“Haaa…” I heavily exhale.

  The water vapor expelled settles on the cold window, fogging it. But soon, it clears up again, revealing the storm raging outside. Water droplets incessantly fall, trailing over the glass. It’s dark outside, the sky covered in thick dark clouds, illuminated only by the sudden lightning strikes.

  The continuous thundering of the rain on the roof and window glass deafens me. Usually calming, I can feel it digging inside my head today. Every droplet feels heavier than the later, the sound growing more and more until it deafens me, depriving me of all the other senses too…

  …or at least that’s what I wished would happen. This way, I’d have an excuse to ignore my current situation.

  In stormy days like today, I’d be happy to have the perfect excuse to stay at home playing games all the time. But not today, and it’s all because of a single reason.

  “When are you going to admit it was your fault? Heeey, don’t pretend you aren’t listening to me. Don’t use the rain as an excuse to ignore me.”

  Yep, you’re right. It’s because of my little sister’s nagging.

  But this poses another question. Since when did he learn to read my mind–

  “I’ll get angry if you continue to ignore me!”

  “Haa… Fine, you win, Clara,” I say, turning away from the window. “But what do you want from me? I already admitted I jumped to conclusions too soon and almost got us killed. But in the end, we won! Everything’s fine, right?”

  “I know, but… This and that are two different things.”

  She gets close to me, raising her head to look at me. A bit too close for my comfort.

  “You promised me a flawless win! I followed everything you said because I believed in you, but we barely won. Instead of a flawless win, it was almost a draw. I can’t allow her to get a win over me, not after promising she wouldn’t try to steal you away from me when we’re playing, something she didn’t hesitate to do this time…”

  I’ll pretend I didn’t hear the last part.

  “A flawless win, huh…?”

  While I start thinking, I pull her towards me and start patting her head. I know this will calm her down.

  “Hehehe…”

  Ah, the things you have to do when you have a little sister…!

  There’s a reason why we didn’t achieve a flawless victory today. Well, there’s also my mistake, but that isn’t the real reason. The real reason is that we agreed not to use the knowledge we had of our builds and preferences for this match. That we wouldn’t ‘counter’ each other.

  And, as you might expect, it’s hard to get a flawless victory when you can’t abuse your advantage over your opponent.

  In the real event, as Ricard so kindly made sure to explain in extreme detail, and several times at that, we’ll have to create the dungeon and decide on everything we want to use, including our Champions, right at the start. This will be before we have any knowledge about the other participants, and we can’t change anything once the event starts.

  This means we can’t plan around countering our opponents, and that’s why we agreed not to do it in these matches. It’d defeat the purpose of our training if we did use that knowledge.

  So, what I meant when I said ‘flawless victory’ was to get an easy win, defeating Ricard and Laura inside our dungeon, while reaching their dungeon core and destroying it.

  Even better if we got the two at the same time.

  “We didn’t get a flawless victory as I planned, but we still got quite a bit of information on their dungeon, didn’t we?”

  “Yes. Now we have to plan our next match to ensure our victory.” Clara nods her head and makes a fist pump.

  “Sure, let’s do that.”

  Planning how to defeat my opponents, humiliating them as much as possible, is always the best part.

  “Why did you think my plan didn’t work? Was that monster a fake boss? Or was the amulet the fake one?” I ask. The first step is knowing where we failed.

  But instead of giving me an answer, Clara shakes her head.

  “No, that’s not what matters. They can change it for the next match anyway. What matters is where the core was. Did you find it? Or did you see any purple light?”

  Purple light… Ah! She means the glow emitted by the dungeon core.

  “I don’t think I did…”

  I start recalling everything I saw during our match. It was less than an hour ago, but I wasn’t paying that much attention to my surroundings, so everything’s blurry.

  “...Ah! The amulet was glowing purple, wasn’t it?” That’s the reason I thought it was the key to reach the core in the first place.

  “You’re right, it was glowing purple!” Clara makes an excited face for an instant and returns to a pensive expression as quickly. “But that doesn’t solve anything. They can change that, can’t they?”

  “Well… yes and no…”

  Even though the dungeon layout and the dungeon core’s location can’t be changed, the rest of the elements can.

  This means that the boss wearing the amulet could be somewhere else, the amulet could be hidden in one of the houses instead of worn by a monster, and the swarms of skeletons could be buried under the ground and unearth themselves when we get close.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  In short, everything could work differently than before.

  But, and this is a big but, if the amulet is indeed the key the the dungeon core, it means it must remain somewhere in the dungeon, and its function will be the same, because changing it would interfere with the dungeon rules, and they’re as fixed as the dungeon layout.

  If the amulet was relevant, it will remain relevant.

  I explain this to her, and then we start analyzing everything else we saw, searching for any clues.

  The problem is that we – especially I – got so focused on the boss-looking monster that we didn’t pay much attention to the other elements. So after a while of not going anywhere, we decide to work on the plans for our dungeon instead.

  If we nail our defense, we’ll win anyway. We’ll be fine, there’s nothing to worry about.

  …There isn’t, right?

  We spend the next hour or so watching Ricard and Laura’s replay and thinking of how to improve for the next match. In particular, we pay extra attention to their reactions and what plans they could bring for our next match.

  Anyway, I can’t see how they’re going to overcome the constant drain and hidden monsters. Unless they have a hidden ace of their own, they’re bound to lose.

  My plan is infallible, after all! Fufufu! Hahaha!

  “Are you going to use the door mimic again? I don’t think it’ll work a second time.”

  Clara’s worry is understandable. But her question shows how green she is. She’s missing the whole point.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk! You’re missing the reason I created it.” I make myself sound important, clicking my tongue.

  “Then why?” She innocently asks.

  Alright… I guess I have no choice but to tell her. I can’t keep acting like a snob when she’s looking up at me with those eyes.

  “First of all, I was planning on replacing it with a normal door as soon as the first match ended. Something like that won’t work a second time.”

  “Then why did you create it? A single-use monster is a waste of cp…”

  “It is. Only that my monster isn’t single-use.”

  “?”

  Clara cutely tilts her head, her eyes spinning around. I’m sure she’s trying to come up with an explanation, but I can see smoke coming out of her head…

  “It’s a mental thing. It’s all psychology.” I quickly explain before her head overheats. I must save my little sister from danger! “Do you know what’s more terrifying than a monster that hides in plain sight? One that you know is there, but you don’t know exactly where it is.”

  She nods, starting to understand what I mean. But I’m not finished with my explanation yet.

  “I purposely showed it early on to make sure they won’t forget its presence. From now on, they won’t be able to fully concentrate on the dungeon invasion as they will always be checking if what they touch is safe, and asking themselves questions like ‘What if it’s a Mimic?’, or ‘What if there is more than one?’.”

  “Ah! Now I understand! And while looking for the mimic, they’ll lose track of all the other monsters that are the actual danger, right? Hehehe! That’s a very good idea!”

  She’s right, that’s what I was planning. While making sure they don’t fall for a trap, they’ll waste precious time and get distracted more easily from the real dangers. After all, the mimic only has a few skills that drain resources on touch, so as long as they don’t stay in contact with it, it isn’t dangerous at all.

  Whereas the other monsters are dangerous.

  Still, I have a few surprises reserved for Ricard and Laura regarding the mimic that are a bit more unexpected than this.

  After all… Who said a Mimic can’t mimic the floor?

  “Fufufu! Hahaha!”

  “Andreu, you’re doing it again…!”

  Clara smacks my back, trying to make me stop. But I ignore her and continue chuckling to myself, imagining Ricard and Laura’s faces when they find out my plans.

  By the time they do, it’ll be too late for them.

  “Hey. At least tell me what you’re laughing about. Come ooooon, Andreeeeu!”

  Meanwhile, inside a dungeon in DMA, a tall and slim man with glowing blue eyes puts his head on the table and grabs it with his hands.

  “Please, Laura, tell me you’ve got an idea of how to do this…”

  But instead of giving him the answer he desires, the woman sitting in front of him shakes her head.

  “I’m not sure. Give me some time to think.”

  The man starts pulling at his hair.

  “Aaah! This shouldn’t be happening. A teacher, losing to his student like this! I, who have taught Andreu and Clara everything they know, was defeated by them. And not only this, but with no way to strike back on the next match…!”

  The woman sends him a weird gaze but quickly turns her head away.

  “Your plan to set up a trap around the Revenant worked great. You predicted how Andreu would react to it, and we almost got them killed. To put it in a central position so all nearby monsters could assault Andreu and his sister from all sides, what a simple but effective solution. I’m sure we can plan something similar for our next match too, but how are we going to deal with their dungeon?”

  “We’ll find a way.”

  “Sure, we can take turns closing our eyes, and bring support mobs that can follow us while blinded, but this doesn’t solve everything. The MP drain was way too much… I can’t unleash my full potential like that!”

  The demon woman spins her eyes around at the man’s words.

  “We can focus on defense and making sure they die before we do,” she offers an alternative path. “There’s no need to destroy their core, we just need to survive longer. This is why I told you we couldn’t beat him with conventional tactics…”

  But paying no attention to her, the man suddenly stands up and starts shouting.

  “Aha! I got it!”

  “...what did you get?”

  The man starts laughing. “Ahaha. We just need to use something stupid to fight against them!”

  “What… what did you say…?”

  The woman is bewildered by the man’s sudden outburst. What he says makes no sense to her.

  “Yes, it’s simple. You said it yourself, didn’t you? That we can’t fight against Andreu with conventional tactics. So let’s do something crazy. What we lack is the means to cross the building infested with MP-draining monsters because they will kill us. So why don’t we bring a monster that doesn’t mind if it dies because it’ll just stand back up again and again?”

  “Do you mean…?”

  “Yes! Let’s use the Revenant as our scout! Doesn’t Andreu say it himself?” He puts on a fake voice. “‘To fight something ridiculous, you need something as ridiculous, if not more ridiculous, than the thing you’re trying to fight’. Let's use his own idea to fight against him! Ahahaha!”

  While the man laughs, the woman makes a serious face and starts thinking. Then, she says.

  “I think it could work… But for this, we’ll have to–”