The Tutorial Tower
Karina wasn't quite the pure little innocent she seemed—she caught on fast that I'd been playing her. Still, she wasn't the type to get angry about it.
"Hic… sob… That was really mean…"
"Karina was—Karina was genuinely terrified you were going to go through with it…"
"It wasn't a complete lie."
"Huh?"
"If you hadn't stopped me, I wouldn't have done it right away—but once I'd taken the time to lock down the safety side of things, I absolutely would have gone through with it somehow."
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeh?!"
"Y-yabai…"
"Japanese?"
"Ah—I heard it's one of the popular languages in this world, so I picked up a little."
Fair enough. Karina's over-the-top reactions were exactly the kind of thing you'd see in Japanese anime. Or, failing that, the kind of energy the Hololive girls had been putting out ever since they'd blown up a few years back and were still going strong.
"You're terrifying…"
"Karina suddenly wants to quit this job…"
"That's a shame."
"Excuse me?"
"I like you, Karina."
"Fugyaaah! I-if you're going to go that far, then I guess I have no choice! This Karina will once again go full-power mode and stick with you!"
I thought it to myself where she couldn't hear.
Never met a girl this easy in my life.
Blissfully unaware of what was running through my head, Karina launched into her explanation at full hype.
"First of all, that hypothesis you made a moment ago was a perfect, absolute bullseye."
"That's right. By removing quests—more precisely, by removing the 'Tower' and 'Climbing' elements—the method for leveling up became a lot simpler and clearer."
"Namely: taking the life of a living being."
"The Tower and climbing? Why get rid of those?"
"Because balancing them is ridiculously hard."
"If it's a wide world—an open world, basically—adjusting the overall balance is relatively easy. But trying to set difficulty inside a confined space like a tower? Even bone-grinding effort barely gets you there. And then irregulars like you pop up and smash the balance we barely managed to build in the first place."
"So we scrapped it."
"So in the end, you got rid of it for your own convenience."
"Haha—well, if you put it that way, sure. But isn't the modern world the same?"
"You've got legal revisions, right?"
"Laws that stop being useful as the times change get abolished or rewritten, and tons of new ones get made to improve quality of life. Korea has a constitution too, so…"
I let out a hollow laugh.
"The problem is that those laws aren't for everyone—they're being abused for the benefit of a tiny few."
"……"
"Not denying that one, huh."
"Karina isn't very good at lying."
That was welcome news.
"I don't never lie either, but I'm not great at it. You saw just now, right? I'm the kind of man who does what he says he'll do."
"W-we actually have more in common than I thought!"
"Guess so."
"H-haauu…"
Karina's flustered reaction wasn't half bad, but I didn't have the luxury. Every minute, every second counted.
"So—what's the other way to level up?"
"You use the 'Tower.'"
"Ah—to be clear, in this dimension you can't use the 'Tower' and 'Climbing' systems. If you'd awakened on schedule next year, you wouldn't have been able to either. But right now, it's fully available. Karina has that much backup authority."
"There's just one thing that worries me."
Maybe this was why I couldn't help feeling a little fond of her.
She was pure, and she was kind.
Even after things had gone sideways—even after I'd straight-up deceived her—she'd already shoved it into the distant past and was genuinely worried about me.
If you could take goodwill like that and feel nothing, you weren't cold. You were just garbage.
I hated garbage human beings more than anyone, so I had zero intention of becoming one myself.
"The place Karina will be sending you—the Forgotten Tutorial Tower—isn't exactly ordinary."
"The difficulty was set pretty high to begin with, and on top of that, the quests handed out in the tutorial change depending on an Awakened's abilities. And among those, the Seed of the Devil is a Unique trait that still throws you into situations far more vicious than even Legendary ones."
"That's why I'm even more worried."
"You already look like you're in so much pain… I keep thinking how much more you'll have to suffer in there."
"I'll be fine."
"Ah…"
"You don't have to use formal speech. It just feels weird, hehe. Karina's always been more used to people talking casually with her anyway."
"Works for me. I'm fine. I'm used to pain—but more than that, I've got someone I have to protect."
"You're strong."
"I think I understand why you were chosen. If you're going to put it like that—I can send you right now!"
"Send me. Now."
"……"
"Y-yamero…"
After that cute little show of resistance, Karina gave in with a resigned voice.
"Then—initiating entry."
At the same time, my vision flipped inside out.
The moment I entered the Tutorial Tower, the feeling that hit me was an awkwardness and alienation beyond words. Like my body wasn't my body at all.
Wait. This genuinely isn't my body.
The second I looked down, the hands in my field of view were absolutely not mine. They were far rougher, gaunt and wasted away.
And on top of that…
"O-Oppa."
At the voice calling me from behind, I spun around in a panic—half afraid Han Suhui had somehow followed me into this deathtrap of a tower. But the first things that filled my vision were blonde hair and blue eyes that could never have belonged to Suhui. The face was completely different.
Even so, she was a girl beautiful enough to stand comparison with Han Suhui.
What the hell is this?
The instant I started trying to make sense of the situation—
Ding—.
Currently progressing Tutorial Floor 1: The Tale of House Esteber.
Chapter 1 — Survival of the Strong — is now underway.
Your current name is Rune.
Chapter 1 — Survival of the Strong
📍 Details: House Esteber's madness is nothing new. For reasons of their own, they have been forcibly abducting every man in the Empire who shows even a hint of talent. If you want to know why—if you want to survive—you have no choice but to kill everyone.
🎯 Objective: Survive the arena of Survival of the Strong together with your younger sister, Rin.
🎁 Reward: Experience points will be granted.
So that was the structure.
Experience rewards for clearing quests. With this, you could level up without necessarily killing people.
But from the very first step, the difficulty was grotesque.
No ordinary person could ever clear a quest like this.
And looking at the quest text, it said they only abducted men—so why was my little sister, who apparently existed in this world too, here with me?
"…Hic. Oppa. Where are we?"
No. That wasn't what mattered right now.
Even if she was a little sister who'd appeared out of nowhere, it didn't change anything. Quest or no quest, I fully intended to protect Rin.
If I can't protect her here, how the hell am I supposed to protect anyone in a modern world that's even more of a hell than this?
I already hadn't protected her.
I already hadn't been able to keep her safe.
So from this moment on, I had to fight with everything I had. Even if it meant selling my soul to the devil.
"Rin, it's okay. Stay right behind Oppa."
A space so dark it swallowed everything.
My eyes were starting to adjust, bit by bit, and the surroundings began to take shape. Between the rustling sounds and the contents of the quest, I'd already figured out there were other people in this room besides us.
The real question is when it starts.
And if my guess was right…
Creeeak!
That was when it happened.
A blinding light suddenly spilled in, and a voice cold enough to freeze blood rang out.
"If you want to live… kill."
At the same time—
Clunk!
Something mechanical shifted in the ceiling. An unseen hatch opened, and an overwhelming flood of weapons came pouring down from above.
I have to grab one!
In a situation like this, a tool to protect yourself—or to kill someone else—was essential.
Judgment made, I threw my body forward, aiming for the most promising-looking sword. But I was already too late.
Thud!
"Ghk—!"
"Out of the way, brat!"
A vicious elbow that dragged up old memories of middle-school and high-school bullying sent me flying backward in disgrace.
Goddamn it!
I'd underestimated everything.
This was a whole new world. My fatal mistake had been failing to account for the fact that the people living here weren't soft, peace-rotted modern civilians.
By the time I tried to snatch a weapon again, it was already over.
Standing in front of me was a bastard who'd already claimed a massive axe—and from the blood he was licking off his lips with a grin, he'd already carved someone open with it.
"Pathetic piece of shit. If you're weak, dying's just natural, yeah? Don't worry. I'll knock your little sister up nice and good for you—bwahahahaha!"
"You son of a bitch!"
I watched the axe drop dead-center toward the crown of my skull without so much as blinking, trying desperately to do something—but with the first button already fastened wrong, there was nothing I could manage.
Was this how I died? This hollow?
"Oppa!"
Shunk—!
A flash of pretty blonde hair filled my vision, and a sickening sound tore through the air. I saw the head of the axe buried deep in Rin's slender body.
"Rin!"
In that instant, I lost every scrap of my usual cold composure. I felt my eyes roll back, and my body was already launching itself before my thoughts could catch up.
"GAAAAAAAH!"
I latched onto the bastard who'd attacked Rin and sank my teeth into his throat. My teeth cracked and burned with pain. I didn't care.
The only thing in my head was killing this son of a bitch.
The original me probably never could have pulled this off—tearing into the throat of someone so much bigger with nothing but my teeth.
But then—
Demonic Energy affects all stats.
A message flared up out of nowhere—and with it—
"Grrrk— grhk! Ghk—!"
I felt something thick tear free between my teeth, and with a heavy thud, the giant who'd killed Rin toppled forward.
But that was as far as it went.
"……"
Rin was already a cold corpse. There was no bringing her back. And beyond that—
"Die!"
Thrust— thrust!
I didn't have the strength left to twitch a finger. I couldn't survive either. Helpless, I felt the chill of steel punch into my body, coughed up blood, and had no choice but to meet death.
You have died.
And then—
Reviving at save point.
You cannot die on Tutorial Floor 1.
Faced with messages that defied all reason, I was dragged back to the "beginning" once more.
"Haaah— ueeeegh! Uegh!"
But the vivid sensation of tearing a man's throat open with my teeth, the experience of having killed someone, and the agony that had ripped my life away—all of it was still searingly real.
Fuck.
It was horrific.
I had to repeat this pain? Until I cleared the quest? And this was only the very first one?
"Oppa, Oppa! Are you okay?"
"……"
A gentle hand patting my back. A warm voice.
The moment I caught a glimpse of that noble blonde hair at the edge of my vision, every scrap of the pain from a second ago vanished clean away.
My thoughts flipped in an instant.
"Thank god. Thank god…"
"O…ppa?"
I pulled Rin into a tight embrace and let the tears come.
Yeah. So what if it hurt?
So what if I vomited from the shock, so what if I died dozens of times?
As long as I could keep my little sister alive—as long as I could save her from her suffering and make her happy—I could smile through an eternity of agony.
And besides. This time is different.
It wasn't arrogance.
◈ First Kill Achievement:All stats +3
◈ Death Experience Achievement:All stats +7
There was no way this round could be the same as the last.