An entire section of windows shattered on the school’s fourth floor. There didn’t seem to be any apparent reason. One moment everything was alright and then it wasn’t. Normally, such a major event would have created a lot of commotion. Local authorities, along with the media, would have poured onto the scene. They’d be soon followed by ambulances, fire trucks, and a sea of concerned parents. Since the event took place past midnight, the only people who were awake to notice didn’t have the attention span to do so, focused on their games, movies, or other online activities.
“Careful!” Jace shouted from the staircase. “You almost killed me!”
Two large cuts stretched along the entire corridor—a result of Helen’s latest lethal attack. If the girl had that during the wolf challenge, the top prize was as good as theirs. In this case, the strike had almost proved more than the group could handle.
The vast majority of Alex’s mirror copies had been destroyed and Will had only managed to survive thanks to his quick reaction and evasion skills. Adding insult to injury, the black wolf had only been slightly grazed.
“Don’t give up, sis!” the goofball shouted, sliding mirror traps along the floor.
On cue, the girl performed a vertical slash as she pushed forward.
With a growl, the wolf leaped back, just in time to evade the strike. Unfortunately for it, the creature’s left rear foot stepped right on one of the traps that had been set up.
“Got it!” Alex shouted.
More attacks followed. Will, though, didn’t bother to remain in the corridor for the end of the fight. He had a pretty good idea what the outcome would be. As difficult an opponent as the wolf was, it was already dead. Poisoned, trapped, and wounded, it didn’t have any effective way of fighting back. By his estimates, it was going to take Alex and Helen ten seconds to finish it off, which meant he had to hurry.
Leaping into the bathroom, he rushed past the dark rogue’s body, up to the mirror.
“Are you still here?” he whispered, keeping an eye on the corridor entrance.
There was no answer.
“Can you hear me?” the boy reached for the mirror. His hand stopped at the hard surface. Either Danny or eternity itself was blocking him from entering the mirror realm.
Will quickly diverted his attention to the corpse on the floor. The last thing he wanted was for Helen to find a series of knives that weren’t supposed to be there.
At first glance, the throwing knives looked quite standard, cheap even. It was as if someone had sliced off a shard of metal, hastily sharpened the edge, and left it at that. But handling them, Will could tell that they were expertly balanced.
Danny had thrown a total of six knives, each dealing a certain affliction. Will tossed them into his backpack, then rushed back into the corridor just in time to see Helen deal the final blow.
Thrusting forward, the girl pierced the monster’s chest. For several seconds, it and Helen remained perfectly still, looking at each other like statues. Then, the girl pulled her sword out, causing the creature to drop to the floor with a thump.
“Jace,” she said as she went to lean against the wall. “Check what we got.”
“I’ll get him, sis.” Alex sprinted down the corridor.
As effortless as the final strike had appeared, the fight had sapped most of Helen’s strength. Will was just about to say a word of encouragement when the mirrors on either side of him flashed green. Faster than a person could blink, they flew towards one another. Fortunately for Will, his rogue skills proved faster.
The boy dropped to the floor in the nick of time, narrowly escaping being crushed. Above him, the mirrors clicked into place. Next thing Will knew, a small, hard object fell onto him.
“Everything okay, Will?” Helen asked, resting against the wall, eyes closed.
“Yeah,” he lied, gently moving to the side, so that whatever was on him could fall off. “Searching for my dagger.”
There indeed was an object nearby, but it wasn’t his weapon. Instead, a small mirror fragment lay there. It looked like the cheap stuff that one would get as a cheap prize, but Will instantly knew what it really was.
Grabbing it, he looked in, tapping the surface with a finger.
Congratulations, ROGUE! You have made progress.
Fragment granted.
His own mirror fragment? Will itched to keep tapping it to see what information it held. Unfortunately, now was not the time. Quickly, he stashed it in his backpack, then went to Helen.
“What about you?” he asked.
“I’m never doing this again.” She opened her eyes halfway.
“You won’t have to. We got both of them.” He gently placed his hand on her neck.
If circumstances were different, it might have been her cheek; not after the conversation with Danny, however. It wasn’t that he cared about her relationship with the former rogue. The truth was that he felt uncomfortable keeping that particular secret from her.
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“Way to destroy the floor,” Jace said as he approached, causing Will to quickly pull back. “Cops are probably on their way.”
“Nuh-uh, bro,” Alex said behind him. “Been checking online. No one has posted anything. You get demonetized for posting such stuff, so we’re safe till morning.”
“How would you know, muffin boy?” The jock glanced at him.
“I tried becoming famous once. Big oof. My account got banned, I lost my mail, and some suits brought me in for questioning.”
That sounded like something Alex would do. Will imagined he’d stream live during a catastrophe if it wasn’t against the terms of service.
Ignoring them, Helen pushed herself up and went to the corpse of the black wolf. The creature disappeared once she placed her hand on its muzzle, leaving a pair of metal boots behind. They were knee length, composed of dozens of metal segments and padded with wolf fur on the inside.
“Fire,” Alex said, enviously looking at them. “Can I get them?”
“Eternal, durable, increase traction,” Jace started reciting as he examined the gear. “Ten percent chance to break loose from a trap.” He looked back at Alex. “Have them. They’re fucking crap.”
“One man’s crap is another man’s treasure,” the goofball said proudly, then rushed to grab the boots.
Will shook his head.
“Let’s check the other one.” Helen didn’t seem particularly amused.
The rogue, as expected, dropped a set of throwing knives. They didn’t come with a belt, as Alex’s had, yet each had a ten percent chance to paralyze its target. In Jace’s view, they too were useless, since even sticking all of them in someone didn’t guarantee any results. Will, on his part, was pleased with the addition to his arsenal. More eternal weapons meant they had a better chance to defeat what was to come.
As the bodies vanished, a small discussion took place on whether to check out the final floor of the building or try their luck with the second-floor elite. Alex, of all people, seemed to think that they had what it took to win against the unknown elite, while everyone else preferred to take it easy and gain as many additional skills as possible before doing so.
A pseudo vote was held, even if the outcome was clear. The only thing that Will insisted on was that they rest for a bit longer before heading to the final stretch.
Fifteen minutes of total calm and silence followed, during which Helen tried to take a short nap at the far end of the corridor. Unhappy with the general decision, Alex went to the bathroom in order to get more ammunition for the fights to come. As for Will, he had too much on his mind to discuss anything.
From what it looked like, Danny had told the truth. They had gotten a special reward; more specifically, Will had gotten it. Was that part of the plan, though? His former classmate had omitted the part where the mirrors tried to crush him. It was possible for that to have been a coincidence. No one could determine where they’d be at the end of the fight. Will might have just as well been further down the corridor, safely away from the point of impact. Even so, he would have appreciated a heads up.
The boy glanced at the backpack strap on his shoulder. There were twelve special knives and a mirror fragment inside. Yet, despite all the loot, he found himself wishing that Daniel had lied.
“It doesn’t match up,” Jace said, breaking the silence.
“What?” Will asked.
“Seven weapons. Muffin boy’s belt can be a weapon or not, but there’s no way the boots are.”
“Yeah.” Will was thinking the same. “Although it depends on interpretation. If the boots were meant for Helen, they could well be weapons.”
“They’re not. Crafter, remember?”
“They’re probably weapons,” Will steered away from the subject. “You know…”
He looked at the jock. As the newest member of the group, he was the only one who didn’t have any relation with Daniel. Maybe together they could come up with a plan. How could he be certain that Jace hadn’t made a secret arrangement with someone else, though? Will was looking into the former rogue along with Alex. Helen kept to herself, but she and the goofball too knew things that the others didn’t.
There can only be one leader. The boy remembered the hint he had been given.
The tutorial required that they work together. Just to start it, they had to find people for all four school classes. At the same time, there were enough hints that everyone would change after defeating the boss.
“I think we shouldn’t fight the boss,” Will continued. “Not yet.”
“Yeah, right. Talking about the finals already, Stoner?”
“I’m serious. There’s one floor left. Even if we need to destroy the hidden mirror, we’re one fight away. I think we should explore more.”
“Why do you think there’s more?”
“Alex’s mirror is outside of school.”
The conversation died down again. After another five minutes, Will went to wake up Helen. The girl wasn’t particularly appreciative, making a short but sarcastic comment on the matter. Still, she got up and grabbed her sword from the wall. Not too long after, Alex also returned, his backpacks filled with as many shattered mirrors as he managed to get from the third-floor toilet. All that remained was to move up.
It didn’t take long for Jace to be proven right. By this point, dealing with common wolves and goblins had become a chore rather than a challenge. With weapons and high-class levels, every single person could take them out on their own, possibly with the exception of the jock.
The single hidden mirror on the floor wasn’t particularly difficult, either. Will found it interesting that so far, the group hadn’t faced the same elite twice. While wolves and goblins were identical, not once getting stronger, the elites were unique. Alex speculated that the tutorial was the reason for that—an introduction to monster species and their drops, as he put it. Based on his theory, once the tutorial was over, they’d get to explore a larger part of the city, where there’d be thousands of hidden mirrors, releasing multiple elites they were familiar with, as well as others they hadn’t seen.
In this instance, the elite was a slow, but armored, turtle-like creature. The greatest danger was its snapping tongue that it shot at people as a projectile. Unfortunately for the creature, its first—and only—target happened to be Will, who was the worst possible match-up. Evading the surprise attack, he had then quickly used his dagger to counterattack. The elite had quickly died of poison effects as a result, before Helen could even manage to crack its shell open.
“Turtle shield,” Jace said, examining the item it had left behind. “It’s a shield. That’s pretty much it.”
“Fire, bro! You got something for yourself.” Alex grinned.
“Shut up.” The jock grumbled. While useful, he was hoping to get something a bit more glamorous. Being the crafter with the shield was a terrible cliché, not to mention it didn’t have much of a practical value.
“That’s the whole school,” Hele said as she tapped on her mirror fragment. “Except for the second floor.”
“Let’s go!” Alex urged.
“I think we should stop,” Will said, surprising everyone. “We’re tired and Alex is out of mirrors. If we face it now, we’ll only lose.”
“So?” Helen stared at him. “It’s not like we’ll lose anything.”
“Maybe not, but… I just think we should pause while we’re ahead.”
He was outvoted, of course. There was no reason he could give for them not even trying, not one he could openly share, at least. At the same time, he was also right. The fight lasted close to ten minutes with him, Alex, and Helen doing everything possible to uncover the true nature of their opponent. The result was no different than before.
Tutorial failed.
Restarting eternity.