Lying on his back, Jett opened his eyes to gaze at the clear sky above.

“Greetings citizens of Earth!”

A voice boomed from somewhere, startling the birds in a tree crown nearby, prompting them to fly off.

He observed their paths, as he usually did.

“And welcome to the Tutorial!”, the voice droned on.

Okay…

This has to be the earliest I have ever died.

And to a fucking Copper I nonetheless.

Honestly he didn’t even really know what went wrong.

The boar got distracted by some people. He had seen at least two girls, but he didn’t pay that much attention to tell if there were more.

And he didn’t even recognize those girls, which meant they probably died very early on in all of his previous regressions. Probably in that very spot he met them at.

And then, when they had been attacked, he snuck out of the cave and away from the boar.

He had been so sure the fight would give him enough time and distance so that he could sneak away completely unbothered.

After all, he knew precisely how Copper I boars worked. He knew how sensitive their ears were, but he also knew that their vision wasn’t that good. He was quiet enough and far away so that it shouldn’t have spotted him.

And although their sense of smell was great, the boar hadn’t reacted to him when it had been closer to him, so it couldn’t have been that either. The blood from the fight should have also covered any smell he would have given off.

I really don’t get it…

He had been so absolutely certain about his escape, that the sudden attack had caught him completely off-guard. The ensuing fight, if you could call it that, consisted mostly of him trying to dodge the boar’s charges and attempting to run away at every possible opportunity. But he still ended up getting hit by its tusks every single time he tried to flee. He had also tried to use the spear still stuck in the beast to his advantage, but he wasn’t able to get it out or worsen the wound.

He did survive surprisingly long, considering he was still ungraded, though he felt like he shouldn’t have died at all, had he really tried.

But honestly he just couldn’t get himself to be fully focused.

The pain the boar threatened to inflict on him was the only reason he tried at all to survive. After all, it wasn’t death itself he feared, just the pain it was coming with.

But fighting a Copper I half hearted, without any weapons or skills…

Yeah, it should have been obvious from the start that I would die.

I’m just hung up on the fact that I got noticed at all.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Let’s move on. I should probably find a different sleeping spot… I’m not gonna go there again.

He sighed in resignation and continued staring at the sky, while he started thinking about what to do next.

Hmm, maybe I should head west instead of east this time? Maybe the east doesn’t like lazy regressors like me.

Though the smartest option would probably be to get some skills quickly, join Brett’s big group, impress them with some showy fights, let them vote me as a commander and then laze off until the first trial’s boss arrives.

But that’s so much work… and we would then probably all die when the boss arrives anyways.

He wasn’t sure they could manage it without his serious involvement… he never not contributed to the boss fight, either by directly fighting it or indirectly by helping others get stronger. Even in his very first boss fight, before he even knew he would regress, he already contributed a lot and they barely made it. So in his opinion the trial would probably be a failure.

So just a couple days of relaxing for a couple days of hard work…

He already knew the fastest way to attain many good skills, but he had to fully focus to get them this early. Getting anything higher than Copper I on the first day was annoyingly hard.

And he really didn’t feel like putting in all that effort.

In fact, the more he thought about it, the less attractive it sounded.

It can’t be that hard to get some peace for just a few days, right?

At the back of his mind, a small voice whispered that yes, it would be hard. Very hard. That he would always have to struggle. That he would never have true peace.

His heart began beating faster and faster.

A deep, primal kind of fear started rising in him.

Like Sisyphus he would have to keep fighting and failing forever. Or experience a painful death every day, if he decided not to try fighting. Stuck in a loop until his mind would break…

…no. No! I can't think like that! No no no.

He shook his head vigorously.

Don’t think like that, just don’t.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm his heart which seemed ready to burst out of his chest.

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The many years of experience of suppressing fear and panic in the face of the dangers of Alyrra helped him in that regard. The panic that had been bubbling up got banished again to a far corner of his mind, where those thoughts couldn’t influence him. For now.

No, he would just go in a different direction this time and seek out another hiding place. There was no way he would get annoyed by Copper I boars every single time.

He would be able to find a nice, safe spot and then he could just be there and do nothing. Just… relax.

Okay, yeah, let’s head west. There are no nearby caves in that direction though… so I'll have to sleep on a tree. Which is much more uncomfortable.

Especially since it will rain on the third day.

But oh well, beggars can’t be choosers. It will have to do.

Though there were other issues as well.

The next water source was much further away as well, compared to his previous hiding spot. The previous one, in the hills, had a small spring nearby.

If he went west, there would be nothing nearby, he would have to go up north towards the lake. Which was kind of dangerous, because the largest group in the Tutorial, Brett’s group, would usually set camp there. And large groups attracted a lot of strong beasts, so just going nearby was risky.

He could of course just not go there and just relax in his spot… but being thirsty was much more annoying than being hungry.

Dying from thirst was very low on his list of preferable forms of death.

Even thinking of this irritates me already… why do I have to plan so much.

While he begrudgingly kept pondering on his plans, the voice was finishing up its introduction about the Tutorial.

After a little while he finally made a decision, got up and started walking west. A few people annoyed him during his walk, wanting to talk to him about joining their groups or other stupid reasons, but he ignored them to the best of his ability.

It wasn’t before the *GONG* of a System announcement resounded, that he stopped.

He frowned.

Something feels wrong.

He read through the System announcement, which he usually never did, but it looked just as he remembered. He kept rereading it a few times just to make sure.

No, nothing unusual.

He looked around the clearing, observing the people who were either reading the announcement or discussing it with others, but everyone seemed to act like they usually did.

They had also already formed the usual groups, and were starting to go in the usual directions and so on.

So he obviously didn’t have a high impact on this round yet, there was no way it could deviate in any meaningful way already.

But the feeling of wrongness didn’t let go.

Something was different. Very different.

What is it?

He started paying even closer attention to the individual groups, recalling what he remembered about their actions on the first day.

Okay, Layren’s group is going south-east as usual, Brett’s group is going north, Erik’s group is still hanging around, smaller groups also don’t look unusual…

Fuck if I know what changed.

Maybe their compositions?

Hmm, no the people seem normal, they have the usual weapons… wait.

He looked down on his empty hands.

He looked back up to all the others with weapons in their hands.

Where the hell was my weapon prompt?

****

“Cleoo!”

Cleo was quick minded enough to get her spear out of the way, just moments before Laira crushed into her with a hug.

“Ufff…. Laira, take it easy.”

“Ah, I’m sorry.” said Laira, letting Cleo entangle herself from the forceful show of love.

“I just… anyways, do you know where we are? Did you listen to that strange voice? I have no idea how we got here, I can’t remember anything. Do you think it will be dangerous? Why…”

A stream of words shot out of Laira’s mouth like some kind of valve had just been opened.

“Laira… Laira!”

Cleo put a finger on her sister’s mouth.

“and… what?”

“Be quiet for a second and focus, okay? Where is your weapon?”

Laira looked down at her little sister.

“What do you mean? Why would I have a weapon? Actually,” she said while pointing a finger accusingly at Cleo, “why do you have a weapon?”

Cleo looked at her incredulously. Did her sister only just now pop into this world?

“What do you mean why do I have a weapon? You got the same prompt as me! I just chose my weapon already, so stop dawdling around and choose yours as well, we will probably need it soon.”

“Cleo.”

Laira put her hands firm on Cleo’s shoulder and looked her straight in the eyes.

“What. Are. You. Talking about? What prompt? Why would I get that?”

Cleo was about to give another annoyed reply, but the seriousness in her sister’s eyes made her hesitate.

“You… what? You really didn’t get anything? No floating blue box?”

Laira frowned.

“No, no floating blue box. How would that even work?”

“Okay, I’m actually kind of impressed, ” Cleo replied while raising her eyebrows and then giving her sister a cheeky grin, “we get transported to a new world with a System, but for some reason my sister is the only one who breaks that very System on arrival.”

Laira kept looking at her sister with a deadpan face, clearly not amused.

Cleo coughed and looked to the side.

“Uhmm, okay, try thinking about your Status maybe?”

“My status?”

“Yeah, just try it.”

She furrowed her brows, but eventually did as she was told.

A blue textbox sprang into her view.

She jumped back.

“Whoa! What… how does that work? We aren’t in VR, are we? It looks so sharp…”

She admired her textbox with an open mouth.

“Alright, maybe not all hope is lost for you,” said Cleo, sighing in relief.

Her having a textbox meant she at least had access to the System. Cleo had already feared her sister would be completely left out from everything.

“Can you tell me what it says?” Cleo asked, ”Is there anything unusual?”

Laira looked over her Status screen, only now actually reading the individual entries.

“Umm, it says my name, says I’m human, and also ungraded? Do you have a grade?”

“No, it’s the same for me,” Cleo said, shaking her head, “but what does your alignment say? That’s apparently supposed to be your weapon.”

“It says... Mind?” said Laira, scratching her head confused, “I don’t know what that means.”

Cleo stared at her, even more confused than her sister, opening and closing her mouth a few times without letting out a sound.

“What the hell kind of weapon is Mind…,” she mumbled.