“Hehe…” I chuckle. “This is interesting.”
“What’s interesting?” Asks Elivina.
“Oh, no, it’s nothing. You know me, I always find weird things interesting.”
Elivina shrugs her shoulders while shaking her head, “You’re right…” and proceeds to ignore me.
Hehe, nice. It worked. Now I can do whatever I please without being interrupted.
Left hand. Right hand. Shake the body, starting from the hips. One step, two steps. Hands up, aaaaand, spin!
I imitate the tiny fellas chasing after us, dancing all the time. At first, I thought they were an anomaly and possibly dangerous, but now, I just find them funny. This is because they stop moving when I turn around. But thanks to Arcane Vision, I can observe them without them realizing, and I can imitate their dance.
Oh, a new move!
Hands to the front. Butt out. Slowly advance in tiny steps. Scramble the two arms together. Aaaaand, a high-five! Ah, I don’t have anyone to high-five with…
“...are you fine?” Elivina sends me a worried look. From her expression, she just pretended to ignore me and instead kept an eye on me. This means she has seen the whole dance.
“Khm! Yes, yes. Don’t worry about me. I told you I’m fine.”
Should I tell her? I don’t think she’ll do anything unnecessary, and if she knows, I can continue without looking like a weirdo. It should be fine.
“Elivina,” with my finger, I tell her to come closer, “Have you seen the huge flower field?”
She raises one eyebrow. “Magno, stop making things up.”
‘I’m not making things up!’ I want to shout, but if I do, the others will hear and I don’t want that. I’ll have to show her.
We’re currently following the path between the plants inside this giant greenhouse. This semi-open area, surrounded by dense vegetation, is perfect for ambushes. Other players would choose to leave it as soon as possible, but we, as expert players, know this is a bad move. The best course of action is to always follow the path.
Monsters will come at you anyway, so why risk getting lost? If you get lost, it’ll make things harder.
The number of tiny dancing fellas following us has been increasing over time. More and more of them keep popping out of the bushes. But since the path isn’t straight, the surrounding vegetation invades it, and the tiny fellas keep a distance between ten and twenty meters, it’s hard to see them unless you’re keeping an eye on the back.
It doesn’t help that they’re less than ten centimeters tall, either.
Since I’m the one protecting the back, it’s understandable my teammates didn’t notice the tiny fellas. I should be the one telling them, if anything. But I don’t want to because I know the tiny fellas will be in danger.
Elivina should be fine, though. “Do you have Arcane Vision or a similar skill?”
She shakes her head. “No. I have it on my usual Champion, but not in this one. It was you and HippopotamusAlpha who insisted on bringing low-level Champions to this dungeon.”
“Hmm…” This will make things harder. “Then we’ll have to do with your camouflage skill. I’ll think of something, just pretend nothing’s going on.”
“Okay.” Her eyes shine with curiosity.
Bringing Champions of the appropriate dungeon level is of paramount importance. A high-level dungeon requires high-level Champions to enjoy properly. In the same way, a low-level dungeon requires low-level Champions. Anything else will make the Dungeon Invasion too easy or hard, reducing the fun.
Every time I go to the ‘Hidden Spring of Youth’ dungeon, for example, I use a level 1 Champion that costs at most 100 cp. It is a dungeon created for the sights, one that makes you feel like you’re in a real fantasy world.
Surrounded by mystical creatures, magic trees, and playful fairies, you search for the ‘Spring of Youth’. The incredibly beautiful scenery, crafted to the most minuscule detail is amazing.
From time to time, fairies come to play with you. They do pranks or fly around you before running away. They aren’t there to hurt you. If you follow them, they guide you to the spring. It’s an experience I recommend to anyone playing DMA.
But if you bring a high-level Champion to the ‘Hidden Spring of Youth’, it won’t be any fun. Like trying to play the ball with a giant ten times your size, the best that can happen is that the ball ends up thrown so far away you’ll never see it again. As for the worst, either you or the ball gets squashed.
In short, you won’t enjoy it as much as with a low-level Champion.
For this dungeon in particular, I researched a bit and found out it’s best to bring Champions between levels six and nine. This way you can enjoy the surprises and suffering caused by all the unexpected stuff without instantly dying, or pushing through everything with sheer stats.
We usually play with level twenty Champions, the maximum level, it’s understandable that Elivina doesn’t have all the skills she usually has.
We continue moving forward, and not too long after my conversation with Elivina, monsters appear.
“Ambush!” Shouts HippopotamusAlpha.
The vegetation on the two sides of the dirt road comes alive, extending tendrils towards us. As the rain of attacks falls upon us, especially on the two at the front, the monsters reveal themselves to us.
Invisibility…? No, camouflage.
The monsters’ skin returns to their original aspect. What looked like branches and vines turned out to be tentacles, and what was hiding in the foliage was a raptor’s body. They coordinate their attacks, leaving almost no time for HippopotamusAlpha and Trim to evade or parry, but from the damage the two take, they don’t seem to be too dangerous. They should be able to deal with them.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
“Ah, this is bad!” I put on an act. “They’re coming from the back too. Elivina and I will deal with them before they surround us. You stop the raptors, alright?”
“Wait, don’t leave us–”
Ignoring HippopotamusAlpha’s shout, I pull Elivina away and retreat a few steps. She looks bewildered but quickly recovers from the shock when she recalls our previous conversation.
Like this, we backtrack a short distance and step into the wilderness outside the path. The tiny fellas have been following us, but they’ve always taken the shortest path. It just so happens that, after the path took a sharp turn to the left, the ‘shortest path’ happened to cross the wilderness.
It’s perfect. This way, the other two won’t see what’s going on.
We cross the dense vegetation next to the path and find ourselves in a somewhat open space, occupied mostly by large trees. It almost feels like the plants near the path were put there on purpose to create a visual barrier…
The ground is covered in uncountable flowers. A flower field, one that shouldn’t exist as they need sunlight, but anything can happen inside dungeons. Those aren’t normal flowers anyway.
“See? I told you. A flower field.”
Elivina opens her mouth wide open. “Woaaah! So many! And so many colors!” Hehe, she always had a weak side for these kinds of things. “But… why do they have tiny horns?”
“That, I don’t know.” Who knows what the dungeon owner had on their mind when creating them? “But this isn’t everything. Come on, use your camouflage skill. I’ll move away. It won’t work if they can see us.”
“But…”
“Don’t worry,” I assure her. “I’ll use Arcane Vision to keep an eye on the situation.”
While keeping Arcane Vision up, I walk back to the path, observing everything. As soon as the tiny fellas detect I’m far enough, they start moving once more. They start dancing. They shake their bodies to inaudible music, moving their heads, leaves, stalks, and roots. Their coordinated moves look as if they had rehearsed this for a long time.
The dancing flowers stop moving once more when Elivina’s camouflage is undone. From her awkward posture, she must have tried to imitate them. She looks around, flustered, sighs in relief, and quickly reactivates her camouflage skill so they start dancing again.
There’s no use in pretending otherwise, Elivina… I saw everything… Hehe.
“Puha!” Suddenly, I receive a punch to my face. When I turn around, I find an angry HippopotamusAlpha. Trim is glaring at me from behind him.
“Here you are, Magno. Are you stupid? Why did you run away, and where’s Elivina?”
Okay, I deserved that punch. A comrade shouldn’t act so recklessly. But watching Elivina’s reactions was worth it.
“Elivina, come back!” I shout. “There’s no use chasing them. If the monsters want to come back, we’ll fight them at that time.” If we are to keep this a secret from HippopotamusAlpha and Trim, we must convince them.
After confirming that she’s returning with Arcane Vision, I turn to our party leader, HippopotamusAlpha. “She’s coming back.”
I can’t stop smiling. It must be because of Elivina’s downcast expression at having to leave the dancing tiny fellas behind. There’s no need for that face. They’ll follow after us, there might come another chance to watch them happily dance.
HippopotamusAlpha glares at me. “You’re acting like a weirdo. More so than usual.”
“Is that so? Hehe,” I chuckle. “Anyway, did you deal with the raptors? If so, as soon as Elivina comes back, let’s move on.” I push HippopotamusAlpha’s back to make him move.
The tiny fellas will be our little tiny secret.
----------------------------------------
“Nooo, the tiny fellas! What did they do to you? Is there any need to kill them? They didn’t hurt anyone!”
I and Elivina can only observe as HippopotamusAlpha uses Hellfire on the patch of dancing flowers. How did he find out, I don’t know. But as much as we hate it, we won’t fight against our teammates for this.
The black flames engulf more than half the flower field, causing agonizing death screams to erupt. Loud and high-pitched ‘Kyaaaah!’ shouts echo in my head, making it hurt. Even a few of the tiny fellas who weren’t affected by the flames do so before dropping to the ground, pretending to be dead. It’s the first time I’ve seen a monster acting like that.
Alright, I take it back… Someone did get hurt. My eardrums did. But it was because of our leader’s attack, it isn’t their fault.
HippopotamusAlpha glares at me. “You know as well as I do, Magno, what other players say about this dungeon: everything could be dangerous unless proven otherwise. I’ll deal with them, since you don’t look too kind on it, and we can keep going.”
“Fine…” I reluctantly agree.
Like mowing grass, HippopotamusAlpha advances through the flower field, swinging his sword. Wherever he goes, screams follow. He moves in a circle, eliminating all those dancing flowers in the perimeter, those who didn’t burn in the Hellfire.
When the deed is done, he returns to us. “We can move on now.”
“See?” I point at the destroyed flower field. “They didn’t do anything. They were critters without battle prowess. There was no need to kill them.”
“Who cares? What’s done is done. Better safe than sorry when it comes to unknown mon–”
*BOOOM!*
Thunder strikes nearby. Due to the thick leaf cover and dense foliage, we can’t see the light and only hear it. But we know the direction it came from.
“Hehe,” I chuckle. “Even the gods are angry at your actions.”
HippopotamusAlpha shakes his head. “Don’t be stupid… We’re inside a greenhouse. The thunder must have come from a monster.”
I shrug my shoulders at his counterargument.
“Do we go after it or stay on the path?” Trim chimes in.
“Hmmm…” With a hand on his chin, HippopotamusAlpha thinks for a short while. “Yes, we’re going. We aren’t sure what we need to do here. Fighting what sounds like a large and powerful opponent might give us a clue. As long as we remember the way back, it’ll be fine.”
Both I and Elivina nod in response and our next course of action is decided.
Maybe we will find more dancing flowers on the way… Furthermore, I’m curious about what kind of monster would release thunder like that when there are no enemies (aka us) nearby.
We step out of the narrow and overgrown path and into the wilderness, following the direction where we heard the thunder. We move swiftly.
Elivina takes the front as the party’s scout while I make sure nothing comes from behind. Using Arcane Vision while moving is hard because your vision shifts. With enough practice it’s bearable, you just need to get used to walking around as if you were a character in a third-person camera game. But as much as I’m used to it, there’s always a slight dizziness that slowly builds up, until I’m forced to deactivate it.
But regardless of how many precautions we take, nothing helps us to prevent what comes next.
Suddenly, the ground around HippopotamusAlpha shakes, and a giant flytrap-like mouth appears from below, eating him whole.
Finding a large and powerful monster, check.
“Hehe, god’s retribution indeed.”
image [https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]
To make DMA more interesting and realistic, the AI had certain behaviors preprogrammed so that players could use them without knowing about programming. Things like dancing, standing still and ignoring everything, talking to the invaders, and patrolling between two or more points were just a few of them. A lot of them, though, were available only if the unit’s original Intelligence stat was above a certain value. The harder and more complex the command, the higher the required Intelligence.