“Are you okay?” I ask as I walk closer to Berta.

“Gap, I’ll miss you… Sniff!” As soon as I come close enough, she raises her head and glares at me. “It’s always your fault, Carles! You killed him yet again!”

“Hey, don’t blame me! It was you who ran into that exploding corpse. It isn’t my fault this time.” I smile. “But man, our child sure is growing up. You are more worried about your little pet than about your surroundings…”

I said it to distract her from the current situation, but contrary to my expectations, when she hears me, she starts looking around in a panic. The pile of corpses surrounding her enters her vision, as well as the disgusting substance covering the ground.

Her lower lip starts trembling. “Exploding, corpse… you said…?”

Slowly, she brings her hands close to her face. When she sees the sticky goo covering them, she immediately feels the rest of her body, which is in a similar state. She starts trembling, and with a ‘Kyaaah…!’ shout, her eyes roll back and her body falls lifelessly to the ground.

“...Matta. She left us.”

He tilts his head to the side. “She died? But she was shouting until now… Was it poison?”

“...she didn’t die. She fainted.” I explain while scratching my cheek. “In fact… It surprises me it took her so long. Do you remember the last time?”

“Ah, yes. Then, she should connect back after a while. We should continue on our own or she’ll faint again if we’re still here. Do you mind carrying her? Hihihi!”

If you faint, the game disconnects you for safety purposes. If you have allies, when you recover consciousness in real life, you can come back if your champion is still alive. If you don’t have allies, the Dungeon Invasion immediately counts as a failure. We discovered how it works the last time she fainted.

I furrow my brows. “Fine… Just… just, let me clean her a little bit first.”

She’s quite small, so it isn’t that hard for me to bring her with me. It’s a minor nuisance. But there’s no way I’m touching her while covered by those gross substances.

“Something to clean her…” I look around. “There’s… nothing?”

All around us, there are only disgusting things. What isn’t affected by the liquids released when the corpse exploded is covered in the same substance that covers the ground.

Everything, except…

“I guess I have no other choice,” I shrug.

I pick her Champion by one of her wings, which happens to be the least ‘tainted’ area and slam her into the wall. I push her with the sole of my foot, and start moving her up and down, left and right, until she’s clean.

All the fluids are now sticking to the layer of frost covering the wall instead of Berta. It felt like grating cheese.

“Woah, you brute!” Exclaims Matta. “Couldn’t you think of something a little less aggressive?”

“Did you want to clean her instead?”

“...”

Instead of giving me an answer, he turns around and makes a fake cough.

He’s right. I can’t imagine how painful having your whole body scrubbed on an irregular layer of ice can be.

But this is a game and Berta is unconscious. As long as there are no special traps or terrain rules, you can drag your ass scraping the ground from the dungeon entrance to the core and you won’t take a single point of damage.

In short, I managed to clean her in the most brutal and efficient way possible.

“Just don’t tell her and it’ll be fine,” I add.

“Keep it a secret? Sure. I don’t want to die because of your stupid actions.”

“Stupid actions? Are you volunteering for the cleaning job next time?”

Again, he turns his head away when I suggest this option. “What? Are you scared? Do you hate this stuff as much as Berta?”  I make an evil smile. “Oh, some of that stuff remains on my hand. Allow me to clean it on your enormous belly! Hahaha!”

“Haa! Stop!” He jumps when my hand touches him. “Would you dare sully this piece of art? This beautiful curve?”

“Piece of art my ass. Come here!”

Like this, and while dragging Berta’s Champion, we continue our invasion into this dungeon.

 

---

 

“How long until we leave this place?” I ask.

Matta inspects the map on his hand before giving me an answer. “One more room. Hey, don’t you think it was easy? This area isn’t nearly as dangerous as the previous ones, don’t you thi–” 

*Splosh!*

Right in the middle of his sentence, another corpse explodes right next to him, covering my friend in the usual disgusting fluid and flesh bits.

“Hahaha!” I laugh. “Didn’t you say you wouldn’t fall for any more of them? How many does this make?”

“Shut up. I was unlucky.”

“Yeah, unlucky… as with the other ten times or so.”

Matta ignores me and makes his map disappear and pop in front of him again. After this blink, the map looks as good as the first time, unlike Matta himself.

If only we could do the same with our Champions…

The problem with those traps isn’t about the in-game damage they deal, but with the psychological trauma. Believe me when I say it isn’t a good experience when you look way worse than a zombie in a film.

But as Matta was saying, this area isn’t nearly as dangerous as the previous ones: the monsters are weak and the traps don’t deal much damage. Even he, with his weak goblin Champion, can survive both with ease.

“You’re right it’s easier, but… I wished we’d never come.”

“Me too…” He nods. “I want to take a bath…”

“Only one? I’ll spend all the afternoon inside the bath.”

“Hihihi…!”

I have filth everywhere. Both of us are covered from head to toe with disgusting body fluids. It’s good that Berta hasn’t returned yet, or she would faint immediately.

“Here they come again,” warns Matta.

From the end of the passage, I can hear the usual stepping noises. It’s yet another pack of those disfigured humanoid monsters.

“I’ll deal with them quickly. I want to leave this place as fast as possible.”

“Sure, go ahead.” He nods and lowers his stick.

I prepare my Dragon’s Breath and release it as soon as the monsters show up. It’s a waste of EP and MP to use it against such weak monsters, but I don’t mind anymore. I want to leave this place as soon as possible.

The monsters die as soon as the fire touches them, and we continue our exploration. One more fight later, we reach a sealed door that should allow us to leave this disgusting area.

“Here we are.” Matta examines his map as he gets closer to the lever. “I’m opening it now. We can rest on the other side and call Berta to come back.”

“Sure.”

The door starts rising, and the scenery on the other side becomes visible.

It’s a dark passage.

If this area was dark because of the color of the ground and walls, the passage on the other side of the door is dark because there’s almost no light. There’s a brown-green material covering parts of the ceiling and walls, but it isn’t half as disgusting as the scenery on this side. It reminds me of moss.

The passage has tiles on the floor, and lights on the walls and ceiling, though most of them are broken. As far as I can see, the ground is covered by a thin film of water.

Overall, it reminds me of those asylums in terror films. There are cell doors on both sides of the passage, too.

“Alright, let’s go!”

“Wait a moment.” Matta is about to go inside the new area, but I grab his shoulder. “Shouldn’t we clean ourselves a little first? I don’t know you, but I don’t want to be covered by this all the time.”

“Um, yeah… good idea.”

We start looking around, searching for anything we can use. But, as expected, there’s nothing we can use. In the end, our eyes naturally flow to a certain area of the room: the ice-covered wall.

We both gulp. Then, we exchange a look and nod at the same time.

“I’ll clean Berta first,” I say. “We’ll go later.”

“There’s no need to hurry…” Similar to me, he doesn’t look too convinced. But we don’t have any other choice. 

I start by rubbing Berta on the wall like the first time.

We ended up covered by the disgusting fluids while traversing the rooms filled with corpses. It was a waste of time to clean up every time, so we decided we’d ignore them until the end.

After cleaning her Champion, I throw her on the other side of the door so she doesn’t get sullied again. She falls on the water-covered floor with a splash.

“I’ll send her a message saying she can come back,” I say. “We can clean ourselves meanwhile.”

I send the message. Then, I turn to Matta. I swap between staring at him and the wall for a while. He does the same.

“Um… I’ll go first.” I break the silence. “We can’t waste time.”

I press myself to the wall and Matta applies more force. At the same time, he moves me to the side, to leave all the stuff sticking to me on the ice wall.

Oh, what’s this? Since the game gives us reduced sensations, this isn’t painful at all. It feels nice? Like when you have an itch and you scratch it too much: it hurts, but at the same time, it feels incredibly good.

“Aaah, yes!” I moan. “Do it harder! Harder!” I can feel my body being cleansed. The filth disappears and new, unblemished skin is born. It feels amazing! “Put more force into it, Matta!”

“Hihihihi! Okay!” He puts as much force as he can with his weak body. “Did you know? It sounds like we’re doing something naughty.”

“I don’t care! It feels amazing! Aaaah, I’m being purified!”

“Hihihihi!”

He continues applying pressure until there isn’t a single speck of the disgusting substance on me. It’s Matta’s turn now.

“Hihihihi!” He starts laughing as soon as I press his fat on the wall. “It tickles! Stoooop! Hihihihi!”

“Stop struggling. I can’t clean you like this!”

“But it’s too much! Aaaah, aaaah! Stop it!”

“It’s already hard to do this because of your belly. If you struggle so much, I won’t be able to clean you properly…”

“Hey, what are you doing? Why are you moaning like that?” Berta’s voice makes us freeze on the spot.

Like unoiled robots, we slowly turn our heads to the door. There, we see Berta, who’s looking in our direction with a weird expression on her face.

“N-nothing! We’re doing nothing!” I immediately release Matta and put my hands behind my back. “Right, my friend?”

“Y-yes! W-we weren’t doing anything at all! Hihihihi!”

“Hmmm…” She doesn’t look convinced but turns around anyway and observes the passage in front of her. “Is this the next area? Isn’t it kind of spooky?”

“It sure is,” I agree. “But it’ll be better for you, don’t you agree?”

“Sure. I don’t like gross things, but scary is ok.”

“Then, let’s go! To adventure!” Shouts Matta.

“To adventure!” I repeat.

“To adventure…” Berta waits for us to walk ahead before opening her mouth again. “*Sigh!* Did you think I didn’t see you? Why were you touching each other like that? I hope you were just fooling around…”

Did she say something?

But my thoughts get interrupted by an unexpected sound, coming from somewhere inside this asylum-like area.

*Blip!*

“What was that?” I ask. “Did you touch anything, Matta?”

“I didn’t, but… we’ll find what it is soon, I hope.”

 

“My favorite pastime? Isn’t everyone’s favorite pastime the same? To go inside The Mad Rat’s Lab and dive into the Freezer. Why are you asking such an obvious question? Are you crazy?”

- Excerpt of an interview with a random DMA player. The interviewer regretted interviewing that person for the rest of his life.