The Mad Rat’s Lab

It’s Monday morning, and a new week has just started. I’m currently peacefully eating breakfast and quietly humming to myself when somebody opens the door.

“...Uaaaah!” With her eyes half closed because of sleepiness and wearing pajamas, Clara yawns. “…good morning, Andreu.”

“Good morning, Clara.”

She then looks around, and when she notices I’m the only one in the room, she opens her mouth again to ask. “Umm… where’s Marta? Shouldn’t she be eating with you?”

“Marta…? She said she didn’t have class today so she’s going to sleep until late.”

“Is that so…?”

Usually, Clara, Marta, and I eat breakfast at the same time. The three of us have similar schedules: I and Marta in our college and Clara in high school; so it’s easier and faster for us to eat together. Our parents get up even earlier, so we rarely eat breakfast with them.

Clara slowly walks to the table and seats in front of me. Still with half-closed eyes, she stares at me for a while.

Worried, I decide to ask her. “Hey, something wrong?”

“...no. …I’m just… sleepy…” She talks slowly, her tongue not moving properly yet. “...why do Mondays exist? Can’t we skip them…?”

“Hahaha! You wish!”

“Mmuuuu…”

She pouts at my words and proceeds to prepare her breakfast. It’s nothing complicated, just a bowl with milk and cereals.

We stay silent for a while. I continue to eat while she starts eating her own breakfast and finishes waking up. During this time, she alternates looking at me and the cereal bowl.

“Hey, Andreu.”

“Yes?”

“When are we playing together again?”

I think about it for some time before answering. “...I don’t know. But I’ll talk with Ricard and Laura later about it. When are you free?”

“I’m always free! Just decide between yourselves and tell me!”

“Ok, then I’ll tell them you are free anytime.”

It looks like all her sleepiness has vanished when thinking about playing together. I don’t know how other people view her, because she behaves differently when she’s in front of me, but when she’s near me she’s almost always cheerful and enthusiastic about everything. It really helps me to try to achieve my best.

I have no idea how much free time Ricard and Laura will have during the week, but we should be able to play together at least one time before the tournament starts. Maybe twice if our schedules align.

And talking about the tournament… If I’m not wrong, the tournament starts this weekend. With this, I mean that both the registration and first preliminary matches are on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. In this first round, each player team will randomly enter a series of other participants’ dungeons. And the teams who beat the most dungeons in the shortest time, or suffer fewer deaths, will be the ones who pass to the second phase.

And the second phase is going to be a traditional team vs team match, in a cup format, until only the winning team remains. In this phase, all four members of each team will create a single dungeon, and each team will dive into the other team’s dungeon. The one who destroys the enemy’s dungeon core first wins the match. Of course, it’s also possible to win if the enemy team is exterminated. This leads to two strategies: to stall for time or focus on trying to kill the enemy team.

The most interesting option in the matches is that it’s possible to defend your dungeon instead of only attacking. Both dungeons will have three entrance portals, and they will be connected during the match in pairs. There also must be a valid path from each portal to the dungeon core, and they must be independent of each other for most of the distance.

Connecting the entrances means that both players and dungeon mobs can freely cross them to reinforce the dungeon at any time in defense, or go into the enemy dungeon in an all-out attack. You can say that the tournament mixes both PvE and PvP at the same time. And having multiple entrances means it’s impossible for players to focus on protecting a single one to block the enemies.

The tournament is going to have levels to separate players depending on their player level. We’ll participate in the player level 5 tournament, which means we can only use champions, mobs, and dungeon features unlocked at player level 5 or lower. So the maximum level for units and champions is level 6.

This isn’t a problem for me, Laura, or Clara, because we are at a lower level right now, though both I and Laura are about to reach player level 5. But it is troublesome for Ricard, who’s higher leveled at player level 6 and with a level 7 champion.

In the beginning, we didn’t know about this rule, so we didn’t take it into account… but when we read the rules in detail, Ricard decided to lower his champion one level and drop the Soul Feast skill. This way we’ll be able to play against players of the same level as ours instead of players up to level 10, which is the next tier. Not having the Soul Feast skill also didn’t change too many things, because it was conditional and didn’t work against constructs, for example.

 

Having finished breakfast, I stand up and pick up my stuff. But when I’m about to leave the room, my sister opens her mouth again.

“...hey, Andreu…” She’s making a serious face right now. What could be so important for you to make that face?

“What’s up, Clara?”

“...do you have a girlfriend? Or somebody you like?”

I freeze on the spot, trying to make sense of what she just asked. It’s as if somebody punched my face out of nowhere with that question, and it hurts! The worst is that I didn’t expect to receive this sudden blow! Aaaagh, my poor heart!

I sit back down and look at her. She knows I don’t! If I had a girlfriend, there’s no way she wouldn’t know! So why the heck does she have to ask about something she already knows the answer to? What’s more, it’s something that hurts me! Don’t you feel bad too, when somebody asks if you have a girlfriend and the answer you must give is ‘no’?

I’m about to rebuke her, sure that she asked the question just to make fun of me. But when I see her looking downcast and fidgeting, I change my mind and decide to answer honestly. Though why is she behaving like this? It kind of feels like she’s forcing herself to ask this question…

“Why are you asking this? I’m sure you already know I don’t have one.” Aaaagh, my heart! It hurts having to say it out loud!

She continues her fidgeting for a short while before asking again.

“...and is there somebody you like?”

“Somebody I like… there’s none right now.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“...then… what about Laura?”

What about Laura…? Well, we have similar tastes in games and hobbies. But we have only known each other for less than a year, and have been friends for even less, maybe about two months?

Regarding her looks, she’s tall for a woman, a little over 1,7 meters. Her long, dark brown hair and slightly elongated eyes give her an exotic appearance. She’s slender, and her perky butt and small bust make her seem younger than she actually is. Defying the initial impression, when you talk with her, she’s pretty smart and mature.

I know she has been making insinuations for some time already, which I’ve been actively ignoring, but… I don’t know. I don’t feel like accepting her advances yet. Call me a virgin, stupid, or whatever you like, but I believe our relationship should be deeper before I can accept her feelings.

“Laura, huh… there’s nothing between us. You shouldn’t worry about it for now.”

“Is that so…?”

She quietly rises her head to look at me. I can see her eyes slightly trembling as if she were to start crying anytime. Then, she opens her mouth again.

“...You’ll never stop playing with me, right? You won’t leave me alone just because you found a girlfriend, right!?”

So the reason why she asked if I had a girlfriend was because of this…

“Don’t worry, I won’t stop spending time with you. If a girlfriend or boyfriend demands all your time, it means it’s a toxic relationship and you should cut it as soon as possible. But Clara, if I had a girlfriend, you must understand I won’t be able to spend as much time with you as now.”

“...yes! I understand! As long as you don’t leave me alone…!”

It makes me very sad to hear Clara say something like this because it reminds me of when we were in elementary school… She has always been attached to me, but it is worse now compared to how it was when we were kids.

She was bullied during elementary school, and I protected her. Since then, she has always wanted to stay close to me all the time. Clara changed schools when entering middle school, so she’s doing fine now, but she hasn’t been able to open her heart to one of her classmates again, or to anyone outside the family, to be more accurate. It’s also why she behaves differently in front of me and everyone else.

After remembering about the past for some time, Clara snaps me out of it with her next words. “...I’m sure Laura’s interested in you. I saw it when we played together.”

The thing now is that after being directly asked about it by my sister, I’m sure I’m now going to be more conscious about the lack of a girlfriend. And even more about Laura’s actions…

*Sigh* Emotionally exhausted, I stand up again and leave the room. What I don’t see is that, just when I turn around, Clara clenches her fist, and all her tears have disappeared, being replaced by a smiling face.

 

---

 

Having finished the first class of the week, Ricard, Laura, and I start to talk about DMA. As expected, the one to start the topic is Ricard.

“The tournament starts this weekend! I hope you haven’t forgotten about it!”

“Of course, we remember. Right, Laura?”

She quietly nods at my question. How could we forget about it when you remind us EVERY SINGLE TIME we meet!? Do you really need to ask that question!?

“I’m itching for the tournament to start! I want to show everyone the efforts of my team-building sessions and team planning! Hahaha!”

Laura and I exchange a weird look and agree to not break his delusions. He still thinks everything is thanks to him, but he didn’t have anything to do with most of our skills and builds. Though he DID help with how everyone should play in the team so that we could achieve the best results possible: pointing out errors and suggesting things to improve. That’s the only reason why we tolerate his ramblings right now.

Since our first dungeon invasion together, we have played two more times. We were focussing on improving our coordination and also learning what each one was capable of doing. That’s why I didn’t explain anything to you: it wasn’t interesting.

Though there was one thing that clearly surprised me. Remember all that fighting between Clara and Laura? It started as soon as they met, but it reached its peak after the fire trap in the Magic Engineers dungeon. Well, in the second dungeon invasion, all their arguing disappeared as if nothing happened between them.

You might be asking yourselves ‘what’s the reason for the change’ right now. I don’t know and I don’t want to know. They aren’t a problem for the team anymore, so there’s absolutely no reason for me to stick my head into something dangerous. Just imagining them returning to the previous state, but this time with me in the middle, makes me shudder. As the saying goes: all’s well that ends well! Hahaha!

“...and that’s why! We should plan for at least another dungeon invasion the four of us together! We still have lots of things to polish for the incoming tournament, but I believe we should be able to reach a significant position as long as we practice playing together another time!”

Having finished talking alone, Ricard turns around and waits for us to say something. His eyes are glowing right now, meaning if we make a mistake here, he’s going to start another ‘knowledge drilling’ session. I carefully choose what I say.

“It’s ok for me. I can anytime, and the same goes for my sister, Clara. So you can choose freely.”

“Nice!” Ricard pumps his fist up in excitement.

“I’m sorry, but I’m only free on Wednesday.”

“Oww… I was hoping to play every day so we could reach the best coordination possible… Well, Wednesday will have to do. Ah! Before I forget! I’m sure you remember we will be playing in the player level 5 mode, so try to rise your level to that level, if possible. And before the tournament starts! This way we will have a better chance at winning!”

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

Both Laura and I agree with him. It will increase our chances to win if both of us are level 5 and can rise our Champion one level. Slightly higher stats and one extra skill or skill upgrade can be the difference between winning or losing.

“Oh, I propose an idea for this last time we will play all together! How do you feel about doing a random dungeon? We will only check that the player rating is high enough, but we won’t know anything about the faction, the monsters we will face, the dungeon type… Nothing! This way, it will be the same as if we were in the tournament!”

“Oooh, nice idea! We will face a similar situation to the one we will encounter there, so we aren’t as surprised when we face unknown enemies and dangers!”

“It’s fine by me.”

At Ricard’s words, Laura immediately agrees. I don’t really care, I’m only participating in the tournament because Ricard wants to, and also to play with my friends and little sister. So whatever they decide is fine.

As we walk to the next classroom, Laura, walking right next to me, looks at me. With an awkward expression, as if forcing herself to say it, she finally opens her mouth.

“Hey, Andreu. I’m sure you’ll reach level 5 this week, you’re very close already… And if I make an effort, I might be able to reach it too… But it would be best if you could help Clara reach player level 5 too. If possible, can you help her during the week and see if she can reach it?”

Surprised at her words, I can only agree to her petition. “Huh? Ok…?”

I really don’t understand what happened between Clara and Laura… They were arguing so much before, but now Laura is asking me to help Clara!?

“Nice! Fufufu!” She then winks at me, a smile on her face.

Aaaagh! After the question Clara asked me this morning, I’m extremely conscious of Laura’s actions! Fuck! Brain, I order you to stop thinking about weird things!

 

“...

There are several skills that allow you to recover HP, EP, and MP, or even STA and SOU, faster than usual, but most players don’t pick them until they are around level 10. They at most pick only one that fits their build. There’s a reason for that, and it all comes down to efficiency.

When you are in a dungeon, it’s usually better to have skills that raise the damage or the chances to survive, because it increases the chances you reach the end in a Dungeon Invasion, or beat your opponent in a Dungeon Battle. Even a skill that only gives you some utility is preferred over a recovery skill because you only need to rest for a while and most of your EP and MP will recover automatically.

But this all changes when you have higher stats. When both you and the dungeon mobs have higher stats, you need to use more skills, or use stronger ones, to keep up with the enemies. This means both EP and MP get depleted as fast as when you are low level, but they take a lot more time to fill up. This is when recovery skills are needed.

…”

- As much as Andreu and Laura tried to stop him, Ricard’s enthusiasm for the incoming tournament made him start another ‘knowledge drilling’ session.