Tutorial (1): The Last Survivor Wakes Up
The moment I opened my eyes, my breath caught in my throat like someone had stolen the instructions on how to breathe. I gasped desperately, mouth wide open. Only when oxygen finally flooded in did my mind start to clear.
I was standing with my right arm pressed against a cold concrete wall. A strange black suit covered me from head to toe. An unfamiliar watch, a heavy belt—none of it belonged to me.
What the hell is going on?
Cold sweat poured down my forehead. I wiped it away roughly and looked around.
A breathtaking beauty stared at me, head tilted sharply to the right. Her face looked languid yet carried a gentle smile. Long red hair spilled all the way down to her waist. She wore the same black suit as me. Her tie was loose, and several buttons on her shirt had been undone, revealing pale, smooth skin underneath.
“…Yes?”
-Click.
She reached out with both hands and took my right one. It was white, soft, warm… and strangely wonderful. The feeling was so good I lost myself staring at her—until a tiny change in my body snapped me back to reality.
“!”
The instant I noticed it, I twisted away violently.
“Ah, n-no. Just—give me a second!”
Luckily a men’s restroom was right nearby. I sprinted inside. The building looked like a derelict wreck, yet the bathroom was oddly spotless.
What the actual hell is this situation?
I slowly pieced my memories back together. Yesterday I’d had drinks with a friend I hadn’t seen in ages. Then, on a rainy night, I’d taken my umbrella and headed home. I distinctly remembered punching in the apartment passcode and stepping safely inside.
So why…?
Instead of waking up in my own comfortable bed, I’d opened my eyes inside this sinister abandoned building. The face staring back from the mirror was completely foreign.
This is supposed to be me?
Wait—what had I even looked like before? Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember my own name.
Frustrated, I dug through my pockets and found a crumpled sheet of paper.
SURVIVAL DIRECTIVE
You are the last survivor of the Korean branch of the Bureau of Bizarre Management.
Refer to the manual and rulebook to control anomalies and suppress ghost stories and bizarre phenomena.
For any entity or phenomenon not listed in the manual or rulebook, you must experience it firsthand, create a new rulebook, and resolve it.
The peace of the entire world rests in your hands.
Stay vigilant at all times.
Question everything.
Locate the contaminated sections of the manual and rulebook.
And above all else, survive.
Good luck.
“…What the hell is this?”
Stunned, I crumpled the paper without thinking. The instant I did—
-Flash!
[User 3139 has entered!]
A semi-transparent window popped up right in front of my eyes.
“Gallery…?”
It sounded familiar. Then the board exploded with new posts.
I clicked on the first post that caught my eye.
Kekeke. If you don’t want to end up like this, work your ass off, dumbass!
Recommended: 1 | Not Recommended: 341
“You’ve got to be shitting me.”
It was a gore image soaked in blood.
ㄴ MolangMalang★: Confirmed.
[This post has been deleted.]
While I clutched my pounding chest and tried to calm down, a kinder-looking post caught my eye.
“Announcement?”
Among the pinned posts at the top of the board, I found one titled Newbie Orientation Post.
What do we do here? It’s a community for people who got dragged into a game with the same name and died.
“What the fuck kind of nonsense is that?” I hear you. Newbie, please listen carefully and don’t misunderstand.
Unfortunately, you have been dropped into an absolute piece-of-shit garbage game world. It might sound like a lie, but you have to trust me completely. Otherwise you’ll die before clearing even the tutorial and end up permanently pinned to this gallery like the rest of us pathetic failures.
If you die, you’ll become a ghost stuck staring at this gallery forever, just like us. Number 1 is still here, by the way. Imagine being trapped as a pathetic loser for eternity without even ascending. You don’t want that, right?
So even if you die, at least make as much progress as possible first. To do that, pay sharp attention and read this announcement thoroughly.
1. You have been dragged into a world swarming with disgusting anomalies. You’ve probably possessed someone else’s body. That’s normal. The trigger seems to be either playing the Korean indie trash game “Bureau of Bizarre Management Branch 941” yourself or hearing about it from someone who did. The anomalies kidnap your soul with extremely low probability. That’s what the losers who ended up here say, anyway. I was the latter. Fuck you, Choi Jae-hyuk, you pathetic game-obsessed bastard…
2. The escape condition is presumed to be clearing the story to the end. Why “presumed”? Because like I said, it’s a piece of shit game. No one has ever cleared it (it was never popular to begin with), and the difficulty is insane. No one has succeeded. We’re literally playing with one-life runs and zero information. Not easy, right?
3. But don’t worry! The collective intelligence of this battle-hardened gallery will help you! We’re all dead and bored out of our minds, and we’re hoping that if someone clears it, we might get to ascend together. So please do your best to survive!
“So this really is a game world?”
None of it made sense. My head hurt. Die and you get trapped in this weird gallery as a digital ghost. Survive and you still have to clear an insanely difficult game.
“Fuck.”
The curse slipped out before I could stop it. I’d never played or even heard of a game like this.
“Wait… actually, I have heard about it.”
That night drinking with my friend, he’d been rambling about some weird game. It must have been this one.
“Damn it!”
If you’re gonna kidnap someone, take him instead! Why me?
A few helpful-looking posts had appeared, so I decided to make my own.
For a nickname… they kept calling me newbie, so I just went with Newbie.
I woke up in an abandoned building with a pretty older sister. What do I do…? [Recommended: 141 | Not Recommended: 0]
The replies flooded in instantly.
ㄴ OurAnomaliesDontBite: Stop posting weird shit with that name
ㄴ StopPuttingItInTheHole: The fuck? You wanna fight?
ㄴ OurAnomaliesDontBite: Here we go again—guy who got eaten vs guy who got chopped.
ㄴ Newbie: Cleared?
ㄴ RulesRules: You didn’t even clear the tutorial…? Then how did you find the gallery?
ㄴ Newbie: The second I opened my eyes I checked the paper in my suit pocket and the gallery window just appeared.
ㄴ RulesRules: ?
ㄴ Newbie: ?
ㄴ RulesRules: You found a clue and the gallery before even finishing the tutorial?
ㄴ SheWasDefinitelyAGirl: This kid’s lucky as hell lololol
ㄴ Yeah… I took two days.
ㄴ I took a whole week, should I just die again?
ㄴ LogicKing: You’re already dead, dumbass. What are you dying again for?
ㄴ Lmao
ㄴ Fucking hell
ㄴ Newbie: …Are you an elder? Your way of speaking is unique.
ㄴ Nah he just drowned in a pool of blood and decided to roleplay
ㄴ If you entertain him he’ll never stop. Just ignore him.
ㄴ We’ll answer instead.
ㄴ Newbie: Oh, thank you.
ㄴ Hey just talk casually lol
ㄴ Throw in some swearing so it feels natural.
ㄴ Newbie: Got it, you fucking bastard.
ㄴ Don’t start with the insults right away you idiot lololol
ㄴ Lmao I like how refreshing this is.
“Is this not how I’m supposed to do it?”
Anyway.
ㄴ RulesRules: But posting on the gallery right next to your senior is pretty ballsy. This newbie’s brave.
ㄴ Newbie: Why?
ㄴ RulesRules: Depends on the senior, but if they catch you it makes the explanation part really painful.
ㄴ RulesRules: From the senior’s perspective, their junior is staring into empty space and giggling. It looks exactly like mental contamination.
ㄴ Newbie: No problem. I’m already separated from my senior.
ㄴ RulesRules: ??? How did you get separated already? That shouldn’t even be possible in the early stage.
ㄴ Newbie: I panicked and ran into the nearby men’s restroom. Since it’s the men’s room I figured she wouldn’t follow me in.
ㄴ RulesRules: ?
ㄴ Newbie: ?? Why are you all reacting like that? Is this some big twist where the senior was never a woman?
ㄴ RulesRules: GET OUT OF THERE RIGHT NOW!
ㄴ Newbie: ???
ㄴ It’s over. It’s so over!
ㄴ TutorialHard: Newbie, you’re about to join the proud Tutorial Cut Club. Good work.
ㄴ Should we start waiting for number 3140 then?
ㄴ Lmao the tutorial cut is so trash there’s nothing left to see.
ㄴ TutorialHard: You little shit, you wanna fight all ten million members of the Tutorial Club?
ㄴ ProfoundPhilosopher: Ten million my ass lol The whole gallery only has 3138 people and half of them are probably AFK anyway lololol
ㄴ Soon it’ll be 3139, lmao
ㄴ MuseumArsonist: Tutorial Club – X / Tutorial ‘Cut’ Club – O
Just as I was wondering what the hell they were all talking about—
My senior’s voice came from the entrance.
“What? No, uh, Senior? Wait a second—”
ㄴ RulesRules: Looks like the idiot still doesn’t realize he’s been caught. You need to get out right now! There might still be time—hurry!
“What?”
At the same time—
-Glurp!
The bathroom walls, floor, ceiling, urinals, partitions—every single object began to crumple and melt.
-Glurk! Glurk! Glurk!
Huge lumps of flesh started rising from every direction.