“Hahaha, this is so funny!” I laugh at the current situation.

  The best part of all this is Ricard’s continuously twitching expression as he stares at the ‘tree’ in front of him. From all the trees he slashed through, this is the single one that survived.

  This must be a Treant, acting as if it were a normal tree. I can’t be sure yet, because its HP bar is hidden by the dark foliage, but the chances are high.

  That, or it has a skill that prevents being inspected, similar to a few of the monsters I’ve created. Those kinds of skills are used to avoid invaders from ‘cheating’, inspecting the monsters before the fight, and also hiding anything that could reveal their presence, like the HP bar. There should be no reason to use them in the tournament, as inspecting is disabled by default…

  …but nobody said they couldn’t be used just to hide the monster’s HP bar, right?

  Ricard, with his sword in attack position, keeps staring at the ‘tree’ in front of him. He takes a step back, looks up, searching for the monster’s HP bar, but finds nothing. He then takes another step back and turns his head towards me. During this process, he keeps shaking in disbelief, his eyes and lips twitching nonstop.

  “Haha, what are you doing now?” I ask between chuckles, grinning evilly. “Weren’t you desperate to find the key to break this monster arena?”

  “Uh… yes?”

  “Then, what are you going to do now that you have it in front of you, huh? Keep staring at it like a fool?” Because that’s what you’re doing right now.

  “No. This is… Right.”

  Ricard’s expression starts to change. The change is slow at the start, but as he fully comprehends what’s going on, the speed accelerates. His mix of emotions and twitching expression coalesce into a single pure emotion: rage.

  “You’re right,” he nods to himself. He clenches his fist and turns to look at the ‘tree’ once more. “Now that I’ve found my target… I must make sure it dies!”

  Ricard approaches the Treant, still pretending to be a normal tree, with a crazy smile on his face.

  He raises his sword and, putting all his weight on the strike, brings it down with a shout. “Not so haughty now that we’ve found you, right, you useless piece of wood!”

  And with that, he starts hacking as if possessed. He relentlessly swings his sword against the immobile ‘tree’.

  Laura moves next to me. “To think the key we were looking for was in front of us all along… How did you realise it?”

  “It was all thanks to Baldy’s rambling. He unknowingly gave me the clue to solve this.”

  Of course, it was because I was looking at it in a completely different way than Ricard and Laura. While they were actively searching for something amiss, something that could work as the key to clear this monster arena, I was instead preoccupied with finding the reason why the damage from my spells was inconsistent.

  Still, it’s true that I only understood the truth after Ricard’s failed mockery, so I guess I should give him some credit.

  I explain everything to Laura, including my doubts about the Sylvans and their lack of units present in the dungeon. Meanwhile, Ricard…

  “What’s wrong, useless piece of wood? Didn’t you like my attacks? Hahaha!”

  At some point in time, the Treant stopped pretending to be a normal tree. The monster swings his branches and roots, retaliating against Ricard, but he’s skilled enough – and also angry enough – to evade the attacks and continue his assault at the same time. He’s set on killing the monster that made him waste his time and, most importantly, his EP and MP.

  “It’s a shame you aren’t a real living creature. I’d love to bring you back to life just to kill you a few more times for all the transgressions you’ve committed. Kill, bring back to life, and kill again. Repeating the cycle of life and death, hahaha!”

  …let’s pretend I don’t know him.

  Standing side by side, Laura and I observe our teammate’s actions. Our feet remain planted in the same spot, as the Treant did until recently.

  “Shouldn’t we help him?” She asks.

  Are you kidding? There’s no way I’m getting close to him when he’s like that. “Hmm… No. Can’t you see he needed this? This is his therapy.”

  Also, there’s no need to involve us in this mess. He’s almost guaranteed to win, as long as more monsters don’t show up in the middle of their battle. We should focus on them instead, allowing Ricard to continue to do what he’s already doing.

  “Okay.” Laura nods her head, and the crazed undead’s spectacle continues uninterrupted.

  Although I’m almost sure that this Treant, which was hiding in plain sight, is the key to clearing the monster arena and the reason why the previous two teams couldn’t stop the other monsters from infinitely respawning, it’s possible this isn’t the only Treant in this dungeon. There might be a few more.

  We can’t say for sure because this dungeon’s design makes it very hard to keep track of what’s going on. It could be that we’ve passed near this Treant a few times already, and that it was the reason some of my Chain Lightnings seemed to do less damage, or it could be that we passed close to a few of them.

  Who knows? Certainly not me, hahaha!

  But still, this smells like another win. The other team shouldn’t have left the dungeon unattended, because now that we know the trick, no one can stop us, hahaha!

  “Remember. We don’t know what we’ll find, so be ready for anything.”

  Laura reminds us, and Clara quickly nods her head. “Yeeeees! I’m always ready! Ready for action, hehehe!”

  “To think we’d be the ones going in blind…”

  This is our fourth match. We won the first three, and since there’s a total of five teams, and just this team we’re facing right now has won their first three, this means we’re going into the second phase: the bracket eliminations.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  I’m not sure how the numbers work, but… I should be right… Right?

  Anyway, this doesn’t mean we don’t need to do our best. Winning all four matches will surely give us more fame than if we won just the first three.

  We strive to get the full score!

  And it definitely doesn’t have anything to do with Marta’s taunt and threatening attitude this morning, I swear!

  The problem is that our opponents haven’t been using the same tactics in any of the previous matches, so we aren’t sure what to expect. Our opponents are smart and skilled. They know how to abuse the rules almost as well as I do, and they have been switching their tactics between every match.

  Just to put you in perspective. Their dungeon is extremely simple: one large room. But precisely because of it, it makes the invasion trickier.

  They can freely move their monsters around, make them assist each other from anywhere in the dungeon, and the worst of all: change the dungeon layout in real-time thanks to the Magic Engineer’s contraptions.

  It looks simple, but it isn’t. That’s why the warning.

  Oh, yeah. Ricard is staying back today, so it’s Laura, Clara, and me who have to invade them.

  I did the numbers wrong the other day, and Laura won’t get a chance to defend our dungeon. Five teams, four matches, four players… It should give a chance to each one, right? Well… it doesn’t because I took two of them.

  But it was unavoidable because of the Mad Cultists! Also, Laura is the one who has more experience with dungeons thanks to her dungeon master experience, so I’m sure she’ll adapt…

  No, it isn’t my fault. Definitely not. It never is.

  While immersed in my thoughts, the teleport takes place, and the usual blinding light surrounds us and our support mobs. And then, right when the light disperses, and we can see our opponent’s dungeon for the first time…

  *Booom!*

  The ground shakes, and an explosion throws me rolling on the floor.

  “W-wha…?”

  “Ambush! It’s an ambush!” Laura’s shout snaps me out of my surprise.

  I get up and look around. Two of our support mobs are dead, a small crater where they stood, right next to me. The dust cloud effect makes it hard to see my surroundings, but I hear battle sounds.

  On a nearby platform, several monsters are aiming their bows at us, and as the dust settles, I can finally see that we’re surrounded.

  Clara runs towards me, who’s still trying to understand what’s going on.

  “Brother, are you okay?”

  “Y-yes…” I took some damage, but the explosion didn’t hit me directly. “I’m okay.”

  The surrounding monsters attack at the same time as the archers, and all chaos comes crashing down. Laura, desperate, Blinks away, appearing next to Clara and me.

  “We need your spells right now! Use everything you’ve got!”

  The encirclement tightens. The casualties on our side start piling up.

  “Sure,” I nod. It’s my time to shine. “This is perfect for my Chain Lightning!”

  I start channelling, but as soon as the lightning appears near me, a blue, half-transparent wall encases me from all sides and my spell fizzles.

  “Hey there, not so fast. We wouldn’t want you to destroy the special gift we’ve prepared for you.”

  Following the voice, I find another player encased in the same wall as I am. It looks like a beautiful crystal, but its effect isn’t as cute as it looks. There’s a blue link connecting the two crystals, and there’s just one skill in the game that can achieve this.

  Fuck! I don’t remember the skill’s name, but this one will isolate us two until the opponent deactivates it! I can’t do anything to resist, nor will I be able to help Laura and Clara!

  The two step away from the blue barrier and glare at our opponent.

  They can’t do anything to him until the barrier disappears, as it provides complete immunity to everything. It’s a kind of non-interference agreement. One that’s working against us, because we can’t control it.

  “Good job. Everyone, loose!”

  Mixed with the archers, another player says those words, and the archers attack. The concentrated firepower kills another one of our support mobs, one of Clara’s aberrations.

  You know? I’m not that sad about that thing’s death… Don’t tell her, okay?

  But his mere presence puts me on edge. Two players!? Why are two players here!? Shouldn’t there be just one!?

  “Hahaha, look at his face. His expression is too good. He does look as crazy as the rumours say…”

  “Don’t waste time. Kill the other two before playing with him.”

  I open my eyes so wide that I feel like they’re going to come out of their sockets.

  What the fuck!? Not one or two. Not three either. Four. FOUR players are watching us with smug smiles, which means the whole team is here to kill us.

  “Aaaagh… why is it always us? Why? Just, why!?” I pull at the fur on my head.

  Are we just unlucky, or is it that almost no player uses the ‘standard rules’? Why are they called ‘standard rules’ if nobody uses them!? The fuck is going on? Did Ricard – as well as Marta – lie to us all this time!?

  Yeah, I know what you’re thinking right now. ‘If all four are defending their dungeon, doesn’t this mean they’re guaranteed to lose?’

  Well… yes and no.

  While the fact that all four are here means they had to send AI-controlled monsters who stand no chance at clearing our dungeon, especially not when Ricard is defending it, it doesn’t matter as long as they kill us before their invasion team dies, which is clearly their plan.

  And I’m trapped inside this wall without being able to do anything!

  “Run! Lily, Lemon… Use your imps and run! I’m done for, but I’ll buy as much time as possible. Just go and search for their dungeon core!”

  The two look at each other, nod, and start running. When Laura activates her imps’ taunt skill, the surrounding enemy monsters start targeting them like crazy, and the chaos caused by their sudden actions makes their escape easier.

  “Hey! You won’t get anywh–”

  One of the four players tries to stop them, but another one grabs his shoulder, locking him in place.

  “Leave them be,” he says. He must be their leader. “We kill their monsters first, then the famous Mad Rat, and then we’ll chase the other two.”

  “O-okay…”

  At the very last moment before she gets out of sight, Clara turns around and waves towards me. “Brother, I’ll never forget you. I promise I’ll avenge your death!”

  Hey, how rude! I’m not dead… Yet.

  The leader starts chuckling to himself. “How foolish,” he says, looking at me through he bluish wall. “ Did you really think it’d be so easy to destroy our dungeon core? You only made this easier for us. They could have resisted in a 3vs2 fight, but now we can safely kill you one by one.”

  He’s… He’s right!? Oh, fuck! We’re screwed! It’s indeed easier to kill us one by one than to fight us at the same time!

  Trapped, I can only watch as the chaos caused by the imps subsides and our support mobs get killed one by one. With the assistance of the three non-isolated opponents, the casualties they take are minimal.

  Having finished with the ‘nuisances’, the three players approach me, still trapped inside the blue crystal.

  “Alright, release him.” Orders their leader.

  “Nooo, don’t release meeee!” Of course, they don’t listen to my plea, and the blue wall fades away. “Noooo! I was so comfy inside my private room!”

  I look around in a panic. I’m all alone, 1vs4… I’m so fucked…

  “Hey, um… how about I tell you everything you want to know? I won’t resist, I promise…”

  “Kill him.”

  Nooooooooooooooo!