Chapter 14

Talia Rhineheart stood upon a grotesque, monstrous corpse riddled by boils and odd growths. Her long, blonde hair whipped against the mismatch of plate armor that clad her body as ribbons of power washed over her. In her hands, she held a sceptre in one and a shield in the other.

As two more snouted monsters like the one she stood over climbed out of the barrow she was staring down, she activated some kind of Skill, and a partially transparent avatar appeared over her body. The avatar appeared to be a heavily armored knight of monstrous proportions, about three times the size of the woman. When she lunged forward, striking at the monsters, the avatar struck with her.

Aaron’s eyes widened as, instead of the sceptre, which fell far short of reaching the monsters, the ethereal blade of the knight avatar sliced through them, and within seconds, both monsters lay dead.

“Wow, that was awesome. I need a Skill like that.”

“Yes, she’s not bad, huh?” The alien bounced its brows suggestively. “She’s the top ranker from the tutorial you were meant to join, actually. It says here that she leads the largest group in the tutorial, but most of the fighting she does solo. Not only that, but it says here that she’s level 30 and one of the first to hit E grade. Pretty impressive, don’t you think?”

“Really? Damn, she’s kinda scary, isn’t she? Maybe it is a good thing I’m in here.”

“You know, a bathing session is coming up in the pristine and crystal clear waters of Everclear Waterfall. If you’re interested, we could have a little peeky.”

“What? No! I’m not creeping on her. Who do you think I am? Is that what people do in here?”

“It’s up to them, this is a reward, after all. If you want a little sneaky peeky, I’m not one to judge.”

“No, no. No way. I’m not a creep, okay? Let’s just keep this PG, can we?”

“Fine. It’s not as fun, and I can dim the lights further if it makes you more comfortable. But if that’s what you want,” the alien paused, letting the words linger before continuing. “We can move on to another top ranker from a different tutorial?”

“Yeah, that’s what I want,” Aaron confirmed with an uncomfortable grimace.

This was the part where most people would ask to see their loved ones. But Aaron was an only child who didn’t know his dad, and his mom had passed away a few years back. He had a

thing

with a girl, but she was hardly a girlfriend, and he wasn’t sure he even wanted to know what happened to her. If she were alive, then great, but it wasn’t like he could go find her, or anything. And if she wasn’t… well, he wouldn’t feel great about it.

As for friends, he had been drifting apart from his closest ones since he left high school. There were still a few others he cared for, but they were mostly in the same boat as his

situationship.

They were adults and could look after themselves as well as he or anybody else could, and he was just as confused as anybody, maybe more so. He was the one missing out on the Tutorial, after all. What was he supposed to do? Besides, he had a job to do. Get strong enough to survive the multiverse, and if he saw something that riddled him with guilt, it would probably just make that job harder.

“Oh, right, there are lots of Tutorials, aren’t there? I think I remember Douglas saying something like that. Wait, you said she’s one of the first to hit E grade?”

“Yup, she sure was. Want me to bring up another pretty one?” The alien winked. “I’ve got just the girl in mind.”

“No. No creepy stuff, remember? I just want to see who the first person from Earth to hit E grade was.”

“Fine. You’re no fun. Eww, male.”

Aaron raised a brow at the perverted alien. Did it even find humans attractive?

With a reluctant sigh, the alien pressed some buttons, and the screen changed. Standing before them was Darius Nessar. He was robed in black and looked like some kind of goth rockstar, with painted nails and skulls hanging from a golden necklace. But more concerningly, three humans lay before him, battered and bloodied.

“Humans… are they dead?” Aaron said in disbelief.

“Either that or convincing actors. And they’re not just humans, they’re Tutorial takers.”

He watched on in horror as the man raised a hand and streams of toxic, green mana swirled out and into the bodies. Within seconds, they began to jerk to life, and as they stood up in undeath, the camera panned back to reveal dozens of other animated corpses crookedly standing behind the man in black. Some wore armor, others robes, and just about all carried a weapon of some kind.

“What on earth?” Aaron shook his head. “Did he kill all those people?”

“Probably. It seems he is Earth’s top ranker, at least for now, and is a necromancer. They can be troublesome. It says here that he is level 34 and has already racked up forty-five player kills. He has become somewhat of a boogeyman in his tutorial. Wanna see his feet?”

“What? No! And what do you mean, player kills?”

“I was just trying to be polite. I don’t know what way you swing. And yeah, that’s what we call Tutorial takers. Players, that is. You kill another person in a Tutorial, and you’re labelled a player killer. Or pker.”

“Far out. So he’s killed forty-five other people in the tutorial?”

“Yup, that’s what I said. Still early days, though. Who knows what that number might rise to? The crazy ones tend to snowball.”

Aaron had considered that this multiverse, as described by Douglas, might bring out such evil in people, but it was another thing to see it up front.

“Change it, please. I’ve seen enough.”

Reading the room, the alien changed to the next top ranker without further questioning.

Joseph Lefiti was a large man. His arms and thighs were at least twice as thick as the average man's, and the Samoan stood tall, with thick purple scales covering much of his body. With a spear in one hand, he leaped from a ledge and dove down into a cavernous descent, landing with a splash as he submerged into the pool at its base. Barely a second later, some kind of sea serpent attacked. But the big man was far from defenseless underwater and shot toward the beast as if powered by a waterjet. When they met in battle, the thrusts of his spear shot forward with such speed that the water did not slow. In fact, the attacks seemed to be sped up in the water.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Interesting Class,” the alien commented. “He must have had some kind of water-based Class evolution at E grade.”

“Evolutions? We get those?”

“Yes, all classes undergo evolutions when they reach the next grade. What’s on offer will depend on the path you took for the previous grade. Either that, or if you manage to find a special Class Tome, you can use it to unlock a unique Class, assuming you have affinity with it.”

Aaron nodded along. It was nice to learn who the top rankers were, since no doubt that would matter once he left the trials, but he was starting to think the real treasure was what he was learning from the alien guide. He was definitely more talkative than Douglas.

Within moments, the sea serpent was dead, and Joseph pulled its huge corpse to a small rock platform beside the pool.

“He’s strong, alright.”

“Yes, level 32. He was the second earthling to hit E grade. He hasn’t had much communication with the rest of his tutorial. It appears he took to a water-based Skill early on, and since then, has been out hunting monsters alone. Not a bad strategy, as it says here, the tutorial he is in is mostly water. Some kind of archipelago Tutorial.”

“And what about the scales?”

“They appear to be a passive Class Skill. Ready for the next one?”

“Yeah, why not?”

As interesting as the scaled man was, Aaron had work to do, so he didn’t want to linger for too long on any single person. Besides, he wasn’t sure which of them he would even meet. The world was a big place, after all.

Next up was Kim Soohyun. She was a dainty little thing, and despite the kind of vicious-looking eyes beneath her dark bangs, Aaron struggled to imagine her as a top ranker. That was until he saw the absolutely ginormous sword she carried around like a feather duster. The thing was easily three times her own height and just as wide as she was. When she brought it down on some winged, pseudo-dragon thing about the size of a bear, she split it in two, as if its hide posed absolutely no resistance to her strike.

“How the… she’s tiny. How does she even lift that sword?!”

“A heavily reliant strength build, I presume,” the alien mused. “Not my favorite build, but it seems to be working for her. She’s level 30 and was the third to hit E grade. Apparently, despite being the strongest in her Tutorial, she’s not the leader of any groups. There’s actually quite a bit of unity in her Tutorial, and they set up somewhat of a town, with many choosing to focus on their Professions, rather than their classes. Kim Soohyun is one of an elite group of hunters who completed tutorial quests and dungeons in search of materials for them. They are surprisingly well organized, considering how little time they’ve had.”

Aaron had a brief understanding of Professions. He had seen it noted on his status page, and Douglas had given him a rudimentary explanation. Since he didn’t appear to have the ability to access them, and he wasn’t sure how they’d help him clear trials, he had put them to the back of his mind.

“Interesting,” Aaron agreed. “Wait, dungeons?”

“Yes, dungeons,” the alien nodded. “They’re quite common in the Tutorial, though not as valuable as those found in the multiverse.”

“I see. I’ll be filing away that bit of information.”

“On to the next, shall we?”

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

The moment the image changed, bright lights flashed, causing Aaron to reflexively shield his eyes.

An array of magical blasts rippled across a barrier, which appeared to be held up by a lazily outstretched hand. The owner of that hand was Emmy Sharp. She was a skinny girl, almost lost beneath her bulky robes, oversized glasses, and cliche wizard’s hat. Yawning, she dipped into one of her huge pockets and retrieved a wand. She appeared to be counting as the magical blasts continued to shake her barrier, but the moment the attack let up, the barrier was dropped, and she waved her wand. To Aaron’s flabbergasted surprise, no flashy lightning bolts or fireballs shot free, but instead bubbles. Harmless-looking bubbles plopped into the air, floating in the direction of what he realized was six lizard-looking humanoids holding staffs. Then, she blew. It wasn’t even a high-effort blow, like the kind that would fail to blow out a birthday cake candle. But the results were anything but that, and the bubbles shot toward the lizardmen casters at a speed no bubble should be able to move, and when the bubbles collided with them, they pulled the lizardmen into them.

Within seconds, all six lizardmen were hopelessly banging against the walls of the bubbles that had imprisoned them. Calmly, Emmy returned the wand to her pocket, turned to the trapped lizardmen, and raised a hand toward them. And when she closed her hand into a fist, the bubbles closed in on themselves and popped, crushing the lizardmen to death.

“Damn! What a spell.”

“Your world certainly has some interesting Class choices,” the alien nodded appreciatively. “It’ll make for an interesting addition to the multiverse. She’s level 28, by the way. Another top ranker of her respected Tutorial who chooses not to lead. It seems that fairly early on, her fellow Tutorial takers struggled to keep up with her, so she simply went on alone. Some people just take to it naturally—the law of the multiverse.”

“Yeah, right. I’m not worried at all. Haha,” Aaron nervously chuckled.

“Another? Unless you want to see what’s beneath those robes?”

“Nope, still good. Next!”

Holographic beams of energy and arrows flew from the screen, dissipating as they passed Aaron’s head. It had taken them into the middle of another battle, and several humans fired volleys of attacks as another man dodged, rolling from a tree and diving behind a ledge of craggy rock. He wore what looked like a cowboy hat, with an eyepatch over his right eye, and what looked like light leather armor.

“Humans fighting humans again,” Aaron murmured. “The world really has gone to shit, hasn’t it?”

“Best get used to it. The multiverse is a dangerous place.”

The cowboy-looking man was Ernest Sheridan, who held a perfectly black revolver in one hand and a perfectly black dagger in the other. A second later, he flashed out from where he hid and returned fire. Though instead of bullets, his revolver shot what looked like darts connected to black chains that were, in turn, connected to Ernest himself. He hit an archer and a mage, who were firing at him, and they began to tug desperately at the darts embedded in them.

Aaron’s brow perked at the curious Skill, and he tried to discern what it was doing.

A second later, it became obvious, as energy seemed to travel down the chains and toward the cowboy. As the streams of energy followed the chains into Ernest, he began to move faster, as if it were powering him up. Over the next couple of seconds, he hit two more of his attackers, and his speed and ferocity grew scarily. A melee combatant wielding a giant axe engaged him, and Ernest shrugged away the huge weapon with an effortless parry from his much smaller knife, and followed up with a flurry of stabs that killed the man seconds later.

From there, the battle wasn’t pretty. It turned into a one-sided slaughter, as Ernest got faster and stronger with each passing second, while his attackers grew slower and weaker. In the end, eight people lay dead, and Ernest barely looked tired.

With people like this out there… am I going to have to kill other humans?

Aaron hadn’t properly considered this possibility. Of course, he hadn’t gone through all this hell just to roll over and take it because of misplaced morals, but still. The thought of killing humans was heavy.

“He’s level 27, with thirty-one player kills to his name. Their Tutorial broke into several different factions early on, which waged war on one another. It seems Ernest rather quickly pulled away from the pack, proving himself as a powerhouse. This scene was part of a larger battle, in which his followers also took part. Now he controls more than half of the tutorial, and what remains of those who haven’t sided with him hide in fear of the man and his people.”

“Okay, that’s enough. I can’t waste too much time watching people. Thanks for everything, but now I’m feeling even more determined. I'd better get back to work. Can’t let these guys get too far ahead, right?”

“Good luck!” The alien waved as Aaron exited into the obsidian hallway.

It turned out Douglas’ warning wasn’t overstated. He had this small sneak peek into what was happening within the Tutorials, and he had already seen multiple murderers. It was disturbing, but more importantly, a reason to keep pushing himself.