The Second Tutorial (13)
The scream tore from Im Do-geon’s throat like a dying animal, but I didn’t even glance his way. There were far more important things demanding my attention than some minor noise.
For the sake of balance with the goblin faction during the 5th invasion, a restriction will be placed on Hero Candidate Yoon Iseo.
“What the actual fuck is this?” I muttered. “Can you see this too?”
“It says the 5th invasion is starting, right?”
So only I could see it. How annoying. At this point I had no idea what kind of game they were playing. Imposing restrictions on someone just because they were doing too well? This wasn’t even a game. Everyone was supposed to be going through the same tutorial under equal conditions. Penalizing one person for performing well made zero sense.
“I will explain,” a calm voice said.
My vision flipped upside down. The next instant I was standing in the waiting room. Luniel descended from above, wings spread in a dramatic glide. The unnecessarily flashy entrance only made my already boiling head burn hotter, but I held it in and asked,
“What the hell does ‘restriction’ mean here?”
“I will be honest with you. Hero Candidate Yoon Iseo has become far stronger than I anticipated. It seems to be the aftermath of unlocking aura utilization, but you have still exceeded every parameter I had prepared.”
“And that’s a problem?”
It was fine that I was strong. That was the result of my own effort. There was no reason I should be punished for it.
“I used the word ‘restriction,’ but it is not the kind of restriction you are imagining.”
“Then what is it?”
“Do you happen to know how many people are still alive in the second tutorial right now?”
“Out of nowhere? I’d guess around twenty-three or twenty-four?”
I’d caught glimpses of that many while moving around. The group of dropouts I’d been with earlier numbered about ten, and the surviving group seemed roughly the same size.
“The current number of survivors in the second tutorial is thirty-two.”
“Thirty-two?”
“Yes. Far more people than you thought are hiding and surviving.”
It was more than I’d expected. Out of forty-eight total participants, that meant only about sixteen had died. And most of those had probably died during the first invasion, which meant almost no one had died since. Not bad.
“So what? The more survivors the better, right?”
“It is not good. What do you think the purpose of the tutorial is? We are searching for heroes who will desperately survive in Aeteria and defeat the Demon King. We are not looking for people who hide indoors and only run away.”
“Hmm…”
She had a point. But still.
“Then drag them out or eliminate them. Why put a restriction on me?”
“Unfortunately, the rules prevent me from directly inflicting physical harm inside the tutorial space, so this was the only solution…”
“You really put a lot of effort into that bullshit excuse.”
“I apologize.”
I roughly understood the situation now. The second tutorial had essentially become my personal playground. I killed goblins, earned points, and the people greedy for points would swarm in to mop up whatever was left. A literal playground. They didn’t like how things were going, so they wanted to change the rules.
“I did not expect it to come to this. I am sorry.”
“Am I the first person this has happened to?”
“I have heard of it happening a few times under other angels’ management, but this is the first time since I took over. It seems there was an error in my calculations.”
She drooped her wings and lowered her head. It was a little pitiful. But pity wouldn’t get me anywhere. This was exactly the kind of burning-time moment where I needed to squeeze out every possible advantage.
“So what exactly is the restriction on me?”
“It is nothing complicated. Starting now, Hero Candidate Yoon Iseo will be excluded from the second tutorial. The remaining participants will defend against the 5th invasion on their own.”
“Then what am I supposed to do? Are you opening a new tutorial for me?”
“… You will wait here.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
If I was taken out of the invasion, the points I would lose were enormous. And she wanted me to just sit here and do nothing?
I took a deep breath. Calm down. The fact that she had brought me all the way here to explain meant she probably intended to compensate me somehow. I decided to believe that.
“You’re giving me the points back, right?”
“I am sorry. Points fall under the domain of possibility. I cannot provide them.”
“What the… So you really want me to just sit here and do nothing?”
“That is correct.”
“Fuck! Do you actually think that makes any sense?”
The fact that I was even trying to understand this ridiculous situation was already me being considerate. And logically speaking, it was far more beneficial for someone like me—who had shown far greater potential as a Hero Candidate—to slaughter all the goblins and take every point rather than letting those worthless scraps have them.
But I couldn’t even get the points and she wanted me to sit still? Unless this angel bitch had taken a blow to the head and gone insane, this was complete nonsense.
“Hero Candidate Yoon Iseo. I would ask you to watch your language.”
“Fuck, maybe if the situation was normal I’d use nicer words.”
“If you use profanity one more time…”
“Fuck, what are you gonna do? You can’t hit me in here—”
KWAAAAAANG!
In the blink of an eye, a ray of light exploded from Luniel’s palm and completely obliterated one entire wall of the waiting room. It didn’t just break it. One whole section of the wall simply vanished, leaving not even debris behind.
The impossible sight left me speechless. I stared blankly at the pitch-black void where the wall had been.
“It seems my memory failed me amid too much conversation. Hero Candidate Yoon Iseo. The rule is that I cannot use physical force inside the tutorial space. It does not apply to the waiting room.”
“I will try to speak as politely as possible.”
“Just refrain from swearing. I am also aware that the current situation is not normal. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.”
Asking questions in this atmosphere? After showing off that level of destructive power by smashing a wall to pieces, she casually invited me to ask questions. Very angelic of her.
“With that kind of power, couldn’t you angels just go beat the Demon King yourselves?”
“If we join the fight directly, beings similar to us on their side will also intervene. That is why we only provide rear support like this.”
She said it was only rear support, but what I heard was: ‘By the time you humans finish off the Demon King, we’ll have to fight too and the power inflation will be insane.’
I might have been reading too much into it. But that was how it sounded. If the Demon King was on the verge of death, there was no way similar beings wouldn’t step in to help. My head was already pounding like crazy.
I hadn’t wanted to fight the Demon King much to begin with. After hearing this, I wanted to even less. Whether I would even survive long enough to face him was questionable anyway.
Anyway.
“I have a suggestion instead of a question.”
“What is it?”
“Can’t I just go back in there, kill everyone, and take all the points? Honestly, it would be better for me to get the points than those useless people, right?”
If Luniel couldn’t use physical force, then I could. I had never killed a person before, but I was pretty sure I could if I tried.
“That is not possible. It goes against the purpose the second tutorial is meant to achieve.”
“…What a pain in the ass.”
Well, I supposed that made sense. This was a place meant to select Hero Candidates. They weren’t going to allow someone to openly declare they would kill other people. There was a difference between naturally occurring conflict inside the tutorial and conspiring with an angel to wipe everyone out.
At least from the angels’ perspective. From my perspective, it was still frustrating as hell. They were nitpicking every little thing while trying to kill one Demon King. No wonder they kept sending in dozens or hundreds of Hero Candidates and still couldn’t win. That was exactly why it was a dark fantasy.
After talking for a while, I started to get a rough picture of how things worked in Aeteria. Incompetent angels who refused to intervene directly in the human world, only sending Hero Candidates from the back. Too many enemies, humans who couldn’t unite, internal fighting, people dying left and right, and because living was so hard they turned to plunder, rape, and every other kind of atrocity. That was the picture forming in my head.
‘Well, the truth will only be known once I go there myself.’
It didn’t seem like my expectations would be far off. If they were, they would have already cut the Demon King’s throat and restored peace instead of continuing to gather Hero Candidates.
“So basically, anything other than waiting here is not allowed.”
“Correct.”
“Still, I need at least some compensation. That’s only fair.”
“…It is.”
“Tell me what you can give me.”
Either way, I had suffered a loss. I needed to get something in return. Honestly, if it had been any other angel, I probably would have received no compensation and been forcibly locked in the waiting room. But with Luniel, I felt like I could get something.
‘She seems more clumsy than her first impression suggested.’
If she could use force in the waiting room from the beginning, she could have just threatened me right away. The fact that she had come this far and kept offering explanations meant she wasn’t used to handling situations like this. If I played my cards right, I might be able to squeeze quite a bit out of her.
“To be honest, there is nothing I can give you under my authority.”
“Don’t you manage both the points and the shop?”
“Those have fixed quantities. I cannot give them out as I please.”
“You’re even more of a low-level employee than I thought?”
At the word “low-level,” Luniel’s eyebrows twitched upward for a moment before settling back down. It seemed I had touched a nerve, but that wasn’t important. If she really was low-level, there wasn’t much she could do for me anyway.
‘So it comes down to that one thing after all?’
I slowly looked Luniel up and down, from head to toe. Golden hair, pure white eyes. A Western-style figure and a beauty so stunning it would make anyone’s eyes widen. There was only one thing a man could ask of a beauty like her.
“How about paying with your body?”
“Are you asking me to have sexual intercourse with you?”
The murderous glare she shot me made me flinch. It was clearly a look of rejection. For a second I wondered if I should laugh it off as a joke, but I had already thrown the dice. I decided to brazen it out.
“Right now, is there anything else you can actually give me?”
“…”
I had expected immediate refusal, but Luniel frowned deeply and fell into thought. I kept my mouth shut, afraid that saying anything more might backfire. After a long silence, her tightly closed lips finally parted.
“Then…”