Suchi's Rabbit Sanctuary.

Henry, moving forward with his group, inspected the challenge ahead of him.

The Rabbit Sanctuary had been split into four equal-sized partitions by streams, each partition housing Floppy-Eared Rabbits at different stages of maturity. In one, the grass was rustling with the timid movements of hidden newborns. In one, kid rabbits, looking, in the moonlight, like animated snowballs, were leaping through the grass after their friends. In one, teen rabbits, the tips of their ears dragging on the ground, were chasing each other...for different reasons. And in the last, where his group was heading, the adult rabbits were being butchered by a horde of screaming players.

“Big bro, what’s that?” asked Handsome Dan.

The handsome meathead from before had continued tagging along, refusing to gracefully exit the story even after his narrative purpose in Henry's saga had been served.

'That' was a station near where their bridge connected to their destined partition. A bunch of Villagers were getting hammered passing a wine bottle around a bonfire. Behind this drunken lot, a wooden board titled '6-Rabbit Speedtrial Leaderboard' showed a list of usernames, along with times, Village affiliations, and Slum Point awards. A queue of noobs were testing their skill competing for the high score.

Henry gave the noob an annoyed glance. “That there is a honeypot for idiots and masochists."

“Big Bro, let's try for the top!” Dan was getting excited - there was nothing like the friendly fire of competition to heat up this tutorial.

Henry immediately shut that idea down. "No. I'm not competing to kill bunny rabbits."

"Why not?"

"That's comically far beneath my talents."

Henry'd hunted frostgiants in other dimensions of ice; he'd fished for leviathans swimming through planetary mantle. Getting worked up over bunnies would be absurd.

"Big Bro, do you think I can get number one?"

"Not a chance."

“Why not?”

Henry pointed to the rabbits being slaughtered and gave a quick explanation.

The grass here had long since been cleared and the easy-to-access rabbits of the first batch taken. The rabbits that were left were emerging from soil mounds popping up randomly around the zone, a couple every second. This rate might seem fast but there were more than a thousand players competing for them, the facilities over-crowded.

To make matters worse, the prime spots closest to the Speedtrial station had been cordoned off by Village recruiter thugs for exclusive use by their speedrunners, who ran about in luxury stabbing one rabbit after another. There were about twenty such cordoned areas.

In the limited remaining space, the unaffiliated players, or players from less significant Villages, were competing with each other like starved apocalypse survivors. They roamed about on high alert, weapons always at the ready, and any mound that popped up would be pelted in seconds with a rain of arrows, spears, and desperately-thrown axes.

Thus, for your average slob, there was no chance unless they joined a Village.

As for why the Villagers were allowed to hog the space, The Sanctuary actually belonged to The Slum Empire, who'd created it artificially with their Farmer, Arcaneworker, and the Landworker Civilian classes. In most zones, the noob tutorial Floppy-Eared Rabbits grounds was a relaxing area managed by neutral NPCs, but, since the gangs had killed all the first trainers, the equivalent had never developed here.

"...And even if you and your meathead teammates could occupy the closest cordon, to match the very fastest times there, you're going to require external boosts to your movement, like a drugged-up mount or a chain of Fighters using the ability. You, my handsome non-friend, don't have those resources. Q.E.D., that's a honeypot for the mentally deficient and enjoyers of pointless pain."

Dan nodded, giving the illusion that he'd understood the lecture. "Sweet! I guess it's going to be a challenge. I like a challenge!"

Henry sighed.

Some people could not be helped...

The class arriving, the bald trainer leapt off the back of the wagon, where he'd been sorting herbs, and ordered the students to stop.

“The task is simple." He gestured towards the rabbits. "Each of you are to collect six of those floppy-eared critters. Solo, grouping, stealing, I won't ask any questions however you choose to do it. Once everyone's got theirs, we'll meet up again and perform the ritual to unlock your Martial Bodies."

Henry, along with the others, received a quest notification.

New quest available - Rabbit Collection.

Quest Title: Rabbit Collection.

Description: For the first part of today's lesson, Instructor Apari wants you to kill and gather 6 Floppy-Eared Rabbits.

Rewards: Your Martial body will be unlocked and you will receive the 1 additional level in the basic Adventurer Class. The instructor will give you a method for absorbing EXP from monsters.

Conditions: For a kill to count, you must be the first to deal the monster damage.

A trainee had noticed the hecticness of The Sanctuary. “Excuse me, Instructor Apari, how are we going to—"

“This is the basic class," the trainer leapt back on the wagon. "No frills, no help. Go."

At his order, his friend driving the wagon continued on, the vehicle rolling to park under the shade of a nearby tree. Trotting happily alongside the horse pulling the wagon was Henry's shabby donkey, in bright spirits because it hadn't figured out that it'd only been entrusted in the care of the bald trainer's friend for the duration of the lesson.

The trainees, abandoned, dispersed. Some went to the drunken Villagers to sign up for the competition. Others, like the question asker, seeing no way to compete alone in the crowded pens, approached the recruiters by their cordoned areas to inquire if they could join a Village this late - surprise, surprise, they could.

Henry, refusing to fall for the trap, strolled into the unaffiliated area. It was congested with players running into each other and arguing over the scarce bunnies. Near the entranceway, several classes were cheering for a fifteen-man brawl between two groups whose arguments had escalated.

Passing by the scene in search of a quieter spot, Henry checked a Bestiary entry about the Floppy-Eared Rabbits in his Mental Library. They were considered Semi-Monsters, with zero health points but a single low-damage ability, , which had a 10-second cooldown. Apparently, they burrowed into the earth when their habitat was cleared, and they only resurfaced when driven mad by hunger pains.

He gave a second scan of the rabbits emerging around him from their burrows. On closer inspection, their forms were thin and emaciated beneath the fluffy coat, the creatures looking quite sickly.

Well, it was hard to expect humane animal husbandry practises from a government run by gangsters.

“Wow," said Dan, strolling alongside Henry. "Seems like it’s going to be mighty hard for us to win the top score!"

Henry stopped, adopting the posture of a sage. “Dan, my protégé, I’ve taught you all I can. Now, we must separate.” He raised a hand gracefully to hush the meathead's response. “When too many of us chase the same goal, there is a risk of getting in each other's way, and, in the end, we all lose. Go now, my child. Go your own way."

Having imparted his student his last morsel of wisdom, Henry, as all teachers must eventually, sprinted away, climbing up a hill and vanishing beyond its crest.

He'd thrown this platitude out simply to rid himself of this minor character. What he didn't know, however, as he jogged away, was that the meathead would extract a very different meaning from it, one that would eventually bite Henry back in the bottom.

Handsome Dan, ditched, alternated handsome glances between Big Bro's sagely departing figure and his shirtless teammates mobbing Russian Sis, promising to get help her get her six rabbits.

Something was being dredged up by Big Bro's words.

This was...this was like one of those critical rugby moments when he was running down the line, thinking he was facing an over-stocked supermarket shelf, only to notice at the last second a gap in the milk section that'd been there all along.

Alas, whatever epiphany Handsome Dan was about to experience was stalled by a teammate slapping him on the back and interrupting his thoughts.

“Oi, Dan Bro, come join us!”

Henry, bow in hand, stood atop an isolated mound, the bunny hills rolling in all directions around him like the choppy waves of a green sea. Silently, he analysed the emergence pattern of the Floppy-Eared Rabbits, using a song to estimate the timing.

After a new mound became visible, a rabbits’ head would break through the centre of the peak between 600 and 800 milliseconds later. 450 to 550 milliseconds after that, its full body would have wriggled free. For another 600 milliseconds, it would be static as it shook the dirt from its white coat.

The timing window was very forgiving, as one would probably expect for the game's easiest to kill monster.

The real challenge came from the other players. But, as he analysed the situation, he realised this was not an issue for him. The projectiles they shot were only hitting about 1 in 8 rabbits, while the rest of the rabbits were being killed by melee players who arrived later. The latter, Henry could ignore. As long as his arrow was the first to damage a rabbit, the monster would be tagged as belonging to him for ten minutes. During that time, no one else could transfer the corpse to their Spatial Bracelet and, if they tried to run away with it, they would incur a Thief’s Penalty.

Notching an arrow and drawing the bow in preparation, Henry used the ability to draw a circular perimeter 27 metres from himself. Based on the flight speed of his arrow and his reaction time, any mound that sprouted beyond that line, he could shoot as soon as he noticed it; before that line, he would have to delay his shot to avoid hitting dirt.

The rumblings of the first mound appeared at about 3 metres beyond the perimeter.

He shot.

As soon as the arrow was released, he had the gut feeling built up by many past arrows that its aim had been true, so he began unsummoning his bow and sprinting over.

Half a second later, his arrow pierced the Floppy-Eared Rabbit’s side, knocking it to the ground. Moments after that, several arrows landed around it, one puncturing the animal's twitching leg.

A player about to throw a spear skidded to a stop and swore.

Another charging player, with a handaxe, complimented Henry sprinting over on the shot.

“Thanks." Henry, reaching the rabbit, scooped it up by its hind legs.

The animal was attempting to twist around and bite him. Its eyes glowed crimson red, indicating a Bloodlust state, where monsters would discard their sense of self-preservation and attack in a mindless, semi-predictable pattern.

Since Floppy-Eared Rabbits didn’t have health points, neither of the arrow wounds had healed.

Henry wrapped one hand around the rabbit's head, his fingers under its chin, his thumb around the back of its skull. He angled the rabbit’s head back towards its spine, while pushing one arm down and pulling with the other holding its legs.

Cr-cr-crick.

The rabbit went still, the tension of life expelled from its tiny form.

You have collected 1 of 6 Rabbits for Rabbit Collection.

Unlike with the driver he'd killed this morning, the body of the rabbit didn't dissipate. Animal and monster corpses would remain so that one could butcher them for resources; left alone, they would decompose or be eaten by scavengers. Henry guessed that humanoids received special treatment in the game to make killing them feel less traumatising.

"Strange," Henry remarked, studying the rabbit's limp corpse dangling from his hands.

Killing the thing, he was struck by a curious sense of deja vu.

He'd done this tutorial five years earlier, in the previous game instalment. Logically, his sense of familiarity should have arisen from that. However, to him, with all that'd passed since, those five years were so distant now that they felt almost like they belonged to a similar but separate person, like an identical twin he'd separated from one day and never seen again, Henry voyaging across an ocean to another continent with no plans to ever return home. His deja vu seemed much fresher than that past life, to emerge from his more recent self.

Searching inside himself, he couldn't find the origin of the feeling, his interior too cluttered.

"Do you hunt IRL?" asked the axe-wielder who'd complimented him earlier.

Henry shook his head. "But I did work in a restaurant. Butchered a lot of animals."

That wasn't a lie. He had indeed done that once upon a time.

"Wanna group?"

Henry snapped out of it. "Nope."

Storing the rabbit in his inventory, he resummoned his bow and scanned the field again. A breath later, his arrow was loosed. A couple dozen metres away, a blurry white shape loping through the moonlit hills with a band chasing after it squeaked and fell.

Elsewhere.

Two figures were standing around in a space beyond physical description, watching a bird's eye view of a field of savages tearing apart white rabbits.

"He's remembering."

"Is...is that going to be a problem?"

"If anything, it'd make it easier."

"Ooh! Let's give another clue, then! What would be best, Impy? A drunken rabbit?"

"Save the shenanigans. Easier doesn't imply that it's difficult right now. He'll reach the end."

"Are you sure? This buddy seems to be growing annoyed with the constant delays."

"He'll reach the end."