“Help!” Shouts Berta.

I run in her direction and use my Dragon’s Breath as soon as I get close enough. Ah, what a shame. Berta took the damage too… how bad. If only I had thought about this before…

“Nooooo!” She shouts when she realizes what happened. She then flies closer and punches me in the face. “You killed them again!”

“Killed…?” Does she mean the monster? Of course, I killed it… ah, I know! She’s talking about the octopus hybrids! “I’m sorry? But if you killed the monster instead of panicking, they would be alive right now…”

…and you’d have saved yourself some damage, but it seems you don’t care about this last part.

“It’s your fault!”

She doesn’t listen and continues to punch me, this time on my chest. She's even more childish than usual when it comes to stuff like this.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll find another one soon,” I say flatly.

“You promise?”

“... huh… I do?”

I have no idea what we’ll find, so what do you expect me to say? But luckily for me, she calms down at my words and stops her tantrum.

Now that I take a closer look at the monster, it’s not a tree but a bush, about a meter and a half tall. The most astonishing part about this monster is that it has rabbit ears, and they don’t look out of place.

Don’t ask me how is that possible, I’m not the one who created that monstrosity.

“Are you finished with your lover’s quarrel? Hihihihi!” Matta comes closer while nervously examining his surroundings. “Then, can we start moving? I have a bad feeling about this area, so I’d like to move fast and leave as soon as possible.”

“Fine by me,” I nod. “We need to go that way, right?”

There’s a hole in the mountainside. The tunnel is bright and light comes from the other side, so I’m sure there’s another valley like this one.

“Me first!”

Berta rushes into the hole and disappears from our view one more time, leaving us no other choice but to follow after her.

“Do you think she’ll end up in trouble?” I ask.

“Hmm… most surely. I’m sure that tree-rabbit wasn’t the only hidden monster in this place.”

“Well, let’s hope she doesn’t die,” I shrug my shoulders, “it’d be a pain to lose our healer like this.”

“Shouldn’t you care about her a little bit more?”

“Why?”

“... never mind.”

The tunnel is little more than a hole in the mountain. It isn’t that long either, no more than ten meters. There are small holes on both sides, which must be the burrows of those rabbits we saw.

When we reach the other side our vision field widens and a vast valley appears in front of us. It could be because this place has no ceiling, but it appears to be almost as big as the giant cavern with the turtles.

Sure enough, we find Berta entangled with another one of those tree-like monsters. But this time she remembers to use her skills and manages to get free on her own.

“Do you never learn?” I taunt her.

“Leave me alone!” She pouts. “Not all of them are dangerous, ok?”

“Fine, do whatever you want. But don’t come cry–”

A rabbit-eared angel swoops in and grabs Berta. It’s so unexpected that nobody can react on time.

The monster flies away at top speed. When it reaches a dangerous height, the monster drops her and she starts falling. The monster then disappears somewhere.

 “Uaaaah!” Shouts Berta. “Saaaave meeee!”

“Did she forget how to fly?” I observe her falling. “I might as well go and save her…”

“Yeah, go and make her fall in love with you.” Matta snickers and elbows me.

“Shut up! And stop with the love stuff already!” I unfurl my wings and start flying. “I won’t let any child die on my watch!”

It’s a shame she’s too scared to pay attention to what I say. I’d love to see her reaction.

“Save meeeee! I’ll dieeeee!”

“I’m coming.”

I swoop in, but right before I grab her, she remembers she has wings and stabilizes herself. The thing is she does it as such a bad moment that the hand that was ready to grab her ends in a certain area of hers.

Huh, it’s flat. And hard…

“What are you doing, pervert!” She slaps my hand and struggles to get free.

No, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, Berta. There’s, literally, nothing.

“I made the effort to save you and you react like that… Next time you ask for help, I’ll let you die.”

Realizing what I mean, she stops struggling. Then, her eyes start to swim around. “Um, huh… Thank, you…” Her voice fades off.

“What are you doing? Are you shy now? Ashamed of your actions?”

“...”

 I taunt her with a grin on my face, but she stares at the ground instead of answering. An awkward moment follows.

After a few seconds, I make a fake cough and fly back to the ground level. She follows me, and we wait until Matta reaches us.

“Why are you so quiet?” He asks.

“It’s nothing. So… what do you want to do next?” I quickly change the topic.

“I want to pat more rabbits! And find another octopus rabbit!”

What’s wrong with her head? I massage my temples and try to dissuade her. “You see, Berta… I don’t think it’s a good idea. Didn’t they get you three times already?”

“I know, but still…!”

Matta, too, thinks like me. “It was me who wanted to explore every zone, but I have the feeling we should get out of here before it’s too late. If we move any further in, I don’t think we’ll make it back.”

I take a look around. There are tons of rabbits munching on the grass. If all of them were to turn into monsters and attack us at the same time, we’d be in big trouble.

“I too think we should go back.”

“No! I don’t wanna!” Berta points her finger at me. “It’s your fault they’re dead!”

“Come on, I didn’t do it on purpose…” I only wanted to roast you with the monster, I never considered their presence. “I’m sorry, ok?”

“Hmph! Fine… We can go back.”

Matta starts going back. Berta follows after him while crossing her arms in a signal of defiance.

I take one last look at the scenery before following after them. But then, as if the beautiful landscape and innocent rabbits were all a dream, everything changes as soon as I take the first step forward. 

A shiver runs down my spine.

I turn around just in time to see a bunny-eared orc slashing at me with his claw. My body feels the tremendous impact of the attack, which can only mean one thing: this attack was very strong.

WHAT!? 70% of my HP gone with one attack!? If it were Matta or Berta, they’d be dead right now!

“Fuck! Aegis!” I immediately activate Aegis and start shouting. “Matta, Berta! Come back! I’m in a pinch!”

They come running and engage the monster in combat. Matta distracts it while Berta attacks. It only takes two Magic Missile barrages to kill it.

“The typical glass cannon,” I comment. “It was very close...”

“Ahahaha! We always have to save you, Carles. Why are you so useless?”

I raise my eyebrow. “Do I need to remind you of what happened a while ago?”

Berta shuts up and turns around to avoid my gaze.

“See? I knew it was dangerous. Let’s quickly go back!” Matta pushes our backs in the direction we came from.

I can feel the dark, empty eyes of the little critters on my skin. They’re like black holes, containing all the evil in the world. And to think I thought they were normal rabbits at the start!

Around us, several rabbits start to transform into the same rabbit-orcs as the one that attacked me. Two rabbit-angels start circling above our heads, waiting for an opportunity.

“Run!” I shout. “They’re coming!” We increase our speed to the maximum, but the monsters chase us at an even faster speed. “Why are they so fast!? They’ll catch up!”

“Let’s fly over the mountain.” Suggests Matta. “They’ll have to take the long path through the tunnel. We should be safe this way.”

“All right. Matta, I’ll pick you up.”

“Thanks, buddy.”

The monster mob hesitates to follow after us when their path is interrupted by the mountain. They wait for us to come back, but when we reach the other side, they start running in the direction of the tunnel.

They’re so freaking fast! What SPD do you need to move as fast as that? I have SPD 7, and it can’t be compared to them.

On the other side, the angels don’t dare approach us. They instead use their faster speed to circle above us. Are they waiting for us to split up? No chance that’s happening!

The door to the laboratory enters our sight. Why is it so far?

“Berta, speed up! They’re about to catch up!”

The orc monsters start pouring out of this side of the tunnel. At this speed, they’ll catch up with us before we reach the door.

“I’m flying as fast as I can!”

“It isn’t enough!” I grab her and increase my speed to my maximum.

“Kyaaaah! Don’t grab me there!”

“I’m sorry, but there’s no time to waste. I grabbed whatever I could.”

At my maximum speed, I reach the door before the monsters do. I drop both of them to the ground and give instructions. “I’ll prevent them from coming in, you close the damn door!”

I put myself in front of the door and Matta goes to pull the lever.

“I-it isn’t working?” His panicked voice reaches me, but I’m too focused on the orc horde to pay any attention. “Ah, now! It’s working! It took a while to react.”

The door starts closing as the orcs get close. From this distance, I can almost smell their foul breaths.

I gulp. The door takes forever to close.

I get ready to use Aegis in case one or two manage to slip by before the door closes. But luckily for us, the door finishes closing before they get in.

Exhausted, I drop to the ground. "It was too close…”

We stay silent for a while. We’re too exhausted and relieved to say anything. It’s Berta the one to break the silence.

“These rabbits… They aren’t cute at all.”

I nod. “Yeah, I completely agree…”

“Hihihi, it was fun and exciting! I was right when I said it was dangerous!”

I take a look at my status screen. Oh my god, I almost died! My HP is at 10% right now. If not for the Aegis, I’d be dead for sure. This skill is so amazing, it always saves me in dangerous situations, but now there’s only one use remaining.

Wait! Why is my MP so low? I don’t think I overused my Dragon’s Breath that much. It’s a mystery.

“I didn’t notice until now, but I almost died.” Says Matta. “I have no MP and my SOU is almost at zero.”

WHAT!?

 

DMA players assigned every famous dungeon a rating from 1 to 10, depending on how hard it was to clear. Among many other things, the rating took into account the level required to fight the bosses, the danger from the traps, and how unpredictable the dungeon was.

At its peak, The Mad Rat’s Lab was the one leading the ranking. It achieved the astonishing rating of 12, reduced to 11 if you had Champions that could fly. No other dungeon ever reached the same rank.