Tutorial - Floor 1

A pack of six goblins came charging at me.

Kieeee!

Were they trying to snuff me out the same way they had that man before? It seemed they meant to crush any will to resist from the very start.

Fair enough. As I'd said, our side should have held the advantage in raw strength. They were simply too terrified to use it.

Honestly, I'd seen maybe ten people so far, and aside from Na-yeon—whom I'd recognized ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at a glance—it was obvious why none of the others existed in my memories of the previous cycle. They had nothing that stood out. They just panicked and ran. Some couldn't even put up a real fight. There were even people who'd died without ever managing to summon a weapon.

Thud!

I charged to meet the goblins head-on, swinging my mace. They looked ready to surround me, so I decided to take the fight to them. If they boxed me in, my current physical stats wouldn't let me come out unscathed. With no means of recovery, a serious wound would throw my entire plan off track. The goblins were armed with daggers, and even their claws carried a mild toxin. I had to be careful.

Kiek!

While I crushed one goblin's skull, another slipped into the opening.

Easy.

Even if my body had plummeted in capability, experience didn't just vanish. I spun lightly and swung the mace in a wide arc.

Whoosh—crack!

Gruk.

Goblins stood about waist-high on me, which put their heads at a conveniently smashable height. Almost too easy. I dispatched two of them so naturally that the remaining goblins started to lose their nerve. But they were monsters. Even the lowest-grade ones thrashed until the bitter end.

Kieeeee!

A goblin came charging with a dagger clutched in both hands. I calculated its speed as it closed in and raised my mace.

Crunch—clang!

Gueeeek!

I timed it perfectly, batting the thrusting dagger ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠aside with the mace. The goblin's hand shattered, and it howled. I smashed its skull and put it out of its misery, then immediately lunged at the next one, dropping them one after another.

"Uh... uhh..."

"...Whoa."

Before I knew it, even the humans who'd been fleeing—and the other goblins chasing them—were staring at me. Watching me slaughter goblins without the slightest difficulty, people forgot the cruelty of it and stood there in open admiration. A human, killing the monsters that had been killing them.

After finishing off all six goblins, I shouted toward the crowd.

"Everyone, summon your weapons and stick together! Just hold out and I'll come help you!"

At my shout, people began summoning their weapons one by one. Those who already had weapons in hand and were fighting goblins started to catch on. Any reasonably built adult man could handle one or two goblins without much trouble.

"S-shit! Th-these bastards really aren't anything special!"

"D-die! Dieee!"

Seeing how easily the goblins could be dealt with, the others finally started charging in. They'd realized they couldn't run. Either they died here, or they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fought. Those were the only two choices left. Of course, far more people still just summoned their weapons, huddled together, and kept the goblins at bay without actually fighting—just as I'd told them to.

Good.

The whole reason I'd told them to take up arms was so they'd keep the goblins occupied without killing too many of them. I was quietly satisfied. My goal for this first stage was to kill twenty or more goblins by myself. I needed people to kill as few as possible.

As the humans' morale flipped, the goblins started to sense something was off and began clustering together. I wasn't about to let that happen. If they bunched up, I had no confidence I could kill twenty-plus goblins on my own. I'd already cleaned out every goblin around me. Na-yeon, whom I'd decided to stick with for a while, wasn't in any danger, so I moved fast, determined to kill even one more.

I immediately charged a goblin that was attacking someone who hadn't even managed to draw a weapon yet.

Ki-kieee!

The goblin tried to flee the moment I came at it, terror written all over its face, but the height difference meant I was far faster.

Crunch!

Grrrk.

One hit, one kill.

I rapidly cleaned up the goblins trying to group together, and the other people, drawing courage from the sight of me, started taking down goblins of their own.

Kieeeee!

"Die! Die!"

"D-don't come any closer! I'll kill you if you do!"

Before long, the area had descended into complete chaos. People who'd formed groups drifted closer together, swelling in numbers, and the goblins steered clear of them. On the flip side, some clustered up specifically to go on the offensive. They were cheap about it—hunting isolated goblins in twos and threes, clearly valuing their own lives—but even that was a massive improvement.

Personally, I'd have preferred they just sat tight.

While they picked off stragglers or huddled with other humans, I charged fearlessly at packs of four or five. Goblins that had gone toe-to-toe with me a couple of times started scattering or fleeing the moment I approached, and I was able to massacre them at my leisure. Fight after fight. My body was tired, but I knew what reward waited at the end, so I engaged the goblins as efficiently as I could.

Kie, kieeee...

Before long, the goblin numbers had plummeted, and victory belonged to the humans.

"W-wooooah!"

When I killed the last goblin, a cheer erupted from the crowd. Listening to their cheers, I felt something I hadn't in a long time. When was the last time anyone had cheered for me like that...

Heh.

A small laugh escaped me at the realization that some petty emotion still lingered. I walked over to Na-yeon.

"Are you all right?"

"Ah... yes. Thank you for protecting me. I... I survived because of you."

Na-yeon offered the words with a bloodless face.

"Don't mention it. We should help each other when we ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠can."

Na-yeon. A righteous personality... and she was a mage.

In the previous tutorial, she'd thrown fireballs. Probably Fireball. She couldn't do that yet, but mages were rare enough that I needed to treat her reasonably well. Groundwork, you could call it. Whether we'd stay together long-term would depend on her skill slots and the stats on her status window.

A little time after the last goblin fell, a message window appeared.

I looked around. Twenty-five survivors. Five people had died in that short span. A few more had wounds here and there.

Last time, seven had survived, hadn't they? And only a couple of those had been uninjured. People had only risen up after about half the humans were dead, and they'd barely scraped through a bloody melee.

Someone doubled over and retched.

"Hic... ugh, I wanna go home..."

"Fuck. Fuuuck."

At the clear message, people started collapsing where they stood, one after another. Na-yeon's face was still pale. The psychological shock seemed to have hit everyone hard. Some vomited on the spot. Some wailed. Some just muttered curses under their breath.

After a little more time had passed, someone muttered.

"What do we do now...?"

That was when the goblin corpses started to glow.

"Wh-what...?!"

People panicked, but fortunately nothing bad happened. The goblin corpses dissolved into particles and vanished, and in the spots where they'd lain, thin rectangular slips of paper dropped one by one. Just like killing a monster and having it drop an item. Proof that they were illusions.

There they are.

I examined the tickets glowing blue in my vision. Twenty-two. The number of goblins I'd killed. All that frantic overexertion had paid off.

...What?

Among the bewildered crowd, one quick-witted person immediately lunged for a ticket on the ground. He didn't get what he wanted.

Zap.

"Ugh?!"

A holographic message appeared above the ticket. The person who'd reached for it recoiled, startled.

I smirked.

I headed straight for the tickets. Given enough time they'd either vanish or the ownership would be stripped. There was plenty of time, but better to grab them fast. When I picked up a ticket, the man who'd been shoved back stared at me with wide eyes. Then he immediately lunged for a different ticket. The others, watching him, did the same. But only a handful succeeded.

"What the hell is this! Why—why can't I take it?!"

"I fought too!"

A few people besides me seemed to have figured out what the blue glow meant and picked up tickets, but they were few. After collecting all twenty-two tickets, I examined one.

I used a ticket immediately.

Five pieces of armor plus a shield. Six pieces total. Six tickets would get you a full set. But even the names looked flimsy. I hadn't gone after twenty-plus tickets for this garbage.

I used another ticket without selecting anything, and the list expanded.

Heh.

I kept using tickets, and the armor quality steadily improved. From thick goblin leather to thin Hobgoblin leather, from thin Hobgoblin to thick Hobgoblin leather, then past gnoll hide all the way to iron Kingdom Soldier armor—but I ignored it all and kept using tickets. Even after that, using more tickets didn't produce anything better than the seven-ticket Kingdom Soldier armor, but I kept going anyway. Finally, at fifteen tickets—the number you'd only get by killing half of all the summoned goblins—every listing vanished and a single option appeared.

A Hidden Piece. One of the best sets of armor you could obtain this early, available only if your contribution exceeded half.

But if I used five more...

The leather got thicker. The item grade was still Normal, but the defense was on par with Rare. Despite being leather, it outperformed most steel armor. And it was far lighter. At this point, with my physical stats in the gutter, that light weight was incredibly important.

If I'd gotten all thirty tickets by myself...

I would've eaten a Rare armor set.

A little disappointing, honestly, but it couldn't be helped. With blood pumping through everyone's heads from the fight, there was no way the others would just sit and watch, and this was the limit of my current physical ability. Still, for the tutorial, it was a more than satisfying result.

Just as I was about to smile and select the Adventurer's Thick Leather Armor Set—

Someone called out to me.