I hold my anger back and look below, at the fanatics. It’s only been one minute since the match started and my patience has already run dry. And that’s after several training sessions, having to endure both Ricard's and my little sister’s antics!

From my elevated position, I can clearly see everything that happens near the portals. The room, or should I say cave? The cave we’re in resembles quite a lot the ones in The Mad Rat’s Lab, but there aren’t poisonous mushrooms because we know the enemy team has poison resistance skills.

But this doesn’t mean it’s easy to move through it. With the irregular terrain, the rocks, the stalactites and stalagmites, the mud that covers several areas, and the slippery moss patches… Now that I think about it, maybe I went a little bit overboard with the terrain. It looks like one of those ‘elite-course training zones’, except this one also has really dangerous traps and monsters hidden.

The three followers are still kneeling on the ground, but are now looking at me. Let’s see what we have here now that they took out their hoods and cloaks…

The first one looks like a normal human… A human? Why would one of those fanatics use the human faction, the Iron Shield…? Huh, of course! They’re crazy, so there isn’t any logic behind what they do!

The middle one looks like some kind of monster from the Abyss faction. I unconsciously shudder. Please, don’t tell me I’m going to face those monsters alone…!

And the third and last one looks like a humanoid shark. A sharkman? I don’t remember the race’s name, but they are from the same faction as the mermaids and tritons. I think the faction’s called Deep Seas. This one can bring us trouble if they used underwater zones to build their dungeon, we didn’t plan to fight against lots of aquatic units.

Only the leader is looking at me, his arms raised up and laughing maniacally.

Hey, you little shit! That’s MY exclusive way of laughing! Look for your own! I patented it, you know!?

I put my feelings to the side and take a proper look at him. He must be the Leader, and if I’m not wrong, he explained in the forums he swapped to the Flesh Monstrosities faction not too long ago. It’ll be harder to identify his champion than the others… for obvious reasons.

I start from the bottom and go up. Hmm… normal feet and build. It must come from one of the most common races. But the hands have feathers.

Is he an angel and some other classic race Hybrid? No, no, let’s not be hasty.

I then look at his head. A beak, a crest, bright orange eyes with vertically slitted pupils… The heck!? I don’t remember any humanoid unit that resembles a rooster!

…wait a moment! A rooster with slitted pupils… I’ve seen it before! Where was it…?

Noo way! Nononono way! Don’t tell me it’s a fucking Monstrous Hybrid, and he’s using a Cockatrice as one of its parts! This means I only have to worry about the Cockatrice’s innate skill and another one instead of three innate skills like myself, but… the Cocatrices have that extremely dangerous petrification gaze… and he’s looking here!

Is he trying to petrify me!? Starting the match playing dirty? Two can play this game, you know!?

He grins. I’m sure he knows I’ve identified his champion and I’m worried about the Petrifying Eyes skill.

“Everybody get ready! And release the Spark Swarm…!”

He orders the players behind him, but I shout too. In fact, I force him to stop talking because of how loud I shout. I’m too angry right now, and can’t hold myself back.

“You wanted despair!? Then despair you’ll have!”

Right next to me, there’s a giant lever. I’m grabbing it with so much strength that, if this wasn’t a game, and my hands weren’t corrupted by black demonic energy, my knuckles would be white.

I and Leader exchange a stare. I grin. Then, I pull the lever.

“Run!”

The Leader tries to warn the others, but it’s already too late. If you wanted to be safe, you shouldn’t have stopped there for so much time.

Oh, what a shame! You got caught in this trap due to your own amazing display of craziness!

The whole room trembles. Giant fissures grow and spread over the surface as the ground collapses. The only thing remaining are three narrow paths that connect the portals to the next area. The rest of the cave vanishes in a giant cloud of dust and smoke to the depths below.

This is a trap I insisted on building for this match. It isn’t deadly, the enemies only take a little bit of fall damage when they reach the bottom. But as long as they can’t fly or teleport, it’s a very good way to limit their movements. I doubt I’m going to use this trap in my dungeon in the future, but it’s going to be one of those special traps available to me for use in future pvp matches.

Now, they’ll have to find the way back to this cave if they want to call for reinforcements or go to defend their dungeon from the assault team - aka Ricard and the others. And I assure you, it isn’t easy.

“Hahahaha!” I laugh.

Except for one of the champions, the sharkman, and a few more support mobs who got lucky because they were standing on one of the paths, the rest of the lunatics fall with the floor.

I turn to look at that lucky - or should I say unlucky because he got separated from the rest? - player, grinning.

“So… do you want to play with me first? Fufufu!”

“Yes! Let’s play together! Hahaha!”

Something’s wrong… Shouldn’t he be scared right now instead of laughing like a maniac!?

It’s then that I hear a thunderous roar getting closer from the central portal. It sounds like… lots of firecrackers? It can only come from a swarm of similar creatures.

But… why did they prepare a swarm to fight against me? Against ME!? They should know it’s useless to attack me with swarms…

All my body hair stands on end. Well, it doesn’t because this is a game, but I feel as if it does.

Think Andreu, think! They’re crazy, plus they have a Flesh Monstrosity player. And they are obsessed with you… This could be absolutely anything.

Could this swarm actually threaten me?

Hmm… Something’s definitely wrong. I’ll have to wait and face whatever they prepared.

Or, should I run away?

----------------------------------------

“Now that we’re out of the other team’s eyes, we can safely talk again! Ok, girls, you just have to follow my lead! This is going to be a breeze!”

“No, Baldy. I’m sure you remember we already talked about this before, and I’m going to be the temporary leader of this team.”

“Oh, come on!”

“Don’t complain… You know you tend to get… how to say it without hurting you… ah, yes! You tend to get distracted. This is why you can’t be the leader.”

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“...”

Ricard remains silent after Laura’s admonishment.

“Hey, hey! Why can I never be the leader!? I want to be it too!”

“Lemon…” Laura tries to find what to say to not hurt Andreu’s little sister. “Don’t worry, one day you’ll lead the team. Just wait for the end of the tournament, ok?”

“Yaay!”

Clara starts to jump around in glee, imagining herself giving orders to Andreu and forcing him to do whatever she says.

At this precise moment, Andreu can’t stop himself from shivering. And it isn’t due to the swarm or the fanatical bunch.

“Hey! I also want to try it sometimes…”

“We already tried and it didn’t work, remember?”

“Ugh…”

Ricard puts his right hand on his chest, feigning to be very hurt at Laura’s words. At his antics, both Laura and Clara roll their eyes and start to move forward, leaving him behind.

“Come on, don’t be like this! I was just joking…!” He speeds up to catch up with the girls. “So… what do you think about all that Mad Rat Cult stuff? I must say I didn’t imagine them being THAT crazy. It certainly is different seeing it in person to hearing about it from others…”

“True.”

Laura nods at Ricard. She too thinks it was too much, too crazy.

“If they follow my brother like this, they are not only crazy but also stupid! Hehe!” Clara nods at her own words. “The followers of somebody as childish and dumb as him must be even dumber! Also, I’m the only one allowed to stick to him! How dare they try to steal my position!”

Walking side by side with Clara, Laura can only shake her head. There were so many wrong things in just a few sentences that she doesn’t know where to start retorting.

“Oooh, is that so…?” With a mocking smile on his face, Ricard taunts Clara. “And what do you think is going to happen if Mad Rat hears this comment from you? Maybe he won’t talk to you ever again, you know…? Haha… Aaagh! Let go!”

Not waiting for him to finish talking, Clara grabs him with one of her tentacles and pulls him closer. He resists, but he can’t stop his champion from slowly getting closer to her.

“...you know, Baldy… I can chase you and be your worst nightmare. If only we can reach an agreement, there won’t be any need for me to do it…”

It’s a lucky thing her champion doesn’t have a face because he would be scared shitless if she did have one.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I won’t tell him, I promise!”

“Is that so…?”

With a last pull, she releases Ricard but continues to look at him with her non-existent eyes, further terrifying the poor guy.

“Don’t worry, I won’t. I keep my promises! But… No, nothing.”

Ricard is about to say something else but manages to stop before hurting himself.

He knows Andreu will hear what Clara said if he watches the replay, but he’s not going to comment on it, just in case. He already got enough ‘abyss-hugs’ for the rest of his life.

“Can you stop fooling around? We don’t have time to waste!”

Laura urges the two fools to move forward.

The four fanatics should be entangled with Andreu, but there’s no way to know for how long they’re going to stay there; or when they’re going to notice their invasion and send reinforcements.

“Ouch!”

“What are you doing now?”

Ricard, who’s taking the lead as usual, stops moving. Laura, already tired of his and Clara’s behavior, asks him in exasperation.

“Something dropped on top of me!” He sees a figure scurrying away and points to it. “Did you see? It was that thing!”

“...What’s that?”

“I don’t know. Ugh…”

Ricard is about to take another step forward when another thing drops on him, before scurrying away, the same as the first one.

“Baldy, Lily! It looks like a mouse! A tiny mouse!”

“What are you, ugh, talking, ouch, about…agh? Shit, I’m taking damage!”

Like raindrops, more and more of those ‘mouses’ drop on top of Ricard. The amount increases over time, up to the point it’s hard to see his Champion because of the sheer amount of them.

“S-save m-me! I, can’t, move…!”

Laura grabs Ricard and pulls him away from the torrent of falling enemies. Soon after, the ‘mouses’ stop falling and all the remaining ones quickly run away, disappearing through the many tiny holes in the terrain.

“What the fuck was that!? I took almost half HP damage from them, and was stun-locked!”

“I don’t know. But it reminds me of those crazy monsters Mad Rat likes to create.”

“As I said, they’re tiny mouses!”

“I know, I know, Lemon. But we need to know what exactly they are before moving forward. Knowing how they look isn’t enough. Ah, Baldy, I’ll heal you.”

“Wait, Lily. I have an idea to heal and at the same time investigate what those monsters are.”

Ricard looks at his status screen one last time. “Don’t worry, it’ll be ok.” He says to himself. Then, makes another step forward, and soon, those tiny ‘mouses’ start to fall on top of him again.

But this time he’s ready for them and activates Whirlwind. Ricard rotates on the spot, slicing every enemy that drops on top of him before he can take damage. He only stops the skill after recovering most of the HP lost, thanks to his Essense Siphon innate skill, and immediately goes back to where Laura and Clara are waiting.

Several corpses litter the ground, all of them from those falling enemies.

“Ok, now let’s see what they are…” Not wasting time, he inspects a random corpse. “I knew they were crazy, but this is going too far! How much stalking do they need to do to come up with these things just to counter our team!?”

“Baldy, explanation, please.” Urges Laura.

“Sure...”

Ricard scratches his head, thinking how to put it all together so it’s easy to understand, unlike most of his ‘knowledge drilling’ sessions. At least, it looks like he’s clever enough to know when to not be a smartass.

“They’re called Plump Drops, but this isn’t important. The worrying part is their innate skill and their behavior. Remember the innate skill we talked about before, the one some big units like elephants have? It’s called Trample, and with it, they can deal damage to other units when stomping on them.”

Trample (Innate triggered skill) You can move over units significantly smaller than you. When moving over another unit, it takes (3 + 0,2 * STR) physical damage per second, and there’s a 10% chance the unit gets stunned for 1 second. This skill can only trigger when moving at least at speed 5.

“Ooh, now that you say it, they do have tiny elephant trunks instead of the mouse’s nose and whiskers! Hehehe, how cute!”

Ricard sends a glance at Clara, who’s currently poking one of their corpses with her tentacle, before continuing.

“The Trample skill usually only works when the unit is big, against smaller enemies. But if you make the unit drop from above… both conditions to activate the skill can be fulfilled even if they’re small.”

“How so? Don't they need to be bigger than us too?”

“No, they don’t. The skill only allows them to walk over smaller units, it isn’t a requirement. When they drop from enough height, they get enough velocity to activate the skill, and the moment they touch us with their feet, it counts as moving over us. That’s why I took so much damage and was stun-locked.”

“Hehehe! You got stomped by a bunch of mice! I must save the replay for later. Also, they are too cute! I’ll have to get a plushie somehow…”

Ignoring Clara, Ricard continues to explain the situation.

“But the worst is that the skill doesn’t count as an attack, similar to those Slimeballs we encountered, or your Decaying Touch. So skills like my Frost Shield don’t work! They knew both me and Mad Rat had the skill and prepared them to counter us! Not even your Decaying Touch will work because it needs two seconds of contact, Lemon!”

He punches the closest wall in frustration.

“So what do we do? We can go back and try another portal…”

“No, Lemon. It’s too risky. We don’t want the other team to know we have sneaked inside their dungeon.”

“And that’s not all…” Ricard points at the ceiling. “Look, there’s no end to the holes from where they fall. From this point on, they can come at us at any moment...”

Both girls thought they only needed to worry about this area, but after looking closely at the ceiling, they realize it’s impossible to completely avoid those monsters.

“...and there could be tens, or even hundreds of them! They’re sure to be cheap because they are units that come from a mix of two critter units. Elephants are expensive for a critter but are still cheaper than most basic units. If only we had an aura skill… we could counter them so hard…”

With his hands on top of his head, Ricard complains about the unfair match. Though he knows he wouldn't hesitate at all to use the enemies’ information against them in the tournament if he could.

“What do you want to do, then?” Asks Laura. “I want to believe in Mad Rat’s skill to keep the enemies busy, and if we go back now, we might destroy all his plans. I have an idea to continue moving forward without dying, but it’s complicated…. it might kill us all. ”

“Move forward I say! I don’t want to disturb my brother’s plans!”

“I don’t know. First, I want to know what idea you have. If it’s too dangerous…”

“Baldy, Lemon, this is what I was thinking…”

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

“I almost died when I saw the replay of the match. I couldn’t stop laughing for a whole day. I never expected Ricard, Laura, and Clara to do what they did.”