Is This Some Kind of Hallucination?

Am I seeing things now?

I rubbed my eyes for a moment and checked the words that floated back into view.

They were exactly the same.

“Holy fucking—!”

The curse burst out of me before I could stop it.

Chosen as a climber?

Out of that microscopic chance?

Why the hell me?!

Climber. In ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠other words, a Hunter.

They were admired, they made obscene amounts of money, and they were also one of the most brutally dangerous jobs in existence.

The tutorial survival rate was 85 percent.

Among Hunters who cleared it, the five-year survival rate was 63 percent.

Sure, I’d heard the odds had improved thanks to safer hunting grounds being secured and a ton of guides being developed through trial and error.

And yet it was still a profession where nobody knew when they might die.

And of all people, I’d become a Hunter.

First, call Noona.

Rrrr. Rrrr.

The line rang. She didn’t answer.

She must really be busy.

I’d wanted to leave at least one last goodbye in case I died, but even that seemed impossible.

With no time to waste, I fired off a text and immediately logged into Hunter Gallery.

There should’ve been a tutorial guide in the Heon-Gal notices.

These days it was mostly a place where people trashed Hunters, but back in the Tower’s early days, the real Hunters had actually hung out on Hunter Gallery.

Thanks to that, I remembered there used to be all sorts of info posts in the old notices, including tutorial walkthroughs.

Found it.

After digging through the old notices, I managed to find the tutorial guide without much trouble.

I read it as fast as I could.

Survival rate is estimated in the low one-percent range... it’s rough, but hang in there...

Really, if you’re the kind of person who gets Hard, you shouldn’t be trusting some guide post like this anyway. Trust your own instincts and abilities.

I’ve heard Kim Taeseok and Choi Yejin, who both cleared Hard, used a greatsword and a bow respectively.

Look that up yourself.

Still, they’re both pretty distinctive, so I’m not sure how much that’ll help.

Anyway, I hope you get through the tutorial safely.

Apparently the odds are 90 percent for Easy, 9 percent for Normal, and only 1 percent for Hard.

So don’t worry too much about getting Hard.

Let’s both survive and meet again!

“Easy, Normal, Hard... Sword and shield as the weapon...”

I skimmed through the post and comments, shoving every detail into my head.

It was all stuff I already knew, but better safe than sorry.

Thankfully, there was nothing new I needed to learn.

Then again, the government had been shoving tutorial information down everyone’s throat nonstop, so it made sense I wouldn’t have forgotten any of it.

I shouldn’t have forgotten any of it.

I glanced over.

While I’d been searching the guide, less than ten seconds had remained before I knew it.

I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my hands together in prayer.

“Please let it be Easy, please let it be Easy, please let it be Easy...!”

Please, let me draw Easy difficulty!

A weak, cowardly guy like me had no chance of clearing Normal or Hard.

My only path to survival was Easy.

So I prayed with all my heart.

Flash!

With a burst of light, I was transferred into the Tower.

* * *

Blink.

I opened my eyes and looked around.

It was exactly as every form of media had always described it.

A dim underground space.

Scattered lights embedded in the walls cast a faint glow over everything, and damp, metallic air brushed against my skin.

When I looked down at my body, sure enough, I was naked.

Apparently, since the Tower only allows items made from materials found in the Tower itself, most people begin the tutorial naked.

As planned, I was given ten minutes of preparation time.

In those ten minutes, I had to pick a weapon and steady both my body and my mind.

-Huff! Huff! Huff!

I took deep, forceful breaths and tried to drag my racing heart back under control.

Cold sweat soaked my back, and a creepy chill crawled up my spine.

I clenched my teeth.

Difficulty. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Let’s check the difficulty first.

I glared ahead with my eyes wide open.

It’ll be Easy, right? I don’t have any potential or anything... of course it’ll be Easy.

The common belief was that tutorial difficulty was decided by a climber’s potential.

If you had no talent for fighting, you got Easy.

If you had some talent, you got Normal.

If you were a monster of talent, you got Hard.

I’d always been a frail kid, and I’d never shown any particular talent in sports.

So I figured I’d been assigned Easy difficulty.

That was my expectation.

-Step. Step.

Footsteps sounded from beyond the darkness.

I swallowed hard and stared at the faint silhouette emerging in front of me.

First... it was bigger than I’d expected.

I’d heard ordinary goblins were only about the size of a young elementary school kid.

Why is it about my height?

Its ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠eye level matched mine.

And then there was the sword in its hand.

Not a dagger. A greatsword.

On top of that, there were bulging muscles, corded veins, and armor made of leather.

It was certain.

“A goblin warrior?! Hard? What the hell, why am I on Hard difficulty...!”

A goblin warrior had appeared as my tutorial opponent.

I’d been assigned the Hard difficulty—the rarest, hardest one.

I can’t beat that. There’s no way I can beat that. How am I supposed to deal with a monster like that?

I was twenty-seven years old and had never once gotten into a real fight in my life.

I had no meaningful athletic background either.

I was timid, cowardly, the kind of guy who flinched at everything.

There was no way I could beat that muscle-bound freak.

And the enemy I had to deal with wasn’t just the goblin warrior.

-Keruk. Keruk.

Plod, plod.

Following behind the goblin warrior was another figure, its footsteps light.

It was short.

About the height of a young elementary school kid, built like a normal goblin.

But its outfit was different.

It wore a sagging leather cloak over its head.

A necklace made of beast teeth or something hung around its neck, and filthy tattoos were scrawled all over its body.

It also held a crude wooden staff in its right hand.

For a goblin, that was a grotesque-looking getup and equipment.

I knew exactly what that thing was.

A goblin shaman...!

A goblin shaman had appeared.

It was so unbelievable I could hardly accept it.

A goblin warrior and a shaman too? That’s impossible. The tutorial was supposed to end with the goblin warrior, wasn’t it?!

Three tutorial difficulties: Easy, Normal, and Hard.

There was no difficulty that included a goblin shaman.

Which made sense.

A goblin warrior, which showed up starting at Floor 5 of the Tower, was already a brutally nasty enemy.

So a goblin shaman, which appeared from Floor 10 onward, might as well be the game saying, “Go ahead and die.”

And yet, somehow.

In front of me now was not only a goblin warrior, but a shaman too.

Wait—was Hard not the end of tutorial difficulty?

Then what the hell were you supposed to call this?

Extreme? Lunatic? Hell?

Whatever it was, this was the definition of an extreme, insane, hellish situation.

Was I the first person to ever see a goblin shaman in the tutorial?

Or had there simply never been a survivor to tell anyone about it?

I didn’t know.

But one thing was certain.

“...I’m going to die here.”

I had no chance.

There was absolutely no way I could walk out alive.

Utterly numb, I stared blankly at the monsters beyond the barrier.

-Keruk. Keruk. Kek!

-Kekekekek...!

They must have realized I’d lost all will to fight, because the goblin warrior and shaman started cackling and mocking me outright.

-Thud! Thud!

The goblin warrior came up and began pounding on the barrier.

Its hideous face twisted into a sadistic smile.

Its yellow eyes were full of murderous intent, as if it were already picturing me being hacked to pieces the moment the barrier vanished.

-Keruk. Kuruk. Karuk...

Behind the goblin warrior, the goblin shaman made a show of preparing its spell.

As it muttered something, the blue dots in the air began to ripple.

Before long, they gathered at the tip of the staff and drew some eerie, bizarre pattern.

-Whoosh.

A fireball rose at the end of the shaman’s staff.

On the surface it was nothing more than a fist-sized lump of flame.

But supposedly it was a spell that would explode violently on impact.

The second the barrier came down, that fireball would come flying at me and blow me apart in an instant.

“...”

My hands were shaking.

No, it wasn’t just my hands. My whole body was trembling.

I was so scared I felt like I might go insane.

My heart hammered wildly, cold sweat streamed down without stopping, and my eyes wavered so badly I couldn’t focus on anything.

I checked the remaining time.

Had I been spacing out too long?

Another three minutes had already vanished without a trace.

“W-Weapon... I have to grab a weapon first. Sword and shield...”

Forcing my trembling body to move, I looked at the floor.

At my feet was a messy heap of all kinds of weapons.

Common ones like greatswords, spears, and bows.

And rarer ones like nunchaku, clubs, and maces.

I had to find a shield and a one-handed sword in that absurd pile of weapons.

That was the most standard combination, after all.

I reached out and started digging through the heap.

“A shield... where is it... I can’t see it...”

My vision blurred.

My eyes had filled with tears.

Wiping at my face as I searched, I kept rummaging through the weapons.

As my hands moved mechanically through the pile, faces began flashing through my mind.

Mom, Dad, Noona... I think I’m really going to die here. I’m sorry.

My mother, who had passed away when I was little.

My father, who died in the chaos at the Tower’s beginning.

My noona, who had spent so long suffering to take care of her useless younger brother and pay off our debts...

Ah.

I don’t want to die.

“Fuck! Shield! Where the hell is the shield!”

I tore through the weapon heap and screamed at the top of my lungs.

It was my own desperate way of shaking off the fear.

-Keruk! Kekekekek!

-Karururuk!

The goblins were no longer just laughing at me; they were outright howling with laughter now.

I didn’t bother looking their way.

If our eyes met, I felt like my body would lock up all over again.

Facing a living monster was more terrifying than I’d ever imagined.

And those things weren’t even ordinary goblins—they were elite types, a warrior and a shaman.

It felt like they were on an entirely different plane of existence, and my very soul was shrinking back from them.

Ignoring them with all my might, I kept ripping through the weapon pile.

I found a battered, filthy wooden shield.

I slipped it onto my left forearm.

Now it was time to find the one-handed sword.

Was it because I was so tense my vision had narrowed?

Or because the dim environment made everything look like the same gray hunk of metal?

I couldn’t spot the one-handed sword anywhere.

Three minutes left. Panic tightened its grip on my chest.

I dug through the weapon pile even faster.

I’d heard there were only a few dozen weapons in the tutorial, at most.

And yet there had to be at least a few hundred in front of me.

Had only I been spawned with extra weapons?

Or was this all because of this godforsaken difficulty?

Fuck.

Forget this junk. Just give me a one-handed sword.

There was no time.

The one-handed sword was nowhere to be seen, so I’d have to grab something right now.

I picked up the first thing my hand touched.

A staff?

What I grabbed was a staff of some kind.

A wooden shaft about up to my sternum, with a tiny crystal set into the tip.

An old, shabby wooden staff.

No matter what, this is not it. It needs to be something with a blade.

Without even thinking about it, I was about to throw the staff away.

There were metal weapons all over the place; there was no reason to swing a stick around.

But right then—

-Bzzzz...

I saw the crystal at the tip of the staff begin to glow blue.

And then...

Blue dots.

The blue dots that had been dissolved into the air.

Those mysterious particles that only I had ever been able to see.

All at once, they began streaming toward the tip of the staff.

“Huh?”

-Keruk?

-Kek...?

My confusion and the goblins’ confusion rang out at the same time.