A boy runs through the forest with all his might, he would like to turn around and shoot a bow, that way he could keep his enemies back while attacking them, but unfortunately he only has daggers.
"(If I could throw the daggers I would, but I have limited ones and I don't have such a good aim when throwing)"
The roar of some creatures is heard getting closer, the boy forces himself to go even faster.
"(tutorial their fucking mother! Want me to kill an orc in level 3 of the tuto? An orc camp by the way, finding just one alone would be impossible, and if I do I must cut off its head, before cutting it off I would already have another orc with me)"
The District 0 tutorial wasn't that hard, but that's because no one chose the hardest difficulty from the start.
"(But... this... is not as boring as expected)" thinks the boy with a smile on his face when he reaches a certain area of the forest, noticing marks on the trees, there was nothing more rewarding for the boy than finding the solution to a big problem.
"...iel...!"
"eh?' would swear he heard someone call him.
"Daniel!"
......
Daniel wakes up from his dreams quickly to see that there was a young woman in front in his room, the girl he had dreamed of a few days ago, with whom he had engaged in combat and even having fallen, did not give up. Even so, as typical of his childhood even half asleep he always found irony or sarcasm to throw in the strangest situations.
"Are you an idiot? If you break into someone else's house to steal, you're not supposed to wake up the owner."
"What if what I came to steal a person?"
"Same, don't wake up your killer, sure you want to die so young?"
Daniel had a way of waking up when he felt the presence of people, simply his subconscious had detected that girl as a 'friend'.
"(I guess some things never change, even if you want to change them)" he thought, of course he means that he trusted her a lot despite everything that had happened.
"And you're going to stay in bed even with a beauty saying good morning to you?"
"Depends, what time is it?"
"Does that matters?"
"...That sounds very early, wake me up at 6am"
"..."
"..." Of course, he couldn't fall asleep anymore with her still there.
"Dani..."
"...ok, what the hell do you want?"
"the system told me that you used your 'right'..."
"Gossipy"
"The system or me?"
"Then what?"
"Then, date in the district, now"
---
One hour later, after dragging Daniel and almost forcibly taking him to the District, both were already watching the sunrise on the balcony of a large coffee shop overlooking the horizon. A magnificent view, but one that hardly anyone could enjoy lately.
"You call this interrogation a 'Date'?"
"Yes, but what am I supposed to do on a date? watch a movie? I have a better idea, let's see the debut of a newbie"
"You are crazy Sasha... wait, there's a new rookie in the district? Didn't they already announce the update?"
"(So Dani knows about the update? I think this interrogation will be beneficial)"
Sasha then makes a movement of her hand and a kind of hologram materializes in front of them, the so-called user window in the district, only visible to oneself, showing it to others was only for specific purposes.
"Let me guess, did you pay to see the rookie debut?"
Without answering, the live debut of the 'rookie' he had spoken of appears on the screen.
---
A young man of only 13 or 14 years old is preparing for his debut in the district, he was about to start with the PvE tutorial, which are nothing more and nothing less than the first 10 levels of the main mission PvE, and the heart of the missions of the district according to what the person who invited him said. He had heard about dungeons like Tartarus, where you could get equipment and skills, However, his district teacher, the person who invited him, said that it was not safe to start there, and the boy, innocent and foolish, had believed him.
Checking whether the words of his district teacher were true or not was an easy task, of course, as an innocent child, it was very difficult to dig out the truth about the matter, Tartarus was the main point where players die due to simple carelessness, the simplest mistake can end up taking your life, poor boy who did not look for more information. Although to begin with, it was difficult to find much information being a newbie, after all, the resources of the district could give you the lifestyle you want on earth, but no resources on earth could help you survive in the district.
"hmmm... (this will do)" thinks the boy about his choice on the screen that only he can see.
"Short sword, dagger, hand crossbow..." he mutters "(too bad I can't carry the shield, but the hand crossbow is easy to use and will give me more advantage than any other)"
A few seconds later, a door finally opens in the boy's room, with a white light that doesn't let see what's on the other side.
"(only 5 crossbow bolts, but i have enough potions in case something happens, too bad the system says that I can only use these potions during the tutorial, according to my teacher, they are very valuable... Good, now Steve, concentration, my teacher said that I can do almost nothing in the district if I do not complete this tutorial)"
Passing through the blinding light, the boy is transported to another area, there are no signs of the door he passed through a couple of seconds ago, despite the brightness of that light, the place where he is... is quite dark.
-Main PvE Zone. Floor 1. Difficulty mode, medium. Turorial Part 1. The reproduction of the story begins.
The cold voice of the district system sounds, followed by an emotional voice of some narrator.
-In the depths of that forest, our friend got lost and wandered aimlessly for hours, to finally reach that dark and mysterious place, darkness reigned everywhere, but despite that, it did not obstruct the vision of our rookie adventurer in the first 7 to 8 meters of his vision...
Said that, the boy begins to see in front of him little by little, until about 7 or 8 meters ahead, although the vision is very difficult, he could still discern if someone was approaching.
"Incredible...!"
And then the narrator continues his words.
-Armed only with a dagger, a short sword and a simple hand crossbow with only 5 bolts, the adventure begins, the real adventure, in the ruins in the middle of the forest, he begins to walk towards his destiny, the challenge, the first of all, to begin exploring the world of truth...
The narrator did not speak again, but what Steve was sure of was what had to be done on the mission. Taking his first steps inside the dungeon, Steve felt the air with a slight smell of blood, although he thought it was just his imagination; only silence filled the surroundings, even after walking for 5 minutes, not even the echo of his footsteps was heard, not the slightest sound of an insect. Suddenly a group of goblins emerges from the surroundings, an ambush, his master warned him that ambushes may or may not occur. The goblins growled and swing their knives. With a brief shock, the boy takes his short sword without thinking twice, curiously, only at the beginning of the battle did the goblins attack him together, a simple stroke of luck leads him to bury the sword inside the neck of a goblin, although the boy only wanted to stab in the chest, normally he would need a lot of strength to do so, but he had stumbled, giving his arm strength from the weight of gravity itself. Seeing the murder of one of their own, the goblins backed away and hid in the distance. Tiredness crossed the mind and body of the young boy, he had pierced a living being, although it was a humanoid creature, it does not seem more than a monster, sharp teeth and long fangs, that looked like a green mutant with a wolf face and no hair.
Forcefully, he pulls the sword from the goblin's neck, realizing that the goblin was not dead, with one last shriek, the goblin loses its breath as the boy draws his sword.
"It's harder than I thought" mutters, although he does not give up, since he already knows that this is just the beginning; once inside the level, there is no going back.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
"eh?" then feels a small prick in his arm, he realizes that he was injured, a knife from some goblin had reached him at some point, thinks about whether or not to use a potion for a moment, but decides not to use it. Cuts a piece of fabric from his shirt with his dagger and bandages his arm.
"(I can't waste potions on a wound that's not that deep, according to my teacher, the mission ends when I kill 11 goblins... or they kill me)"
From then on, the boy cautiously approaches the last position where he last saw some goblins, and finds a hidden goblin ready to pounce on him the moment it sees the boy. At such close range the little man is lucky to have his weapon ready and swings it at the goblin, expecting another easy kill, however, the monster isn't so stupid and ducks, pointing its knife at the boy's stomach.
"stupid monster, just die!" The boy yells inadvertently as he falls to the ground on his back, the monster gets closer with the knife, however Steve takes advantage of his fall and uses his legs to kick the goblin away. Since the boy was only slightly taller than the humanoid monster, he couldn't push it away much, but enough, takes his sword and approaches the rising goblin, and makes a side to side slash aiming for the creature's neck, to no avail. Swinging a sword was more difficult than he thought, not used to the weight, length and shape of the weapon, the sword cuts through the chest of the creature, although the cut is deep, it is not enough to end its life.
"Shit!" Words like this come out of the mouth of a young man who has not even reached the legal age, for better or for worse, the district does not distinguish gender or age.
The creature screeches loudly and stands up, and instead of attacking, it runs away so the boy does not miss the opportunity and chases him, only to realize that the terrain is disadvantageous and he doesn't have the same ability as the goblins to run through the crumbling ruins.
"Come back here!(wait... the dagger)" says the boy as if someone is going to stop after hearing him, but then he thinks something good, he was the best among those he knew when it comes to throwing things. The boy takes the dagger from his waist and throws it powerfully against the goblin's head, luckily this time the dagger hits the mark, but being a good thrower does not mean being a good thrower of sharp weapons, the dagger does not plunge into the creature's head but the handle of the dagger was the one hitting the head, although it was enough to knock it to the ground; before it had a chance to get up, the boy thrusts his sword into the goblin's back with all his might.
"Its skin is tougher than I thought" It wasn't just the skin, the muscles were what held the sword when going through, realizing this fact, he realizes why it was so hard to kill the goblins..
So the guy takes a short break before moving on, of course keeping an eye on his surroundings, as if it's any use when you can't see more than 10 meters ahead at all.
"(Would the goblins be able to see in this absolute darkness?)" wonders, and gets up after a few minutes of rest "(If so, it's not good to take a break, I must go ahead, carefully)"
After spending a few minutes, he finds his second ambush, this time he only has his sword and hand crossbow, his dagger was never recovered after throwing it, finding it in that darkness was annoying and meaningless in the boy's perception. In this ambush, the boy acts faster than before, eliminating a goblin among the pile and thus the rest fled; confident, the boy advanced only to be attacked from behind by another goblin. A big oversight, when the goblins flee they only hide to attack by surprise.
"Aaahhh!!!.." screams the boy in agony, a knife going straight through his back is not a nice feeling, and with nothing but survival instinct, the boy tries to swing his sword back; but that only increases the pain; without success, and the goblin remains unscathed, then it pulls the knife out only to pierce with it back in, although this time the boy turns around in a hurry swinging the sword with all the strength of a boy his age. The goblin's head doesn't fly off but it can be seen that much of his neck is detached *POOF* collapsing on the ground, the boy takes a potion from his belt very quickly and empties it completely into his mouth.
Even if it works, it doesn't work immediately, and it would take a few seconds to close the wound. After a minute, although the wound is already closed, the boy remains in place, watching his surroundings, this time with more fear than before. The feeling of being close to death is more unpleasant than he thought.
After many minutes of walking and being on the verge of death, he finally hunts down the 11th goblin, placing a bold in its chest at short distance, handling a hand crossbow was not as easy as he thought, and only 5 bolts was very little.
"(Sadly I thought that a single bolt could kill a single goblin)" it took more than one crossbow shot, cause couldn't always make a killer lethal shot, with his 5 bolts he had barely killed one and left another wounded, he didn't think he would have such a bad aim when is not related to throwing but to shot.
"But I did it!" By eliminating the last goblin the stage lights up slightly and there are no more goblins around. So the narrator's voice returns.
-Groups and groups of goblins assaulted the rookie adventurer, but he finally managed to kill the last of them...
A nonsense in its words, since only 11 goblins were a small sum of what was in the ruins, but the boy did not think of those words and only believed that he had really killed all the goblins in the place.
-And so, the first challenge ends, the first of many, he had finally hunted down the goblins that haunted that area, he had had his sacred baptism of adventure.
Then the whole world goes darker and he appears again in his district room, a temporary room with nothing inside but a bed, which is given to new district players until they complete the tutorial.
---
Back to the coffee shop where Daniel and Sasha were...
"Not bad, but I expected more, really" Sasha says.
"That newbie is not from here, is he? according to the list I do not see any debut of any rookie in the North American division"
"Nop, he's from England like me, Europa division"
"So? It seems that they are going to sacrifice him like the others"
"Well, I had heard from an acquaintance of mine that he was capable, I'm really disappointed, but hey, he reached the first level in the middle difficult by himself, without the help of the person who invited him to the district, that's an achievement"
"It's still medium difficulty, not that amazing, in our debut days, there were many like that kid, besides, remember that they will probably sacrifice him for the sake of 'money'... as always"
"Yeah, I know, everyone has the right to explore, but they keep sacrificing people, wouldn't it be great if the update changed that?"
"..."
"Cat got your tongue?"
Daniel sighs, he knows that Sasha just has a healthy curiosity, without bad intentions, which is why she beat him in the main PvE story.
"Very well, let's start by knowing what you know" he says.
"I know there will be a very huge update because it was announced 15 minutes ago, while we were watching the rookie live, although the details are not known, pretty big update actually, did I mention the update is big?... oh, and that you used everything you had in your 'right to ask or wish' so maybe you would know something, and also you gave yourself away a while ago when you said about the update announcement minutes before it was announced"
"..." a chill ran down Daniel's spine. He thought about the conversation he had with the system, it had not made it clear to him if there were people who could read minds, but it told him 'It is very difficult to interpret someone's thought, at least for human capacity, so the kind of mind reading you mention is not what you think, is more specialized in certain functions', that had not clarified much, rather it left him more questions, and just now he thought of a possibility.
"You asked the district for a skill when you used your 'right', right?"
"Why curiosity" Sasha asks innocently, or at least gives that impression.
"Does your wish have to do with reading my mind? partialy at least?"
"Ye... perhaps!..." He thought fo a moment she was about to say 'Yes' but he preferred to think that it was his imagination playing a joke on him "I won't tell you what my wish is, but I can assure you that I can't read your mind .not all of."
Still suspicious, Daniel decided to tell her.
"Good, in return tell me what you used your 'right' for"
"Which one"
"you know which one I mean, I just asked you about that"
Daniel always wanted to ask her about it, but he would not use his 'right' in a matter of simple curiosity, whenever he wanted to ask her, she would evade the subject or put an impossible condition and, in part, he hoped that she would reject the subject now again. although to his surprise...
"Deal" She answers.
What happened in the conversations with the 'Zero' system would have always remained a secret between the system and the one who used the 'right' but in very specific and very rare situations, events like this happened. After telling Sasha the details of the update, she shared with him the wish she asked for to the system, unfortunately for Daniel, he would appreciate it if there was also the 'memory wipe', to forget the words he heard at that time.