For some reason I can’t explain, the sarcophagus draws me in. Unconsciously, I walk closer to it.

“Queen Isabella… Do you know her?” I joke. My joke isn’t well received, though, and Laura glares at me. “Okay, okay… I’ll stop fooling around. Ah! There are corpses here!”

Since the moment I saw the sarcophagus, my eyes have been glued to it. It isn’t until I’ve gotten closer that I’ve noticed there are corpses strewn on top of the magic circle.

“You didn’t notice until now?”

“...” I have nothing to say against her sarcastic remark, so I say nothing. It’s better to stay silent and look stupid, than open your mouth and confirm you are. Or at least, that’s what they say.

I kneel near one of the bodies to inspect it. Dried up like a mummy. It’s the same as the mysterious victims, those from before all hell broke loose on the school above. What’s weird is that they’re all demons. A few wear expensive suits and protective equipment, while others look like laborers.

“There are women here.” Notes Laura.

“Women, you say?” Why? Isn’t it weird? It makes no sense. “Weren’t all victims male? Even after the infected demons started attacking indiscriminately, they only attacked males.”

Laura, standing in front of a dead demon wearing attire for ‘seduction’ only used by females, shrugs her shoulders, “I don’t know. Does it look like a man wearing women's clothes?”

The cadaver is too dried up to identify its gender, at least for me. I don’t know that much about bone structures or that kind of stuff. But for some reason, the thought of such a thing gives me the creeps. I hope it’s just a dead woman.

If I take into account the dead bodies, the fancy equipment, crates and books, the sarcophagus with the golden engravings and inscription, and the mummified bodies lying around us, I can come up with a plausible explanation.

“So… Wealthy demons were using the school as cover for shady experiments involving this Isabella’s sarcophagus, messing with unknown dangers. Something goes wrong and they all die…”

Is it just me, or does this story sound familiar? A cliché within clichés.

“...Then, strange accidents start plaguing the school, permanently killing the students. Like a plague, it spreads to the professors and other demons, leaving swathes of dried-up male corpses everywhere…”

Laura nods, “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“But then, what’s up with the worms? What do they have to do with all this mess?”

I can’t understand. Why do the worms infect and absorb the victims? And why do they disappear into the ventilation system as soon as they finish their job? Maybe Laura can guess it.

To say the truth, there’s a nagging voice inside my head that’s calling me stupid for not coming up with an answer myself. But I’m too lazy to think for myself. Furthermore, I’ve spent too much energy trying to stay sane and quiet, before knowing the worms weren’t going to infect me like the students.

Laura thinks for a while before opening her mouth.

“Hmm… I have my hypothesis,” she says, “and if I’m right, we’ll find out soon. Let’s hide.”

She pulls me behind the closest statue. As with all other statues, the details have been lost, but it’s still possible to deduce what it looked like in its prime. A man and a woman doing naughty things. But this one in particular, the man’s body shape doesn’t match what you would expect from a normal human. Maybe a doll, but certainly not a human.

Can anyone enjoy these kinds of things? I don’t understand. If it were me, it’d hurt like I’m going to die.

We crouch behind the perturbing statue, sticking close together.

“Aren’t you going to tell me? I want to know too!”

Laura makes a seductive smile. “Shht! Stay silent for a moment. The worms might not appear if they know we’re here.”

“...okaaaay.”

When she’s like this, there’s no use arguing against it: she’ll do whatever she pleases. If I insist, the most I’ll get is her provoking me. I don’t want to end up like this statue… I shiver.

For a while, we wait in silence.

The only sounds we hear are the sporadic explosions coming from above. At this rate, I wonder if there will be a school left when we come back up or if it’ll be a ruin. Nonetheless, I don’t care.

“Mad Rat…!” After a while of waiting, Laura whispers, pointing somewhere in the distance. “I was right, look!”

A single white and large worm wriggles on the ground. It inches closer to the golden sarcophagus without haste. Then, it slips into a crack and disappears from our view.

We wait, question marks above our heads. We’ve been waiting for this? Is that all? No fancy effects or dangerous monsters? Shouldn’t the worm be absorbed by the magic circle to power up a demonic ritual or something similar?

What about the build-up!? Did the dungeon owner think we’d like to be deceived like this!? I want my money back!

*Crunch, mulch!* Wet crunching sounds come from inside. Something is devouring the worm.

…Alright, sorry, sorry. I jumped to conclusions way too soon.

After the eating noises end, from the same crack the worm came into, a tiny wisp of pink smoke pushes out of the sarcophagus. It disperses into the rest of the room, mixing with the already existing pink mist.

“I suddenly have a very bad feeling about this…”

Knowing this is a bad sign, having experienced similar things in the past as well as designed similar traps and gimmicks for my dungeon, I immediately open my status screen and battle log.

“Aah, shit… I wished I was wrong.” Why am I only always right when it comes to bad things? Why do all my ‘bad hunches’ have to turn into reality? Why can’t my wild delusions become reality too!?

Similar to when my dungeon’s invaders fall for the Death Butterfly, not only my HP but also my EP and MP are slowly getting drained by an environmental effect. 

“Lily, check your log. I’m being constantly drained.”

“Me too…”

She too? It seems like the rules have changed. Unlike in the school, both males and females are in danger here. We can’t stay here doing nothing, so anyway I look at it, we have only two options left. Either we run away, or…

“Let’s open that thing and check what’s inside,” I say, pointing at the sarcophagus.

“Was going to say the same.”

We approach it. The lid looks very heavy, but who knows? This is a game, appearances can be misleading. When we pull it, it moves surprisingly easy, sliding to the right side and falling to the ground with a loud thud.

“Uuh, disgusting…”

Laura frowns at what’s inside. She doesn’t like worms. I keep it to myself, but my thoughts aren’t as simple as hers. Mere disgust can’t express what I feel right now. If the worms ‘emerging’ from the dead students gave me shivers, then, a worm as large as a person… I better stop my train of thought or I’ll regret it.

I take a step back, repulsed by the human-sized worm that’s inside the sarcophagus. It looks the same as the other worms, just… bigger.

The worm starts thrashing around, possibly because it has detected us. Luckily for us, it doesn’t look that strong. It must be another variation of Enlarge, I’m sure the worm’s stats are similar to the other worm’s: very low.

But the worm isn’t the single occupant inside the sarcophagus, there’s also the corpse of a woman. Dressed with beautiful and intricate robes, there’s the corpse of a female demon too, which I can safely assume to be ‘Isabella’. The queen Isabella, as it says on the inscription.

Although I say corpse, Isabella doesn’t exactly look like one.

First, although her skin looks dried up and she lacks any fat, her skin sticking to her bones, making her look like a skeleton, she looks way better than the worm’s victims or the dead demons littering the area surrounding the magic circle. She just looks extremely skinny, not mummy-level skinny.

And second, and probably more revealing than any other reasons, is that she has her eyes wide open. Her glowing pink irises lock onto mine as she slowly rises her upper body.

“W-what the f-” fuck?

I shout the end of the phrase in my phantasmal body, incapable of articulating a single word with my Champion. This is Charm! I’ve been charmed! She’s a succubus! The succubus queen!

Wait. If she’s the succubus queen, why was she inside the sarcophagus? And why does she look like an undead? Did the dungeon owner manage to use units from two factions and merge them…? This gives me much to think… No, no! I can’t start daydreaming, I’m in danger!

The queen extends her hand towards me. It looks like a gentle gesture, like a lover reaching for a caress, but I know. I know that nothing good will come from this contact.

“Aaaaagh! Somebody save meeeeee! I don’t want to turn into a dried-up mummy just yeeeet!”

 

---

 

Charming Eyes!

When Andreu gets charmed, I react by activating my own Charming Eyes. My eyes glow pink for a moment, but it does not affect the mummy-like succubus and the skill is automatically deactivated.

Tsk, Isabella has the skill upgrade that blocks others’ skills…

I get angry at the succubus reaching for Andreu as if she were his lover. No succubus but me can touch him!

To save him, I pull us both back, throwing us to the ground. The charm on Andreu won’t last long, Champions can’t be charmed for more than a few seconds. I’ll protect him until then.

“I’ve got you, don’t worry,” I assure him.

I have no idea what he’s saying or thinking right now because when you’re charmed, you can’t move or say anything. But I’m sure, he must be screaming something silly right now. He can be such a silly but funny child sometimes… I’ll watch the replay to know what he said later.

With Andreu’s Champion in my arms, I assess our surroundings. The succubus looks angry, having missed her prey. She gets out of her unnecessarily adorned coffin with an unsteady gait and points at me.

“Give him… to, me…”

“No way. He’s mine. Go get another one for yourself, there are plenty on the floor above us.” That’s the minimum succubus etiquette: don’t steal another’s man.

“...give, him… I need, more…” 

“In your dreams, mummy. Fufufu!” I’m getting angry now. She won’t steal him from me! Until he fails for my charms, I won’t let anyone get him!

I stand up, ready to run away if necessary. But then, Isabella does something completely unexpected. She turns around, and kills the giant worm that was inside the coffin with her.

Killing your allies isn’t a smart thing to do…

A dark wave of energy flows from the dead worm onto Isabella’s dried hand, climbing her arm and extending over her body. The dark energy is then absorbed into her body and disappears.

“Ah! She’s draining it!”

Us demons have access to an exclusive skill that can raise our stats by sacrificing an ally unit, according to the cp cost of the consumed unit, for a limited amount of time. The stats gained increase with the cp cost to balance the skill, both in PvP and PvE.

It’s a very demon-like way to get power. Those worms aren’t strong, but they’re expensive, perfect for this skill.

I’ve thought a few times of taking this skill and consuming Andreu with it, just to give it a try. I’d love to see the face he makes when he realizes what happened… But I’d rather do that in real life, if you know what I mean. Fufufu!

Talking about sacrifices… The other worms! Isabella must be a boss, if she gets any more boosts we might not be able to kill her!

I watch as more worms enter my field of view. They come from the darkness, and are hard to see due to the distracting pink smoke. The one we saw a while ago must’ve been the one that came out of the last ‘normal victim’. But after that, a lot more worms were spawned when the demons started infecting the students massively, and I’m sure they’re all headed this way.

Instead of aiming for me, the succubus Isabella drags her feet closer to the incoming worms. A few worms turn into a large group, and they keep growing until there’s a true horde of them.

It’s a whole school worth of victims… Way too many to deal with!

“Wake up already, Mad Rat! I need you to defeat those things before she gets more powerful!” I say, slapping his face. It doesn’t matter if it speeds up the recovery or not, I do it for roleplay purposes. “If you don’t, I’ll have to punish you when this dungeon ends… Fufufu!”

 

“There are a few skills that could create very awkward situations when faced against the same skill. This is why, in most of those cases, there’s an available skill upgrade that prevents that from happening.

Charming Eyes, one of the most powerful crowd control skills, is an example of that. You can upgrade it so that other charming effects do not affect the user, preventing charm locks between two units charming each other back.”

- A tip from a random DMA player.