“I fucking love this place,” John blurted out while they fought. The large chamber they were inside had a central pillar of glass, turning the cylindrical shape into a doughnut with corners. Inside the resulting cut-out swam a large, black nucleus with a smooth surface, a tiny white dot swirling around like an eye.

John wasn’t even being sarcastic, he really liked this dungeon. The enemies spawned in a clearly telegraphed fashion. They all had two attacks, a basic tentacle lash and a second one depending on colour. The slippery floor was enough of a handicap to justify the enemies being immobile. If John didn’t want to have a fight, he just had to kill the very few enemies directly in his path and the Horrors that spawned. It was all incredibly fair.

Speaking of Horrors, that giant nucleus was not one. That thing was simply a mini-boss of some description. According to Observe, killing it would cause this room to turn into a safe place for the remainder of the run, which John could use to anchor his mental map to.

However, one of the Slimegmites (a botched combination of Slime and Stalagmite) was a Horror. The special spawns were incredibly easy to identify, given that they had a black swirly mist hanging around them like an ill omen made manifest. In this particular case, that colour also tinted it a deep purple, removing it from the usual colour scheme of blue, red, yellow and green.

So, John was in a doughnut shaped room with a slippery floor, Slimegmites growing all around him and the group, with a particularly nasty one already manifested and a miniboss watching them with abilities John didn’t know. Still, the Gamer felt like he was in a really fairly designed dungeon.

The strategy was quickly cobbled together. ‘Salamander, take out the green slimes first,’ he instructed. They were the weakest to fire attacks and had the nastiest secondary attack in the form of poisonous fumes that slowly filled up the room. They weren’t just toxic to breathe but also corroded materials, dealing incredible damage to Beatrice and Aclysia. ‘Sylph, you go for the yellow ones, their lightning counterattacks won’t hurt you as much. If you are done, help me and Siena with the remaining ones. Aclysia, you keep an eye out for the boss and taunt when necessary. Gnome, you concentrate on protecting me. Beatrice, you concentrate on the Horror.’

‘Affirmative,’ the passive maid’s answer came for everyone around as well, and the individual tasks and everything went into motion. They scattered through the room. Salamander and Sylph weaved through the Slimegmites they weren’t supposed to attack. With her considerably smaller size, the tempest elemental had an easier time doing so, but both threw their respective magic in precise fashions.

John engaged with a blue variant of the monster species. They were odd for sure, anchored to ceiling and floor with broad bases that narrowed towards the middle, only to thicken there again around a nucleus. From that thick middle part came the attacks, physical lashes and magic alike.

As of that moment, John had found two efficient ways to dispose of the Slimegmites. One could either go the obvious route, destroying the nucleus, or separate the middle from the bases. The latter was a bit riskier, leaving the slime to dry out and able to throw some last attacks, but also a lot quicker.

Unless one had weaponry specialized around thrusting.

John countered the ice bolt that was thrown into his charge by using Purgatory’s fireball. While the free attack wasn’t the most potent, it was enough to turn that single ice bolt into a shower of water and smaller shards that splattered against Mana Protection at a minimal cost. A second bolt hit the barrier around his right shoulder before he had closed the gap.

The Slimegmites were surprisingly wide from up-close, easily a metre of gelatine protecting them all around. Still though, John had a pretty good way to get through that. He pulled back his left arm and then thrust it at the monster. Purgatory pushed through the exterior layer reliably. Upon the intrusion, the slime immediately started to manifest tentacles and whip at the layer of mana protecting John.

Although he wasn’t able to reach the core directly like this, at least not without shoving his arm further than the incredibly hard, obsidian-esque material of his gauntlet shielded him, all he wanted was to get his hand close in the first place. A blade of blue and purple, the colours of arcane magic, suddenly extended from his open palm. At that range, Mana Blade was strictly more affordable and it didn’t take a lot of damage to destroy the nucleus. All John had to do was hold his position for two to three seconds and then the attack had succeeded in cracking the organ that was heart and brain of the creature at once.

‘Still, costs a lot of mana to do things this way,’ John thought, retreating to regenerate the total of 500 that endeavour just cost him. ‘Thank god for Whisper of Mana,’ he thought. The often-forgotten passive to Secret of Mana boosted his mana recovery by 100% for a minute, following a successful kill using an arcane skill. It was perfect in places like this.

Still, he was the tactician and mana distributor of the group first, so he kept back and an eye on the situation. The elementals were all still doing what they had been told, Gnome just stepping between John and a fire orb that was thrown his way. Aclysia went out to retaliate, a Servant Strike buffed thrust with Eclys delivering death to that red Slimegmite.

Meanwhile, Beatrice was engaging with the black one. Armed with a spear, she was perfectly equipped to fight these creatures. A single, well-placed lunge could take them out. When she was greeted by a triple tentacle whip coming from her from overhead, Twist Position carried her diagonally away from them.

Slow moving ripples spread out from the empty impact site, travelling over the floor. A bit of added environmental spice, but no hindrance to Beatrice. A moment was taken to aim, then the weapon thrust upwards. Unsteady Limb activated, the halfway filled bar of Swing giving her attack that much more immediacy.

The spear went deep into the slime’s viscous mass but was then suddenly thrown backwards. Ejected from the very hole it tore, the force of the rebound caused Beatrice to lose her balance, then she was hit in the chest by a wave of unstable darkness, exploding into a deep mist. The passive maid lost a massive chunk of HP, about 60%, and her right arm disappeared into straight-up nothingness.

‘Shenanigans!’ John mentally cursed. Was this the first slime that had three abilities? That seemed unlikely; even if they were fighting an empowered version, the Horror seemed plenty stronger without being given an extra ability. The Gamer had a different idea and had it confirmed just a moment later when he realized that the large nucleus had, despite its pretty solid state, phased through the ceiling and was now protecting the Horror with some sort of barrier.

He couldn’t have that. For a miniboss, John was more than willing to invest a lot of resources, so he pooled together a thousand of his mana and conjured a single Shardbound. Of deep purple colour, the sharp looking manifestation of energy stopped rotating the second John aimed it and then crossed the two dozen metres between him and the target in no time flat.

A deep cut, more of a stab wound in appearance, was created upon the spell’s impact. The black surface of the nucleus had looked hard, but actual defences must have been its magic’s job. The creature let out a pained hiss from no discernible mouth. The white dot that served as its iris darted around in panic as it began to retreat back through the cloth.

‘Aclysia!’ John mentally signalled the weaponized maid’s part in this.

“At once!” she answered out loud, taken by the swiftness of the action. Master’s Shield rippled out around her as she charged as quickly as she could over the unsteady floor. The circle of white light hit the miniboss at the very edge; it and every enemy afflicted were now forced to choose between attacking Aclysia or suffering the consequences.

Her assault changed into bouncing steps, then into a proper jump. Using the elastic nature of the floor to her advantage, she was able to jump all the way up to the ceiling. A Cutting Flurry ensued, a quick aerial combo. Her dagger plunged into the iris, Eclys widened the wound Shardbound had caused, and finally Marath impaled that very wound.

The miniboss immediately began disintegrating, but Aclysia was now helplessly falling and the Horror had her in its sight. Swirling darkness gathered in front of the slime’s centre. It was about to burst out, and John wasn’t interested in knowing how much damage his first creation would take. Especially in combination with all the other special attacks about to fly her way from the other Slimegmites hit by Master’s Shield.

“Always ready, ready and here!” Sylph chirped out, a green streak that zigzagged over the battlefield at a rapid pace. In a move that seemed instant to John’s naked eye, she rotated several times around the thinnest part of the black slime’s lower half, cutting it apart. A combination of Shardbound and Beatrice throwing her spear with the arm she still had did the same to the upper half, causing the dark bolt to miss by a wide margin as it was shot off just as the middle-section fell towards the floor.

Aclysia made a proper landing, immediately whirling Marath around as best she could, and cleaving the immobile mass apart like a ball of rubber bands under a thousand-degree knife. ‘I haven’t been out of mana for a while,’ John thought as he had to throw himself to the floor in order to dodge, unable to rely on Mana Protection. ‘God, I love this dungeon.’

‘Why are you so happy about things being hard?’ Undine asked.

‘Because things being easy is super boring, also this isn’t hard, it’s challenging,’ John told her. ‘And I do like a challenge every now and again.’

From there cleaning the room was pretty easy. With no further spawning happening, they could progressively clean up. By using the central pillar as a shield, John stayed in relative safety. Once the green slimes had all been destroyed, Aclysia and Beatrice could join the fight again. Albeit the latter still only had her left arm to rely on.

Regardless, the slimes were taken care of a few minutes later and then they took a break in the now safe room. “Sylph, could you do some scouting?” John asked while they were waiting for both his mana to reach an acceptable level again and Beatrice’s arm to regrow. The latter was being assisted by Undine, who had latched herself onto the wounded side like a very attractive slug.

“Yes, Sir, Yes! I will be do the scoutsing, which means I will do the scout and go ‘do-ala-la-la-la-LAAAAA,’” and with that she blasted off into a nearby corridor. John could see the glowing green streak she became through the glass for a couple more metres.

She would trigger a bunch of spawns, but that wasn’t a big problem as far as John was concerned. Information about where they were heading, if anywhere, was more valuable. “I did not expect such burst damage,” John spoke in an apologetic tone to Beatrice. “I will take Horrors more seriously in the future.”

“It is fine, Master,” Beatrice stated. “I survived. Pain is a minimal concern.”

John reached out and patted her on the head. “Maybe, but it makes me unhappy if you are in pain.”

“Your unhappiness is a large concern,” the passive maid admitted. “Carelessness will continue to not be exhibited in my combat behaviour.” In other words, she wouldn’t change anything. As this all happened due to an unforeseen ability by the miniboss, that was the correct answer. “Master will need to up his guidance abilities.”

“Right,” John nodded at the direct criticism. This one was on him, he should have kept a closer eye on the miniboss. Well, his set-up wasn’t that incorrect, evident by how quickly it had been able to react, but nevertheless he could do better.

‘John, John! Captain, my captain!’ Sylph’s voice echoed through his mind and she sent him a vision of a large door. A thing made from silver in a world of stainless glass, grey fabric and slime, towering massively like a mountain range over the tiny fairy-like creature that was the air spirit.

It was like the entrance to a vault, with large beams that ran across and probably thicker than tank-plating.