Chapter 4

Tutorial 1st Floor, Waiting Room (Part 1)

[One to your shoulder, heart and between your eyes . Half a beat later right ankle . Simple right?]

[What happens if you can't dodge it? Um . . . It's alright . Everyone's like that the first time . ]

I switched through the TV channels with empty eyes .

Comedy shows were boring, and the dramas were ever so predictable .

Music shows were absolutely trash .

I was in desperate need of some sort of stimuli .

A normal day, boring and stupid .

This has been going on for 2 years .

I've quit my career as a professional gamer 2 years ago and have since set up a convenience store with my savings .

It was challenging at first with so many things to manage, but I got used to it fast . And once I got used to it, I left it all to my part time employees and holed myself at home .

Who cares if the part timers rip some money off me .

Life was boring .

I should't have quit my pro gaming career .

I was the best when it came to video games .

There may be arguments, but at my greatest height I was called the best .

However, with the passing of time I was eventually deposed of that title . Unable to deal with my loss, I decided to retire a short time after .

Rather than live on as a loser, I had decided to quit gaming completely .

I've always been extremely competitive .

From hide and seek to a local soccer match, once I started to play, I had to win .

Then one day, I played a fighting video game for the first time in front of a local stationary store .

How angry was I, after being completely destroyed by a 6th grader .

That's when I was absorbed into gaming .

Until my retirement 2 years ago, gaming was my life .

What would it be like if I stayed as an ex-best gamer?

That life wouldn't have been as bad as this .

My life right now is unbearably empty and boring .

Well, what could I do . What's done is done .

I sigh as I raise a glass of soju . The glass was empty .

I try to look for another bottle in the black plastic bag as I keep muttering shit .

Ah, have I drink them all already . . .

At that moment, an emergency broadcast was being played on the TV .

[ . . . Just 30 minutes ago, multiple sinkholes such as these have suddenly appeared throughout the world . The government is currently investigating the cause to the sinkholes . . . . It has been advised not to approach near these sinkholes . This is NBS news update . . . ]

It was a strange news update . But I was facing an even peculiar situation at that moment .

Floated words appeared in front of my eyes .

[Congratulations, you have been invited to the Tutorial World . Lee Ho Jae . ]

Tutorial? Is it the tutorial, where they show you the basics of the game?

Am I wasted to the point of seeing hallucination, or have I gone insane .

[Will you enter the Tutorial World?]

I quickly began to contemplate whether this is an opportunity for me or not .

I had no regrets about my life . If anyone could give me a new life, I'd welcome it with both arms open .

It's something that would happen in an anime or a novel, but I am seeing that possibility right in front of me .

Can I lead the life I want in the new world? Where I'm the protagonist again?

" . . . Yes . "

An answered creeped out of my dry throat . Is this ok as an answer?

The message changed after my reply .

[Please select the difficulty . The dangers of the stage increase with difficulty, along with its rewards and your growth . ]

There were 4 options .

Easy, Normal, Hard, Hell .

There was no need for me to think .

I, Lee Ho Jae .

Have never missed out on a game, and have never been called bad in any of them .

I am confident that I can be at least above average in terms of sports, and I was filled with talent for games . A so called genius .

And so I chose Hell difficulty .

And then proceeded to lose my consciousness .

A rough shake woke me up .

‘Hey, are you awake? You’ve slept for long enough, get up . ’

An intimidating looking man was shaking me to get up .

‘Are you coming to your senses? Are you ok?’

I forced my tired eyes open to look at my surroundings . I saw 3 people including the man who woke me up . All of them, people that I’ve never seen before .

‘Fuck… who, who are you!’

I shouted as I stumbled backwards .

This wasn’t my room .

The floor and walls were lined with clean-cut stone that seemed like marble .

It was a desolate indoor space with no furniture .

‘Where… where am I?’

As I opened my eyes, I was in a strange place with unfamiliar people .

‘This is the 1st floor waiting room . ’

‘1st floor waiting room? What do…’

‘Hey, calm down . Let’s have a chat . Did you not see those messages?’

The man who shook me spoke with a calm tone . His face was like a rugged bear, but his voice was like a ballad singer .

‘A message?’

‘You know, the messages regarding something about a tutorial . ’

At that moment I remembered what happened before I lost my consciousness .

Is this it? Is this like teleportation? Did I enter the game world?

My head was full of questions .

‘I saw it . I was drunk, everything was so hectic . Did all of you see the message and did it all lead you to come here?’

My voice was surprisingly calm and clear . Before I lost consciousness, I swear I was drunk to the absolute limit .

‘Yes . ’

The man passively replied, and the man and woman behind him nodded in agreement .

‘I wanted to know if you knew anything about this whole situation, hence why I woke you up . You probably got dragged here without knowing anything like us . Anyway, it's only us here so shouldn't we help each other?’

Mm…

Not a bad idea . Having allies is definitely better than being alone .

But only if I could trust these people .

‘Would you happen to have any leads about this entire situation?’

‘Well, come to think of it, before the messages started popping up, there was an emergency news report . ’

The whole group of people paid their full attention to me as I said this .

Not only just the man I spoke to, the man and woman behind him approached me .

‘It said a large sink-hole had appeared across the whole world out of nowhere . ’

‘Are you saying we ended up in here because of the sink-hole that appeared?!’

The ugly man at the back raised his voice .

He looked like a gangster .

‘Fucking, do you think that even makes any sense, you retard?’

Mm . The gangster could be right . Maybe he was also a little too anxious about this whole situation, it was quite a touchy response .

‘I just told you what I remembered . ’

Luckily, it seemed the ganster didn’t want to dig into me anymore . At least he isn’t completely braindead .

I shook my head a little . Something’s a little…

‘What is it?’

‘No… just . Before I lost consciousness I was completely drunk, I feel as though I’m just a little too normal . ’

‘Ahh . It must be because of that thing . Apparently, if you enter this area your whole body gets healed . It must be it . ’

‘What?? The body heals by itself?’

‘Yes . A message saying that appeared just before you woke up . ’

Another Message .

I feel as though I missed out on something important .

‘I’m sorry but can you tell me the details of that message?’

‘ok’

‘Firstly, I will tell you about the very first message that appeared . ’

‘Thank you’

The man who looked like a bear was surprisingly nice . I wonder, how old was he?

The man first told me about beginner weapons . As soon as I heard that from the man, in my field of vision a little message appeared which instructed me to choose a starting weapon .

As I focused on the message, everything went black .

The next moment, I was in an area with countless amounts of weapons which spanned around my surroundings .

It wasn’t the stone chamber I was in before . The people had also disappeared .

What kind of balance was this…

Lets calm down . If I thought of this as a game, there was nothing weird happening at all .

I calmed myself and looked around .

There were various different kinds of weapons around me .

A spear, sword, bow, iron mace, that… mmm . . thing . There were also weapons that I couldn’t figure out how to use as well .

Is that even a weapon? It just looked like a plain hammer .

The bow came with a quiver and a bunch of arrows . It must of been given as a set item .

As you play a game, there are times where you had to make a decision .

The decision could affect me greatly in the future that is to come, so I had to chose with discretion .

Mmm… A moment of deep thought had come .

Now, what should I choose?