Chương 1: Tutorial Begins

The world ended not with a bang or with a whimper, but with a status screen.

"You have been chosen," it said, "to proceed as a player in a new world. Time to end of tutorial section: 3 days. Good luck." Sure enough, when the status screen disappeared from in front of me, I realized that I had a HUD. There was a timer counting down from three days, a small red bar for my health, and another two bars, one blue and one green. My guess is one of them is stamina and the other is something like magic points.

I've played enough games to know what's going on, to understand where this is all heading. And I've lived in the world long enough that nothing really surprises me. Ask me five years ago, and I would've assumed this was all a dream. I would've done my best to enjoy it, but I wouldn't have thought it was real. Now, after all that has happened, I'm willing to accept that this is reality. Maybe I already died, and this is the after life. Maybe aliens have finally come and decided to put us in a game system.

I don't know, but I can accept it as just the way things are now. I don't need an adjustment period. What I need is to find a weapon. Thankfully, I collect them. I have maybe half a dozen swords of various sizes and twenty or thirty knives scattered throughout my apartment. I just need to see if any of them are worth using. I know that they are all essentially replicas. I don't have the real Excalibur on my wall, and there is real version of most of the other swords I have.

But they'll be better than trying to fight bare handed, and I know that as soon as I set foot outside of my apartment, the battle will be on. I know that because I can hear things scratching at the door of my apartment, can hear the growls, and know that I'm going to have to fight just to get out of the building.

I take each sword off its mooring and whack it against my counter, trying to see which of them has a real tang and will actually withstand a hit and which ones are just pieces put together purely for the appearance. There was a long time when collectible swords were put together as flimsy as possible to save money on the manufacturing end, particularly because the swords are never meant to be used for any kind of real fighting.

But then, as LARPing became more popular and people wanted real weapons to fight with, they started caring more about the manufacturing process of weapons, and they started making swords that actually work, even if they aren't sharpened. Some of my swords just break when I hit them against the counter. Some of them chip. One of them does neither. It's a scimitar, technically, with a black handle that has a skull on the pommel. Not one of my most well known swords, but it'll work for now. Skull Blade.

Common weapon level 1/5. Damage 1-10. That solidifies it. As soon as I'm able to identify it as something other than junk, I know that it will help me fight whatever is outside my apartment. Now I need defense. Thankfully, I life in Minnesota, so I've got a lot of thick clothing and heavy jackets. I put on a leather jacket, thick pants made out of fire hose material, and heavy gloves.

It's not that cold out, but I figure those three things will do the best to defend against the claws and teeth of whatever I wander into on my way out of the apartment. These beasts are going to be dangerous; no doubt about that. Tutorial level doesn't always mean easy. It just means that these things are the easiest monsters I'll be fighting. One last thing before I go out and brave my apartment building. I need to find my character sheet. I need to know what I'm working with.

First and foremost, I need to know how many hit points I have. But the rest of the information will be useful to. It doesn't take me long to find. Caleb Strong, level 1 human. HP: 12 MP: 12 Stamina: 16 Defense: 12 Magic Resistance: 8% Strength: 11 Agility: 10 Vigor: 12 Manipulation: 9 Presence: 12 Willpower: 16 Charisma: 8 Awareness: 8. Skills: none I'm a little bit insulted that my manipulation, charisma, and awareness are all at 8, but I kind of get it. I wonder what the scale for these things are.

Is 10 average, or will I be able to get up to 100 in each of them? Will I someday be looking back at my starting stats and think that it's a wonder I was able to tie my own shoes? I notice that intelligence is not a stat listed, which makes me think that intelligence is based on my own brainpower and isn't going to improve randomly as I level up. Okay. What else can I learn based on what I see here? I don't have many hit points.

My stamina seems to be equal to my willpower, and my hit points and magic points (assuming that's what MP is) are both equal to my Vigor, which in turn is equal to my Presence. I assume that's a coincidence. Probably one is based on vigor and the other on presence. Hit points probably with vigor. That just makes sense. Okay, Caleb. Enough hesitation. You've got defense equal to your hit points, and you have magic resistance. Those are both probably good. It's time to see what's outside your door.

I unlock the door and step back from it without opening it right away. Nothing happens. And continues to not happen. So whatever is out there can't just open doors. That's probably a good sign. I open the door, and the smell hits me first. It's a musky odor, but there's a coppery undertone that tells me that blood has been spilled, and a lot of it. Maybe those are from my neighbors, who left the house without a weapon and without doing their best to prepare.

Maybe someone has already cleared the floor of monsters and I'm just smelling their blood. No, definitely not that. I can hear the growl and the pacing of some big paws coming towards me. I step back into the apartment and hold up my sword, ready for whatever comes in. It's a giant cat like creature, though far less cute than any kitten I've ever seen. It snarls at me, baring huge teeth. I stare at it, and eventually identify what it is. Lynxith. Common Basic monster, level 3. HP: 30/30.

My best option is to hit it at least three times before it can hit me. It has way more health than I do, and those claws look terribly sharp. It snarls again, and then huffs, sending the smell of rotten meat my way. I hold up my sword and step back, enticing it to step into my apartment. Once it crosses the threshold, I dart forward and chop at it, dealing 7 damage to its snout. It raises a claw to slash at me, and I slash at the claw, batting it aside and doing another 4 damage to it.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. The lynxith yelps and steps back into the hall, daring me to come to it. I don't move, just holding my blade at the ready. It's down to 19 health, still more than I have. I'm not willing to go swipe for swipe with it. Luckily for me, it isn't a patient creature. It snarls again and braces itself for a leap.

For some reason, I think it's a good idea to rush forward as it jumps, sliding down to the floor and raising my sword, cutting it as it leaps over me and into the apartment. I get showered in blood, staining my pant leg red as the sword slices through its torso, doing a massive 11 damage to it. That's more than the sword should be able to do. Was it a critical hit? Is there something that adds to my damage? Maybe that's what strength is.

I suddenly wish I'd spent more time doing push ups and less time on the treadmill. Actually, as long as I'm wishing, I wish I'd spent more time on both. It lands in a heap, pushing itself weakly back to its feet. I chop at its neck and at a raised paw before it finally collapses into death. Lynxith defeated. Gain 10 XP. Gain Lynxith claw x1. So we're experience based in this world. Good to know. Hopefully there are ways to get XP other than just killing monsters. But we'll see.

And I can loot monsters just as they are. I wonder if I can butcher him to get more materials out of his corpse. Probably. Let's give it a try. There isn't a huge time crunch for me to get anywhere, I don't think. I know I have three days until the tutorial period is over, but I don't know what that means, not really. After closing and locking my door again, I go to my kitchen and get a large knife, then to my supply drawer and grab a pair of pliers. Maybe I can pull out teeth or claws and use them for something.

If nothing else, it'll help me register what's going on and get me good and dirty. By the time I'm done pulling claws and fangs, I'm even more covered in blood than I was. You gain skill: Animal Harvesting 1. That seems like something that will be useful over time. I put the claws and the fangs into a satchel, put the satchel over my shoulder, and head out into the hallway. I see another Lynxith in the apartment down the hall, halfway in the apartment, eating something that I'd much rather not think about.

I sneak up on it, holding my sword above my head in both hands, and swipe down, trying to get at its haunches before it realizes I'm there. I do 22 damage, and a notification goes off as the lynxith yelps and thuds its head into the door frame trying to get to me. I slash at it again, using the moment of it being stunned to my advantage, and manage to kill it. This time, when I go to loot the body, I am able pull off two fangs and sixteen claws to add to my bag, and I get another ten experience points.

I look a the notification that came, and I see that I managed a sneak attack for double my maximum damage. Apparently, strength adds one damage, which was part of what was doubled to get me to twenty two. That's good to know. I don't know if that's every point past ten or every other, but it's good to know that I can do more than the base damage of the weapon if I really try. There aren't any other lynxiths on this floor of my apartment building, so I go down to the next floor.

I'm on the fifth floor of my building. I could test out whether or not there is fall damage, but I'm afraid to discover that in fact there is, and that what there is not is respawning. I don't know yet if I can die and come back, and I'm not going to jump out of a sixth floor window just to find out, for reasons that I hope are obvious. I get down to the fourth floor and there are three lynxith here, prowling through the building.

I don't know how I'm going to fight three of them at once, but a strange thing happens. They come near me, but they don't snarl. They sniff at me a little bit, and seem to recognize me somehow. Maybe it's because I'm covered in the blood of their fellows, maybe it's because I have so many fangs and claws with me, maybe it's something else entirely.

But whatever the case, they sniff at me and seem to decide that I'm not worth their time, and they let me go down to the second floor, where I run into another three who do the exact same thing. I know that I smell of blood, but I would've thought that would make me more likely to be a target for them, not less. You have learned a new ability: Disguise Scent. Allows you to disguise your scent as whatever creature you smear the blood of onto your clothes. Current scent: Lynxith. Okay, that's pretty cool.

Means I don't have to fight any more of the lynxith as I come across them. However, I also don't get the experience for killing them. But when I get outside the apartment building, I do discover that I gained the experience of walking past them. You have evaded Lynxith x 9. You gain 45 experience. I still don't get any loot from them, but I also don't have to fight when I'm outnumbered. I think I only got half the experience they were worth if I killed them, but that also brings up another idea.

What if I can do both? I sneak my way back into the building, trying to move as quietly as I can, and I find one of the lynxith that I had managed to sneak past. I get another critical sneak attack hit for 22 damage, and I manage to kill it before it can swipe at me. Seems if I'm careful enough and get a sneak attack, I can kill these things without any trouble. And sure enough, I get the notification that I killed the lynxith and gain 10 experience points for it. Ten. Not five.

So I get half XP for sneaking past it, but then full XP for killing it. I'm up to 75 total – no idea how many I need to level up – but I can gain another eighty without having to worry about anything any more powerful than the lynxiths. If I can sneak attack all of them, I can probably wipe them out without any real danger to myself, and get the extra experience that way. I go back through the building and sneak attack each one of them.

Only one of them manages to attack me back, and while it will probably leave a bruise, the claw doesn't even rip my pants. They really are as tough as advertised. I gain another eighty experience, bringing me up to 155 total, and a notification comes up. I expect it will be that I've reached level two. But that's not what it is. Secret quest complete: Glutton. Sneak past enemies, then go back and slaughter them anyway. Reward: 1000 XP. You have gained multiple levels. You are now level 5.

You have 10 points to distribute. Ten points in four levels. Or am I just getting credit for level 5? Maybe it'll change as I level up. But for now, ten points is ten more than I had. I decide to put four points into strength, bringing it up to 15, and use five of the other six points to boost my Manipulation, Charisma, and Awareness all up to 10. For the last point, I think I'll put it into Vigor. The biggest change is to my hit points, magic points, and stamina.

Defense doesn't change at all, but my magic resistance goes up to 10%. So that's definitely linked to one of the things that I brought up to 10. Let's take a look at my sheet now and see how things are looking: Caleb Strong, level 5 human. XP 55/750. HP: 65 MP: 60 Stamina: 80 Defense: 12 Magic Resist: 10% Strength: 15 Agility: 10 Vigor: 13 Manipulation: 10 Presence: 12 Willpower: 16 Charisma: 10 Awareness: 10. Skills: Animal Harvesting 2, Sneak 3, Sword 2 I've gained a bit of skills.

I wonder if that will change how much damage I do with my sword. I don't know if I can do enough to kill a lynxith with one swing, but that's my goal. I don't want long protracted fights. That's how you get killed. Or at least injured. And getting injured is just a precursor to getting killed, unless I somehow gain some kind of regeneration. But I don't know how long it'll take me to heal anything.

What I do know is that I have a lot more hit points than I did at level one, and I'm still in the very starting area of the tutorial level, so I might be ahead of the game, so to speak. It all depends on what I find when I go out into the street. There's a market near my apartment building. If this is an end of the world scenario, I should really go there and check for resources. I could find any number of things, from tools to food to equipment.

I never really thought to look through the market for survival tools, but there's no time like the present. And if there are lynxith there, I won't have to worry about them; I'm even more covered in their blood than I used to be.