"Go, Mr. B! You can do it!"

"Yeah, go!"

I join my little sister's cheering, although I'm not as confident as she is. But it doesn't matter, regardless of what ends up happening; it'll be a good thing for everyone except that 'thing' called Mr. B.

Mr. B crawls forward, dragging its elongated body forward.

Um… can you say 'crawling' if the monster has no limbs? It just has a few flabby tentacles that barely have enough strength to push it forward when you add their efforts to the twisting of its body. It also doesn't help that it has eyes at the end of half of those tentacles, as well as a large gaping hole, probably a mouth, on its back.

Anyway, regardless of how you call that displacement method, by the movements and spasms it suffers as it moves, you'd say it suffers by simply existing.

That thing looks like a giant, deformed, and extremely horrifying slug about the same size as a large pig. It even leaves a mucus trail behind.

If I had to choose between ending up as anything remotely similar to Mr B. or die, I'd rather die. I'd even pick having to spend all eternity in that demon school over ending up as something similar to that.

Ugh…! The things the Abyss faction makes me think are so perturbing. Though it does fit the theme, don't you agree?

The terrifying slug-like monster advances slowly. It descends the hill we spawned in, approaching the ruined village below.

"As soon as it reaches the first house, tell Mr. B to turn to the left and move forward."

Clara furrows her brows in response to my order. Well, she doesn't because her Champion has no face, but taking into account her tone of voice, I'm sure she would be doing it if she could.

"Eeeh…? That'd put my cute little thing in too much danger. We won't be able to help it if anything happens!"

I'm sorry, but that thing isn't cute. Nor is it small. If that thing were to eat me whole, I would fit inside it!

"Sacrifices must be made..." …from others, if possible. As long as I'm not affected, anything is fine.

"I don't want to!"

Clara crosses her arms and refuses to look in my direction. It isn't until Mr. B stops in front of the first ruined house that I come up with a way to convince her.

"Come on, Lemon… It's the chance for Mr. B to shine. Are you going to deny him that honor?

"But…"

I reluctantly put my hand over her head. Ugh, gross. "Don't worry, we'll follow after Mr. B. Not too close, because we want to avoid putting ourselves in danger, but if something happens, we can try to rescue him."

…or run away and save ourselves. But I don't say the last part out loud.

"Fine." Clara nods her head. "Let's do that."

Clara gives the order to Mr B, and we get out of the bushes we were hiding in and start going down the hill. As we advance, I can feel the mood change.

It's like being in a ghost town. I can't stop myself from imagining the cries of dead people. Transparent figures observing our every move, hiding from our sight…

The empty fields are somehow scarier now that they're empty than when they were filled with undead and demons. I know it sounds stupid, but it makes sense. After all, the worst is always not when you can see the dangers, but when you know they're there but can't see them.

If I'm right, though, it won't be like this for long.

We sprint from one ruined house to the next, taking cover behind what remains of their walls. Meanwhile, Mr. B crawls through the main path, perfectly visible from every angle.

"Brother, nothing is happening."

Clara approaches and whispers next to my ear, giving me the creeps. Right now, Mr. B is about to reach the center of the village. We've covered quite a lot of terrain, but nothing has appeared yet.

"I know…" I scratch my cheek in thought. "It's kind of weird. I thought they would have appeared by now…"

"Maybe they're waiting for us somewhere else?"

"That'd make no sense," I say, shaking my head.

In Dungeon Battles, the maximum dungeon size is set at the start. Making it any larger than that costs extra cp, and the reason for that is simple: the larger the dungeon, the more time it can take to clear it.

Time is an important factor because Dungeon Battles are won by the first team to destroy the other's core. Stalling is a valid tactic, so allowing the dungeon to be as large as the players want would be a stupid idea. Furthermore, endless corridors aren't fun, doubly so when they're there just to make you waste time.

This dungeon can't be much bigger than what we can see. Knowing Ricard, there could be an underground crypt, or a hidden basement under the collapsed castle… but nothing more than that.

The monsters must be hiding somewhere near, unless Ricard and Laura decided to bring them all into our dungeon, which would make no sense.

I attentively observe our surroundings, looking for clues about our enemies or that purple glowing pendant.

"I can't see anything…"

"All the monsters must be hiding, scared of us! Hehehe!"

"No, that can't–"

As if on cue, I start hearing moans. They come from everywhere around us. The ground starts trembling.

"It's coming."

"What are we going to do, brother!?"

"Just calm down and everything will be okay…"

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Maybe…? Well, we might all die, but there's no use in worrying ahead of time.

I must admit that whatever is coming is way bigger than I expected. I expected a group of skeletons to pop up from the ground when we came inside the village. I never expected the whole village to start shaking at the same time!

'Oouaaaaah!' 'Graahooo…!'

The moans grow in volume. Hands, heads, and arms come out of the ground everywhere. They have no flesh, just bones, and eerie blue flames glow inside their empty eye sockets.

"Look, Lemon. The skeletons are back. Weren't you worried they wouldn't appear?"

"Shut up!" She punches my shoulder with all her strength. Which, given her higher STR stat, is quite painful. "Mr. B, come back!"

Clara starts shouting at Mr. B, who is quite far away, to come back. But at the speed it crawls, the skeletons will fully emerge before Mr. B reaches us…

Distracted by the ongoing chaos, I don't notice that one of the skeletons is right under me until it grabs my leg with its bony hand.

"Uah, that scared me!"

I immediately jump a step back and start smashing my staff on the skeleton that's unearthing itself. They're such easy targets when they're just halfway out of the ground.

"Hahaha, easy." I stand proudly on top of the fallen enemy. It didn't have a chance to fight back.

Hey, look, it's the new version of 'Whac-A-Zombie', the 'Whac-A-Skelly'! We can play some more!

…Though, maybe, there are a bit too many 'skellys'. Now that I take a look around, the whole village is swarming with them.

When I look around after my amazing victory, I see plenty more skeletons like the one I just killed. They're still unearthing themselves. Our support mobs, for now, are just attacking those that are emerging right below us, as we told them to remain by our side.

If I had to say a problem with our current situation, it is that we're surrounded by them. It's like a zombie apocalypse, except with skeletons.

"I knew something like this would happen…" I just didn't expect they would take so long to appear.

Clara grabs my shoulder and starts shaking me.

"Brother, Mr. B is in danger!"

Of course, he is. He's the bait; that's his role.

When I look towards the central part of the village, I see a large, horrifying monster slowly crawling towards us while surrounded by a group of skeletons. They claw at him with their all, even though they're holding bows in one of their hands.

His large size makes him a large target for arrows. Two more skeleton groups are shooting at him, too. He's doing surprisingly well for being under such heavy fire.

After watching such a scene, I can't help myself and start to cheer for them internally. 'Yeah, get him. Kill that abomination!'

"Noooooo! My Mr. B! He's going to die! Brother, do something!"

I roll my eyes around. "...ugh, fine. Let's do our best to save him…" What one must do for their little sister… "Chain Lighting!"

Lightning pours out and strikes the skeletons around Mr. B. They all fall to the ground, stunned, thanks to my skills, but the other skeletons, divided into groups, are too far apart, and the lightning stops spreading.

Sigh… and I even just upgraded its range!

It makes sense, though. Having the skeletons work in groups is easier for their AIs – this way they don't clash into each other like the Stitched did when I started playing the game –, and it also helps when coordinating attacks and avoiding area attacks. It forces players to aim instead of just shooting everywhere, and makes it harder to defeat them.

When one group falls, the closest one immediately takes its place, leaving no time in between. It's a common tactic used by players when they create swarm-like monsters.

But even though my spell only neutralized a few skeletons, this buys enough time for Mr. B to get away from them. The arrows don't stop, though, and his HP continues to fall at a slow rate.

"Thank god Skeletons are weak…" I mutter.

Clara tries to run forward, but I grab her shoulder and pull her back.

"Don't rush in. Most of the skeletons haven't seen us yet. There's no need to get their attention unnecessarily."

"But Mr. B…"

"We'll do what we can. We must get ourselves out of this first."

If we die trying to save Mr. B, he will die anyway, so what's the use in that?

"...Okay."

*Fwooosh!*

Fire explodes at Mr. B's location, incinerating the already almost dead skeletons around him into nothingness. I look towards its origin and find a hooded humanoid with large horns protruding from holes on the cloth covering the head, partially hidden behind a wall.

"It's a demon…!" I hold my breath when the demon looks straight at me.

From behind the demon, I watch in horror as another demon appears from the nothingness and throws a Fireball, this time in our direction.

Invisible demons! It turns out that the stares I thought were my imagination were indeed real! The demons have been observing our every move while staying out of our sight! That must be it. They must have triggered the skeletons when they thought we were deep enough inside the village.

"Aah, shit. This is bad…"

While following after Mr. B, we went quite deep into the village. Given our current position, we have a single option: to try and escape through the shortest and least populated side, the side we came from. But the number of enemies on that side isn't anything to scoff at…

"Do we try to hide inside a house like the last–"

"Don't even think about it!" Clara cuts me off. "We were lucky that they died before us last time; we can't take the same risk again."

Okay, okay, don't glare at me like that. I was just proposing an idea.

"Then we have a single option left. We must use Mr. B as bait and break through the weakest point."

"But he…"

Clara seems to be against my idea. But that's really our only option we have.

I grab her… shoulders?... and force her to look at me. I say, with the most serious tone I can manage in this situation. "You must accept it. Mr. B will make you the greatest gift anyone can make. He'll give up his life so you can keep yours."

She stays silent. My words were too deep, don't you agree? Hahaha.

"Okay," she finally nods. "Let's do it."

"Skellys and demons, here we come… Get ready, because this is going to be a wild ride! Fufufu! Hahaha!"

I turn to the skeletons blocking our path forward. Almost all of them have gotten themselves out of the ground and are forming groups. There are demons hidden everywhere too.

The closest skeletons have detected us and are approaching.

Now the question is… Are we going to get out of this alive, or will they turn us into their comrades?

"...

Did you know that you can recycle your monsters? As long as it isn't a Boss, you can assign your monsters to another Template that uses the same unit type, and they'll automatically gain the required skills, as well as forget those they had before but aren't in the new Template.

Of course, this comes at a cost. Unless the level of both Templates is the same, the monster's level will be adjusted to the new Template's level.

If the level is higher, you'll have to pay the cp cost to upgrade the unit. But if the level is lower, the spent cp to level the monster will be lost, and you'll have to pay the difference again if you want to swap to the old Template later on.

This is why players who like to swap monsters from one Template to another usually keep all of them at the same level. This is also why PvP players, who are limited by cp costs and must look for efficiency, don't like this. They can't waste cp on useless levels just to make the Templates the same level. Instead, they choose to spend the cp just one time, even if it's a higher initial investment, and create more monsters until they fill every Template with the amount they desire for the Dungeon Battles.

Regardless, this is a nice option to have when you're designing your dungeon, as it'll easily and quickly allow you to swap between unit roles, or it'll save you lots of cp in case you made a mistake or the units got obsolete and need to update them.

…"

- Random 'knowledge drilling' done by Ricard.

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