“What’s wrong with their heads?” Although Marta is the only one who remains with the same expression she had before the mad cultists appeared, she furrows her brows and asks me. “Do you know them?”

Still, she continues to grab my shoulder. She’s making sure I can’t run away.

“I wish I could answer no to that question… but I can’t…” I feel like my head is about to explode. “...I don’t know much more than you do. They’re always like that.”

“Hmm…” She nods, pensively, and interrupts the Leader’s unending monologue. “Hey, all of you. Scram! Can’t you see we’re busy?”

Everyone turns to look at her at the same time. Since I’m right beside her, I can feel their stares all over me too.

They’re creepy… I shiver.

Marta, unaffected by their stares filled with madness, repeats her question. “Who do you think you are, interrupting us like this? Scram before I get angry!”

Nobody moves. As time passes, the silence grows more and more uncomfortable. Marta glares at the madmen. They stare back at her.

Sensing the growing hostilities between the two parties, my teammates and the members of Calaban’s party quickly take some distance from us, hiding behind whatever they can.

Can you believe this? The fuckers just left me behind!

“Who do you think you are?” The Leader is the one who breaks the silence. He’s shaking in rage. “I was being considerate because you guided us to Him, but… How dare you touch Him like it’s nothing! Take away your hand from His sacred shoulder, bitch!”

I can’t believe it. The things he says and how he acts… isn’t he even crazier than the previous time I met him?

…no, I shouldn’t waste time thinking about this. When one’s madness reaches a certain level, it can’t increase anymore. The only difference is how much I know about him, which makes me believe he’s getting worse.

“You interrupt our prophetized meeting with the Great Mad Rat, our first and only savior, teacher, and guide… and dare order us to go away? You’re the one who’s leaving, not us! Scram, bitch! And when you go, take your brute and rude personality with you. We’re tired of putting out with all your bullshit!”

Oh, my god! This is… this is… Where’s my virtual popcorn?

Marta finally releases my shoulder. It seems she isn’t that angry at me anymore. There’s someone who has made him angrier than I did.

I look at her face, curious. She’s smiling with her mouth, but not with her eyes. You went and did it, Leader… I hope you don’t regret it.

“Step to the side. I have to take out some trash.”

“Sure.” I gladly nod. You don’t have to tell me twice!

It’s time to run away…

“...And don’t dare run away. Stay put and observe. I’ll come for you later.”

Shit! She hasn’t forgotten about me completely. I expected she would be so angry at them that she would forgive me and I could slip away... I was wrong.

Marta opens her palm and something shiny appears. It then starts growing in size, forming a large light orb on top of her palm. “Die,” she says, right after releasing it.

The orb flies at a fast speed and explodes upon reaching the mad cultists. Since they’re so tightly packed, the explosion affects all of them. Forming into perfect columns and rows is impressive, but it makes you an easy target.

They should have spread out before provoking Marta… Well, not that I care if they all die. It’s one less problem to worry about.

We hear shouts of surprise and anger, mixed with delightful moans of pleasure.

‘What the fuck!? Moans!? I… I can’t hear anything, lalala’, I delude myself, pretending everything is normal.

“Did you get rid of them? Thank yo–” I start thanking my sister but stop in the middle.

When the light from the explosion disappears, we discover that all the cultists are still alive. And not only that, but their HP bars are about three-quarters full. That light orb did less damage than I remember… When I was training with her, she could delete me with a single cast of that thing.

Depending on your skills, you should be able to tank such a hit, but, weirdly, all of them did…

Ah! It’s because of the item Tears of a Fallen Kingdom! The op item that reduces the stats of all Calamities!

As you all know, damage in DMA is affected both by your stats and by how high or low they are compared to those of your enemies. Reducing your stats by 50% makes you think it’ll reduce the damage by half, but, in fact, it’s a lot more. It can mean you deal less than a quarter of the original damage.

The most surprised at the cultist’s survival is Marta, though. I’m sure she expected that at least some of them would be dead, and the others would be barely hanging onto life.

“How did they…” She has her eyes wide open, checking something invisible in front of her. Marta suddenly turns to look at me, then grabs me by the throat. “What did you do to me!?” She demands.

Thank god you can’t get choked inside the game.

But… How does she know it’s me who’s holding Tears of a Fallen Kingdom? Could it be that it’s because, historically speaking, it’s always me who makes a fool of her when we’re playing games? Yeah, I can’t think of any other possibility.

I smile. “I d-didn’t do any– Ugh!”

“No excuses. Explain! What did you do to me!?”

She’s persistent, huh? Why can’t she let it slide for one time? It isn’t like it’s hurting her… oh, right. It is affecting her. But I’m telling the truth, I didn’t do anything! Technically, it’s the item and not me that’s reducing her stats.

“STOOOOOOOOP!”

A powerful shout makes my whole body tremble. It’s the Leader, who’s shaking in anger not more than five meters away.

“How dare you! How DARE YOU!” If this weren’t a game, I’m sure he would be foaming and spitting everywhere as he shouts. “Sacrilege! You not only dare touch him with your filthy hands but grab him by the throat and threaten him!”

Oh, my, my. He’s so angry he doesn’t put special emphasis every time he refers to me.

“Not even I, his most devout follower, has gotten the honor to touch him. How dare you do it before me! You sullied his immaculate rat throat with your bloodthirsty and dirty hands. Sacrilege! Heresy!”

So… they don’t care about suddenly being attacked?

Their priorities are too skewed. Normal people can’t understand their thought processes…

“We’ll make you pay for your transgressions…” The Leader starts giving orders. “Al, you keep her busy, we’ll somehow bring her down. We’ll make her apologize and forcefully introduce her to our beliefs. Everyone, ATTACK!”

Suddenly, the cultists break up their formation and split up in all directions. At the same time, they start casting all the spells they have. When they release them, an authentic avalanche of magic falls upon Marta… Marta and I, who is right next to her, because I forgot to run away when she told me to.

…Don’t look at me like that! I was too busy looking for my lost popcorn!

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

It’s funny how they get angry when my sister grabs me by the throat, without dealing actual damage to me, but they disregard my safety when it comes to ‘avenging’ me.

“Heh…” I calmly observe the spells, knowing there’s no way I can evade them all. “I’m done for…” I always knew they would be my end.

I feel a tug to one side when someone grabs my arm. My body starts moving at a fast speed, dragged by someone else.

Marta, while grabbing onto me, manages to avoid or parry all the incoming attacks. Not a single one touches her or my body. It’s impossible! How can she move like that while dragging me around?

When the spell avalanche finishes, she drops me to the ground.

She snorts. “Hmph! Their attacks are so easy to predict. Noobs.”

Easy my ass! It’s understandable if she calls one or two attacks ‘easy’, but not when there are more than ten at the same time!

I quickly give my thanks to her. “You save–”

“I didn’t save you. I saved you for later. We’ll talk after I finish them off.”

“O-okay…?”

At the same time, a sigh of relief escapes my mouth and a shiver runs down my spine. She won’t ever forget about my earlier mocking, will she?

Leaving me behind, she flies towards where the majority of the crazy cultists are. She then starts a crazy melee to the death with them.

“All Shall Despair!”

“Hahaha! Eat the power of my fists!”

“You don’t know what true joy means!”

A mix of cries reaches me. They’re just shouting whatever comes to them, don’t they…? I better let it go, there’s so much to retort I don’t know where to start.

One of the cultists, who looks like a random human, starts fighting my sister on a similar skill level. If he were by himself, he would certainly lose, but with the support of over fifteen other players, he can hold out against her.

Hey, I remember that guy! From… from… from somewhere.

As they continue their fight, I move to where my teammates are hidden. The fuckers didn’t even try to save me when things turned for the worst.

“Are you enjoying the show?” I sarcastically ask. “It sure is interesting from here, huh?”

“Don’t be like that. You would have done the same if you were in our shoes. Mooohahaha!”

…I would.

“Is she truly your sister? Anthemia? Can you introduce me to her later on?” Muribelle asks.

“I can ask her…” I randomly answer.

I’m not sure how she’ll respond, but I can try. Haha, just kidding. I know she will say no without batting an eye.

Warpoke smiles and winks at me, knowing what I’m thinking. He’s the only one who understands her personality other than me.

I then take a look at Balmy but quickly look away. “Yeah, show them who’s the boss! Go, kill them all! Hyah! Punch, kick! Kyah! Noo, behind you! They’re coming from behind!” What the hell is that fairy doing?

“Aren’t we going to interfere?” Calaban, coming close to me, asks.

I shake my head.

“No. Let the two problems solve themselves. Furthermore… We’re in shambles after our last fight, we wouldn’t be able to do much anyway.”

He nods, watching the intense fight between a single player against more than fifteen players.

“Then, do we run away? While we can, we should–”

An image of Marta relentlessly chasing after me for the rest of the Mystery Event pops into my mind. Because… let’s be realistic, she will do it.

“No… it’s better to know when she’ll come after us than to be surprised again. We wait and recover.”

“Okay.”

The fight progresses in a direction nobody would expect. Despite her reduced stats and numerical disadvantage, the other group is too disorganized to properly fight against Marta. Thanks to her wings, she can fully utilize this cave’s size to her advantage.

No. Calling them ‘disorganized’ is an insult to the word.

Hell, just look at those two guys! Since the moment they realized they couldn’t land a single attack on her, they’ve been pretending to target her when actually attacking each other! They aren’t even trying to hide it!

It seems Marta realized it too, as she purposely manipulates the battlefield to her advantage and gives the enemies opportunities to ‘accidentally’ hit each other.

And meanwhile, she keeps glancing in my direction, making sure I don’t run away.

Scary…

Everything seems to be proceeding smoothly: the cultists are slowly getting wiped out while Marta is accumulating damage and wasting her precious EP and MP on them. By the time the fight ends, we should be able to defeat her.

“This isn’t working…!” It looks like the Leader has recognized the situation they’re in too. “Change to operation ‘All or Nothing’!”

The eyes of all the cultists immediately start shining upon hearing that name. Even those who were fooling around react to his order with enthusiasm.

The first thing they do is cover the cavern ceiling with poison clouds, forcing Marta to descend to the ground.

“Isn’t their MP going to deplet very fast like that?” Asks Calaban.

“I don’t think they care at all,” I shrug. “They’re crazy, remember?”

But their next actions are completely unexpected even to me, the one who’s, regrettably, most used to dealing with them.

The members that are still alive run to the ones that died, and they stand back up.

“Mass Resurrection!? Is that even a thing!?” Balmy shouts.

Like zombies, those who had died, stand back up, their eyes shining with the same dangerous glow as those who were alive when the Leader shouted the name of the plan. Then, one by one, a large number of the cultists start shining with intermittent but intense light. Like a bulb that doesn’t work properly.

“For our Great Mad Rat!”

“All Shall Despair!”

Everyone opens their eyes wide when they see the spectacle. The skill they’re using is a skill all players should immediately recognize because, if they don’t, they will have a high chance of instantly dying.

It’s also a skill nobody in their right mind would take… The thing is that they’re crazy, so common sense doesn’t apply.

Yep, I’m talking about none other than the Self-destruct skill.

Self-destruct (Active skill) Cost: - After five seconds, deal (10 + 0,5 * Max HP) physical damage to every other unit in a 10-meter radius area around yourself and push them 10 meters away. You die.

Self-destruct is the simple version of my Grand Finale that can also be given to monsters. In fact, most players would only give it to monsters because it kills you.

The only reason Grand Finale is viable for Champions is because it leaves you crippled, but alive. When you’re in a dungeon invasion, the difference between dying and surviving is everything, and you can use the skill as a final resort.

But self-destruct is a whole different world.

Dying means it’s useless for Champions. That’s why only monsters use it. What’s more, it doesn’t give invulnerability, meaning you can interrupt the skill by killing the monster before it explodes.

But, as I’ve said before, they don’t care about such a ‘minor’ drawback.

“Run!”

I don’t know who said it, but by the time we all start running, it’s too late.

*Boooom! Baaaang! Boooom!*

In quick succession, the lunatics start self-destructing. The problem with so many successive explosions is that they send the ones they touch flying… which means the whole cavern is affected.

I observe in dread as the cultists who didn’t explode run to those who did and use Resurrection to bring them back to life, only to start the cycle again.

“Crazy. They’re crazy…!”

I wholeheartedly agree with whoever said this.

Marta struggles to survive since AoE skills are her bane. Furthermore, she’s persecuted by that human guy all the time, not leaving her a chance to take a break. When he dies, either due to Marta’s attacks or the explosions, his teammates raise him from the dead like with the bombers.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

One of the ‘bomb’ cultists is thrown our way, blocking the escape route. We have enough time to escape his explosion radius, but this effectively makes us surrounded by ‘bombs’ on all sides.

With the ceiling covered by poison and the ground covered in human bombs, we have nowhere to run.

“Let’s split up,” I suggest.

“But we’ll be weaker if we do…” Calaban counters.

“It doesn’t matter if we all die. Together, it’s hard to move: we’re a big target. If we split up, the chances some of us will survive will increase.”

“...Alright.”

Everyone goes their way, trying to survive.

“Fufufu! Hahaha! Can you feel it? Can you feel the despair growing inside you as the fight goes on? Come on. Feel it! Embrace it! Accept it and make it your own! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

“How does he dare imitate me like– guh! N-noooooo!”

Distracted by the Leader making the same pose as I do when I laugh, I don’t see one of the cultists flying my way. One of the ‘bomb’ cultists.

*Booooom!*

“Ugh…” After the explosion, I stand up, looking at my HP bar. “My HP… close, but fine.”

Thank god Balmy healed me right before Targaroth’s fight because I would have died otherwi–

*Crack!*

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

“The worst experience I’ve had in DMA is, by far, that time I fought against a group of crazy maniacs. Regardless of how many times I killed them, they kept rising again and again, like zombies. A smile on their faces and a dangerous glimmer in their eyes, as if they treated death like a pastime. I still have nightmares from that day…”

- Excerpt of an interview with a random DMA player.