Blood-Drenched Debut
My blood boiled. It wasn’t just excitement—it felt like the blood coursing through my veins was genuinely being stoked into a boiling rage. My heart pounded powerfully as it received the hot blood, and the surging essence rushed through my vessels toward my extremities. Boom—boom—boom. With my body so aroused, I felt good. My heightened senses overflowed with exhilaration, and my limbs drenched in goblin blood were filled with an indescribable power, making me feel almost omnipotent. This exhilarating sensation came over me in real time, so it was surely a waste to just stand still. “......Haha, hehehe.” I vented my good mood and immediately turned my senses toward my next target. The optimal path out of the maze? Since I could kill everything, there was no need to grope the walls and feel my way along. [Escape from the Goblin Maze.] Escape? Just kill everything. I closed my eyes, focused my senses, and soon found the optimal path. “I found it.” I had newly laid out the route that was mine alone. All that remained was to move my legs and dash down the passage. There was no reason to refuse such an easy task. With a light heart, I slammed my feet against the ground. Boom—! Clutching the sword in my right hand, I ran forward like a hungry beast, craving blood. The desire for blood filled my body, and my legs moved with wild instinct. I mostly ran on the ground, but sometimes kicked off the sheer rock wall in front of me to change direction. Boom! The acrobatic movements I’d never dreamed of in my human days before had proven worthwhile, and in an instant, I reached the target. I spotted the goblins wandering around, trapped in the maze. The bulky green demons stood there blankly until they slowly turned their heads and widened their eyes. A crude iron blade had already pierced one’s slender neck. Slashed—! One down. Dodging between the splattering blood, I headed toward the next target. My time wasn’t cheap enough to get bogged down by just one goblin. My sense of pleasure had risen enough that I wanted to savor the goblin’s death. ......More, more blood! “Hahahahaha!” I circled the maze at an even faster pace, spraying blades everywhere. Following the blurry trajectory, I slashed, and the goblin’s severed head and spurting blood trailed right behind. One, two, three, four... As the exhilaration rose, the number of monsters I’d cut down gradually increased, until it reached twenty. A kill count that even a bored veteran would have tried at some point. A specific condition satisfied record. Ding—! The moment the head of the goblin I’d just slain touched the ground, the system message popped up. [All goblins in the maze have been exterminated.] The moment was when my legs, which had been busy moving for several minutes since the hunt began, finally stopped. I stood frozen in the middle of the maze, still feeling my throbbing heart, and caught my breath. Since there were no more targets in front of me to kill, I wasn’t particularly disappointed. “It’s been half a year.” I was just going to check the status one last time. If the existing character didn’t die, there’d be no tutorial, so it had been a while. In the early days of the game, I might have died often, but later on, I’d gotten better at avoiding death. Starting from the third year, I had to do the tutorial once or twice a season. Honestly, even if I did it so rarely, for a veteran who had grown bored of the game, the process was too tedious. No, was I supposed to learn to swing a sword and run through a maze? I could just do it, right? Anyway, the bored veteran who was tired of the repetitive tutorial chose a slightly more enjoyable and special method. Massacre speedrun. The method of competing with records on how quickly you hunt all the goblins in the maze. A kind of mini-game. Coming here meant the previous character had died, and if killing some goblins could make everyone happy, it was a good thing for all. There was a criterion in this speedrun that my bored veteran character started. -After the play began, hunt all the goblins in the maze within ten minutes. It was a way to distinguish newbies from veterans and also a specific condition that would make experienced explorers face the hidden boss of the tutorial. Yeah, since I killed all the goblins within the time limit, it was time for the event to begin. ...Drdrdrdr. The stone walls all around me began to slowly move, blocking the path I’d use to escape. Right now, I could probably jump over walls that looked several times as tall as me, but I just obediently caressed the grimy handle of the iron door and waited for the other side. “Ah, suddenly I crave samgyeopsal.” After a long, thrilling wait, the front stone wall opened. Beyond it was a space of similar width to the one I’d just left. —...Grrrr. Again, a monster that differed from the goblins I’d faced so far appeared. The green-skinned beast was a few times larger than a goblin, with fierce sounds and a symbolic pig nose. Wearing shabby leather armor and equipped with a greave, the orc warrior stared at the relatively small me. “Whoa, you’re pretty big?” The difficulty suddenly skyrocketed from the sloppy goblins, but that was just how the content that veterans enjoyed was. When everyone shouts ‘charge,’ beating them with a stick brings a thrilling pleasure. I was the kind of person who took pride in that part, and right now, my mood was especially good. “Haa, where should I cut first?” I laughed in satisfaction, gripping the blood-soaked iron blade, and charged toward the orc warrior. Yeah, I was the righteous explorer right now. The evil orc bothering good citizens...! I, who won’t forgive them...! ___ *** “When will it be done...” The tower had a city where explorers could stay on each level. Cromwell, the neutral city connected to the lower floors 1-10, was no different. In a city where medieval and Renaissance styles were cleverly mixed, explorers who hadn’t shed their newbie stamps and countless residents lived together. Explorers climbed the tower, and residents supported them by feeding and housing the tired explorers in exchange for the currency that came from the tower. A rest stop and a foothold. Most neutral cities were formed that way. Since it was operated around the tower in the center of the city, even if you weren’t an explorer, people were very interested in the tower itself. A freeloader with nothing to do would stare at the tower piercing the sky all day, wondering if the top was visible, and someone would approach the entrance to watch the explorers. Like other neutral cities, Cromwell had that kind of custom. There was also a particularly special part. “How long will today’s prospects take?” As the lowest city on the tower, Cromwell had a new adventurer arrive every first of the month. Their adventure-starting time was always the same. Starting at noon, each one explored ancient temples and fought the green-skinned demons. Since you had to repeat the process dozens of times if you didn’t do it, most new adventurers escaped only when the day was almost over. Sometimes it took even after the day had passed to clear a layer. But if someone took that long, there were always the exceptionally fast ones. “The delivery was at three o’clock, so it shouldn’t be too different?” “They were all misses. The really fast days come out around lunchtime.” “Hmm, I wonder if it’ll be the same today.” “I had a pig dream in the morning, so he should come out early.” “I hope so.” Countless people sat in the square around the tower, taking out the food they’d brought. Although it was a small number compared to the city’s total population—only about a hundred—the number was considerable when you considered it was for watching uncertain departure times. The part-time worker who had taken a quick look hoped the prospect would come out before lunchtime. “......Hmm?” At a point not long after the uncertain wait began. It seemed his wish that had popped up every month was about to come true this time. Around the time the clock hand on one side pointed to ‘1.’ An earlier time than other months, a person appeared from the tower entrance. It was a girl soaked in red blood from head to toe. “......Huh?” “......That’s, that’s dying, isn’t it?!” “No, seriously...” If it were another time, I would have been amazed at the super newb’s appearance, but the people watching the tower widened their eyes and whispered. At least someone with a bit of humanity approached the girl to treat her. But soon, realizing the blood’s owner wasn’t her, their faces turned white in a different sense. “......That’s all goblin blood?” A few people who realized the girl was surprisingly healthy looked at her with slightly changed eyes. For a moment, they were stunned by the shocking visuals, but aside from that, only the record remained, so a newbie who greatly shortened the conquest record would cause a stir. Moreover, she appeared covered in goblin blood all over her body. ...In many ways, it was the debut of a monster of the century. While the people gathered around the tower looked at the girl with their minds blank, the girl quietly looked at the system message that popped up in front of her with a somewhat annoyed expression. [Achievement achieved!] [Your feat has been recorded in the Hall of Fame!] [First entry in the world ‘■■’!] [Please write new player information to be recorded in the tower.] The girl thought. They forcibly brought her into the tower, so they were probably giving her a chance to change her name. An uncle with a nickname like ‘Magic Girl Nyan Nyan’ would definitely be troublesome. However, it was a story that didn’t really matter to her, who had a strange pride in her nickname. As I thought about it several times, it was a cool name. The girl drenched in blood from head to toe boldly straightened her shoulders and said with a smiling face. Her name, who had once reached the top and became a new adventurer today— “Undertaker.”