Does the slime have an intense and vibrant red color? Does it look like it’s almost emitting light of its own? Does it have a piping-hot aura, like a metal left in the fire for too long? That’s guaranteed to be a Fire Slime. Is it black, so dark that it absorbs the surrounding light like a black hole? That’s a Terror Slime. Or is it a radiant green, and its surface is continuously bubbling like a carbonated drink? If it is, it must be a Regenerating Slime.

But those are just examples from those slimes that have innate skills considered especially nasty. When it comes to other, more basic slimes like the basic Slime or the famous Spitter Slime and Splitting Slime, you need to look at something different.

When creating them, the players can give them any color imaginable, but they will all be translucid, resembling slimes from most other games.

So how should you distinguish between them, then? Hahaha, that’s a hard question, my friend. The biggest difference between those are their sizes and skills, so unless you get close enough or wait until they use their innate skills, there’s no way to know.

Isn’t this unfair, you ask? It isn’t.

Every DMA faction has its pros and cons, and the biggest advantage of the Amorphous faction is that their units are hard to identify. You might think you’re facing one type just to find out you were wrong when it was already too late.

But don’t worry. At least, you can always run away. They’re slow, after all. Hahaha!

…”

- Random ‘knowledge drilling’ done by Ricard. Andreu regretted even more than usual listening to him, as his tips were absolute garbage in this Mystery Event, where every monster looked different than usual.