Tiptoeing, Matta inspects the interior of the confinement chamber. There must be something inside because he furrows his eyebrows. But contrary to my expectations, he signals us to wait and uses the broken door to go inside.

“Is it an enemy?”

Berta asks while hiding beside me, to which I shrug my shoulders. “I have no idea.”

Then, less than ten seconds later, Matta’s head emerges. He makes sure no new enemies showed up while he was inside before walking in our direction.

“There are no monsters inside,” he says, “but I found this card on the ground. It might be important, so I picked it up.”

“A card? Let me take a look.” I pick up the card he’s holding. It’s slightly bigger than a credit card and has a drawing on one side. “Is this a mouse head? It’s hard to see with so little light.”

“Let me see!”

“What are you doing?”

Berta snatches the card from my hand and brings it closer to the single working wall light in the whole passage. Then, she turns it around, scratches the surface with her nails, and tries all sorts of weird things, like biting it and checking the marks left.

What the hell is she doing? Did she go crazy? Crazy…er?

After finishing inspecting the card, she finally comes back to us.

“It doesn’t look fake. And it isn’t a mouse, it’s a rat! A rat with lightning. How can you be so blind to mistake a rat for a mouse?”

She clicks her tongue and sends me a pitying gaze as she approaches.

How annoying… And is there a difference between rats and mice? Don’t their heads look the same?

“Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Perfect, for not having enough light to identify it properly.” I spin my eyes around. It’s time to make her regret her words and actions. “But since you’re so interested in the card, I’m sure you’ll keep it safe, right?”

Berta grabs the card with her all and brings it to her chest. “Of course! As the older one, I’ll take care of it!”

I smile. “Then, I can rest assured. I’m sure our reliable Berta will never forget the card anywhere, or leave it behind when running away in a panic… And even if this happens, she’s so reliable that she’ll go back to where she dropped it. By herself, of course! Hahaha!”

I keenly observe the changes in her face as I speak. The proud smile she was wearing slowly turns into apprehension, and finally to fear.

“No, well, I…” her eyes start to swim around. After a moment of hesitation, she extends the card to me. “If you want, you can have it back… I don’t mind who has it…”

Matta observes our exchange without saying anything. I can see him struggling to stop the laughter from escaping his lips, but she doesn’t notice because she’s too flustered.

“Thanks, Berta! But you know what? I’ll leave this honor to our little child, who’s all grown up now. Hahaha!”

“I… uh, well…” After some more struggling, she realizes I’ve been messing with her all along and explodes in anger. “Stop treating me like a child!” She leaves us behind and flies away.

Ignoring her, I shrug my shoulders and turn to my friend.

“Let’s go, Matta?”

“Yes, let’s go. Hihihi!”

 

---

 

“...and this is why you’re still a chi–”

I can’t finish the sentence as something falls on top of my head. My vision is filled with a murky liquid.

“I said I’m not a child! When will you stop…”

I can hear Berta’s muffled voice through whatever is covering my head, but I can’t talk. But why is it? Unlike real life, being underwater doesn’t stop players from talking.

I struggle the best I can, grabbing the sticky substance. I pull in all directions, but it doesn’t let go of my face.

Good thing there’s no need to breathe inside the game, or I’d die very soon.

‘You don’t want to release my face? Then, I’ll burn you to ashes!’

I use Dragon’s Breath, but nothing happens.

‘I can’t use skills!?’

I check my status screen. It says I’m silenced, this is why I can’t talk or use skills. But this isn’t all: I’m also taking damage.

‘Is this a new trap? Or is it a monster? I have no idea!’

Since I don’t know what’s going on, I can only seek help. I stumble around with my hands extended, hoping to grab one of my companions.

But Matta is too far away and I can’t see properly because of the liquid in my eyes… my only hope is to somehow catch the stupid bug’s attention; who, by the way, is still complaining about calling her a child but hasn’t realized I’m in trouble yet.

I wave my hands around in the direction of her voice.

“Kyaaaah!” She shouts when I grab her. “Pervert! Why are you touching me there!?”

Now that I’ve got her attention, I retreat my hand and pray for her to help me. Let’s hope she doesn’t do anything stupid.

“Carles? W-why do you look like this? What’s on your face?”

Finally, she noticed! I gesticulate, doing my best to ask for help. But, for some reason, Berta starts retreating, so I follow after her.

“Matta! Carles got infected by something and is now attacking me! Help!”

This dumb child…!

I anxiously point at my face, then at her. I repeat the gesture a few times while running after her. 

“You leave me no choice!” She shouts. “Eat this, evil creature!” After her shout, several purple projectiles appear near her palm and fly in my direction.

Shit.

The Magic Missiles hit me. I stop moving after the impact, astonished at what happened. Did she try to kill me?

At the same time, the substance covering my head falls to the ground.

Was it a monster? It makes sense if it was because several missiles hit my face… This means the monster died after the attack. But, more importantly, I almost did, too!

“You dumb bitch, are you trying to kill me!? I was asking for help!”

I release my pent-up stress with a shout. Then, I raise my head to look at her. But instead of seeing her stupid mug laughing at me, as I expected, I see her whole upper body covered by the same liquid that was sticking to my face before.

The liquid blob looks the same size as the one that attacked me, but since she’s smaller, it covers half her body instead of only the face.

“Hahahaha! You got what you deserved!”

The flying bug, upon listening to my voice, turns in my direction and starts approaching. She frantically moves her arms about and points to the thing sticking to her head and torso.

It seems she’s asking for help, but…

Ah, what to do? Should I help? Or should I exact revenge? Hmm… it’s such a hard decision…

Not.

“Dragon’s Breath!”

When in case of doubt, you do both.

The fire engulfs both Berta and the monster sticking to her face. After the fire clears out, the dead monster falls to the ground, and an angry Berta runs at me.

“Couldn’t you think of a better way!?” She complains. “I could have died! Look, only 20% HP remaining!”

“Hahaha! I’m sorry? I couldn’t think of anything else…” I use the first lie that comes to mind before changing the topic. “Let’s forget about this and look for Matta first, ok? He might be in danger.”

“Ugh… fine! But we’ll talk about this later!”

“Sure, sure. Whatever you say.” I wave her off.

We find Matta engaged against a flying slime. It looks the same as the blobs that attacked us, but it has bat-like wings. It seems he managed to avoid its first attack and is now fighting it with his stick.

“Oh… so this is their real appearance…”

“I had that thing attached to my beautiful face? Disgusting!”

Not only your face but your whole upper body. But if I told her it was because of her child-like size, she’d get angry. I better stay silent.

“We were lucky there were only three of them. If there were more and attacked us at the same time, we–” My vision is filled with the murky liquid a second time.

There was a fourth!?

I wave my hands around to catch Berta’s attention. She’s right by my side this time, so she notices the emergency immediately.

“Another monster? Don’t worry, Carles. I’ll save you, ahahaha…! Magic Missiles!”

No! Stooooop! Are you trying to kill me!?

 

---

 

“Haaa… So many weird monsters…”

Matta laughs at my complaint. “Hihihi! What did you expect? Aren’t we in a place that screams ‘abandoned laboratory’? What did you expect to find?”

“I don’t know! Something more… normal?”

He smiles and shrugs. “But didn’t you find them interesting and unique?”

I can’t deny that. The monsters in this place are the most unique I’ve seen yet, more unique than those in the rest of the dungeon.

The biggest problem is the inconsistency.

Some of the monsters we encountered were utterly useless, like those animals with a human head that spout bullshit all the time. But then there are ones extremely dangerous or resilient, like that group of monsters that exploded, blowing everything, themselves included, as soon as Matta opened the door.

“Didn’t you find it interesting?” Matta chuckles and pats my shoulder. He has to stand on his tiptoes to reach, so the situation looks ridiculous.

“Ahahaha! Are you ashamed because you met your clones?” Berta takes this chance to spout more of her bullshit. “You know, those human-headed sheep and pigs.”

“They’re not my clones!”

“Ah, sorry. I was wrong. After all, your clones were those rats that laughed and cast lightning everywhere, right!? Ahahaha!”

This little kid… I can’t allow her to humiliate me. Two can play this game.

“Oh, but wasn’t it you who started to cry like a baby when one of them caught you and tried to bite your head?”

“N-no! Don’t lie! I didn’t c-cry! I was… I was asking for help! Yes, asking for help.”

“Is that so? Then, who was the one saying this?” I imitate her voice and make false sobbing noises. “Uaaaah, Carles, saveee meee…! I don’t want to be eaten again…! Please, sa–”

“Nooo! Shut up!” She forces my mouth shut so I can’t continue. But when I stare at her, she avoids my gaze. “...It’s another one of your lies.” She says while crossing her arms.

“Yeah, sure. Whatever you say…”

“You two, stop!” Matta, who until now was watching us with a smile on his face, suddenly puts his hand on his lips. “Listen.”

Following his indications, we stop our argument.

Since we left the frozen meat grinder, there were cries of monsters echoing in the tunnels. And from time to time, we can hear other noises, like the *Blip!* sounds when one of the doors to a cell or containment unit randomly opens.

But now, apart from the noises we’ve grown used to, there’s another one. It’s the sound of steps. Heavy, slow but steady. With each one, there’s the following sound of water splashing on the ground.

And they’re growing closer.

“W-what are we going to do?” Asks Berta, panic written on her face. Though I’m sure she won’t admit it, she’s too proud. “Are we going to fight?”

It’s clear she wants us to deny her and flee. But I’m not so sure about it, because Matta is making the exact opposite reaction: his eyes are glowing with expectation.

“We must take a peek!” He says. “It must be a boss monster! I’m curious about what a boss monster in this dungeon will be like!”

Then, they both turn to me, expecting me to break the tie. This is funny, their expressions couldn’t be more different right now.

I’m sorry, Berta, but I’m curious too.

“Let’s go take a peek. If we find it feasible, we can fight the boss too…”

“Yes!” Matta jumps in glee. “Let’s go! To adventure!”

He starts walking in the direction of the steps, and Berta and I closely follow.

“We’re only taking a peek, right? Just a peek. As soon as we see the monster, we can go back, right? There’s no need to take risks, right?”

Berta… you should surrender to your fate.

 

“...

And I’m sure you’ve heard about the ‘sandbox’ mode. But just in case, I’ll explain it to you anyway. When you start a Dungeon Invasion, you can choose to do it in this ‘sandbox’ mode. Its official name is another one, but players call it ‘sandbox’ because it’s easier to remember.

So, in this sandbox, your Champion is immune to death and all limited-use skills are allowed to be used any number of times. The same is true for your support mobs and friends.

But not everything is good, because the game also gives you no rewards at all. No cp, no special resources, nothing! Can you imagine? What a waste of time!

Though that’s not completely true, because the true purpose of the sandbox mode is build testing. The game matches you with a random dungeon from a similar recommended level to the one you choose, and then you have the chance to test your build, support mobs, etc. in a random environment.

The monsters will act and behave the same they always do, and you’ll take damage and use EP and MP as usual. The only real difference is that you can’t die, so you can test without worries.

The game pairs you with less-known, highly-rated dungeons, so this sandbox is a good option for discovering hidden games. Players tried to abuse the sandbox mode to gain information on the dungeons they wanted to invade, so the developers changed the algorithm to work this way. At the start, you could choose which dungeon you wanted to invade! Can you imagine?

…”

- Some after-class ‘knowledge drilling’ done by Ricard.