Verity had wanted to approach Felicia, or even Marco, when he had finished choosing a class but they were both busy with their own conversations, and he was much too shy to interrupt. He didn’t really have anything else to do, so in his boredom, his gaze lingered on the other dead orcs lying on the battlefield. He was curious as to how exactly they died.
On the other side of the colosseum, the lone man was sitting next to the two orcs who had chased after him. He seemed to be studying his status as well, his annoyingly handsome face staring into nothing. As for the orcs, both of them had been beheaded, with little to no effort at that. In fact, it looked like the man had a harder time dealing with the goblins than with the orcs.
Verity could only sigh looking at him. He really did seem like the perfect protagonist.
‘Ugh, I should have been isekai’d into a handsome dude’s body instead...’
Verity pushed the thoughts away and searched for the last orc, the one who had fought his side, but when his eyes finally landed on it, he blinked a few times. He was quite far away, but he could see well enough what had happened to it.
Clearly, this one’s death had been much messier than the other orcs. Its flesh was torn open in multiple locations, its eyes were gouged out, and even its large axe had been shattered to pieces. There were many rusted swords stuck in its body, the most daunting one being a short goblin sword stabbed through the opening in its mouth. The contortion of its face showed that it must have died in incredible pain.
Verity had to look away. The sight was truly gruesome. If it hadn’t massacred so many of them, he might have even felt bad for that orc.
‘Scary..’
When thirty minutes had finally passed, the imp returned.
“I hope you’ve all had the chance to pick something good, because you’ll need it!”
It then snapped its fingers, and a window appeared in front of Verity, as did one in front of all the challengers.
----------------------------------------
Second trial
Stage : Tutorial
Objective : Learn
Reward : Performance Dependent
Failure Penalty : N/A
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‘Wow… Can these get any more vague?’
Many raised an eyebrow, or looked back at the imp in confusion. This trial window was not telling them anything. What was that objective? What was ‘Learn’ even supposed to mean?
Verity scratched the back of his neck. He wanted to ask the imp for clarification but he knew better than to try to speak to it. He already knew that it had an extremely short temper. So, all he could do was wait for it to explain further. It might not have liked to interact with humans, but it did seem to enjoy the sound of its own voice.
“Have you all taken a good look?” The imp sneered. “Simple, right? All you need to do is learn, and there is no penalty for failing! Any questions?”
A silence filled the colosseum. No one dared to speak up, no one but the lone man standing on the other side, who raised his hand.
The imp’s eyes widened. “Oh? I haven’t had a question in eons! Please, go ahead!”
The man stood up, his cloak floating in the wind, and for the first time, Verity heard his voice. “What.. exactly do you intend for us to learn?” he said with an impassive tone.
The imp seemed overjoyed with the question, as if it wanted nothing more than to answer it. “Great question!!” Its wings were falling around wildly. “You see, all of you are weak, very weak. If I were to send you to the last trial of the tutorial right now, you would all perish without a doubt. So, what I intend for you to learn is how to be strong, and you’ll understand how soon enough!”
The man seemed satisfied with the answer, or he simply did not care for it. Verity could not tell as the expression on his face had barely changed.
Verity, however, certainly was not satisfied. ‘What the hell does that even mean…?’
“Any more questions?” The imp asked, satisfied with its answer.
The man’s bravery seemed to have inspired courage into the other participants, as many more hands were now raised. There were many with questions that needed answers such as; When can we go home? What is this place? What are you?
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
But the imp had no intention to answer such questions. It clasped its hands together and its smile grew even wider. “Great! Since there are no more questions, let’s get started, shall we?”
It snapped its fingers, and before anyone could react, say their goodbyes, or even prepare, their world turned to black, their consciousness fading.
When Verity woke up, he found himself in a completely different setting from the blood filled colosseum he had been in moments ago. His mind was hazy, and he felt slightly nauseous, but that was of no concern to him at that very moment.
‘Where… am I?’ Verity thought, as he looked around him.
He was standing on a dirt road surrounded by grass plains for as far as the eye could see. The air smelled fresh, much different from that of the metropolis he used to live in, and a soft breeze was caressing his skin. The sun was high in the sky, accompanied by…. Another sun?
‘...What?’
Indeed, there were two suns in the sky, or should he simply call them stars in this case? The sky was still blue, and clouds were covering it, but no matter how many times Verity rubbed his eyes, there were still two suns above him.
‘Was I transported to another planet?’
That was only a speculation as he could simply be hallucinating, but he remembered that the second trial was supposed to have started, so he called upon the trial window once more. Against what he hoped, nothing about it changed. The objective was still simply to learn, and it told him nothing about how to do that or how much he needed to learn.
Verity sighed. He could walk on the road until he found something, or someone, but there were no signs of human life in his field of view, and he would not know which way to go.
So, he thought that since there was no one around him, he might as well summon the items he was rewarded with during the trial. The first one he summoned was Vera’s ring, which was just as pretty in reality as it had been in the image. For some strange reason, it only fit on his ring finger, and Verity felt awkward at the idea of putting it on that finger. He wasn’t married, after all, and he did not want others to misunderstand.
He hesitated for a moment, but who was he kidding? It’s not like he had a girlfriend or even a love interest who’d be mad at him for wearing the ring, and the effect was too good to not put it on for such a stupid reason.
‘I guess it’s at times like these that I’m happy to be single…’
The next item he summoned was the spear, Final Embers. It was around one and half times his height, and although it was definitely heavier than the short goblin sword, Verity could lift it with ease. He swung it around a few times, and did think about activating its effect, but decided that he did not want to be the cause of a forest fire. He could try it on an enemy if he ran into one eventually.
‘Or would it be a grass fire?’
Grasping the spear in his hands, Verity felt like a child with a new toy. He tried all sorts of stances he had seen in web novels and webtoons with the spear, and even shouted the names of a few finishing moves. He imagined himself creating his own battle style, and tearing through enemies on a battlefield. Here, alone, and with no one to judge him or to call him cringe, the scenarios in his mind ran rampant. He let loose for an hour or so, until he noticed that the two suns’ position in the sky had lowered slightly.
There was still a childish smile curling Verity’s lips, but he wiped the sweat off of his forehead, and with the planted the spear in the ground, realized that it was high time he decided where to go.
He looked in front of him, then behind him, and finally on both sides of the grass plain. ‘Well, walking on this road until I find something is just as good as any other idea.’
Verity couldn’t read the stars on earth, so he wouldn’t even think of trying it here, if this really wasn’t earth. Plus, he had never gone camping, which made sleeping under the stars an absolute no. So, his best bet was to keep walking on the dirt road until he found a hotel or something similar.
He was preparing to dismiss the spear, when he heard a voice from afar, calling out to him.
“Hey! You!!”
After the voice, he heard the sound of hooves smashing into the ground, and the wheels of a carriage rolling toward him. When he looked toward the noise, he saw an older man with grey hair and an unsavory mustache signal toward him.
Verity wasn’t really sure what to do here, so he just… waved back.
This didn’t seem to amuse the older man. As he neared Verity’s position, the carriage driver pulled on the reins of his horses, and brought the carriage to a stop.
“Hey! Are you trying to get run over??” The older man yelled.
Verity looked around him. ‘Can’t he just go around…?’
Before he could answer, a woman, even younger than Verity, perhaps a girl in this case, opened the carriage door and stepped out. She was wearing a beautiful, old-fashioned beige dress, and her blond hair was tied behind her head. “What’s the matter Mister, why have we stopped?”
The older man rubbed his palms together and gave her an awkward smile. “I-It’s nothing Lady Eleanor! Please, get back inside the carriage!”
Then, two other people stepped out of the carriage. “Is it bandits?” The first asked. She was a darker skinned woman wearing what could only be described as light fantasy armor. Small silver shoulder pads, silver arm guards, a leather vest on top of a white shirt, and leather shorts. Her hair was of a soft pink and wrapped around her thigh were two sets of daggers resting in their holsters.
Her expression, accentuated by her vertical pupils, seemed very uninviting to Verity, and although her figure was striking, what attracted Verity’s attention the most was the accessory atop her head. She wore cat ears, and as he looked at her intently, Verity noticed a tail behind her.
‘Cosplay?’
The second to come out of the carriage was very different, and he was a man. His hair was of a crimson red, and he did not possess ears or a tail. Instead of daggers, he had a sheathed longsword resting at his side. He wore a long brown coat with all sorts of adornments, among which was a skull serving as a shoulder guard, and unlike the woman, a pleasing smile was covering his lips.
Both of them seemed nothing like the people he was used to seeing in everyday life. If anything, they looked more like…
Verity must have been staring. Before he could finish his analysis, the woman clicked her tongue, approached him, and grabbed his collar. “Whatcha starin’ at, punk?” She said, her tail standing on end.
Verity finally understood something he should have realized a while ago. ‘A carriage, cat-people, two suns, swords…’ It was all so clear.
“I’VE BEEN ISEKAI’D!??” He shouted.