"That damn rat! How dare he humiliate us like this!" Lancelot punches a wall, shouting. "What a coward, taunting and playing tricks without even showing up!"

Arthur shakes his head, understanding Lancelot's frustration but also knowing that letting out his emotions won't achieve anything. Given the precarious situation they're currently in, letting their emotions rule their actions will guarantee their defeat.

"Most players don't value honor and fair fights. The opponent we're facing today is… possibly one of the worst in that regard. He's nothing like his sister…"

After saying that, Arthur clenches his fist tightly around the sword's handle. He'll never forget that day's defeat. That's why the difference between the two siblings is both obvious and vast to him.

Percival, observing the other two, switches topics to what he believes is the more pressing matter. "Will we be fine? We lost so much…"

It isn't until Percival asks that question that Lancelot calms down. He looks around, realizing for the first time that the trap that humiliated them did serious damage to their party, that his honor and the opponent's trickery shouldn't have been his focus.

"You're right…!"

"Hmmm…" Arthur scratches his cheek in thought, "We're in shambles, but the three of us survived. If we avoid all traps from now on, we might still do it." He then adds, watching his two comrades' hopeless expressions. "It'd be better if Merlin killed the invaders. Let's move slowly to avoid casualties for now and give him time to work his magic."

Percival and Lancelot nod in silence, and their dungeon exploration resumes.

The speed at which they advance slows down. From that moment on, they start to time their encounters with the black bugs crawling everywhere to minimize the damage they inflict. They wait until their numbers increase to about twenty, at which point Arthur kills them all simultaneously with a single attack. If they can avoid it, they won't fall for a trap like that one a second time, triggering the curse on their own terms.

"Isn't it bad if you're always cursed, Sir?" After three times of repeating this process, Lancelot anxiously asks what he's been thinking.

Arthur raises one eyebrow, asking back. "Do you have a better idea? I'm all ears."

"...No, I don't, Sir."

"Then, stop worrying about me and make sure there are no traps ahead. Let's continue."

Despite their efforts, the constant presence of dangers delays their recovery. The black bugs drain their MP with their mere presence. To avoid the traps and fight the enemies, they need to spend EP, and their HP recovers just about as fast as they take damage.

Populating the dark cave passages, they find several mushroom clusters. They get poisoned, put to sleep, and suffer from Madness, attacking each other.

The three knights feel as if they're in a constant battle against the environment itself, as if the occasional skeleton hidden within the scattered bones, as well as the Abyss creatures coming out of the empty void holes, spreading everywhere, weren't enough.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, although it's just about fifteen minutes, the three knights find a highly complex door in front of them. A door identical to the ones placed around the laboratory where they found the fake 'player clone'.

"Careful, there could be anything on the other side," points out Arthur. "We should wait until my curse goes away before opening it."

"Sure, Sir." Lancelot nods.

A short time passes before Arthur places his hand on the door's opening mechanism and waits for the others to get ready. He looks and them and asks, "Ready?"

Lancelot and Percival simultaneously nod, sword in hand.

"Then… Go!"

With the shout, Arthur opens the door, and the three players storm inside, ready for battle. But the scene they see makes them freeze. Awful memories, very recent ones, flood them, and for a moment, they can't believe what they see. A sense of dread slowly permeates their bodies as they take in their surroundings.

"Wow. This is…" Percival is the first to recover, snapping the other two out of their thoughts.

"Careful. It must be another trap."

As Arthur points out, the room on the other side of the door is very similar to the laboratory where they were almost defeated. Although the machines and other equipment are placed differently, and the room's size and shape don't quite match the other one, the giant screen and the rat-headed humanoid are the same. Furthermore, the camera, as well as the scene displayed on the screen, are once more identical to what they've seen until now.

The rat-headed humanoid, suddenly 'noticing' the intruders, starts laughing.

"Oooh, look who we have here! Welcome, welcome! Come in, don't be shy." The rat-headed player gleefully opens his arms wide, waving at the three knights. "I welcome you once more, dear invaders! Did you have fun overcoming my mushrooms? Aren't they cute? There's nothing that feels better than being forced into attacking your allies, right? I calmly watched everything from here as you struggled… Fufufu! Hahaha!"

Lancelot grips his sword as if trying to squeeze the rat-headed player's throat. "This again…!" Hatred fills his voice.

But Arthur raises a hand to stop him. "Don't. Remember what happened last time?"

"!" Lancelot freezes. "You're right…"

Watching them with a smile on his face, the rat-headed player starts talking once more.

"Oh, come on, don't be that cold to me. Aren't we best friends, after all we've gone through together? Won't you run at me with your swords with the intent to kill me like the good old times? Hahaha!"

"Grrr…!"

"Don't do it." Arthur grabs Lancelot's shoulder. "Don't attack him. It's what he wants."

"I know, it's just…!"

Percival, who had been listening to the rat-headed's words as he continued to inspect his surroundings, steps in front of his two comrades and starts talking in a hushed voice.

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"This room… It's too similar to the other one. I'm sure there's a similar trap here, and the one in front of us must be another one of his clones. We should run away before he can activate whatever traps he has prepared."

"I have a bad feeling about this situation too…" Agrees Arthur.

"Then let's waste no more time here! Let's go somewhere else, where we don't have to listen to that fool!"

With Lancelot's agreement, the three turn away from the rat-headed player, searching for an exit other than the door they came from.

"We won't fall for your tricks anymore!" Proclaims Lancelot, without turning around. "You can fool around and provoke us as much as you want, but it won't work a second time. It won't work on us, nor will it work on anyone else! You're a fool for wasting effort and points on a trick that will work only once!"

Since they turned around, they can't see the rat-headed player grin. A wide and evil smile spreads across his face, but his tone of voice remains unchanged, still as cheerful as before.

"Oho? So you actually learned something?" The rat-headed player tilts his head, feigning surprise. "Well, I guess there's nothing I can do about that…"

Lancelot grits his teeth, feeling the accumulated rage about to burst. "Yeah… Let's leave this place, Sir. Before we fall for his tricks again… Hmhp! I'll make sure he tastes my blade when we find the real him!"

The three knights ignore the other player's words, quickly walking away.

But in their hurry, they don't realize the incongruence with the rat-headed clone's dialogue. If the character in front of them isn't a real player but just one of his 'clones', how can they maintain such a perfect conversation with him? Did the player predict even their reactions? Otherwise, how could the 'real' him on the screen and the 'clone' in front of them continue to say the same, and make the same gestures?

"...since you aren't falling for it… Then, die! Fufufu! Hahaha!"

"W-what!?"

Right at that time, Arthur feels a shiver run down his spine, warning of danger. Powerful lightning comes towards them from behind.

"Not bad. Not bad, young lady. Your future is promising, mufufu!"

Hearing those words, Clara immediately perks up, glaring at the long-bearded man observing her from above.

"Stop calling me that!" She shouts in protest. "I'm a grown-up! You being an old fart doesn't give you the right to call me that!"

"Mufufu! Young lady, don't speak like that. It's too crude…" The man keeps stroking his white beard as he speaks. "If you can safely avoid my next attack, I might consider taking it into account. How about it? Aren't I generous? Mufufu!"

The white-haired man waves his hand, and several magic circles appear around him. A group of purple light arrows flies towards Clara, surrounding a large flaming sphere. Lighting falls from above, and the ground trembles as earth spikes shatter it.

Clara immediately jumps away, doing a double somersault, avoiding the earth spikes and thunderbolt, but the purple light arrows and flaming sphere aren't as easy to avoid. Immediately after landing, she summons a small dark hole that engulfs the fiery, sun-like ball, and starts twisting her body to avoid the light arrows.

Despite her body being made out of tentacles, she can't avoid all the projectiles, and her HP bar takes another hit.

"Why are you only targeting me?" Clara pouts, vexed by the situation she's in. "Why do you ignore Baldy and Lily and only target me?"

Not too far away, Baldy and Lily are fighting a horde of knights. Trapped inside the castle's walls, inside the castle's courtyard, they have nowhere to go, and the mage perched on top of the keep knows it. Keeping Baldy and Lily busy with the knights, unable to intervene in their fight, he has been continuously attacking Lemon. Every time her teammates have tried to help her, the mage has simply teleported to another spot before resuming his attacks.

"Isn't it obvious that the first target should always be the one who can't fight back?" Asks the long-bearded mage. "Don't you want to keep company with an old man like me, young lady? I'm sad."

"Muuuuu…! Go to hell!"

Clara extends her tentacles up to her limit, but even after giving her all, her tentacles fail yet again to reach the man on top of the keep's wall. He just smiles at her, stroking his beard.

"Mufufu!"

"Grrr…"

*Tiriri!*

Right then, interrupting their battle, everyone hears the sound of a game announcement, and a screen appears in front of them.

"No way… They already finished on the other side?" The sudden silence is only broken by the bearded man's surprised voice before reading the text in front of him.

"Fufufu! Hahaha!" I laugh, standing on top of the poor fool's dead bodies. "They were going on and on, saying 'we won't fall for it twice', and blah, blah, blah…! But the fools actually fell for it! Hahaha!"

I hope our audience had a great time watching this match. I don't know about the other side, nor can I judge the dead knights in front of me, but… Didn't I nail it? I performed like a real pro, didn't I? Hahaha!

I mentally revise the next steps while reading the congratulatory message in front of me, announcing our victory.

First of all… Yes, you're right. The second 'clone' wasn't actually a clone but the real me. I fooled them into thinking I was another clone, turning their backs to me, and struck with several consecutive Chain Lightning spells while they looked away. They were too weakened to resist, and I defeated them easily.

"It's all thanks to them lowering their guard! Hahaha"

I'm still surprised they didn't realize the change in dialogue style compared to the almost robotic likes I had to use when deceiving them the first time…

Anyway, it worked perfectly! Exactly as planned!

The plan to make them believe it was a trap, when it actually wasn't a trap, but the fact that the trap wasn't a trap was the real trap, and they fell for it…

I know it sounds hard to understand, but it's very easy in fact.

"Everything went exactly as I planned! Hahaha!"

Poor, poor fools. Being the first ones to stumble upon my trap, they had no way to know what was going on, so it was really easy to win this match. Usually, according to Ricard, the matches take around one and a half and two hours, but this one ended in less than one.

"I'm amazing, ain't I? Hahaha!"

Of course, this does mean that, from now on, everyone will know of this trick. I can modify my clone's lines between matches, so they aren't always the same, but the trick can't change. As I said, we can still change the unit triggering the trap and place it somewhere else, so it isn't like we can't use it anymore, even if the opponents know about it beforehand.

But still… who cares about it? Who cares if the opponents know about this trap?

Certainly not me!

After all, who cares if they know? Even if they do, they won't know if it's the actual 'me' or just a clone, or if I'm pretending to be a clone to get them by surprise when they turn around… or even if there's actually a trap in the room and everything is just a performance to make them think twice about their actions.

Hell, they won't be able to know if I'm inside our dungeon or not!

…Until defeating all my clones, of course. From now on, all teams will have to tread carefully, because at any time, it could turn out that one of the 'fakes' is an actual player, a dangerous and intelligent being!

Well… intelligent sometimes. You know what I mean.

"Still, it's a shame my greatest creation for this tournament didn't get a chance to shine yet…"

But I guess that's good? The more our opponents take to discover it, the greater the chances we have of winning the tournament. The lack of information will always favor us.

I shake my head to stop my thoughts from spiraling out of control and force myself to recall the list of opponents assigned to us in this group phase of the tournament.

"The next match is… Ugh, my head…!" I feel a sudden headache coming.

"The League of Evil's dungeon wasn't the only one that surprised the viewers, thanks to their unexpected and original ideas. There were a few others that achieved similar results, although not all of them in the same way. Debates erupted among the spectators to decide which team was the craziest one, if Andreu's team or the one called All Shall Despair.

Luckily for them, they wouldn't have to wait long to discover the truth, as the two teams were placed in the same group..."

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