Tutorial Day 1

“Interesting. I haven’t heard of a new guy entering in months, and then one falls right into my lap!” A robotic sounding voice intoned. A peculiar quality of the voice made it seem like someone was speaking from beside my shoulder. I was laying on my back looking up at a sky filled with numerous suns. I had just started counting them, but the nearness of the voice and the sound of boots crushing leaves from farther away made me turn my head. A short man with dark hair, brown eyes, and smooth features looked down at me with a broad smile.

My slow study of the man brought my eyes to the sword on his waist and I jumped to my feet. The man held up his hands and began moving his mouth, but to my surprise no sound came out—until approximately his third attempted word.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I was just out hunting and returning through this forest.” Again, the voice sounded odd, mechanical—and far too close. It reminded me of my earlier assumption of having come from multiple people. I scanned my surroundings.

Quite a few trees that looked like Evergreens surrounded me, but no other people. One of my new Skills highlighted some of the foliage with plaques that likely would give me the names of the plants, and there were even a few dots and lines that probably were indicating how to Harvest them. My eyes returned to the man in confusion and found him already speaking again.

“There’s translation magic here. Sounds strange right? It will slowly get better the longer you stay. Still, we should get you back to town. It’s dangerous out here without a weapon! —I’m Fong, what’s your name?” Fong said. The gestures of his hands were deliberately slow and clearly meant not to startle me.

Slowly I answered, “My name is Brodie. You said something about a town?”

“Tutorial Town, follow me,” Fong said, but I didn’t hear it until he spun around and was already making a gesture over his shoulder for me to follow. His words brought back the memory of my final moments in the Portal with Alexus. The System notices had claimed I was ‘eligible for the Tutorial’ and then sucked me through a portal to an ‘E-ranked Tutorial’.

I wasn’t an expert on games, not like Dave, but weren’t Tutorials usually where you learned the buttons and functions of the game at a basic level? So, was this Fong not really a man but a Tutorial Guide? Also, I had to pre-qualify for the basics of a literal universe-altering change to my world and my life? How did that make any sense?

Coughing, I asked, “Are you a Guide then?”

Fong laughed, which was highly disturbing, because instead of hearing a sound from what clearly was mirthful body language and laughter—I heard a robotic evil ‘ha-ha-ha-ha,’ then the same robotic voice answered with no inflection, “I asked the same question when I first got here. But no, this Tutorial isn’t what any of us expected. Basically, we're all trapped here.”

Because of the lack of inflection, it took me a moment to register his last sentence and blurt out, “What?! Trapped here?”

“Don’t worry about that yet. It’s only your first day. Today we’ll get you signed up for a room and listed as a member of our Tribe. Then the boss will decide how best you can contribute.”

That only brought up more questions, but I clamped my mouth shut, thanks in large part to Mental Fortitude. While I could tell I was still running high on adrenaline from the realization that I was in a ‘Tutorial’ and along with the word ‘trapped’, I was thinking everything through. Fong was giving away a bit more than he might have intended. Instead of asking about the ‘contribution,’ which was my first thought, I chose a different route.

“Is ‘the boss’ in charge of the Tutorial?” I asked, somewhat expecting that this boss was a human, and not some sort of Tutorial Guide or whatever games would lead me to expect.

“Nah, the boss has been here for many decades. He’s the strongest of our Tribe and protects us from the other bosses.”

There it was. The answer I was somewhat expecting but hadn’t wanted to outright ask and alert Fong to my suspicions. The ‘boss’ was someone who was stronger than most other people here, and he used that power to control weaker Hunters, like myself. Not only that, but there seemed to be other people and groups with a similar hierarchy, which meant—conflict. My stomach began to knot but I continued my casual questioning.

“Your Tribe? Is that like a Guild?” I asked.

“Yep!” Fong began his voice still robotic, but since he glanced over his shoulder at me when he answered, I could see that the movement of his mouth and the translation came faster. “Only difference is that you’ve got to join a Tribe in Tutorial City or live outside of it.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest as my fears were confirmed.

Some of my thoughts must have shown on my face, because Fong used a hand to ‘wave away’ something in the air. Likely meant to dispel my concern or worry. Then a moment after the gesture the translation came through to say, “Nothing sinister. The town is owned by the Four Tribes, and the food, Shops, supplies and Districts can only be accessed only by Tribe members.”

Some of my concern did melt away. It sounded like I wasn’t about to be brought into Town and press-ganged into a Tribe against my will. “So, if you don’t join a Tribe, you can live outside the Districts?”

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“Yes, but I wouldn’t suggest it. Our Tribe wouldn’t attack unaligned, but others do,” Fong said over his shoulder, even as he stopped and put a hand on his sword. I stopped as well, trying to figure out if his actions were meant as a threat to me, or an indication of him sensing something I’d missed.

I heard the breaking twigs and rustling branches a moment later. The smell in the air changed as well, going from the clean smell of pines to the somewhat rancid smell of a swamp. Fong pulled his sword in a fluid motion and a moment later words were translated into my ear.

“Stand back.”

A mudslide undulated around a pine-like tree at my eleven o’clock. For a moment, I wondered what Fong’s sword was going to do against the approaching natural disaster until he started swinging. His sword glowed with blue light, and each swing parted a portion of the mud, revealing that it wasn’t mud at all, but moving balls of… stuff. My brain gave me a name for creatures like this in video games.

Slimes. The two halves of some pulled themselves back together after Fong’s Skill-infused slashes cut them apart, while others fell into pieces, becoming swampy brown puddles. Now knowing what I was looking at, I made a quick count. twenty, or twenty-five. It was tough to tell how many were still behind the tree, so there could be more of them.

Not only was Fong fast, but the Slimes moved somewhat slowly. Still, with each slash that didn’t disable the lead Slimes, they seemed to speed up, forcing Fong to step back as he fought. To my eyes, many of Fong’s movements were blurs, but even with all his speed and clear skill with a blade, he’d only actually disabled about three of the Slimes.

His back was only five feet in front of me when he did something that changed the light on his sword from blue to white. His next slash also changed, becoming something of an exaggerated swing from hip to hip. Where Fong’s movements had been hard to follow before, this swing was easy for me to track.

In front of his swing, the Slimes segmented, almost looking like scalloped potatoes being cut by a master chef. The Skill cleaved through row upon row of the creatures and not even one of the Slimes caught by the ability pulled itself back together. Fong fell to his knee after the strike, his breathing heavy, sweat pouring down his forehead to drip to the pine needle forest floor below.

Only now did I register the red stain on his armor. I hadn’t seen him get injured, and the stain looked relatively dry. Had he been hurt before this fight, and still moved like that? I stood frozen, staring at the Slimes, hoping they wouldn’t reform, because Fong likely couldn’t take on another one. Not with the way his hands were shaking.

Of course, I could offer to Heal Fong, but decided against it. While I didn’t want to face Monsters without the man on my side–I also couldn’t be sure he was truly on my side. So, for now, I’d keep everything to myself, if I could.

I approached slowly and asked, “Are you okay?”

“I just… need a moment. Bottomed out my Qi,” Fong explained through translation. Then he asked, “Could you go collect the twenty-five Cores while I recover?”

My body tensed. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of going toward the mud that could still be alive. And yet, could I refuse to do as the clearly-powerful Fong ‘suggested’. There hadn’t been any indication that the man would react poorly if I refused, but simultaneously, there hadn’t been any hint of his Skills in the moments leading up to the fight, either. He likely was a D or C-rank Hunter, even injured as he was, and he could kill me without blinking.

Eventually, I decided on the safest route—obedience, and slowly approached the mud puddles. If even a bubble formed on the surface of one, I planned to get behind Fong. No such disturbances occurred, however, and the round lump in the flat mud was easy to see. I reached the nearest puddle and pulled out a round, muddy ball about the side of a softball. Then I looked for a place to put it and chose to begin tossing them in a pile outside of the puddles.

Sure, I could have used my Necklace, but then I’d be revealing to Fong I had it, and just like with the Healing, I wasn’t sure how that would go. Bags of Holding were somewhat common on Earth, but I hadn’t ever seen one in the form of a Necklace. Then there was the fact that even a Bag of Holding could be beyond rare here.

I found twenty-eight Cores, and considered ‘stealing’ one, but thought better of it. Fong may be aware of the actual number of Slimes he’d killed and just said twenty-five as a test. I just didn’t want to chance it, not before I understood a bit more about this place and the others who were here.

Twenty minutes or so later, Fong got to his feet and shakily approached the pile. They vanished as he touched them, letting me know that he had some sort of Holding item. “Oh, there were twenty-eight, lucky, lucky,” Fong said, making me wince. Maybe I could have gotten away with one to study.

They hadn’t felt like normal Monster Cores, but the mud on them made it hard for me to tell. Still, Fong had seemed willing to answer my questions earlier so as we started walking again, I asked, “Are those Monster Cores?”

“Not quite, but they’re the equivalent of Monster Cores here, yes. You can sell them in Tutorial Town for Tutorial Points.”

“Tutorial Points?” I asked, prodding Fong to continue his explanation.

“That’s correct. You can spend Tutorial Points at the Shops in our District or on Learning. But be careful. The rent for rooms has a monthly fee. You also must pay for food, Healing or any other service provided by other Hunters. So don’t go getting all spend-happy no matter how many Points you started with.”

“How many points? I started with?” I asked, unsure what he was talking about, or how to check the number.

“Just pull up your Status sheet,” Fong said in his robotic monotone.

I did so and blinked at the blue System Screen.

It had changed.

However, before I could really study it, the view behind the Screen made me close it and stare.

We’d exited the forest and were standing on the top of a shelf that overlooked a valley. In the center of the valley was a massive castle wall, with a Town contained within. However, even more eye-catching was the massive yellow arrow and the signpost in the sky.

It read ‘Tutorial Town’, in bright purple cursive. A multitude of other languages other than English were clearly displayed on the massive sign board as well. The interior of the town was split by the wall that was evident from this vantage but likely wouldn’t be anywhere else because the cross-shaped walls that segmented the interior circle were shorter. Inside each quadrant there were wooden buildings of questionable construction and a few stone buildings of clearly superior make.

Fong held out his hand theatrically and began speaking, followed a moment later by the translation. “Welcome to Tutorial Town.”