“Ugh, huh… it’s getting, better…”

I slowly stand up. I almost finished recovering from the dizziness caused when moving during the Rat Transformation skill, but my legs still wobble as I put more weight on them.

Now that I’m not that sick, I remember this passage is supposed to connect directly to one of the dungeon portals, so it makes sense I found the sharkman here.

Around me, there’s nothing of relevance except for the sharkman and the few support mobs behind him. If only IT was here, I could quickly get rid of him, and there would be one less trouble to worry about… Well, there’s nothing I can do about it.

Also, now that my head has cleared up and I can properly see the enemy up close, I see he’s using a Wereshark as his champion. So he isn’t from the Deep Seas faction but the Wild Ferals.

In fact, now that I think about it… I don’t think there aren’t any shark humanoids in the Deep Seas faction… My bad, hahaha!

He’s looking at me, his eyebrows furrowed. Is that pity, or is it a worried gaze?

Whatever it is, I don’t like it! I must always look imposing! Intimidating! And cool! So forget about what you saw or I’ll be forced to use drastic measures!

As I think about what ‘drastic measures’ I should implement, he talks to me.

“So, umm… Mad Rat…”

“What do you want!?”

I snap back. Meanwhile, I prepare to fight against him. We’re bound enemies, destined to face each other! It’s been our unavoidable destiny since the moment this match started!

And I don’t want to be surprised with a sneak attack before I can react… this time, the first strike is going to be mine! Mine, and only mine! Fufufu! Hahaha!

He makes the first move, slightly lowering his harpoon and the rest of his body, getting ready to attack me. Hah! As if I’m going to allow you to get close! I’m going to cast a spell before you can reach me!

“Chain Light…”

But I stop in the middle of casting the spell after seeing him drop to the ground. Umm… are you dead? Did you self-destruct or something? It’s something I could expect from those fanatics…

“Please… please…!”

It looks like he’s still alive, rubbing his head on the ground, his hands clasped as if praying, and murmuring something I can’t understand.

I decide to get closer to him. I know it’s a dangerous thing to do because he’s a melee character and I’m a spellcaster, but he doesn’t seem to want to fight at all. This, and I’m curious about what the hell is he doing.

“Please, oh great Mad Rat! Please teach me how to bring despair to the other players as well as you do! I’ll do anything you ask! So please, teach this lowly me!”

W-what, is, t-this!?

Andreu.exe has stopped working.

Please wait while we reinitiate the OS…

Executing Andreu.exe…

Restarting the system…

My brain shuts down. This is happening more than usual lately… There must be something wrong with my surroundings that keeps interfering with my brain’s normal performance.

Let’s hear what he is saying… For some reason, I couldn’t register his words and now I have to listen to him once again.

“Great Mad Rat! Please let me be your disciple! I want to learn all your tricks and be as amazing as you!”

Andreu.exe has stopp… Noooo! Stop! I don’t need another reset!

He wants ME to teach HIM!? Teach him WHAT!?

I’m no teacher, you know? And I don’t even know what I’m doing most of the time… How am I supposed to teach somebody to do what I do when I myself don’t know what I’m doing!?

And after the many headaches your group gave me, do you really think I’m going to help any of you in any way at all!? This is an absolutely impossible thing! I’ll prefer to die than to be related to you guys in any way!

You must be crazy!

What am I saying… they ARE crazy… why did I doubt it?

Of course, there’s no way I’m going to accept this… I don’t want to be related to them at all! Accepting this would be the worst decision in my whole life!

I’m about to say ‘no’ to him, except with what could be defined as ‘more intense’ words… you know, something that includes both insults and mockery, while looking down on him at the same time…

Wait, Andreu!

You’re in the middle of the match and you should be roleplaying as the Mad Rat! What would the real Mad Rat do in this situation?

Of course, in this situation, the Mad Rat would laugh, and propose a stupid agreement from which only I benefit. Oh, yes, yes! I got a great idea! It’s possible for me to take advantage of this! I can get the advantage in this match and almost secure our win if I do this right!

“Fufufu! Hahaha! Sure, let’s make a deal! But if you want me to accept, I demand one teeny tiny thing from you in exchange!”

“Anything you ask, oh great Mad Rat! As long as I can provide it, I’m ready to do anything you ask!”

“Is that so…?” I make an evil grin. “The only thing I ask of you is your meager life! If you give me your soul in exchange, I’ll teach you everything you need to know! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

How do you like it, huh!? Isn’t this the same as a deal with the devil? I know I’m not from the Wicked Legion faction, but do have part of a demon mixed to create my champion. I should be allowed to make devil pacts too, shouldn’t I?

Also, if I secure his collaboration here, I would have to worry about one enemy player less! No MP or HP lost in this fight! And our team will get the kill advantage!

I can secure our win if he accepts the deal!

“I accept the deal, oh great Mad Rat!”

He prostrates on the ground another time, his head pressing the ground even harder than before. If this weren’t a game, there would be a hole in the ground by now.

“Oh, great Mad Rat! Thank you for accepting my lowly self as your disciple! Ummm… should I call you teacher from now on?”

He didn’t hesitate at all to betray his team and allow me to kill him! This match is turning crazier by the minute!

“Do as you please…”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

I turn around and start walking in the direction the other three fanatics should come from. There’s only one way up from the hole they fell into, so it should be easy to ambush them.

I must find IT before they do, and then use IT against those fools.

“Hey, what’s your name? Also… why did you surrender to me? Shouldn’t we be fighting each other until one is dead? I’ll need new test subjects for my experiments now, so you better give me a proper reason for not using you as one!”

He scratches his head awkwardly at my question.

“I’m Bil. You know… I admire you a lot, and… well, I don’t care at all about the Leader’s plans! I just want to learn from you and inflict as much despair on the players invading my dungeon too! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

What should I tell him? Should I tell the truth to him? That there’s no secret at all behind my dungeon? Or should I play the ‘fake sage’ and improvise something to teach him?

“I see…” I sagely nod.

Of course, I’ll go with the latter.

Who do you think I am? I’m the king of deception and lies! The Evil Mastermind! Or at least that’s what the other players call me... As much as I don’t like the other players to talk bullshit about me, and abhor this group of fanatics, there’s no way I can miss this chance to show off!

It fits my character so well that missing this chance would be like shooting myself in the foot.

“Before we start, I must know about yourself and your dungeon.” I stroke my nonexistent beard as I speak. “I’ll first need to know at what level you’re right now to know what I should teach you.”

And also, I need some time to prepare whatever I’m going to teach you. Because, honestly, I have no idea.

“I understand, teacher!”

Bil proceeds to explain everything that’s going on in his dungeon, and about his champion and faction too. I already knew about it, but he’s from the Wild Ferals faction and he’s using a Wereshark as a Champion. His dungeon is a mix of land and aquatic stuff.

I feign to listen to him while thinking about other stuff.

I’m currently worried about two things: where the heck are the rest of the fanatics, and also where the heck is IT right now!? It’s a shame I couldn’t change its AI too much for this match… it must be roaming around aimlessly… who knows where it is right now? But I need to find it somehow…

“...And that’s more or less all, teacher!”

I snap out of my thoughts and return to reality. So he finished with the explanation, huh? I slowly shake my head, making clicking noises with my tongue.

“*Sigh* We have so much to work on…” I pretend to know what I’m talking about. “You see, you did everything wrong from the start…”

“Eeeh!? Everything!? But I thought I was following you properly!”

I’ll take this chance to fix his attitude toward me, and maybe, if I’m lucky, the rest of those fanatics too. I don’t want any copycats! Stop doing everything I do! The worst is when you copy my laughing pose!

“And that’s exactly the problem! You were following me instead of thinking for yourself!”

“Whaaaaaat!?”

It’s as if the sky is falling upon us… the end of the world, the apocalypse! At least, that’s what his current expression looks like.

Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you didn’t even understand this… This is the basics of the basics! I don’t even need to make it up! Even Ricard, the one obsessed with efficiency and other not-so-fun stuff has created his own character!

Why did you think it was ok to just copy whatever I did!?

“The first thing you must do is stop thinking as a player and create your own character. This isn’t a Champion, this is your Persona, ok!?”

“...what do you mean!?”

“I mean you must start everything by thinking about what character you want to roleplay! Do you want a giant and sturdy warrior? A vicious and lethal assassin? A mad scientist, like me!?”

I notice my error and quickly add, to prevent future trouble.

“Forget about the last one because this is MY character and I won’t help you anymore if you copy me, understood!?”

“Y-yes, o-o great Mad Rat!”

Nice! It looks like my intimidation worked! All is according to plan, the plan to stop people from imitating me I just devised.

“D-does this mean I must learn how to play as a wereshark?”

“No, it isn’t like this…”

How can I explain something so simple? Sometimes, the simplest things are the hardest to explain…

“It isn’t a Wereshark, but YOUR Wereshark. For example, a mighty wereshark pirate, the terror of the seas! Or the king of the waves, who can create storms and tsunamis at will! You can also use any other unit… like the sturdiest werebear: the unmovable mountain that can stand up to any attack without dying! Heck! It doesn’t have to be from your own faction, you can pick from any other faction too!”

“Then, if I do this, I can bring despair to the other players too?”

“No, this is only the beginning… The tip of the iceberg! Your character is only the central piece, it isn’t enough by itself. Then, you must build your dungeon theme around the character you choose.”

“Oooh! Like the mad scientist you have and the crazy laboratory and monsters!”

“Exactly!”

He’s listening to me as if I was the greatest teacher of all time! What a shame I made it all up on the spot! Hahaha!

“The first step to bringing despair to the invaders is to make them WANT to come to your dungeon. And the most effective way is to create a dungeon that follows an interesting theme, then, you add a few more stuff… and voila! You have players that voluntarily come to your dungeon to feel despair! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

“Ooooooooh!”

As we move forward, I continue to teach him the ‘basics’. I don’t enter into detail, I just go over it so that it looks like I know a lot about this stuff… when actually, I don’t.

“...for traps and monsters, you must think outside the box. While the classics can be reliable and strong, it isn’t everything you can do. Plan for unexpected things! If you want to bring despair to the invaders, you must add unpredictable or dangerous stuff. But never both at the same time unless you know what you’re doing! Remember you don’t want to KILL the invaders, but instead make them CRY!”

Oh yeah! Let’s keep this rolling! Let’s spout some more bullshit!

“And never forget, true chaos needs a certain order! If there’s only random stuff put together, it doesn’t surprise anyone! For example, imagine a space where everything’s mixed up, with lots of materials and random objects floating around.”

“Something like the void?”

“Hmm… similar, but more like a sea of chaos, where everything gets deconstructed and turns into a jumbled mess.”

“Aaaah, I can imagine it!”

It’s incredible how gullible is he. Pffft! A sea of chaos where stuff disintegrates into random stuff!? I took that idea from my little sister’s dungeon! Hahaha!

In her dungeon, the stuff actually disintegrates into nothing, but there’s no need for him to know.

“Nice! And then, in this chaotic sea of random stuff, you find a whole building, doing perfectly fine, on top of a chunk of terrain. Wouldn’t it make you feel like there’s more chaos precisely BECAUSE there’s the whole floating building, compared to just random fragments everywhere?”

“That’s true… in a place where everything is chaotic, I would never expect to find something like an intact building… Wait a moment… isn’t this what you do in your dungeon!?”

“Aha! That’s what you must apply in your dungeon! In the chaotic sea that it’s your dungeon, don’t put only random stuff to torment your players! Add also normal stuff! You’ll be surprised how off-putting it can be when they find something normal! They usually turn more paranoid, and end up doing stupid stuff, or lower their guard and get caught in the next dangerous situation! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

“Ooooooh!”

Bil’s eyes sparkle at my teachings.

I must confess I don’t know what I’m saying anymore. I’m just spouting whatever comes to me, decorating it with more bullshit and lengthy explanations. Like a politician.

I’m surprised Bil actually understands what I say… what’s more, he seems to not only understand what I say but also correlate it to my dungeon. Instead of mellowing, what happens when you get closer to someone, his initial submissive attitude has turned into reverence.

Hmm… Am I really that great of a teacher…? Whatever! I’m going to continue with the teachings! Now that I’ve started, I can’t stop myself anymore…!

Tremble upon my words! Accept your own ignorance and let me teach you how to do the ‘good stuff’! Fufufu! Hahaha!

“...and so…”

I think I was in the middle of something important… What was it again?

It bugs me for a moment, but I quickly refocus on my teaching session, also called: spouting whatever comes to my mind as if I was revealing the ultimate truth…

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

Not long after the tournament, a new series of videos called ‘The Dark Teachings’ was created. Contrary to what you’re thinking, it was Andreu who created them. He knew the fanatics wouldn’t miss this chance, so before they created something dangerous that gave him a whole new wave of headaches, he took the initiative and used the new videos to further increase his growing fame.

This new series soared in popularity and left both previous series - the ‘It’s Alive! It’s Alive!’ and the ‘Mad Rat’s Eccentricities’ - in the dust.

The first two were oriented to a certain public, and not everyone enjoyed watching them, but this one… there wasn’t a single DMA player who didn’t want to improve their dungeon, or who wanted to miss the chance to learn from the highly acclaimed Evil Mastermind. The era of piratery, I mean… the era of player misery had just started!

What he didn’t know at that time was that a certain group of people would turn these videos into their future holy scriptures. Holy scriptures that weren’t holy, nor scriptures… Not that they cared about it.