What's Wrong With Being a Newbie? (3)
Clang-clang-clang-clang—.
The shrill peal of a bell jolted everyone awake. Half-asleep faces whipped left and right, scanning the dark. What the hell is it this time? Night still hung thick around them; the only light they had was a thin wash of moonlight.
"Move! All of you, move! This is an emergency. Get outside—now!"
Team 4's instructor was screaming herself hoarse, so the members scrambled into whatever outer clothes they could grab and bolted for the door. The only one who stayed calm was Kang-jun.
Still the same bastards who love screwing people over.
Already sitting comfortably on top of their little game, Kang-jun slung a roughly handmade satchel over his right shoulder and followed the others out.
It wasn't just Team 4. Every team stood on the training ground in the same half-dazed state. Aside from a rare few, every single person was empty-handed. The ones who weren't fell into one of two categories: they'd been tipped off in advance, or their instincts were filthy sharp.
Truth was, Kang-jun had charged out bare-handed just like them in his first playthrough. The whole team had been empty-handed that time, and they'd suffered for it until they nearly died. Three days was just barely survivable. A few more and dehydration might have finished them for real.
Under the moonlight, Team 4 huddled together, tossing around every theory that crossed their minds. One shared suspicion rose to the surface.
"This is it, right? The three-day survival thing. …Fuck. We're not leaving like this, are we?"
"Wouldn't put it past these assholes. …We got played. Hard."
"What do we do? We didn't grab anything."
Ugly possibilities flooded their heads. Then they saw the instructors and the drill sergeant clustered in discussion, and their faces went even paler.
"Ah, I think we really screwed up."
"Can't we go back and get our stuff?"
"You think that bitch would just let us? Feels like this was the plan all along."
"Fuck. No wonder yesterday felt off."
The instructors received their orders and scattered back to their teams. The one assigned to Team 4 returned wearing a nasty little smile.
"Alright. We're the 21st Zone. Move."
She cut every scrap of context and delivered it that bluntly. One of the male members spoke up, worried.
"Are we… going like this?"
"Obviously. We leave right now."
"We don't have any gear at all…"
"That's your problem."
Exactly the answer she'd expected. A collective sigh of regret and dread rolled through the group. She counted heads, then took the lead. Still unwashed and unfed after being dragged from sleep, their steps had no strength in them.
The Japanese woman who liked to suck on Kang-jun's things whenever she got bored sidled up beside him and whispered,
"Oppa, how did you know?"
"Just… instincts."
"Still, thank god. At least you packed something."
All nine of them, excluding Kang-jun, were eyeing that bag with the quiet hope of even a single bite. Better that one person had brought something than none. Of course, the instructor looked less than pleased about it. Her plan to dump them into pure hell empty-handed had gone a little sideways.
Wasn't much to pack anyway. Nowhere near enough to split ten ways…
There had never been much surplus to begin with. Two small water bottles, two simple snacks, and one rag of a spare shirt—that was everything inside the bag. Not enough for ten people. Barely enough for one person to last three days.
Under that cloud of worry, they kept walking. The Training Center had already vanished from sight for good. Dense forest closed in on every side. This wasn't even a proper path. Sheer cliffs dropped away right beside them more than once. The team members might have stepped outside the bounds of ordinary humans, but they still lacked the skill to survive a fall from that height. Best-case scenario: crippled for life.
Even the faint presence of the other teams faded soon enough. Wind hissed through the leaves, a sound like rain. They walked for what felt like forever, and still the instructor showed no sign of stopping. The 21st Zone was a long way out.
"From here on, stay sharp. One wrong move and you actually die."
There was a tension in her voice that hadn't been there before. In truth, if the drill sergeant came along, no one would die—but sending them out with only an instructor made the intent obvious.
Go ahead and die for real. That's the point.
They meant to shove them into the absolute extreme. Casualties along the way were acceptable. In a way, it was brutally effective. The difference between people who had watched someone die beside them and people who hadn't was night and day. In short, the program had gotten vicious.
The team members still hadn't fully grasped that. Soft edges still clung to them. To a worn-down instructor's eyes, that was intolerable. Maybe she was hoping one of them would drop.
The moon had long since tilted low. White began to bleed slowly into the endless black. Dawn. Exhaustion still clung to the team; they kept yawning. They hadn't even properly started, and already they were brushing the limits of their stamina.
"Roughly from here—this is the 21st Zone."
After hours of nonstop walking, the place they arrived at was still just the middle of a forest. The only change was that the trees were taller and thicker.
"If we get lost, we won't even be able to go back…"
Someone muttered it, uneasy. He was right. Trees in every direction. Finding a Training Center dozens of kilometers away without the instructor looked impossible. All anyone remembered was climbing two mountains along the way.
"From this moment, you survive here for three days."
The instructor turned, hands clasped behind her back, and made the declaration. Faces went dead white.
"Use everything you learned over the past two weeks and stay alive for three days. Food, water, shelter—all of it is on you."
That much was doable. But she wasn't finished.
"Of course, there are monsters here too. Quite a few, actually. The forest is divided into thirty zones total. …You lot really drew the short straw. Past the 20th Zone, things start showing up that even I have trouble handling."
In other words: if you meet one, consider yourself dead. And she didn't sound like she'd lift a finger to help if one appeared.
With her personality, she'd just stand there and watch.
Kang-jun didn't particularly care. Whether the team lived or died, all that mattered was that he survived. This was only the tutorial. No reason to stake his life on a process that would be over in a blink. Do just enough, then leave—that was the ideal.
Team 4's instructor was a thorough laissez-faire type. She didn't interfere with anything the members did; she simply stood back and observed. Kang-jun considered that a blessing. Stuck listening to her chatter for three straight days and even he might have lost his mind.
No matter how far into the gutter he'd fallen—like a mangy dog kicked into the abyss—handling one instructor like her was nothing. Pure stats might put her slightly ahead, but a fight wasn't decided by numbers alone. Combat was a blend of experience, method, and instinct. Strip away the raw stats, and he crushed her in every other category.
Besides, Kang-jun's own stats weren't standing still. Two weeks of training had nudged several of them upward. Raising a single stat by even one point was normally a grind, but with the experience already stacked from previous runs, he knew how to grow fast. His goal was to hit his first Awakening within six months—half the time it had taken him in the third playthrough.
Kang-jun had focused first on Strength, Speed, and Stamina. With the bonuses factored in, every stat except Luck now sat at ten or higher. Enough to walk into a dungeon and at least avoid a stupid death. He hoped to push those three stats up another point each over the remaining two weeks, but he wasn't counting on it.
"So… what do we do now?"
The instructor had already stepped back with her arms crossed, offering nothing, and the team looked vaguely lost. One of the men started listing necessities, folding a finger for each.
"First—water and food. Then a place to sleep, weapons, and fire."
"Where do we get water?"
"There's got to be a river if we look around, right?"
"Even a stream would be great."
Once the conversation started flowing, the aimless milling settled into something more organized. They decided to split the work.
"Five jobs, perfect. Pair up—two each."
"Then I'm with Oppa!"
The Japanese woman latched onto Kang-jun like she'd been waiting for the chance. Ten people became five pairs. Next came the lottery for assignments. Someone pulled five small leaves and scratched numbers onto them with a fingernail.
"Alright. Draw."
Kang-jun closed his eyes and picked one. Number two. He and the Japanese woman were on food procurement.
"It's a forest, so there has to be something edible, right?"
She clung to that hope. Catch even one small animal and the worry would ease.
Of course, treating the wildlife of a monster-infested zone like the ordinary creatures back on Earth was a mistake. They were fast, cunning, and loaded with natural defenses—you couldn't just grab one and eat it. Kang-jun's solid Magic Power meant a little poison wouldn't kill him, but the others weren't so lucky.
Each pair agreed to scout the immediate area and move slowly. Going too deep was off the table. Get lost out here and there was no way back.
Hungry, the Japanese woman tried coaxing Kang-jun into letting her eat something—anything—from the bag.
"Not yet. Just take a sip of water."
He shut her down cold and handed over the bottle. She didn't push further and took it.
"But there's really nothing out here."
She was right. Nothing but trees. No fruit, not even anything resembling a berry. …Of course there wouldn't be. That kind of thing grew in fields, not the middle of a forest like this.
Only one real option left. Hunt animals. Or strip bark and dig for grubs.
"Ugh, I can't eat that."
A woman who had never even tasted a drop of her own urine recoiled at the mere mention of grubs. She still had room to be picky. A few days of real starvation and she'd be wolfing them down raw.
Kang-jun finished his sweep of the surroundings and returned to the original spot. Soon all five pairs reconvened. They clutched their empty stomachs and watched the dawn brighten.
"We move again. If we don't find food soon, we won't last."
Each pair agreed to mark the trees as they went—a crude way to keep from getting lost. It worked well enough.
Before long, Kang-jun caught a field mouse. It was quick, but he was quicker. The Japanese woman recoiled at that too, but they needed something—anything—so she had no choice. Between them they brought back three mice.
The pair working on the fire nearly jumped out of their skin at the sight of the dead rodents. But for the moment, it was all they had. The rest of the pairs returned with their own tasks finished.
Ten people split three small roasted field mice. With no water source found yet, they passed around the small bottle Kang-jun had brought—barely a mouthful each. Ten people drained one bottle in seconds. Kang-jun handed the empty container to the pair searching for water.
The immediate crisis was under control. Now they had to prepare for the monsters that could show up at any time.
For now, everyone still had hope. Kang-jun knew that hope would be gone without a trace before tomorrow arrived.
…He wondered how many would die tonight.