Of Course, the Intermediate Tutorial
Of course he accepted the Intermediate Tutorial.
It would hardly be an exaggeration to say he had come all this way for precisely that.
Krrrk. Krk.
As if to herald the tutorial's beginning, the ground beneath his feet began to change shape. More precisely, space itself changed. He stood in a land of flowing lava, where pillars of fire heaved up and sank again all around him. The sky had been dyed a raw crimson, and the whole scene felt like the world a breath before its end. The heat was fierce enough to sear him to the bone. Even drawing breath was a labor.
"Huff... hah."
"Hm? Whatever is the matter, Master?"
Paranet, undead as he was, looked entirely unbothered. The undead really did have their advantages.
Before the players of the present age, there was the Primordial Player.
A hologram window appeared before his eyes out of nowhere, and the contents were utterly out of place with the situation he was standing in. While Yujun stared in bewilderment, the messages kept coming.
The Primordial Player, who split the seas, overturned the earth, and soared freely through the skies, received the worship of all.
An unfamiliar tale. In five years of playing the game called War of the Gods, he had never once seen the words Primordial Player. He strained to carve the message floating before him into his memory.
That the invasions of other races were safely repelled was in large part the Primordial Player's doing. Thereafter, people began to treat the Primordial Player not merely as a hero, but as something akin to a god.
A god?
Did it have something to do with the game being called War of the Gods? He couldn't tell. Not yet.
But humanity's enemies were not the other races alone. The Demon God Worshippers. That host, drawn from many species, wielded a power humanity could not possibly withstand. And so the Primordial Player made a decision.
Now they were coming to the point. Yujun opened his eyes wide and fixed them on the window.
He bestowed the abilities of a player upon certain individuals of exceptional potential. Those abilities were nothing beside what the Primordial Player himself possessed, yet even that much became a great strength for humanity.
Time passed. The letters scattered, and another hologram window appeared.
In the end, humanity joined forces with the other races, halted the Demon God's Invasion, and reclaimed peace.
The message ended there. Nothing appeared after it.
The Demon God's Invasion? Don't tell me this is about the future. No. Players exist right now, so what I just heard is far more likely to be the past.
Judging by the story alone, this didn't seem to be merely the setting of War of the Gods. Even he, a hardened veteran, had never heard a word of it. The world of War of the Gods had never been like this. The original premise was simpler: the gods squabbled over their interests until the land was divided, and players, little more than proxies, fought in the gods' stead.
A great deal has changed from what I knew.
And yet a great deal had not. The content within the Tower of Infinity, especially. The Ancient Ruins alone were proof of that.
Would other players know about this Primordial Player business?
Probably not. Which meant the odds were very high that he alone held this information.
Then why did the System suddenly decide to explain this history to me?
Could the Primordial Player be connected to the Intermediate Tutorial? The thought had barely formed when the next window appeared.
Survive
📍 Zone: Zone 1
⏳ Condition: Survive for 48 hours
Befitting a second tutorial, it had set him a task.
It's already started?
The Intermediate Tutorial didn't seem to offer a separate difficulty setting. The difficulty was simply fixed, and judging by the environment alone, it would not be easy.
Well... this is a place you can reach only by clearing Hell Difficulty. It was never going to be easy.
And it had told him, without preamble, to survive. Just standing here was already a struggle. He had forced himself to focus on the hologram because the contents mattered, but honestly, his body was in rough shape. Not knowing when or where a pillar of fire might erupt only made it worse. He had no intention of simply enduring heat fierce enough to melt him where he stood.
Yujun opened his all-purpose problem-solver: his inventory.
It ought to be around here somewhere...
He kept consumables relatively close at hand, so he found it quickly.
Cooling Flask.
Drink the liquid inside, and for a while it would block every bit of heat that touched his body. Entering a glacial zone or a lava field always slapped severe penalties onto a character, so it was a consumable he never went without. The items that did the opposite were the Seed of Fire and the Essence of Fire.
If my level were only higher, I could slap on a single piece of gear and be done with it.
A low level was to blame for all of it. Yujun popped the Cooling Flask's cap and gulped down the liquid inside. He had been told to survive for two days, so he drank every drop. That much ought to last at least a week.
"Master. Are you quite all right?"
Paranet asked. As before, the fellow was perfectly fine.
"Yeah. I'm fine now."
"What a relief."
Fwoosh!
A pillar of fire erupted right beside him. Fortunately, it only grazed past. Yujun, whose heart had gone cold, let out a breath of relief.
Drinking a Cooling Flask doesn't mean I'd walk away fine from taking a pillar head-on.
Direct contact would barely be blunted at all. Which meant he would have to keep moving, and keep dodging.
No sleep for two days, then.
He had already been awake for a very long time. The one mercy was that he was not an ordinary human, but a player. Going a few days without sleep was something he could manage.
This place... is definitely beyond even the Hell Difficulty tutorial.
Two days of staying alive here. Was there a human who could take one of those pillars and remain intact? Player or not, touch that heat and your whole body would simply melt.
"M-Master!"
Paranet, following behind, cried out all at once.
"What?"
"I have discerned it!"
"Discerned what?"
"Where those flames appear!"
"The fire pillars?"
"Yes, yes!"
"And where is that?"
"The tremors."
"..."
"P-please do not look at me so... Listen. I realized it only just now. Every place a pillar rises, without exception, I felt a faint tremor."
"Hmm."
There was sense in that. A pillar of fire would not erupt with no warning at all. The trouble was that tremors came from every direction, and telling them apart was no small feat.
"Where do you think the next one will be?"
"Over there."
The instant Paranet pointed, a pillar roared up in a rush of flame.
"..."
"I was right, was I not?"
Paranet said, immensely pleased with himself. Yujun looked at him again.
"How did you figure it out?"
"It simply... came to me?"
"Did it?"
Was it Paranet's traits? Evasion and Survival Instinct. Both were of remarkably high grade. Pinpointing pillars hot enough to burn a body down to slag in an instant was hardly beyond them.
"Impressive."
"Ahem."
Paranet's shoulders twitched. It had been a long time since anyone praised him, and he was delighted.
"Then you'll have to keep telling me where the pillars are going to appear."
"...Keep telling you?"
"Why?"
"I, too, require rest."
"I can't rest either, so how are you going to? And you don't even need rest. You're undead."
"Ah."
Paranet, who had faltered for a moment, declared with hearty confidence.
"Then leave your back to me, and sleep at once."
"Are you insane? How am I supposed to sleep here?"
Even with the Cooling Flask, he did not have the nerve to drift off peacefully in a lava field. In the end, Yujun spent half a day wandering Zone 1 and learning the lay of the land.
Filthy huge.
The result was the realization that the lava field was too vast to memorize.
Is this their way of telling me not to even think about leaving Zone 1?
He hadn't planned on moving to the next zone anyway. He would have to complete the objective he'd been given if he wanted the Intermediate Tutorial's reward.
Then—
"Glrrk. Grlk."
What he had taken for a burning tree lurched violently and came toward them.
A monster?
It looked like a cactus with legs, and a sizable one. He had never seen it in War of the Gods. Which meant it probably existed only in the Intermediate Tutorial. Yujun drew his sword. Paranet dropped into a combat stance as well.
"Hyaaap!"
Paranet moved first. He leapt to a tremendous height, seized the hilt in both hands, and brought the sword down with everything he had.
Kwoong!
The burning monster split cleanly in two.
Yujun, who had been watching from behind, gained a level.
Oh. Does the Intermediate Tutorial raise your level on the spot?
A single kill, and he had leveled. The thing had clearly been quite high-level. And yet it had died to one blow from Paranet. Equipping him had been worth it.
"Something of this caliber is trifling."
Yujun nodded at Paranet's words.
If monsters show up as well...
It was as good as being handed a chance to grow even faster. He wanted to reach level 100 as soon as he could.
With experience like this, I might hit 100 before I even clear the tutorial.
From then on, Yujun hunted the monsters he encountered and kept raising his level. His only complaint was how hard they were to find.
Well, at least they give a lot of experience.
Paranet reported the locations of the fire pillars constantly. Yujun had told him not to join the fighting at all—only to keep him informed of where the pillars would rise.
"To the right! Have a care!"
"Okay."
Paranet warned him, and Yujun threw himself sharply to the left. Thanks to that help, not a single pillar ever struck him. And so it went, until he reached level 93.
I'm starting to wear out.
Yujun let out a rough breath. He had no idea how much time had passed. The watch on his wrist wasn't working. In heat like this, it would have been stranger if the watch were fine. Only Paranet was in unusually good shape.
"I believe we have slain every monster in the vicinity. Shall we search further?"
"No. Let's rest a little."
"Mm. Very well."
A great deal of time seemed to have passed. Was it still not over? Yujun frowned. He was nearing his limit.
Should I put stat points into Constitution?
Unallocated stats piled up from leveling had reached thirty-six. He was just about to open his status window when the message he had been waiting for appeared.
48 hours have elapsed.
You have cleared Zone 1.
The location will now change.
A tedious, miserable forty-eight hours. The space he stood in changed.
"Waaaaah!"
"Waaah!"
"Kill them all!"
"The stench of human blood! It's driving me mad!"
Every kind of shout hammered his ears. Warped without warning, Yujun collided with something and tumbled across the ground. Strangely, he didn't feel any great pain.
Wh-what?
Flustered, he stayed low and looked around. Demonkin rode enormous black elephants.
Those are demonkin, right?
Going by appearance alone, there was no doubt. They were carrying out a slaughter against humans.
What is this, all of a sudden?
A glance to the side showed that Paranet had dropped flat as well, following his lead. Their eyes met.
"..."
"..."
Repel the Worshippers
⚔ Objective: Join forces with the humans and the other races, and defeat the Demon God Worshippers.
Yujun's eyes went wide.
Demon God Worshippers?
A single objective had been given. Having read the message, his brow drew tight.
The scale just jumps like this?