Not a Bug, Pure Skill

Man must use tools. I am a man. Therefore, I crafted a knife to use in this forsaken place. Woohoo!

How did I make it, you ask? I utilized the single resource I possess in endless, overflowing abundance: my very own bones. Splitting a bone in half and grinding it down produced an extraordinarily fine blade. An osseous artifact, wasn't that what archaeologists called it? Regardless, now that I had a knife, carving off my own flesh to eat had become infinitely easier. Grinding down my own skeleton to make a kitchen knife so I could slice off my own meat? Talk about a boneheaded joke! Hah! At this rate, even splatter horror stops being horror and turns into straight-up slapstick comedy.

"Wilson! Congratulate me."

"Congratulations!"

I spoke both lines. Since Wilson is also my own severed noggin, it makes zero difference who actually does the talking.

Ah. Who knew the dawn of toolmaking could be such a soul-stirring milestone? Did primeval cavemen hoard this sheer ecstasy all to themselves? Selfish bastards! We need to bomb modern civilization back to the Stone Age right this instant so everyone can share in this primordial bliss! Nuclear weapons! We need more nuclear warheads!

"Alright. Completely off my rocker again today, I see."

Ah, madness. My longtime companion. I had made the conscious executive decision to embrace my psychological afflictions and coexist with them in harmony. All in the noble pursuit of becoming stronger.

"Wilson! Watch over me!"

"You got it, bro! Let's get this fucking hard training rolling!"

A hundred push-ups. A hundred sit-ups. A hundred squats. A ten-kilometer run. I once saw an anime claiming this daily regimen could make a man invincible. Naturally, I decided to double it.

"One million twenty-one! One million twenty-two! One million twenty-three!"

My freshly honed bone knife proved to be a game-changer. Whenever my muscles refused to cooperate from exhaustion, I simply excised them. When Healing Factor regenerated the tissue, the fatigue vanished right along with it. Truly, healers are the ultimate supreme class.

"One million twenty-nine! One million twenty-ten! One million twenty-eleven!"

"You fucking idiot. That is not how numbers work."

"One million twenty-twenty!"

"Oh my god."

What does Wilson know anyway? Ten comes after nine—that's basic common sense! Dumbass. Use your head for once.

"Protein!"

Post-workout, I supplemented my protein intake with breast meat. Not chicken breast, unfortunately. Tough luck.

A catastrophic crisis soon reared its ugly head. The clothes that had barely held together finally gave up the ghost and shredded into tatters, leaving me stark naked. My goodness, how scandalous. Is this the legendary Lucky Pervert trope in the flesh?!

"Wilson! Don't look!"

"You fucking idiot. I haven't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had clothes from the start."

"Fair point."

I nodded at Wilson's irrefutable logic. Right, heads don't wear pants. Still, if I managed to escape this white void looking like this, I'd get arrested on sight as a serial flasher. I needed garments.

"If I don't have clothes, I can just make them, right?"

My gaze drifted down to the bone knife gripped in my hand. Ah. Has the time come once again to borrow the profound wisdom of my ancestors? The human body is indeed the most versatile raw material. People say you need fabric to tailor clothes, but tigers leave behind pelts when they die, and humans leave behind hides just the same. Fortunately, I remembered watching a documentary on leather tanning back in the day. Let's see... to brain-tan a hide, you first have to pop open the beast's lid and... Mmm. Wilson, buddy. I'm sorry. Your sacrifice won't be in vain.

"You fucking idiot. Our bond won't falter over a missing lump of brains. Do whatever you want with it."

"Wilson...!"

I pulled Wilson into a fierce embrace. Damn it, Wilson. I love you, man.

"Does ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this look right?"

With the selfless donation of Wilson's cerebral tissue, I successfully assembled an outfit. Thin strips sliced from dried hide substituted for sewing thread. The end result was a surprisingly wearable set of clothing—provided one didn't look too closely. Anyone examining it up close would realize what it was made of, fumble their Sanity check, and spiral into instant hysteria. Much like my current self, really. Huh? Come to think of it... is going insane actually that big of a deal?

"Shame there isn't a mirror around."

Then again, the absence of a mirror might have been a blessing in disguise. With every passing day, my appearance was turning... intensely grotesque. A freak strutting around in garments stitched from cured human skin. Whew, certified psycho material. But what other choice did I have? Besides, isn't there a famous song about this?

"No matter what they say~ people are more beautiful than flowers~."

I was merely wearing beauty itself. Because yours truly is magnificent!

The fateful day arrived at last. No, I am not talking about a menstrual cycle.

"Heheheh."

The Tutorial. Frankly, I had worried that I might be trapped in this sterile white chamber until the end of time. Fortunately, a fresh batch had officially begun. In a flash of pristine light, the filthy stains vanished from the floor, and hundreds of living people materialized across the expanse.

"Wh-Where are we?"

"What's going on? Is this a movie set?"

"Who the hell are you people?! What is this place?!"

"#@$%^&*!"

It was noisy. And that deafening racket was music to my ears. Wilson, after all, is a man of few words. Oh, look at that. Wilson hadn't vanished this time around. Perhaps tucking him tightly into my arms had kept him tethered to me? Without missing a beat, I turned to the high school girl standing beside me to introduce my companion.

"Hello there!"

"Huh? Oh, hel... Eeeek?! Wh-What the fuck... Is that a severed human head...?!"

"This little fellow is named Wilson!"

"M-Mister... this is just a prop... right?"

"It's actually CGI."

"Ah. Right... CGI..."

Her sanity utterly depleted, the poor schoolgirl squeezed her eyes shut and nodded in desperate denial. I proceeded to introduce Wilson to a few more candidates after that. They would all forget me soon enough anyway, but I just wanted to leave a tiny imprint on someone's memory. Once that fairy slices off my head, I'll be left all alone again. If even one person remembered me, maybe this place wouldn't feel quite so lonely. Pretty childish of me, isn't it, Wilson?

"Naturally. My Bro."

"Thanks, Wilson."

Ten seconds. Just as ten seconds ticked by, that creature manifested in midair. I greeted her with a bright, sunny grin.

"Hello! Welcome to the Tutorial!"

Ahaha! You're finally here! Did you miss me, honey? Nah, I just got here myself. I had waited so long that I almost blurted out that very greeting. I missed you so much I could just die. Setting Wilson down on the floor, I drew the bone knife concealed beneath my clothes.

"I am the Tutorial Fairy—"

"Haha! Die, bitch!"

Eat shit and die!

"Good grief. There is always someone like this. Humans truly are barbaric."

A crisp slice echoed out. It sounded remarkably brisk, like a massive cleaver cleanly splitting a watermelon in two. The unmistakable sound of my own neck being severed. The world tilted sideways as if sliding across a sheet of ice. I knew exactly what awaited me next; I could feel my head tumbling through the air. Ah, there's my body. Front-row seats! My headless torso charged straight toward the Tutorial Fairy, its stride unswerving and resolute even without eyes to guide it.

Hey, did you know? A human can still move even after their head is cut off. Just enough for a single step. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠And to engrave that single step into muscle memory, I had sprinted day and night without rest.

'A brand-new mental disorder, tailored specifically for you!'

It started with sleep-running. When bone-deep exhaustion hit after forcing myself awake for an entire week, I pushed through the haze and ran through this white void, determined never to succumb to slumber. I collapsed dozens of times as my legs gave out from sheer drowsiness, dreamed of running hundreds of times, and scrambled back to my feet to run again just one more time than I had fallen. I ran and ran without end until my body began sprinting entirely on autopilot.

Somnambulism. Sleepwalking. Another disorder added to my mental repertoire today. I was already lugging around a laundry list of psychological conditions, so tacking on one more hardly made a dent. Having a few disorders just meant I had about ten times more than an ordinary person... Holy shit, that sounds catastrophically bad!

"Oh?"

'Haha!'

Merely running in my sleep hadn't been enough, either. Once I mastered sprinting while unconscious, I began driving a blade into my own skull mid-stride. My goal was simple: keep running even past the threshold of death. If I resurrected a few paces ahead of where I fell, it was a success. And in the end, I pulled it off! How could anyone do that in their right mind, you ask? I've never experienced a "right mind" in my entire fucking life, asshole.

"Well, that was a surprise."

The knife honed from my own bone struck the fairy. I hadn't expected the headless strike to track its target with such flawless precision, but my body had aimed to shank her with terrifying accuracy. Attaboy, torso. And the result?

"Humans certainly possess a surprisingly stubborn tenacity, don't they?"

The knife had failed to graze so much as a thread of the fairy's garment. My headless corpse crumpled powerlessly to the ground. Frowning, the fairy stared down at my fallen frame still clutching the weapon. Ah. As expected, a basic knife thrust wouldn't cut it. Stabbing is ineffective. Duly noted.

What a shame. Still, I never expected to succeed on the very first try. See you next time, pal. You visit, and I wait. Here's hoping our bond only grows deeper with every encounter.

"Ahahaha!"

Good morning, world! What a fine and mighty dawn!

"Status Window!"

I checked my morning status window. A brand-new skill had been added to the list. Apparently, participating in the Tutorial automatically awarded an ability upon entry. Skill rerolling is actually a thing?! This is completely broken! Even better, my preexisting skills hadn't reset at all. That meant I could keep stacking abilities and growing stronger indefinitely. An exploit, you say? Hell no, man. That's not a bug, that's pure skill.

This new ability felt remarkably fantasy-like, leaps and bounds better than merely hardening my teeth. Curiously, it seemed strangely linked to my past actions. Huh? Wait a second. Craft puppets out of corpses? Hold on... Don't I have corpses practically lying around everywhere? Well, not right at this very second, but I can produce a staggering surplus in no time flat! Just hang tight, Wilson! I'm coming to see you right now!