No one in the Tutorial Village makes a sound. Everyones attention is locked on the two fighters in the ring: the paladin, Zhaz Morrowolf, and the newbie fighter, me. Zhaz has yet to leave his ready defensive stance, waiting to react and counter anything that comes his way.

I on the other hand… I know that I should be focusing on recovering my lost health and mana, both of which are dangerously low. My mana poisoning is starting to slow down but I’m still taking damage. I know that I should be taking stock of what resources I have left and planning some kind of attack. But… I can’t. I’m still just sitting on the floor, not moving. It’s like all of my thoughts have ground to a halt. Inside my head right now… there’s nothing.

I think Zhaz finally notices it too. He slowly lowers his shield and stands up straight. He’s suddenly wearing a very sympathetic smile.

“There’s nothing wrong with knowing when to back down, D0n.” He says, walking towards me. “In fact, some would say knowing when to do so is a sign of wisdom.”

The paladin continues to move closer, his movements gentle. Like he’s approaching a skittish animal. I still haven’t gotten off of the floor. The way my eyes keep looking around without focusing must make me look quite lost. I can hear his words, but there’s a blank buzzing in my head as I find myself unable to act.

“D0n.” Says Zhaz. My eyes finally focus on him. “I meant it, when I said you deserve to feel proud of yourself. You’ve fought four consecutive matches and still managed to keep your concentration sharp enough to perform this admirably. What you’ve done is incredible.

“I just want to be sure that you don’t feel too discouraged because of our fight. I’m a defensive specialist; my job in every party is to be able to take any attack from the strongest monsters in the game and stay standing. You have nothing to be ashamed of. No one will think less of you for ending it here instead of stubbornly rushing into a suicide attack.”

I swallow a sense of tension I didn’t realize was sitting with me. I keep looking at Zhaz, waiting for something, but he continues to stand patiently in front of me.

I’m the one who has to respond.

My eyes roam over the spectators in the stands. The other new players, the class instructors, my friends. He’s right. None of them look judgmental. Some of the new players actually look pretty emotional. Van is looking right at me too, but for the life of me I can’t read the emotion on his face.

I look over towards the man from management, Mr. Lopez, standing behind Zhaz. When I do my stomach twists. Even his sunglasses can’t hide the absolutely smug look on his face. I can’t help the frown that comes across mine. He’s the one who decided to orchestrate this whole event, to make a big spectacle out of me. And now he has the audacity to look all happy and pompous at the sight of me losing. My blood starts to pump in my ears from how angry I feel looking at him.

Just behind Mr. Lopez, sitting at the edge of the stands, is the Merchant, Averack. She’s watching the ring like everyone else, waiting to see how this will end. But when my eyes lock on her, it’s suddenly all I can see for a moment. I finally look down, at my hand still resting on the floor. It’s no longer shaking.

I lick my lips.

“… And yet I cut you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You talk this big game about how amazing you are, about how good of a tank you are,” I push against the ground with my fist and get to a knee, “and yet a no-name player who hasn’t even finished the tutorial hurt you.”

The paladin tightens his grip on his sword.

“If you’re that confident in your defense, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is?” I say. “One hit, everything I got. You stand there and take it. If, even with all that, I can’t hurt you? Then it’ll be my blatant loss.”

Zhaz’s face has turned completely expressionless as he stares me down. There's a pregnant silence from everyone in the stands as they take in my obviously desperate provocation. This is normally the point where Mr. Lopez would step in, but even he is watching and waiting.

I know that I must sound like a sore loser; I'm so clearly grasping at straws. There's no reason Zhaz can't just cut me down right now and put an end to all this. But I refuse to just sit here and give up. I don’t care if it’s desperate. I don’t care if it’s pathetic. I don’t care if none of this is real. There’s no point if I don’t try to the very end.

My eyes follow the tip of the paladin’s sword, waiting to see what happens now as well.

The insignificant thought — that it’s amazing how I can feel this much sweat on my palms from anxiety inside of a game — flits through my head.

Zhaz lifts his blade into the air, high above my head, and stabs it into the ground. He turns his back to me and walks towards the opposite end of the ring. The silence is broken by a chuckle.

“A test of defense, huh? Haha, I like it. Let's do it then.” Zhaz turns around, his back to the well on the opposite side of the village and raises his shield. “You have one hit, D0n. Make it count.”

… Good. No, this is good. Somehow I managed to buy one last chance. But when I try to think of something I can do, something that can beat him, again… I draw a blank. In terms of raw attack power the strongest spells I can use would be intermediate ones. But even with those, I can't imagine it'll take him down in one shot. I look at my status bars. My mana is hovering somewhere at a quarter full, my health is about half of that and still ticking down slowly from the remaining mana poisoning. Thanks to Emily, the Home Instructor, I still have more potion pills; but with the frequency I've taken them, anything more is just going to send me into a violent spiral of mana poisoning. So my resources are out, my knowledge is out, and at this point I'm all out of clever tricks.

Zhaz was right. Anything I try now is nothing more than a suicide attack.

…

……..

……………

…. You know what, screw it.

From a crouch I unbuckle the potion pouch at my hip and pour all of the potion pills on the floor in front of me. I throw the pouch away and start shoveling all of them in my mouth. I have no idea how many total potions I’m eating right now, and it's too late for me to care about the consequences.

I do my best to ignore the flavor, but I don't think I'll ever be able to look at basil the same way again.

Swallowing the final mouthful of sugar and dried herbs, I stand up. For a moment the whole world spins and I nearly fall back down. I take some deep breaths and regain my balance.

Shit, my body feels very, very wrong right now. My health bar is a deep red color, and it keeps rocketing up and down, over and over again; the mana poisoning is trying to eat away at my health while the health regen from all of the health potions keeps reviving me. That stalemate isn't going to last for much longer. On the other hand my mana bar is so full it's actually outside of the boundaries. There's a little notification marker next to it. When I focus on the little ‘!’ a window pops up in front of me. It tells me that I've consumed enough mana potions to activate a mana high: essentially I've temporarily surpassed the total amount of mana my body should be able to handle, but in exchange I have far less control of it, and any spell I perform will cause me to experience backlash. I think my body is translating that status by making me feel like I want to hurl right this instant.

My head is foggy and it feels like there's lead in my arms. Heck, mana poisoning or not, with the way I'm feeling right I’m not sure I'll be able to cast anything more than a basic spell. This plan… might be backfiring a little bit. But I have to make it work anyway!

I let my right arm hang in front of me and close my eyes.

If it feels like all I can pull off right now is a basic spell, then that actually makes the next part pretty simple. Just pour as much mana as I possibly can into it.

I fight through the nausea and imagine reaching into my core. I expand all of the mana out while placing a cork in my light point, activating a Dark Cloak. I then forcibly grab all of that mana and shove it into my right arm.

Just like I did in my fight against the attack instructor, Bufo — pushing out excess mana can give more power to an attack than normal. But this time what I’ll be pushing out is going to be much, much more.

Thanks to effect of the mana high, as soon as it feels like I've used up all of the mana in my Dark Cloak, more mana starts bubbling out of my core. I keep passing it through my dark point and shoving it into my arm.

Why dark mana specifically? Because I have no idea if I’ll last more than two seconds after trying this, and if I'm able to poison him enough that he dies even after I Pass Out… well then that’ll have to suffice for a petty victory.

I grit my teeth so hard that my jaw is shaking. If I thought having an excess of mana in one limb hurt before, it's nothing compared to this. It feels like having a small animal trapped in my arms, trying to tear it’s way out. The pain is bad enough that I’ve nearly lost my concentration a few times already. But I force it down and keep shoving more mana in.

When I open my eyes, leery and stinging with tears, what I see doesn't help my morale. There's so much dark mana in my right arm that both the skin and the armor looks like it’s been stained purple, with wisps of darkness leaking out of it. The whole limb feels so heavy that I can't even move it anymore. I don't know if it's because of the pain from what I'm doing or if the mana poisoning is starting to win out, but my health bar is beginning to drop faster than the health regen can recover it.

It's now or never.

I shove the last bit of dark mana into the edges of my shoulder. There’s just a little bit of mana left in my core. Feeling the connection to that ridiculous amount of mana trapped in my arm, I imagine cutting that connection.

My arm feels even heavier than before. My mana bar drops immediately to near zero. But none of that is what has my attention right now.

As soon as I cut off the connection to the mana in my arm, leaving all of the dark mana in an activated state, a message window from the game popped up. It's a simple one. One that I've seen plenty of times in the Tutorial Village while trying something new. The menu says that I have crafted an item fit for Sacrifice Magic and so I have learned the Sacrifice Magic skill.

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It takes me longer than I'd like to admit to read the message and understand what it's telling me. I mean, Sacrifice Magic? I’ve read nearly every book in the library and I haven't even heard mention of it once. If I look through my skill menu I might be able to find more information on it but my health is steadily plummeting, and I can barely focus on what's in front of me. It's too late to experiment. Whatever it is, here's hoping it’ll help.

My right arm is so heavy that I can't even move it, so I grab my wrist with my left hand and forcibly hold my arm up. My palm is vaguely pointing at the paladin in front of me. There's no more smile on his face. He's looking at me. Focused.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

“I call upon the spirit of the flame to guide my path… Fireball.”

I feel the last remaining bit of mana in my core move up and to the right, through my fire point, to obey the incantation. Traveling up to my right arm, I tell the mana to eat everything in its path.

As the fire mana touches the dark mana in my shoulder, it's like time slows down. In that moment I'm no longer looking at Zhaz. I'm entranced as my entire arm — from my shoulder to my hand — erupts in flames. All of the gathered mana collapses in on itself and grows outward, moving forward in a clockwise spiral motion. The flames spread across my skin as a red so deep it almost looks like it burns black at the tips.

What I performed was the incantation for Fireball, but what comes out looks nothing like a basic spell. The fire flowing throughout the whole of my arm looks more like a serpent of flame; and all of that fire gathers to form a sphere the size of a truck, suspended in front of my hand.

The heat billowing from the spell is so intense that my entire body feels like it’s burning. The deep red of the fire is all I see. My ears are ringing.

When the spell launches, it explodes forward in a silent roar.

The only reason I can tell when my ‘Fireball’ spell finishes is because I finally feel the mana stop leaving my arm. In front of me however, all I see is more fire.

It's everywhere. Still burning the ground and spreading as far as the library. Faces of buildings are black and the stone of the ring has cracked from the heat. It’s impossible to see anything clearly, there’s only the glare from the flames. Only the red-black fire.

I don't get a chance to really take in the scene though. All at once every fiber of my being pinpoints onto the blistering pain coming from my right arm. When I look down… it's not a pretty sight. The force of the spell destroyed all of the armor on my arm; what's left is an appendage charred black. It doesn't even look like it belongs to me, it's so burnt. In fact the only reason it’s still attached is because Golden Age doesn't allow players to lose their limbs.

Oh, but there’s no denying this is my arm. Because I can feel every ounce of pain radiating out of it.

I fall to my knees, just staring at my arm. Even my left hand is burned just as bad from holding my right arm up.

I have no pills left to heal it and no magic left to soothe it.

I fall face first. My head grinding into the cracked stone ground.

…

……

The pain… the pain isn't stopping!

The pain always stops eventually! This is just a game, so why isn't it stopping?!

Is it because of the Sacrifice Magic?

Some sort of curse?

Dammit, why isn't the paint stopping?!?!

*Step.*

*Step. Step.*

That’s, those are footsteps. Dammit, those are Zhaz’s footsteps! From the corner of my eyes I can see his steel boots as he calmly walks in front of me.

Is this guy serious? Is this guy actually serious?! All of that! He took all of that, and he’s still walking around like it's nothing?! I gave everything I had and it did nothing? And my arm is still hurting!

My eyes close tight, as tears leak out. I can't tell if it's out of pain or frustration. But even with my eyes closed, I can see my health bar racing to zero.

Might as well just let it end. Just let it run out so at least the pain will stop.

… Shit.

Through the haze of pain I can feel the paladin’s blade stab into my right arm.

My eyes snap open and I open my mouth to scream —

“High Healing Blade.”

And finally the pain stops. Pulsating out from the stab wound, I feel relief.

I can’t bring myself to move off the ground immediately though. I’m having to take deep breaths as the twisted burning in my arm slowly starts to fade. The massive drop in my health finally slows down moments before I would have Passed Out; it even starts to inch upwards again.

Once my health bar recovers some it feels like I can actually lift my head. I look at my arm, still crumpled beneath me. Though it's not all the way better yet, the burn marks are starting to heal. I finally look up, still confused.

Zhaz is indeed standing over me. But he's not looking as relaxed as my hurt ego wanted to believe.

He’s standing up, holding his sword as it shines with healing energy. Both his shield and his armor look like they have scorch marks scattered across them, with the edges warped from the heat. There's a deep wound on his head that still has blood flowing from it.

He's looking at me. When I finally make eye contact with Zhaz, he gives me a nod. In that nod there's a wealth of respect.

After being sure that I saw him, the paladin looks up and stares at something behind me.

“I forfeit the match.”

Everybody in the stands was behind me — so they were safe from the spell. It's also where the referee for this match, Mr. Lopez, was standing.

I can hear him walk up as he asks, “But, why? I mean, you’ve clearly won in every way.”

Unlike the previous times Mr. Lopez has asked this question, he doesn't sound angry. Just genuinely confused.

“Because I have been here since day one. I've stood at the top of this game as one of the best tanks to ever play. Even if I could not use them in this space, I'm always the first to unlock the newest advanced skills for my Alignment. And I take absolute pride as a tank. So, that a no name player, who hasn't even finished the tutorial, managed to hurt me this bad… it's nothing less than a loss on my part”

Zhaz pauses for a moment, looks down, and shoots me a grin. “Honestly if anyone without base stats as high as mine had taken that attack head on, they wouldn't be standing.” He looks back up. “You asked me to test him. This is my judgment.”

Despite Zhaz’s praise, it doesn't change the fact that I'm the one on the ground unable to move. But I hold my breath and look back towards Mr. Lopez.

Everyone is.

Under the collective gazes I see the man from management sigh, as if all the tension has left his body. He rubs at his hair for a moment and chuckles. He lifts his hand into the air and says, “The winner of this round is D0n!”

The Tutorial Village erupts into cheers.

----------------------------------------

After everything is finally cleared up — all of the fire put out and the ring and stands broken down — it’s still only mid-day. That’s not to say that everything got wrapped up quickly though.

So it turns out Sacrifice Magic is kind of a big thing. The kind of thing that I really should not have been using at this level. And under no circumstances should I have been using with one of my body parts as collateral. I was right that it was the game’s across-the-board policy — to not allow players to lose their limbs — that saved my arm. But the effects of the curse caused by using said arm as an item fit for Sacrifice meant that the pain and damage were ridiculously hard to fix. In fact, no amount of healing from the paladin or potions from the other players were able to fully stop it. Mr. Lopez ended up having to crank up some of the settings on the priestess NPC, Laurel, to allow her to use more advanced purification magic.

A good amount of time was spent getting all of that taken care of.

The rest of the time was actually spent on repairing Zhaz’s armor. As you would expect from a top player, his armor was really rare equipment. The kind where the raw materials aren't even usually available in a Tutorial Village.

After the fight, Zhaz had walked up to the blacksmith, Van, and said with a completely straight face, “I’m convinced that in the end, all of this is your fault. So you're not allowed to leave until this gets fixed. Now.”

Van had said it wouldn't really take him that long to do so, since he was the one who made the armor in the first place. But that led back to the whole problem of the materials being too rare to normally be accessed in the Tutorial Village. In the end, Mr. Lopez had to cheat the materials in for the blacksmith to make a new set of armor for the paladin.

Needless to say, whatever charitable mood Mr. Lopez had found himself in at the end of my fight was used up after all of the cheating and tweaking necessary to repair the damages. He went right back to being annoyed with how long everything was taking.

Everything still got squared away nicely. Now Van and I are standing by the exit hole to the Tutorial Village. Since the entire island is still in a frozen state, as Mr. Lopez needs to reset everything after we leave, everyone has gathered to say goodbye.

Van is busy pointing out the little detailed changes he made to the armor to Zhaz.

The magic instructor, Arinn, is near the back of the group with tears in his eyes. I'm actually quite touched to see him look so emotional at me leaving.

The merchant, Averack, is in front of me with her hand outstretched. “Well Don, you won all four fights. Never thought I'd lose 500 gold coin in a Tutorial Village but damn if you didn't give me a show for it.”

“Hey,” I say, taking her hand, “that was just the kind of extra incentive I needed. I'm not sure I would've made as many dumb decisions if there wasn’t something on the line.”

“Don't say that. It makes it seem like losing that money was my fault.”

She gives my hand a strong shake and we smile at each other.

“Hey, you,” Averack turns to Mr. Lopez. He has been fiddling with those invisible screens of his this whole time. “I’ve got the menu of our wager right here. He won every single challenge clean, so don't you go short changing him on his reward when he gets in the game. You got that?”

“Yes, yes. I'll be sure he gets everything he needs.” The man from management rubs at his temples with both hands.

It's not like I’ll say no to the reward. But I do feel a little bit of sympathy for Mr. Lopez. Explaining everything that happened here is probably going to require a good deal of paperwork. In that sense I guess he wasn't being totally rude when he got annoyed at the wager we made.

Speaking of being rude, that reminds me.

I turn to the group of five beginner players who decided to stay and watch the impromptu tournament. “Hey, I'm really sorry about taking up as much of your time as I did.”

The one in the middle, a crazy tall human, who has been crying for most of the fight, says, “Are you kidding? We’re the ones that should be thanking you. I can't believe we got to see something that incredible!”

A dwarf girl whispers to her elf friend, “No one's gonna believe this on the dragon spotting forums. I can't believe that the hobo NPC was tied into such a huge event.”

… They, they still think I'm an NPC, don’t they? Huuh. You know what, it's not worth it.

I turn to Van as he walks up with a small bag thrown over his shoulder. “All right D0n, we about ready to leave then? Now I'll be hopping through with you, so make sure you set your starter kingdom as the Milford Kingdom. I have an old contact over there; I’ll set you up with him before I leave. I'm a bit behind schedule at this point, so I’ll have to run right after we land if I don’t want to miss my boat back to the Mountain Continent.”

I give a firm nod to my friend. From beginning to end, he's been there helping me out. I don't know if I'll ever have a way of repaying him for it.

After a return nod from Van, I turn towards the pedestal standing in front of the exit hole. There's a large, dark sea green crystal on top. When I place my hand on it a couple of menus pop up: asking me what I would like to set my starting Kingdom as, and what I would like to set my Inclination as. I quickly pick the Kingdom Van mentioned. Then scroll through the available Inclinations. I'd long decided what I would pick.

Having made my choices, I check over everything and then look towards Van, letting him know I'm ready.

“What Inclination did you pick?” Another one of the new players — looks like a bear person — asked me.

“Hmm? Oh, I picked the Crafting Inclination.”

Almost all of the newer people in the village look at me in shock; they're all incredibly confused by my choice. They just spent the last couple of hours watching me fight in a combat tournament after all. However all of the crafting instructors, and Zhaz, laugh.

“Hey, fighting’s cool, but making stuff is just plain fun.”

“Haha! Hahahahahahah,” Van wipes tear from his eye from laughing and slaps me hard on the back. “I knew there was a reason I put up with you. Wonderful choice! Now let’s get out of here.”

“I wish the both of you the best of luck, and I am sure you will both flourish in the main game.” The man from management, Mr. Lopez, says as he walks up to us. Now that we’re finally getting out of his hair, he actually looks happy.

He then turns to Van. “Mr. Forgemaster, I do hope we will be able to finally convince you to work with management in the future. Oh, and remember that you'll have to wait for D0n when you arrive in the Capital city. As he's a new player, it'll take him a good deal longer to load everything in for the first time.”

“Oh, I'm sure.” Van says. He has an oddly knowing smirk on his face. “I’ll wait for D0n to finish loading everything in.”

Zhaz walks towards us now. “Quit pestering him old friend.” Van rolls his eyes as the paladin pats the short dwarf on the shoulder and then turns to me. “You gave me a very unique experience D0n. You’re going to do well out there. I look forward to the next time we meet. We can have a proper rematch then.”

“You bet.”

Van laughs again. Without any fanfare he hops down the exit hole.

I take a deep breath and look around the Tutorial Village one last time. I’ve spent a lot of time here. I know all of the buildings, the forest paths, and everything here like the back of my hand. It's been like home. Everyone here… all the instructors, the new players that have passed through… they let me play this game and have fun in my own way. I’m grateful to them. I know this was only supposed to be a short stop, but Golden Age’s Tutorial Village is always going to have a special place in my heart.

“… I’m off.”

I feel a big smile grow on my face as I walk towards the hole. Standing on the edge, looking down, I see sprawling plains, lush forests, and crystal blue lakes waiting for me.

Blocking my lightning mana point, I pull on a Wind Cloak. I launch two small Wind Bursts out of my feet to throw myself into the air. I roll into a double backflip and then nose dive down the exit portal.

It's time to play the game.