The Mad Rat’s Lab

“Please, please… Whatever happens, please don’t pair me with one of those madmen. I’d like to enjoy this Mystery Event…”

As I watch the last seconds trickle, before the Mystery Event starts, I pray to God, the Devil, and the Elder Gods… I pray to ANYONE who might listen to my prayers. I must avoid all Mad Cultists at all costs, or I’ll have to abandon the team before the event starts.

It’s a priority of mine to keep my sanity at the current level. If one or more of them end up in my team, I’ll be forced to leave. I don’t want to turn into one of them.

“Please, please!”

The teleport light surrounds me, signaling the start of the Mystery Event. When it disappears, I find myself in the same praying pose I was in. Knees on the ground and hands clasped together.

The other three players, the members of my randomly assigned team, send me curious looks.

They look… normal…? At least, not a single one of them prostrated immediately after seeing my face. Which, by the way, looks exactly the same as my Mad Rat Champion.

…now that I think about it, maybe I should have changed my current Champion’s looks a little… or a lot.

To avoid recognition, mostly.

Though I’m sure my nickname is already known by them, and since it is now displayed on top of my head, all my efforts could have been wasted anyway.

Maybe the best course of action was doing nothing after all… Yeah, being lazy is the best.

I calmly stand up, as if my posture was completely normal, and analyze my companions.

The one that catches my attention first is a red and translucent woman. It’s a slime. Given the red color… a fire slime, perhaps? However, since we can freely choose a skill from the faction, who knows if her innate skill and looks are related or not.

I’d never mistake the second teammate’s race anywhere. A burly and tall minotaur, standing over two meters tall. He looks strong, and the giant axe in his hands looks dangerous. He must be a tank or melee attacker. I’m sure of it.

As for the last one… As soon as I look in her direction, the tiny and winged girl makes an ‘Ah!’ sound, as if recognizing me. She looks around in panic, her eyes wide open.

She quickly hides behind the red woman. But after a short sizzling sound from burning flesh, she makes a “Kyaah!” shout and flies behind the burly minotaur.

Then, she pops her head from the top of his shoulder, glaring at me.

Have you ever seen a hamster or squirrel run away to find someplace to hide when you get close, only to immediately find a place where they can look at you when they feel safe? This is the same, except with a human player. Even the size is similar.

“…”

What just happened? Do you understand? Because I don’t understand at all. I observe the reactions of the other two players. They aren’t too different from mine.

“Uh… hello?” I say, deciding to ignore the weird fairy. “Nice to meet you all.”

“Hey there, ratman.” The minotaur player moves his hand to grab the fairy using him as a blocker. “What’s wrong with you little one?”

But before he can get close to her, she flies away with another shout.

“Kyaaah! D-don’t touch me! Are you a pervert, trying to touch a lady like this?” Realizing she doesn’t have any ‘safe’ place to hide, she starts flying circling me, pointing at me accusatorily. “And of course, I know him! It’s because of him that I can’t sleep properly lately! It’s your fault!”

This is new. It’s the first time I’ve encountered one of my ‘angry customers’. Face to face, I mean. Because the hate messages fill the forums.

Hmm… what should I do? Do I ignore her, as if she didn’t exist? But if I do it, it’ll make this Mystery Event a lot harder…

“Mooooohahaha!” The minotaur player bursts out laughing. Why is he making cow sounds? I know he’s a minotaur, but it’s creepy. “You’re an angry little fella, aren’t you? What did he do to you? Did he kill your parents? Moooohahaha!”

The red woman watches everything with gleaming eyes and a smile on her face as if watching a show. It wouldn’t surprise me if she took out a cup of virtual popcorn.

“Hey! I don’t know you. Why are you so angry at me?” I feign ignorance. “I didn’t do anything, I swear.”

Assuming she is one of my ‘angry customers’ – or, in other words, players who went into my dungeon and suffered a lot – I can think of quite a few possibilities. But as the saying goes, I’m innocent until proven guilty.

“You didn’t do anything!? Kyaaah!” With another shout, the crazy fairy grabs the fur of my head and starts pulling it around. My head shakes as a result. “I’ll make you pay! Since that thing ate me, I’ve been having nightmares! Damn Evil Mastermind! It’s all your fault!”

That thing?

Umm… Two monsters can eat the invaders. But given that she’s talking as if it happened quite a long time ago, she must be talking about the Tunnel Mimic.

Ah, yeah… I understand her now… Well, I don’t, but I’ve seen a lot of players reacting like her.

I do my best to hide my growing smile.

“Stop pulling my hair already,” I say, in the most neutral tone I can. “It’s giving me a headache. Furthermore, I didn’t do anything. It was you who came into my dungeon. It’s your fault, not mine. As the warning at the end of my dungeon’s description says, I’m not responsible for any lost limbs or lives, mental trauma, paranoia, or PSTD.”

Hehe. I’m smart, I’ve got it covered.

Not sure how to react, the fairy player starts pulling my fur with more strength than before while making another shout.

“Kyaaaaaaah!”

Ah…! My poor eardrums…!

“Hey, hey! Is it true you’re the Evil Mastermind?” The red woman asks while keeping a certain distance between us. “You look familiar, but I swear I’ve never seen you before…”

She must have met one of my clones.

“That can’t be, red girl. The Evil Mastermind must look a lot smarter than this guy. Look at his squalid arms, his stupid face, and the drool falling from his mouth. He looks so stupid! Mooohahahaha!” 

Hey! I take my image very seriously! Well… Sometimes, I do. When it’s convenient for me.

“Ah! I remember now! I saw a monster that looked identical to him when I went to The Mad Rat’s Lab.”

“Then, he must be one of his crazy fans! To create a Champion with the same aspect as one of the monsters in his dungeon… so lame… Moooohahaha!”

It’s the other way around, ok!? I created a monster that resembles me, ok!? More importantly, shouldn’t we focus on the Mystery Event? We’re wasting our time.

“We’re wasting precious time. We should introduce our–”

“Kyaaaaaaah!”

I try to redirect the conversation to the topic we should be discussing, but I can’t even finish my sentence.

 

---

 

After a while of struggling – I swear, I’ve never seen such a disorganized group since the last time I accidentally watched a fragment of a Mad Cultist group diving into my dungeon –, we have finished our introductions.

Allow me to summarize everything for you.

First, our Minotaur player: Moo. Don’t ask me why, but he has insisted on being called like that.

Moo is the tank of our group. He excels at two things: disruption and reflection. With his skills, he can disrupt enemies with a variety of status effects and forced movement skills, leaving them no option but to focus their attacks on him. And when they do, he can reflect the damage he takes back.

The red slime girl is called Muribelle. That’s her actual nickname, unlike Moo. She says she’s a Fire Slime as I expected, and brings a mix of skills that deal continuous or explosive damage at close range. She’s our melee damage dealer.

Muribelle looks the most normal of my companions, but… When she was talking about her fire skills, I noticed a dangerous glint in her eyes. I’ve seen this before in Ricard when he talks about souls. She has dissimulated it well until now, but I’m sure she’s a crazy pyromaniac on a similar level of craziness as he. We’ll see it soon if I’m right or not.

And last but not least, the annoying Fairy that’s still pulling the fur on my head: Balmy. It’s her actual nickname too.

Balmy has a variety of support skills as well as some attack spells. She can even use the most famous Resurrection, which I’ve never seen before. But given her behavior until now, I’m not sure if I’m happy or not to have her on our team.

From my side, I asked them to call me by my nickname. Although they wanted to call me Evil Mastermind, after much persuasion they finally agreed to call me Koala during this Mystery Event.

“Balmy, when will you stop pulling my hair?”

“Never!”

*Sigh!*

Why do I always have to find the crazy ones? No, even worse. Why do I have to play with not one but three of them!? A wild masochist, a crazy pyromaniac, and a… screamer? Um… weird fairy? Regardless of how you want to classify her, she’s as insane as the other two.

Well, at least I didn’t find one of them. That’s… that’s something, right? It could have been worse than this.

I take a look at the clock and despair. We’ve already lost more than fifteen minutes, and the only thing we achieved was introducing ourselves. We must make haste.

“Hey, team.” I clap my hands to get their attention. “We must start moving. Let’s read the mission we got assigned and start moving.”

Everyone opens the game menu to read the mission assigned to our group.

“This is interesting. Moooohahaha!”

“Nice! It’ll be a good opportunity to test my new skill. I’m looking forward to it. Hahaha!”

“I-it can’t be worse than being eaten by that thing… I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Why. Just… why?” Contrary to everyone else’s reactions, mine is accompanied by a mix of resignation and fear. “*Sigh!* Can it get any worse than this?”

The mission assigned to our group is as follows: ‘Defeat a Calamity (0/1)’. It doesn’t require any more explanation, does it?

 

At that time, I thought everything would go smoothly compared to the start. I was wrong.