Soon after, the tubes that transport the glowing liquid of all the existing colors, the most important source of light, stop working, and the light they emit begins to fade, slowly plunging all parts of the room that aren’t directly illuminated by the fire from the house-sized incinerator into darkness.
“What’s going on?” Layla asks Patri. “Did the Mad Rat himself come?”
Patricia shakes her head, “No, they say that when he comes, the first thing you hear is his laughter… This must be something else…”
Despite her answer, Patricia’s attention is somewhere else. Despite the dimming surroundings, the other side of the hole seems to be doing fine. Her first impression is that it might be safe to go close.
But she quickly realizes the truth. It’s the opposite. The light pouring through the hole in the wall is increasing in intensity. The accident must have happened inside.
“I know nothing about this… No sources, no comments, no nothing…”
Since no one knows what to do, as the others think, Mimi peeks inside, curious. She runs back as soon as she does it, screaming with a white face.
“Aaaaah, it’s a bug! A white tumor bug!” She shouts.
“What the… Bug? Tumor, what—”
“White tumor! Fire! Ruuuuun!”
Layla tries to calm her down, but Mimi just runs past her, rushing towards the elevator. She grabs Ana’s sleeve and pulls her too, leaving Layla and Patricia behind, confused.
But their confusion doesn’t last long. A weird white substance pours into the hole. It pulses. It writhes, as if it were alive. Like a tumor, it keeps growing, and growing, and growing…
The white writhing mass isn’t the most perturbing, though.
At random intervals, a sudden burst of fire comes out of the mass, reducing anything in its path to ashes, like a dragon's breath.
And the bug. Not bug as in insects, but a visual, game-like bug. Concentrated mostly above the white mass, but also inside it, hundreds, if not thousands, of HP bars clutter their sight.
They move and writhe with the mass, making them look alive. But since they’re a part of the game’s interface, they look alien, unreal. They aren’t like anything the two girls have seen before, and for some unexplained reason, their sight disgusts them, giving them a headache.
Layla shoots a Fireball at the writhing mass. The spell works as always, exploding upon contact with the writhing white mass. But instead of dealing damage to the monsters, for some reason she can’t comprehend, the HP bars don’t move.
As if the spell was absorbed by the tumor-like mass.
This leaves Layla newly dumbfounded. If there are multiple HP bars, it means there are as many monsters. A spell with an area of effect should have been extremely effective…
“W-w-what’s t-that!?” Patricia stammers. “A game b-b-bug…?”
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. Let’s run! After Mimi!”
They’ve never seen or heard of anything like that before. Could it be that, if the bug is severe enough, it’ll corrupt their data? Could this affect them somehow in real life?
Afraid, Layla and Patricia chase after the other two girls. As they run, the white mass keeps growing, relentless, devouring everything in its path, enemies and allies alike.
They reach them just right when the elevator doors open up after being called by them earlier.
“Keep the door open! We’re coming too!” Layla calls them.
“Come fast! We can’t delay any longer!!”
“Aaaaaah! It’s chasing! It’s chasing after you! Don’t bring it here!” Mimi tries to close the doors in panic, but Ana stops her.
“Wait, don’t—”
“Let me close it!”
Alerted by their words, Patricia turns her head to look behind her as she runs and immediately regrets it. “I-I don’t want t-to, die l-like this!”
“No one’s going to die. Ana, press the button! Close the doors!”
“But…!”
Ana resists the order, but thanks to her brief hesitation, Mimi, who was already desperate to close the doors and leave this cursed place behind, gets free from Ana’s grasp and presses it.
The elevator’s doors start to close.
Patricia and Layla run at their maximum speed and, right before the doors close, slip inside, slamming into the other two girls.
After the doors close, the elevator starts working, and the platform leaves the ground.
“Haah… we made it…!”
But right when Patricia lets a relieved sigh, they hear a soft, slimy impact from below. The white mass is pressing against the door, threatening to break the glass.
“Aaaah! It’s here! It’s going to break! We’re all—Hmm…! Hmmm…!”
Ana covers Mimi’s mouth. “No, think this through, Mimi. This is a game. The elevator should be indestructible. As long as there’s no hole, that thing can’t come in.”
If this were reality, the pressure could shatter the glass, allowing the monster to chase after them. But since this is a game, everything should follow the game’s rules.
It doesn’t matter how strong that monster is; an indestructible element shouldn’t break under any circumstances.
“But that’s a bug! What if—Hmmhph…!”
As the elevator goes up, the girls lose sight of the white tumor-like monster and the even more terrifying floating HP bars.
Mimi finally calms down, and Patricia slumps to the ground. “Why did nobody talk about this…? It makes no sense…”
“Could this be new?” Counters Ana.
Mimi joins their conversation, patting Patricia’s shoulder several times.
“It doesn’t matter! We’re safe now! Hahaha!”
Layla, the acting leader of the team, keeps her brows furrowed, not joining the other three. She holds the access key card they obtained with a grim face.
The elevator should indeed be safe, following Ana’s logic, but…
But that thing looked like a slime. Slimes can squeeze through any gap, by the same game’s logic. The elevator is sealed tight, so it makes sense that it couldn’t come in. The problem is… Is there any guarantee that there’s no path or gap towards the rest of the dungeon? Is this elevator the only path? Because otherwise…
“Don’t relax yet,” Layla calls out to them, “This might not be over yet.”
“...!?”
The faces of the three girls after hearing Layla’s warning are worthy of being turned into a work of art.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The elevator’s door opens, and the four girls pour out.
Red lights and sirens are the first thing that catches their attention, disturbing their focus. But despite how annoying they are, they aren’t enough to hide the truth.
To hide that their worst fears have become true.
Through the gaps in the ceiling. Creating bridges over the fast water currents. Building up into massive towers visible from the other side of the room… The four girls find more of that tumor-like white writhing mass encroaching, no, devouring the dungeon.
“It’s here! Aaaah, we’re going to d—Mmmh, mmph!”
Before Mimi can continue, Layla covers her mouth. She points towards a door not too far away and gives the other three girls an order.
“Run! Ignore everything else. Just run!”
Happy to oblige, Patricia, Ana, and Mimi run after Layla. The girls avoid contact with the writhing mass, allowing the fire it spews to hit them to avoid wasting time.
Their actions put them in danger, but luckily, the four reach their destination before dying.
“Please work…” Layla prays, sweeping the card over the lector.
*Bip!*
With a happy, almost cute ‘blip’, which doesn’t fit the mood at all, the lector responds, blinking in a blue light. Following the light, the door unlocks, allowing them to rush inside.
As soon as they go inside, Mimi asks Layla, who came in last, to close the door. She gesticulates as if she had lost her sanity.
“Close the door! T-the door, close it! Or else… Or else… Aaaaah!”
“Calm down, Mimi, there’s nothing to—”
“AAAAAAAH!”
Ana tries to appease her by patting her back, but the sudden contact makes Mimi scream and run away, cowering in the corner.
Meanwhile, Layla and Patricia struggle to shut the door. They push the door back to its original position, and then start to turn the lock device, which looks weirdly close to those found in a submarine.
“W-will this be okay?” Stammers Patricia.
Layla takes a close look at the place where the door and the wall meet, checking that no white goo is coming through. Then, she examines the surroundings. There are no signs of ventilation vents or any other holes that could allow that white mass to come inside.
“...I hope so.”
“S-safe, at last? Haaaa…”
The four girls slump on the ground, the tension that had kept them moving until now finally gone. To them, the past few minutes felt like straight out of a horror movie. They’d rather die than repeat this experience.
After an unknown amount of time, Patricia is the first one to stand up. She remembers the reason they’ve come here after her gaze lands on something written on the wall opposite her.
“Ah, right. The puzzle… Layla!”
“Yes?”
“Did you forget why we came here? This is the room. This is what we aimed for!”
“I know. I rushed here because I expected the access card to open the door. I hoped this would be a safe place to hide from whatever that thing was… Not that we had any other option. You still want to do it?”
“Of course! You have to admit defeat! Or what? Are you scared now?”
“...No. Let’s do it.”
Layla glances at the other two girls. Ana is still calming down Mimi, whispering things like ‘There’s no monster here, see?’.
They approach the note. Next to it, a wall-covering glass gives them a perfect view of a lower room, designed like a testing place for experiments.
The lights are off, so it’s hard for them to see what’s going on, but there’s something that immediately catches their attention. It’s the lack of red lights. Also, the absence of the white tumor-like monster.
Layla starts reading the rules aloud. They are exactly as Patricia told them.
Experiment instructions
- Don’t attack experiment #∞.
- Experiment #∞ must reach the end line.
- In case something were to happen to experiment #∞ on the way, help it reach the end.
- If everything else fails, make sure to kill experiment #∞.
PD: The door won’t open until the experiment finishes. Good luck!
“So… Do we do it as we planned?” Asks Patricia.
Layla nods. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
A short time later, the four girls are standing in front of a small cat. It looks cute, but they know how dangerous it can become.
“Alright, girls. Let’s do it as we planned. Remember: it’s a fight against time.” Layla pauses to look at Patricia. “And no sabotaging.”
“W-who did you take me for? I’d never do that!”
The four take their positions, and the cat meows, signaling the start.
As soon as the cat takes the first step forward, Layla casts Levitation on it. Floating above the ground, the cat continues to move forward when the other girls take action.
First, Patricia casts a debuff that reduces the damage dealt to both the cat and Mimi. The second isn’t necessary, but a good precaution when taking into account her role.
When the debuff takes effect, Mimi activates another spell, and a whip-like vine extends from her hand to the cat. With it, she can manipulate the cat’s movement without inflicting any damage, while also avoiding contact with it.
Finally, Ana casts a shield over the cat. A part of the cat’s HP bar becomes gray, indicating how much damage it can take before the shield breaks.
Every single one of the four girls is spending skills to keep the cat safe. Through their coordination, they can split the cost between four, extending the duration they can keep the cat safe from any danger, increasing their success chance.
Layla supervises their jobs and nods after everyone finishes.
“Let’s go! Fast but steady,” she says, turning around, “Fast and steady.”
Layla takes the lead, activating the first trap. She steps back just in time to avoid a flying arrow. The girls giggle at her awkward pose, and the march proceeds.
Like this, the girls safely, steadily, but quickly drag the cat from the start point towards the end of the labyrinth.
In the middle, they keep changing positions to better fit the situation at hand. Against tricky traps, Patricia takes them head-on with her tank skills, neutralizing them before Mimi, the cat-bearer, gets close to them. Ana keeps everyone safe with her support and healing skills, and Layla guides everyone towards the easiest path.
When a hidden or missed trap makes Mimi trip or fall, the cat takes no damage thanks to Layla’s Levitate skill, which slows down the cat’s fall.
A few missed arrows and scattered projectiles, as well as unavoidable poison clouds and fire bursts, are safely crossed thanks to Ana’s shield, which prevents low amounts of damage.
And it’s thanks to Patricia’s damage-reduction effect that, when the girls accidentally touch the cat when their coordination fails, it doesn’t explode into little kittens.
Thanks to their carefully planned combination, Mimi is the least burdened, though she still needs to make sure the cat isn’t in danger by taking the right steps and facilitating the others’ work.
After what doesn’t seem like too much of a long time, the girls turn the corner and find one last straight stretch. At the end, they can see several cheerleaders (Stitched version), as well as ‘welcome’ and ‘victory’ banners.
“Wow. This is… It’s like, so easy!” Mimi says. “I didn’t expect this to be this easy. Not after everything Patricia told us…”
Ana happily nods. “Right? It’s because Layla is very good.”
Patricia is the only one who doesn’t look happy. She glares at Layla, then at the cat. For a moment, she’s tempted to attack it, but reason quickly makes her overcome the impulse.
“Tsk… We haven’t reached the end yet. We can still fail.”
“You think so?” Layla tilts her head. “But we’re so close already…”
“It’s when you lower your guard that the worst happens. Plus, we’re running out of MP.”
Layla checks her status. “But I’m doing fine?”
“That’s because you’re a mage!”
Bantering like this, the four girls cross the last and most dangerous part of the labyrinth. The cat? Still at full HP.
The girls came perfectly prepared for this, and their preparations have paid off. Sacrificing everything else to reach this place, and with the correct skills, they’ve achieved what no other player has achieved yet: A perfect clear of The Mad Rat’s Lab first puzzle.
Mimi starts jumping around after letting go of the cat. Now that the door to the next zone has been unlocked, there’s no reason to protect it anymore.
“Yaaaay! We did it! We did it, hahaha! Did you record it, Ana? I want to see how cool I look!”
“Calm down, Mimi… There’s no need to record it. Layla says the game does so automatically—”
“Ooooooh! Where can I watch it? Where!?”
“You have to wait until we come out first…”
“Oooh, but I want to watch it now…!”
Leaving aside Mimi’s over-enthusiastic reaction, the girls start congratulating each other for the feat. Patricia, though, doesn’t seem to be keen on joining them.
“See? I told you it was doable.” Layla approaches her. “Did you have fun?”
“...You won. Alright, I’ll admit it! You’re better than I thought.”
Pouting, Patricia turns towards the now unlocked door, the one that allows them to continue further into the dungeon.
“B-but… But… But anyone who isn’t an idiot can achieve something like this! As long as you have time and resources to prepare, any puzzle is easy. How about it, Layla? Want to see if you can beat the next one? There’s almost no info in the forums yet, and we’ll be going blind. Or are you afraid you’ll fail this time?”
Layla thinks for a moment, then nods.
“Sure, let’s go. I’m sure everyone wants to play some more.”
The other girls agree, and the group approaches the exit door. With a hand on the handle, Layla mutters to herself, loud enough that the others can hear her.
“Still… I wonder what happened with that white monster bug… Will it still be there when we come out?”
Mimi shakes her head and covers her ears.
“Aaaah! Don’t talk about that thing! It doesn’t exist! No, no, noooooo! It doesn’t! It’s a dream! Part of our subconscious is playing us a prank! Lalalala! I can’t hear anything…!”