I’m going to use the oldest distraction tactic ever.
“Hey, what’s that!?”
I shout, pointing behind the Leader and his follower. And they actually turn their heads in that direction!
Fufufu! Hahaha! It’s already too late for them now! As I like to say, sometimes, relying on the classics is the best thing you can do.
What am I pointing at? It’s The Tunnels’ Nightmare, who I finally found, and that’s currently sneaking behind them. Hmmm… should I say it found me instead, instead of me finding it?
Well, who cares… What’s important right now is that they already turned to look at The Tunnels’ Nightmare and are now affected by its innate skill. They can’t look away anymore for the next few seconds, and after that, they might be affected by fear and will be forced to run away from this place.
“Hahaha! See you later! If you survive this, that is! Fufufu! Hahaha!”
I take this chance to run away from the incoming Spark Swarm, moving behind The Tunnels’ Nightmare and hiding after the next tunnel’s turn.
The Leader and the other player try to stop me, but they don’t manage to do it because they can’t take their eyes off my amazing creation. I only take some damage from random attacks. About 30% of my HP? That’s all they manage to do as I break through their ranks.
It is a decent amount of damage, but it’s nothing compared to the certain death situation I was in a short time before The Tunnels’ Nightmare showed up.
“Bro, I think we fell for Mad Rat’s trap again… at this rate, we might never reach our objective…”
“Shut up, I already know! I shudder in excitement at what’s to come: a direct assault from our revered Mad Rat! …but it’s a shame our plans were destroyed like this…”
“Teacher, what should I do now? Please tell me!”
Oh, yes. I almost forgot about him… I think there’s only one thing I can tell him right now.
“Don’t worry! Just make sure to fulfill our deal and find a way to kill yourself! I’ll talk to you later, after the match!”
…maybe, if I feel like it. Though I don’t say this last part aloud.
“Ok, I’ll do it!”
See, he can be a good student when he wants to. The only big issue is his stupidity, but if you take this and his craziness out, he’s a docile student: very easy to manipulate into doing my bidding! Hahaha!
“Bil! How do you dare to talk with the great Mad Rat without showing respect!? You’ll have to repent for your blasphemy once we finish this match!”
“Oh, come on, Leader. I’m already tired of it, please spare me the hassle.”
In a sullen voice, Bill replies to the Leader’s words.
Something tells me I shouldn’t say anything to interrupt their conversation. Call it instinct, sixth sense, situation awareness… But it’s telling me this isn’t the time to intervene if I want to keep my sanity. It’s also telling me I don’t want to know what that punishment is.
But there’s one thing that bugs me. Why is the Leader more worried about Bil talking to me as if we were friends, instead of the order I gave him to kill himself?
No, wait. What am I doing questioning their behavior? They’re fanatics, so whatever they do shouldn’t surprise me anymore…
Anyway, a few seconds pass and the Spark Swarm is finally here! It appears from behind Bil and continues to move forward in my direction. Oooh, shit! Do they really have a way to track me!? Those fucking electric flying piranhas have a tracking skill!?
At the same time, The Tunnels’ Nightmare skill, Your Worst Nightmare is about to finish, so it readies his only AoE skill: Alpha’s Howl. I changed its AI to release it just before the time when enemies are forced to look at it is about to end. To maximize its efficiency to affect more targets.
The only exception is if the enemies try to run away. But they are only staying there, doing nothing except arguing among themselves. Normal players would use the numerical advantage they currently have to try to kill it before the fear effect starts. After all, the skill only forces you to look at it, it doesn’t prevent you from moving or attacking - you still need to care where you step to avoid traps and the like.
But… you can’t really expect ordinary actions from those guys.
I put my hands on my ears right before The Tunnels’ Nightmare releases its howl. It’s kind of annoying if you aren’t prepared because of how loud it is. The noise is so loud, it can almost be seen with the naked eye.
I’m a decent distance away, but it still hurts my ears. It doesn’t help the fact the sound echoes in the narrow tunnel and it sounds louder than it actually is.
Right when the howl ends and I can hear again, the situation devolves into a chaotic mess. There are quite a lot of players and mobs there, and almost all of them start to run away in fear at the same time…
Can you imagine about twenty monsters and players running randomly at the same time while inside a narrow tunnel? I can sum it up in one word: chaos.
I’m not sure which enemies are affected by Alpha’s Howl fear and which ones are affected by its Terrifying Presence passive, and it’s not like I care at all, but… All the enemies are running randomly through the narrow tunnel. They run into the walls, crash into each other, and there are some unlucky enemies who fall into the crevices, to the floor below.
Ironically, it looks like the only one who isn’t affected by fear is the Leader.
Meanwhile, The Tunnels’ Nightmare is having fun chasing the enemies and inflicting as much damage as possible. It attacks the enemies with its extended limbs and shoots sticky acid from time to time, covering the enemies with it and making them take continuous damage for an extended period of time.
Oh, yeah! Regarding the Spark Swarm… they died after the fear was applied. All of them at the same time.
The fun fact is I gave The Tunnels’ Nightmare a skill that inflicts damage to all enemies affected by fear, Paranoia, - I’m sure you remember about it - and the Alpha’s Howl skill inflicts guaranteed fear against weaker enemies. It also has an area wide enough to hit all of them at the same time.
If you take into account those piranhas were critters, which are the weakest units in the game, you can understand they went ‘poof’ the moment the fear status effect was applied.
“Hahaha! How do you like it? I crushed your secret weapon, the Spark Swarm, in a single moment! Did you really think I was afraid of your tactics? It’s impossible! Now I’ll go relax a little bit and enjoy your suffering! See you again… if you survive, that is! Fufufu! Hahaha!”
It’s time to run away again. I’ll use this chaos as cover.
There are a few reasons, like the fact that The Tunnels’ Nightmare isn’t strong enough to kill them all, or that some enemies are running in my direction right now; but the most important is this one: it’s impossible for me to control the situation because all enemies are running randomly.
I better go to the second defense point to stop them all, and nobody can sneak into the core room. Though first, I’ll cast one Chain Lightning to inflict as much damage as possible… and to add even more chaos to this situation.
Soon after, a few smoking and charred corpses appear in the tunnel. They look as usual, but who cares? I’ll say they’re smoking and charred corpses because they died thanks to my Chain Lightning and the damage from the fear status.
Ok, I’m out of here now! Hope you enjoy your nightmare! Hahaha!
“Teacher! Why is it chasing after me!? Please save me!”
I hear Bil’s screams, getting further away as I run in the opposite direction. Of course, he’s considered an enemy, so he’s affected by all the traps and all our monsters attack him on sight. He’s also under the fear effect right now and chased by The Tunnels’ Nightmare.
Oooh, come on! Didn’t we agree you would kill yourself!? Then don’t complain if you’re chased by The Tunnels’ Nightmare and accept death!
I ignore Bil’s screams. I’m (not) sorry about it, but there’s nothing I can do at all about it anyway. Hahaha!
Usually, The Tunnels’ Nightmare would be fighting those who aren’t running away, but I changed its AI to do the opposite: chase and finish off those who are affected by fear. Otherwise, The Tunnels’ Nightmare would leave the enemies free to roam the dungeon and just scatter them but not finish them off.
We don’t want this for a tournament match, so I changed its behavior.
I like this monster so much. In my dungeon, it’s the most feared monster of them all, and not precisely because it’s scary… except for the Boss, the Minitaur Queen. But that one always stays in the same room, so it isn’t as troublesome as The Tunnels’ Nightmare.
I chuckle every time I remember that time one invader ran into the Tunnel Mimic while feared and got themself eaten and then killed, without being able to do anything at all about it.
I hope it takes very long for them to regroup after this. Or that they don’t regroup at all… it’ll make the rest of the match much easier if they don’t.
Now that I think about it… where’s the fourth and last fanatic? I haven’t seen him since the time I activated the trap in the first room…
“Haaaa… This was very bad… and good at the same time…”
Exhausted, the Leader complains. It’s been five minutes since they met Mad Rat and they scattered through the dungeon because of the fear status. Luckily, he wasn’t affected and could run after Al, so they managed to stay together.
Most of their support mobs are still lost somewhere. Bil included. They don’t expect to find them anymore, nor do they want to spend time looking for them.
Though they did find one very special unit they prepared for this match, one they’ll need if they want to use their secret weapon properly.
They don’t know it, but The Tunnels’ Nightmare is now dead. After Bil’s efforts to stay alive when being chased by it - defying Mad Rat’s order to kill himself, although he died anyway - and the closeby mobs that recovered from the fear and jumped on it as soon as the fear effect ended, The Tunnels’ Nightmare received enough damage and was defeated. They won’t have to fight against it anymore.
“Bro… Snif! You really protected me! I’m so moved…!”
Al is crying, moved because the Leader protected him during the chaos, and didn’t leave him alone as he promised. Though there are no tears because this is a game.
“Of course! I already told you I would protect you! Hahaha!” But then, he mutters to himself. “...because I need you for our plan, that is.”
“Huh, did you say anything, Bro?”
“No, no. I didn’t. Hahaha…” The Leader laughs awkwardly as he scratches his head. “I was just talking to myself, don’t worry about it.”
“Um, ok!”
Al nods with enthusiasm.
“Well then, Al. This time for sure, we’re going to execute our plan! It’s a shame the Spark Swarm was killed like this…”
“Don’t worry, Bro! I’ll do it!”
“Yes, I believe in you. Fufufu! Hahaha!”
“...Bro, why do you keep laughing like this? Don’t you get tired of it?”
“I already told you this is His laughing pose! The perfect way to show our belief and also a very good way to taunt our opponents… Why do you keep asking the same questions all the time!?”
“...sorry…”
Like this, the madman duo continues the dungeon invasion with the only and sole purpose to inflict despair upon Mad Rat.
“Oooh, how comfy it is to sit like this and do nothing… Haha.”
I chuckle at my words.
Right now I'm sitting on a comfy chair while waiting for the enemy team to show up. In front of me, there’s a series of buttons, all with their own number. I call this: the Control Panel.
They’re those classic red buttons that call to you, saying ‘Please, press me!’. But at the same time, you know you shouldn’t press them because there’s the ‘Don’t press it!’ sign right on top… though the message only increases your desire to press it.
So yes, there’s a whole bunch of those buttons right in front of me. Can you guess what they are for?
I’m sure you already suspect it, but I’ll give you another clue: there’s also a wide window that displays the next defense area we prepared. There are three paths at different heights, all of them clearly visible from my current position.
The three paths are full of traps, and the buttons are, as you already expected by now, to manually activate them. This is the best way to use traps because they can be activated only when they can deal the most damage, but it needs somebody to activate them… and normal monsters are too stupid to time them properly.
But I’m not a stupid monster, so it’ll work.
From here, I too am visible to the enemies, but what are they going to do? Attack me in a ranged battle? I’m the king of ranged battles, and I can hide behind the wall and continue to press the buttons even if they manage to overwhelm me.
From here, I can rule the whole area! Hahaha!
In fact, I’ve already used these traps before, when one of the enemy players came inside a while ago.
He was alone, and I didn’t recognize him… but I’m sure he was the fourth fanatic from the enemy team, the one who fell into the first trap and somehow got separated from the Leader before I met them. There’s no other option, so it was him for sure.
It’s also the first time I’ve been disgusted so much by my own actions. To the point that if this wasn’t an important match, I swear I would have immediately surrendered.
It was so bad I hated myself every time I pressed one of the buttons to activate a trap.
Every, single, fucking, time, I activated a trap, that guy shuddered in excitement. He even moaned sometimes! Not in the classical ‘Hit me more’ way, but in the ‘Ah! Only you can give me so much despair, please continue!’.
The worst was he kept calling my name again and again… and stealing glances at me before turning his head away in shame.
Everything in me hurt: my eyes, my ears, my head, even my fingers every time I pressed a button! And he didn’t even try to avoid the traps! He walked slowly and allowed everything to hit him!
As I said before, I would have surrendered just to avoid giving him pleasure, but Ricard and the others would have killed me if I did and we lost because of it, so I decided to suffer the disgust and finally managed to kill him.
I even added a few Cold Blasts to help him die as fast as possible, but regretted doing it after his reaction to my direct attacks…
The only good thing is that he finally died and I can now relax. And recover from my emotional wounds.
Now I only have to wait for the others to appear… while I relax, sitting in this comfy chair…
Oh, here they are! Hahaha!
Right at the entrance of this area, something moves. I can see both the Leader and that other player who’s always following him, accompanied by a few support mobs. There are less than half the original amount, adding those who were following Bil to their numbers.
Hmm… did they manage to stay together even after everything that happened with The Tunnels’ Nightmare? If so, they’re very lucky.
But your luck ends now!
The Leader points at me before saying something I can’t hear because of the distance, and he starts to laugh maniacally, copying me again. At the same time, I start to laugh and talk alone.
Right now, we’re both doing the same laughing pose. But mine is clearly better. More polished, cooler, and with more style. I’m the original, after all.
“Fufufu! Hahaha! Prepare to suffer my ire! I need to punish somebody and relieve the stress caused by your annoying friend!”
I say as I put my finger right on top of one button, ready to press it when the enemies walk under the first trap, when…
“...Is that so? But I think you’re the one in danger, Mad Rat.”
There’s somebody right behind me!? When did he get here!?
I slowly turn around to look behind me, and I see somebody I didn’t expect at all.
“H-how did you get here?”
I turn to look back at the Leader, just in case, but what I see is completely impossible.
“But you’re also there, right next to your Leader! How can there be two of you at the same time!?”
If most of what happened up to this point was giving me nothing else but headaches, the only single thing that didn’t was also the most surprising one. Because, while inside the craziness, this was the only ‘normal’ thing the enemy team did so far.
Still, I couldn’t understand how could there be two champions of the same player at the same time. I must admit, they did manage to bring me despair with this.
I’m going to use the oldest distraction tactic ever.
“Hey, what’s that!?”
I shout, pointing behind the Leader and his follower. And they actually turn their heads in that direction!
Fufufu! Hahaha! It’s already too late for them now! As I like to say, sometimes, relying on the classics is the best thing you can do.
What am I pointing at? It’s The Tunnels’ Nightmare, who I finally found, and that’s currently sneaking behind them. Hmmm… should I say it found me instead, instead of me finding it?
Well, who cares… What’s important right now is that they already turned to look at The Tunnels’ Nightmare and are now affected by its innate skill. They can’t look away anymore for the next few seconds, and after that, they might be affected by fear and will be forced to run away from this place.
“Hahaha! See you later! If you survive this, that is! Fufufu! Hahaha!”
I take this chance to run away from the incoming Spark Swarm, moving behind The Tunnels’ Nightmare and hiding after the next tunnel’s turn.
The Leader and the other player try to stop me, but they don’t manage to do it because they can’t take their eyes off my amazing creation. I only take some damage from random attacks. About 30% of my HP? That’s all they manage to do as I break through their ranks.
It is a decent amount of damage, but it’s nothing compared to the certain death situation I was in a short time before The Tunnels’ Nightmare showed up.
“Bro, I think we fell for Mad Rat’s trap again… at this rate, we might never reach our objective…”
“Shut up, I already know! I shudder in excitement at what’s to come: a direct assault from our revered Mad Rat! …but it’s a shame our plans were destroyed like this…”
“Teacher, what should I do now? Please tell me!”
Oh, yes. I almost forgot about him… I think there’s only one thing I can tell him right now.
“Don’t worry! Just make sure to fulfill our deal and find a way to kill yourself! I’ll talk to you later, after the match!”
…maybe, if I feel like it. Though I don’t say this last part aloud.
“Ok, I’ll do it!”
See, he can be a good student when he wants to. The only big issue is his stupidity, but if you take this and his craziness out, he’s a docile student: very easy to manipulate into doing my bidding! Hahaha!
“Bil! How do you dare to talk with the great Mad Rat without showing respect!? You’ll have to repent for your blasphemy once we finish this match!”
“Oh, come on, Leader. I’m already tired of it, please spare me the hassle.”
In a sullen voice, Bill replies to the Leader’s words.
Something tells me I shouldn’t say anything to interrupt their conversation. Call it instinct, sixth sense, situation awareness… But it’s telling me this isn’t the time to intervene if I want to keep my sanity. It’s also telling me I don’t want to know what that punishment is.
But there’s one thing that bugs me. Why is the Leader more worried about Bil talking to me as if we were friends, instead of the order I gave him to kill himself?
No, wait. What am I doing questioning their behavior? They’re fanatics, so whatever they do shouldn’t surprise me anymore…
Anyway, a few seconds pass and the Spark Swarm is finally here! It appears from behind Bil and continues to move forward in my direction. Oooh, shit! Do they really have a way to track me!? Those fucking electric flying piranhas have a tracking skill!?
At the same time, The Tunnels’ Nightmare skill, Your Worst Nightmare is about to finish, so it readies his only AoE skill: Alpha’s Howl. I changed its AI to release it just before the time when enemies are forced to look at it is about to end. To maximize its efficiency to affect more targets.
The only exception is if the enemies try to run away. But they are only staying there, doing nothing except arguing among themselves. Normal players would use the numerical advantage they currently have to try to kill it before the fear effect starts. After all, the skill only forces you to look at it, it doesn’t prevent you from moving or attacking - you still need to care where you step to avoid traps and the like.
But… you can’t really expect ordinary actions from those guys.
I put my hands on my ears right before The Tunnels’ Nightmare releases its howl. It’s kind of annoying if you aren’t prepared because of how loud it is. The noise is so loud, it can almost be seen with the naked eye.
I’m a decent distance away, but it still hurts my ears. It doesn’t help the fact the sound echoes in the narrow tunnel and it sounds louder than it actually is.
Right when the howl ends and I can hear again, the situation devolves into a chaotic mess. There are quite a lot of players and mobs there, and almost all of them start to run away in fear at the same time…
Can you imagine about twenty monsters and players running randomly at the same time while inside a narrow tunnel? I can sum it up in one word: chaos.
I’m not sure which enemies are affected by Alpha’s Howl fear and which ones are affected by its Terrifying Presence passive, and it’s not like I care at all, but… All the enemies are running randomly through the narrow tunnel. They run into the walls, crash into each other, and there are some unlucky enemies who fall into the crevices, to the floor below.
Ironically, it looks like the only one who isn’t affected by fear is the Leader.
Meanwhile, The Tunnels’ Nightmare is having fun chasing the enemies and inflicting as much damage as possible. It attacks the enemies with its extended limbs and shoots sticky acid from time to time, covering the enemies with it and making them take continuous damage for an extended period of time.
Oh, yeah! Regarding the Spark Swarm… they died after the fear was applied. All of them at the same time.
The fun fact is I gave The Tunnels’ Nightmare a skill that inflicts damage to all enemies affected by fear, Paranoia, - I’m sure you remember about it - and the Alpha’s Howl skill inflicts guaranteed fear against weaker enemies. It also has an area wide enough to hit all of them at the same time.
If you take into account those piranhas were critters, which are the weakest units in the game, you can understand they went ‘poof’ the moment the fear status effect was applied.
“Hahaha! How do you like it? I crushed your secret weapon, the Spark Swarm, in a single moment! Did you really think I was afraid of your tactics? It’s impossible! Now I’ll go relax a little bit and enjoy your suffering! See you again… if you survive, that is! Fufufu! Hahaha!”
It’s time to run away again. I’ll use this chaos as cover.
There are a few reasons, like the fact that The Tunnels’ Nightmare isn’t strong enough to kill them all, or that some enemies are running in my direction right now; but the most important is this one: it’s impossible for me to control the situation because all enemies are running randomly.
I better go to the second defense point to stop them all, and nobody can sneak into the core room. Though first, I’ll cast one Chain Lightning to inflict as much damage as possible… and to add even more chaos to this situation.
Soon after, a few smoking and charred corpses appear in the tunnel. They look as usual, but who cares? I’ll say they’re smoking and charred corpses because they died thanks to my Chain Lightning and the damage from the fear status.
Ok, I’m out of here now! Hope you enjoy your nightmare! Hahaha!
“Teacher! Why is it chasing after me!? Please save me!”
I hear Bil’s screams, getting further away as I run in the opposite direction. Of course, he’s considered an enemy, so he’s affected by all the traps and all our monsters attack him on sight. He’s also under the fear effect right now and chased by The Tunnels’ Nightmare.
Oooh, come on! Didn’t we agree you would kill yourself!? Then don’t complain if you’re chased by The Tunnels’ Nightmare and accept death!
I ignore Bil’s screams. I’m (not) sorry about it, but there’s nothing I can do at all about it anyway. Hahaha!
Usually, The Tunnels’ Nightmare would be fighting those who aren’t running away, but I changed its AI to do the opposite: chase and finish off those who are affected by fear. Otherwise, The Tunnels’ Nightmare would leave the enemies free to roam the dungeon and just scatter them but not finish them off.
We don’t want this for a tournament match, so I changed its behavior.
I like this monster so much. In my dungeon, it’s the most feared monster of them all, and not precisely because it’s scary… except for the Boss, the Minitaur Queen. But that one always stays in the same room, so it isn’t as troublesome as The Tunnels’ Nightmare.
I chuckle every time I remember that time one invader ran into the Tunnel Mimic while feared and got themself eaten and then killed, without being able to do anything at all about it.
I hope it takes very long for them to regroup after this. Or that they don’t regroup at all… it’ll make the rest of the match much easier if they don’t.
Now that I think about it… where’s the fourth and last fanatic? I haven’t seen him since the time I activated the trap in the first room…
“Haaaa… This was very bad… and good at the same time…”
Exhausted, the Leader complains. It’s been five minutes since they met Mad Rat and they scattered through the dungeon because of the fear status. Luckily, he wasn’t affected and could run after Al, so they managed to stay together.
Most of their support mobs are still lost somewhere. Bil included. They don’t expect to find them anymore, nor do they want to spend time looking for them.
Though they did find one very special unit they prepared for this match, one they’ll need if they want to use their secret weapon properly.
They don’t know it, but The Tunnels’ Nightmare is now dead. After Bil’s efforts to stay alive when being chased by it - defying Mad Rat’s order to kill himself, although he died anyway - and the closeby mobs that recovered from the fear and jumped on it as soon as the fear effect ended, The Tunnels’ Nightmare received enough damage and was defeated. They won’t have to fight against it anymore.
“Bro… Snif! You really protected me! I’m so moved…!”
Al is crying, moved because the Leader protected him during the chaos, and didn’t leave him alone as he promised. Though there are no tears because this is a game.
“Of course! I already told you I would protect you! Hahaha!” But then, he mutters to himself. “...because I need you for our plan, that is.”
“Huh, did you say anything, Bro?”
“No, no. I didn’t. Hahaha…” The Leader laughs awkwardly as he scratches his head. “I was just talking to myself, don’t worry about it.”
“Um, ok!”
Al nods with enthusiasm.
“Well then, Al. This time for sure, we’re going to execute our plan! It’s a shame the Spark Swarm was killed like this…”
“Don’t worry, Bro! I’ll do it!”
“Yes, I believe in you. Fufufu! Hahaha!”
“...Bro, why do you keep laughing like this? Don’t you get tired of it?”
“I already told you this is His laughing pose! The perfect way to show our belief and also a very good way to taunt our opponents… Why do you keep asking the same questions all the time!?”
“...sorry…”
Like this, the madman duo continues the dungeon invasion with the only and sole purpose to inflict despair upon Mad Rat.
“Oooh, how comfy it is to sit like this and do nothing… Haha.”
I chuckle at my words.
Right now I'm sitting on a comfy chair while waiting for the enemy team to show up. In front of me, there’s a series of buttons, all with their own number. I call this: the Control Panel.
They’re those classic red buttons that call to you, saying ‘Please, press me!’. But at the same time, you know you shouldn’t press them because there’s the ‘Don’t press it!’ sign right on top… though the message only increases your desire to press it.
So yes, there’s a whole bunch of those buttons right in front of me. Can you guess what they are for?
I’m sure you already suspect it, but I’ll give you another clue: there’s also a wide window that displays the next defense area we prepared. There are three paths at different heights, all of them clearly visible from my current position.
The three paths are full of traps, and the buttons are, as you already expected by now, to manually activate them. This is the best way to use traps because they can be activated only when they can deal the most damage, but it needs somebody to activate them… and normal monsters are too stupid to time them properly.
But I’m not a stupid monster, so it’ll work.
From here, I too am visible to the enemies, but what are they going to do? Attack me in a ranged battle? I’m the king of ranged battles, and I can hide behind the wall and continue to press the buttons even if they manage to overwhelm me.
From here, I can rule the whole area! Hahaha!
In fact, I’ve already used these traps before, when one of the enemy players came inside a while ago.
He was alone, and I didn’t recognize him… but I’m sure he was the fourth fanatic from the enemy team, the one who fell into the first trap and somehow got separated from the Leader before I met them. There’s no other option, so it was him for sure.
It’s also the first time I’ve been disgusted so much by my own actions. To the point that if this wasn’t an important match, I swear I would have immediately surrendered.
It was so bad I hated myself every time I pressed one of the buttons to activate a trap.
Every, single, fucking, time, I activated a trap, that guy shuddered in excitement. He even moaned sometimes! Not in the classical ‘Hit me more’ way, but in the ‘Ah! Only you can give me so much despair, please continue!’.
The worst was he kept calling my name again and again… and stealing glances at me before turning his head away in shame.
Everything in me hurt: my eyes, my ears, my head, even my fingers every time I pressed a button! And he didn’t even try to avoid the traps! He walked slowly and allowed everything to hit him!
As I said before, I would have surrendered just to avoid giving him pleasure, but Ricard and the others would have killed me if I did and we lost because of it, so I decided to suffer the disgust and finally managed to kill him.
I even added a few Cold Blasts to help him die as fast as possible, but regretted doing it after his reaction to my direct attacks…
The only good thing is that he finally died and I can now relax. And recover from my emotional wounds.
Now I only have to wait for the others to appear… while I relax, sitting in this comfy chair…
Oh, here they are! Hahaha!
Right at the entrance of this area, something moves. I can see both the Leader and that other player who’s always following him, accompanied by a few support mobs. There are less than half the original amount, adding those who were following Bil to their numbers.
Hmm… did they manage to stay together even after everything that happened with The Tunnels’ Nightmare? If so, they’re very lucky.
But your luck ends now!
The Leader points at me before saying something I can’t hear because of the distance, and he starts to laugh maniacally, copying me again. At the same time, I start to laugh and talk alone.
Right now, we’re both doing the same laughing pose. But mine is clearly better. More polished, cooler, and with more style. I’m the original, after all.
“Fufufu! Hahaha! Prepare to suffer my ire! I need to punish somebody and relieve the stress caused by your annoying friend!”
I say as I put my finger right on top of one button, ready to press it when the enemies walk under the first trap, when…
“...Is that so? But I think you’re the one in danger, Mad Rat.”
There’s somebody right behind me!? When did he get here!?
I slowly turn around to look behind me, and I see somebody I didn’t expect at all.
“H-how did you get here?”
I turn to look back at the Leader, just in case, but what I see is completely impossible.
“But you’re also there, right next to your Leader! How can there be two of you at the same time!?”
If most of what happened up to this point was giving me nothing else but headaches, the only single thing that didn’t was also the most surprising one. Because, while inside the craziness, this was the only ‘normal’ thing the enemy team did so far.
Still, I couldn’t understand how could there be two champions of the same player at the same time. I must admit, they did manage to bring me despair with this.
