The Mad Rat’s Lab

“Nooooo! My cute little baby, don’t run away from me! Don’t run away from your father, your creator, the guy who feeds you!” I shout while chasing after my Good Follower. “I promise you. If you return, I won’t ever subject you to painful experiments or mistreat you. Not anymore! I swear on the mental health of my dungeon’s invaders!”

“Mad Rat, can you please stop shouting? What if the whale hears you?”

Closely chasing after me, Ricard warns me of the impending danger. The whale has indeed been circling above us for a while now. Understandably, he wants to be cautious.

“Don’t worry,” I gesture with my hand, dismissing his worries, as I continue chasing after the Good Follower. “It looks close because of its sheer size, but it is quite far from us. There’s no chance it can hear us. None at all. This is more important right now.”

“I know, but still… Fine. Let’s save your minion. But there’s no need to shout to do it.”

“Who said there’s no need? I’ll shout if I want to!”

“But you’ll catch the attention of the other mermaids. It isn’t wise to do so when we aren’t prepared to fight them while chasing after one of them.”

“...” I observe him for a while, not sure how to respond. Is he for real? “...humans,” I say, “lots of humans packed together. Do I need to continue?”

“... No.” He lowers his head in shame.

Yeah, good. You’re the last person I want to hear about acting stupid in front of the enemies. Furthermore, you’re the one who’s the hardest to stop when you start roleplaying. I don’t want you to complain when I’m simply shouting stupid things, not when I’m doing what we should do anyway.

Ricard finally shuts up and allows me to continue what I must do.

“Hey, come back, Good Follower! Is this how are you going to pay me for all the attention and care I’ve given you? By running away with the first kidnapper that caught your attention!?”

In case you don’t understand what’s going on, allow me to explain.

It’s pretty simple. After the whale created the crater, we resumed our dungeon exploration but soon found the first enemy.

Well… to be more precise, it found us and not the other way around.

The mermaid used the algae to hide and caught the first unit that got close before running away with it. Having to drag a unit slows it down, which allows us to keep up with its faster speed.

There must be some skill that prevents the Good Follower from resisting, as it has remained immobile all along.

“Fine then! We’re doing this the hard way then! Chaotic Beam!” The beam, composed of light from multiple colors hits the mermaid. “I hit it! Yeaaah!”

I’ve fired it multiple times but missed all of them because of a lack of visibility. With so many leaves blocking our view, it’s hard to hit anything.

Now let’s pray for it to work.

Why pray? Because the status effects it can apply aren’t guaranteed. Furthermore, they’re random.

But this time luck is on my side. The mermaid stops moving shortly after and we can catch up.

It must be the effects of the Paralyze status effect. How do I know it’s Paralyze and not something else? I don’t. I’m just assuming things.

“Hahaha! Yes, stop and allow yourself to be surrounded. Now, dieeeee!” I swing my staff with all the strength I can, but the monster’s HP doesn’t decrease too much. “Alright. Go, my minions! Go and take revenge for me! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

When you can do it alone, ask for help. Or better yet, order your subordinates to do the work for you. It’s even better if they aren’t paid and are forced to work for free.

Like this, our very precious minion is rescued. We can now continue with our dungeon exploration.

“Hey, Mad Rat… Look there.” Ricard’s words break my self-inflicted illusion. “We’ve got company. They must have come because of your screaming.”

When I look in the direction he’s pointing, I see a group of mermaids. They’re coming closer and look ready for battle, swimming between the algae agilely. But unlike when there was a single one, their numbers stop them from hiding effectively.

“Ah, uh… I’m sorry?”

Ricard laughs at my apology. “Hahaha, don’t worry. Everything’s fine. Who would complain about the food coming to you and knocking on your door? Let’s feast on some souls! Hahaha!”

The battle starts with my Chain Lightning, which neutralizes one of them before it can do anything. The rest of the mermaids start attacking immediately.

“I’ll cover the front! Make sure the one with the staff doesn’t finish its spell or we’ll be in trouble, okay?”

“Sure thing.”

I don’t know why he says this, but I follow Ricard’s instructions. I focus my attention on the mermaid wielding a staff. It’s protected by two warriors, but no amount of bodyguards will protect it from my Chain Lightning! Hahaha!

“Are you trying to call the great whale? Not a chance! Chain Lightning!”

My lightning zaps through the chaos of the battle and lands on one of the bodyguards before jumping to the other two mermaids. This, added to the damage they took from the first spell makes their HP reach one and become paralyzed. But now I’m out of MP.

I look around. The battle continues. Mermaids are swimming around our group, exploiting every weakness they find. Ricard is fighting against one that looks significantly stronger than the rest. Meanwhile, our minions are doing their best to fight off the enemies.

I’ve temporarily dealt with the mage, but this is bad.

How bad is it? Well… have you ever fought with a blindfold? You know there are enemies and can’t feel when they hit you, but you have no idea where they are. This kind of bad.

I decide it’s best to make sure the mage is dead, so I do my best crossing the battlefield to reach the place where it fell to the ground. I must thank my sister’s hellish training. If not for it, I’d be in a lot of trouble right now.

I kill the mage with a swing of my staff. “I dealt with it. Now what?”

When I look back, I see that one of my Good Followers has been caught by one of the mermaids. It’s the same as before.

“Not this again…” Ricard is taking care of that side, so I’m the only one who can save it. “Haa… I guess I have no choice.”

I start running after the kidnapper, but my foot bumps into something hard and I fall to the ground.

“Why is there a fucking stone here? I haven’t seen any stone so far, so why is there one right here…” I come to a halt when I see the ‘stone’.

It isn’t a stone. It’s a freaking white shell!

I stare at the shell to make sure it’s safe, and that I didn’t activate it by accident. The shell stares back.

The worst comes true when the shell starts to brighten up, releasing white light.

“Oh, shit…” I forget about everything else and start running immediately towards Ricard. “R-run, Ricard! If you want to survive, RUN! Good Followers, come with me!”

The imminent danger puts so much pressure on me that I forget to call him by his nickname. The immense shadow swimming above our heads starts to get closer one more time.

“What? Didn’t you deal with the mage?”

“I did! But… but I activated another shite shell.” I shout, assuming he’ll follow me. “I didn’t do it on purpose this time! I swear!”

“Fuck!”

Mermaids, our minions… nothing matters as long as I survive. Ricard too, but he isn’t indispensable. I did my best to warn them and give orders to follow after me, so it isn’t my fault whatever happens next.

The sound of another loud crash comes from our back, followed by a huge shockwave.

 

---

 

“Whew. We’re finally out of that algae forest.” I make a powerful sigh. “I was tired of not seeing anything.”

When we come out of the algae forest, I gleefully spin around. I couldn’t do it inside the algae forest.

“Indeed.” Ricard nods. He’s currently making one of his ‘sage’ poses, with his hand on his chin and all that. If only he would stop doing that… It gets pretty annoying when he does it every. single. time. “It was the perfect place to hide from The Great White Whale. But the density of the algae makes it quite difficult to do anything else than hiding.”

“Yeah… And we lost so many… Fucking mermaids!”

From my support mobs, we lost Usufet and that Good Follower I couldn’t save because I activated the second shell. From Ricard’s side, we’ve lost one of the specters and three of his skeletons. If we take into account we found a single group of mermaids, it makes things even worse.

All of Ricard’s units died swallowed by the whale in the second attack and not because of the mermaids. I feel bad about it… Just a tiny bit, though. After all, it wasn’t my fault I tripped over one of those white shells.

“Hahaha! We did lose a few of our minions. But as long as I’m here, you don’t have anything to worry about. I’ll lead us to victory! I guarantee it!”

I’m not so sure about that.

Sure, you knew what the white shell did, and you knew the mermaids would try to kidnap our monsters. But… did you tell me before it happened? No, you didn’t. As long as you keep explaining everything when it’s already too late, I can’t rely on you.

Anyway. I try my best to forget about his actions.

On our backs, the vast algae forest continues undulating as if swayed by the waves. In front, we can now see an open space without a place to hide.

Well, not exactly. There are a few scattered pillar-like structures filled with holes that resemble termite mounds. And thousands of luminescent floating jellyfish from any color you can imagine, floating from side to side in large swarms, allowing the currents to drag them around.

It looks amazing. But it has a fatal flaw I’ve already mentioned: there’s nowhere to hide.

Except for those termite mounds, which are too far apart from each other to provide proper cover, there’s nowhere to hide.

“Um… aren’t we screwed?” I ask. “How are we supposed to cross the distance without getting caught? Remember we move at half speed.”

I can’t stop myself from turning to look at the whale still circling above the algae forest. It doesn’t seem like it’s fast because of its stupidly large size, but I’m sure it can swim at least twice as fast as we do.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk!” Here we go again… “You know nothing, Mad Rat.” He chuckles. “Hahaha, I’ve always wanted to say this. Khm, sorry. I got too excited.” Yeah, I can see that too. “So, as I was saying, it would make no sense for this dungeon to be so popular if it was impossible to clear.”

“And…?” I urge him. “Oh, I know! Do we have to cross that area before the whale notices? If it’s still circling on top of the algae forest, we can make it easily.”

“No, that won’t work.”

“How are you so sure? You’ve read a lot about this dungeon, but you’ve never come before, right?”

Ricard makes a silly smile. I’m sure he wants to look ‘interesting’, but it isn’t working. “Because… can you see those sponge-like things floating everywhere? They aren’t as eye-catching as the jellyfish, so you might have missed them.”

Now that he says it… there’s indeed something else floating around the pillars. It looks like rocks from this distance.

“Those will start glowing as soon as we get anywhere near. Like a chain, as long as one detects us, they’ll propagate the light, turning the whole place into a giant glowing area. I’ve read that it looks amazing when it happens. The combination of the jellyfish and the glowing sponges creates a fantastical view you can’t find anywhere in real life. But as you might expect, there’s no way The Great White Whale will miss it. Your plan is bound to fail.”

“Then… then what are we supposed to do?”

If the hiding plan can’t work, and the sneaking plan can’t work either… aren’t we screwed?

“Hahaha… It’s the jellyfish. The jellyfish.” I’m seriously tempted to smash my fist into his face right now. What’s wrong with his tone? Why can he be so insufferable? “The jellyfish are the key. They swim from one pillar to the next in set patterns. We can’t hope to outrun the whale. But we can do something else. The key is to time our movements to the jellyfish’s, using them to hide ourselves from the whale and, at the same time, use them as transport.”

“Transport?”

“Yes. The player who created this dungeon did a great job with them! If you touch their tentacles, you’re in for a world of pain; but you can safely grab their heads. This way, they’ll drag you with them.”

“I see… yeah, I understand. I don’t know why I didn’t think about it immediately.”

I mean, isn’t it like this always? The first thing that comes to mind when you see a jellyfish is to grab it, sit on top of it, and use it as a buoyant transport.

Or am I the crazy one?

“But we can’t spend too much time on top of them. The longer, the higher the chance something will go wrong and the whale will spot us. The best is to use them to jump from one pillar to the next, and hide in the holes there while we wait for the next bus.”

“Sure, why not.” I don’t care anymore. Nothing makes sense… “Let’s go then. I’m curious how it’ll feel to ride a jellyfish.”

 

Sometimes, the best approach is clear to anyone. Sometimes, you have to think and work to get there. One thing is for sure: any dungeon that rose to the top ranks or got famous is possible to clear. There can be incredibly hard puzzles or difficult fights ahead, but if you persevere, you’ll eventually reach the end. Just keep trying and improving.