Bonifacius, Crown and JohnWillStab sat in the tree-filled swamp outside Glumington.

Before them sat the seven people.

A fishman with sword, level six. “Chaz”

A harpy with a healing staff, level four. “Heike”

A wolfman with a scythe on his back, level five. “Abutron”

A human what crown recognised as the started druid staff, level two. “Dun-dududududu-du-dududududu-du-dududududu-dududududu-dududududu-dudududududududududud”

“Dun” for short.

A demon with a gun on his back, level nine. “Alistard”

A fishman with chain-scythes on his back as well as a blue wand at his hip, level three. “Weaboomike”

A human with a bow on his back, level six. “Sepukku4me_n_u”

They stood on a flat patch of grass on the outside of a meandering river that fed into the large swamp that stretched all the way out to sea.

Thick trees with underwater networks of roots like hard webs stood tall, their large, cone-shaped canopy made entirely of overlapping waxy leaves serving like a bowl for fresh rainwater.

Small openings in the barks allowed for streams of water to trickle down.

“Alright, first things first, did any of you actually play this game to at least level five back on earth?” John asked.

Nobody replied.

“Alright… so we’re starting from square one…” John remarked.

He looked over to Bonifacius who gave him a nod as if to say “Doing good so far!”

He looked back to the people.

“Well, there are seven of you, so we’ll be splitting you into two groups of four and three,” John explained.

He looked back to Crown who nodded as if to say “Yes, three plus four is seven!”

JohnWillStab looked back to the two parties.

“Why? Wouldn’t we be better off not splitting up?” Chaz the fishman swordsman replied.

“Well, you’re not going to be fighting in groups of seven out there, five also feels like a stretch, ideally I’d split you into twos of threes but that’s doesn’t divide… I think…” John replied.

“What do you mean? Aren’t we supposed to form parties of five?” Chaz questioned.

“For dungeons…” John replied.

“But what if you get ambushed by bandits? Or are you going to move around everywhere with a group of five-to-seven people in a pack like wolves or something?” John asked sarcastically.

JohnWillStab turned to Bonifacius.

“Alright, Bonifacius will explain team formations since I’m still pretty bad at all the terminology!” John explained stepping aside and letting Bonifacius speak.

“Greetings!”

“As thou may know, thou have been brought into this world with classes, two specifically,” Bonifacius explained.

“Loosely, thou may be divided into tanks, healers and DPSs.”

“Why does he talk like that?” murmurs spread around the people.

“If thou use a melee weapons such as a sword or axe, thou will be the tank of the group, as such, I will be thy instructor for the next while,” Bonifacius explained.

“At the core of things, the three roles are very simple!”

“The tank must remain as the focus of the foe, protecting his team and taking on the brunt of the enemy force!” he explained.

“A healer must heal the tank while also making sure the DPSs are able to keep fighting!”

“The DPSs must simply attack the foe and deal the damage required to defeat them,”

Bonifacius crossed his arms.

“When fighting other people, thou may need to stray somewhat from these tactics, as thy enemy will usually go for the healer,”

“What do you mean by “fight people”?” asked the harpy healer, Heike.

Bonifacius breathed a disappointed sigh.

“Sometimes thou will be faced with a situation where thou have no choice but to fight another person,” Bonifacius said sadly.

“Do you mean… you kill regular people?” Heike asked.

Chaz butted in before Bonifacius could reply.

“Of course, thieves and bandits must be running rampant in this place!”

“Indeed, however in this world, thou do have multiple lives, tis no excuse to cause harm of course, but keep that in mind when defending what matters to you!” Bonifacius exclaimed.

“Question, how do we know if the enemy will respawn?” Alistard the gun-using demon asked.

“Tis impossible to know without asking,” Bonifacius replied.

“Upon killing a foe, they will be faced with three choices, respawning at the nearest town, respawning where they died after five minutes and having their soul be annihilated,”

“If unconscious thou will remain un-respawned for several minutes until thy mind awakens,” he explained.

The crowd went silent.

“How do we know if we perma-killed someone?” Chaz asked.

Bonifacius scratched his head.

“I suppose thou must wait and see if thy foe respawns, I have not yet been forced to do such a thing,” Bonifacius replied apologetically.

“There is a way to check!” John butted in.

“When you get a kill, you’ll feel a tingling on the back of your hand and a kill-counter will increase, when you perma-kill someone you’ll feel a sharp pain instead of a tingling,” he explained.

“Kill counter?” questioned several of them.

“Indeed, upon thy first fight with a person, a kill-counter shall appear on thy hand,” Bonifacius explained.

“Hah!” Alistard laughed.

“You idiots never killed anyone here, yet, have you?!” he laughed looking at his fellow low-levels gaining their attention.

He tapped his right hand and showed them his below-average stats as well as his impressive kill-counter of three.

“…”

“…”

“W-Woah… that’s messed up…” Weaboomike, the fishman with chain-scythes on his back remarked taking a step back from him.

The bowman, Sepukku4me_n_u nodded.

“Yeah, you should't be showing off like that about killing people!”

Chaz let out a sigh.

“Showing your kill-count is one way of making the team feel comfortable around you…” he said sarcastically.

JohnWillStab un-tapped his right hand, he was about to one-up Alistard by showing him his considerably higher kill-count, only to be discouraged by the others’ reactions to Alistard’s bragging...

“Tch, whatever!” Alistard put his hands in his pocket.

“A fellow edgelord, good!” John thought.

Bonifacius cleared his throat.

“In any case, we shall now split thee up into thy class-types,”

“Chaz and Abutron, you two shall act as tanks for thy groups!”

“Dun and Heike, thee shall train under Crown to work as healers!”

“And the rest of thee shall work under JohnWillStab to become DPSs!”

A few sighs were heard.

JohnWillStab was a little hurt but he hid it well.

And so, the groups were further divided for basic class-type training.

JohnWillStab walked off with his group.

Alistard, WeabooMike and Sepukku4me_n_u

They continued to head through the swamp for several minutes.

“Where are we going, exactly?” WeabooMike asked.

John shrugged.

“We need a good place to practice,”

“I trained under two people, once under XPhax and once under Kwispii, both times either the environment or teacher tried to kill me…”

JohnWillStab grinned.

“I’ll do both!”

Eventually, they reached a relatively dry clearing.

“This place is perfect!” he exclaimed looking around at the strange, hostile looking plants that wriggled around, ready to snatch up unsuspecting people.

He heard the sound of buzzing as around the forest flew massive hornets.

In the water, a few six-legged crocodiles lazed, not bothered to approach the group just yet.

“HOW IS THIS PLACE PERFECT?!” Sepukku4me_n_u demanded.

JohnWillStab crossed his arms.

“Alright, I want you guys to attack me,” John instructed.

The three of them went silent.

“What?” WeabooMike demanded.

“I’m not even going to use my weapons; I just want to see if you guys can even use yours!” John explained.

In an instant, Alistard grabbed his gun and pointed it at John, pulling the trigger and missing completely.

John jumped back expecting the shot to be some sort of diversion, it took him a few seconds to realise it was just really badly aimed.

“…what the fuck was that?” he asked, bewildered.

Alistard looked at him with an expression of shock.

“H-how?!”

“How did you dodge my 100% hit rate never missing bullet of doom!?”

JohnWillStab planted his palm on his face with a loud smack.

Another shot could be heard, this one flying a decent forty degrees away from John.

“I guess learning to use a gun is still more difficult than a melee weapon…” John thought.

He looked over to the other two DPSs who looked at Alistard in shock.

“Go on, you two better try and kill me or I’m leaving you guys in this swamp,” John threatened.

With a sudden burst of motivation, Sepukku4me_n_u drew his bow and fired at John, his aim was better, though it was nothing John’s projectile dodge ability couldn’t handle thanks to his slow fire rate.

WeabooMike charged in from the front, chain scythe in hand he swung it at John only for John to manoeuvre behind him and grab his weapon causing him to fall to the ground tangled up in his own chains.

JohnWillStab waited for the other two to reload their weapons before lifting the still tied-up WeabooMike and using him as a human shield, the other two ceased their assault only for John to realise he was about to actually kill his student.

He put WeabooMike down and breathed a sigh.

“Alright, I might have gone overboard, not used to fighting people that aren’t meant to be killed…” he thought.

“Alright, you absolutely do not know how to use your weapons…” John sighed.