“On your left!”

“Yes, sir!” Tin shouted in reply, thrusting her dagger into the soft, exposed abdomen of an already-stabbed Leercat thrown to flight. Her dagger pierced well and true, sinking into the chest and heart.

On a normal monster, this would have incurred critical damage. However, as Will realized earlier, you could only get critical damage on a Leercat if you stabbed it while it was still in the ground. Very odd, another quirk of the strange game that Will didn’t understand very well. Still, the moment she stabbed the creature, enough damage was done for it to poof into red pixels, proving that it had, indeed, been killed with just two stabs.

You have gained 24 Exp

Level progression: 89,2%

Tutorial II

Objective 3: Defeat 10 Leercats Completed

“-Oh!” Tin suddenly exclaimed. “I’m level ten! Suck on it, Track!” With little to no thought of how immature she was acting, she ruthlessly flipped Track the bird, forcing him to look up from where he was sitting on a boulder. Reading a book. Really, it was almost respectable. That is, if he hadn’t been reading A Christmas Carol. In August.

He glanced up, his one eye blinking warily as if he was unsure of where he was. “-Huh? Oh, that’s neat. Keep at i-, no, wait, level ten?! When the hell did you-, no, forget that, don’t do anything! Stand still, lassie!”

Tin did stand still, but mostly out of shock and confusion. “What the fuck? What would I possibly-,” her eyes shot down at where she could presumably see a screen, “-why, hello there, class chooser.”

At this point, Track had successfully run up to stand beside her. Sure, he could see exactly as little as the (far more confused) Will could, but at least it seemed like he knew what she was looking at. “Okay, okay, don’t press anything. It looks like the class chooser screen, right? Well, it’s kind of similar. Kind of. Not completely. Okay, so, what you’ve got to do is just-,”

She poked a random invisible button. “Ah, like this?” And for a hot moment, her smirk and teasing demeanour seemed to pull her attention from the screen in front of her.

Track didn’t know how to respond, so he just kept talking. “-Is to pick what evolution you want your class to go in. You should have three predetermined options and two related to your playstyle and stat-allocation. Since you’re a dagger-heavy fighter, I would recommend Assassin or one of the two you earned through gameplay. If you tell me. I can tell you which. Will help you. Better. Than. Another.”

Tin was staring at the screen in front of her.

Track glanced at it. Glanced at her pale face. “...What the fuck did you do.”

“Uh, um, I… Being an Archer isn’t too bad, right?...”

It wouldn’t have been. Really. Archery isn’t a bad subject, and since she was in a party with a frontliner and a mage, it wouldn’t have been too bad for her. There were plenty of Archers in Kingdom of Change. The problem wasn’t the class itself. It was her compatibility with it. “...I’m afraid I must admit that archery has never been much becoming of me,” Will admitted in an attempt to mitigate the damage somewhat. All it did was inform Tin that she would no longer be able to learn from him.

“W-, wait, no, nonono, I can still use a dagger, right? Right?! I didn’t train like shit just to lose it like this?!” she cried, desperately waving her hands about in front of Track, whose face seemed to say something along the lines of ‘I told you. I told you to listen and you didn’t. See what happened.’ Tin’s face, on the other hand, was flip-flopping between ill-kept hope and pure despair. It was almost startling how pale she was since her complexion was usually a youthful tan. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck!”

“Um.”

“What the fuck do you want, gingerino?!”

“...It’s not like you can’t use your old skills. It’s just that-, well, once you Class Evolve or Class Addition two more times, you will have more skills than you’re allowed to use at once. You can only ever make use of fifteen skills. And since you never lose skills and only keep gaining five every time you get to a chosen level, at some point you’ll have to decide on a playstyle and change your skills accordingly.” Tin was staring at him as though he was a martian. “S-, so… I mean, I’d personally recommend having a pretty even amount of Active and Passive skills, but, I mean, that’s all up to you, so-,” Track here noticed that Will was staring at him with a face that seemed to want to say something. “Yes, Will?”

“Forgive the intrusion, but I must ask. What is a ‘skill’?” he asked as politely as ever. As expected, there was only one way Tin and Track could react: complete and utter befuddlement.

“Oh, God,” Tin said. “I forgot to tell him about skills.”

“...He doesn’t know? He seriously doesn’t know?! Has he-, has he been playing all this time without even using a single skill?! Even when he was pulling off all those fancy moves??” Track asked, exasperated. Will didn’t really know how to take the accusation, so he just stood at the side, waiting for one of them to pull themselves together and tell him about this interesting aspect of the game. “Okay, okay. Shoot. I’ve calmed down. I’m calm. I’m… He seriously doesn’t know about skills?!?”

“Geez, calm down! He’s an old geezer, of course he doesn’t know jack about anything!”

“Sort of like you?” Track asked, stifling a teasing chuckle.

Her already pale face turned a bright shade of red. “S-, sort of like me. Grr, it was a mistake! That’s all!”

Will leaned forward, putting a lid on their fighting. “-What is a ‘skill’? How do I utilize it as you do?”

Faced with such a threatening appearance (even though he was just standing there, his intimidating height was enough to shut them up), Track had no choice but to give a rough run-down of how it worked. You started the game with a single class and five skills, three being active and two being passive. Once every few levels, you’d get to either gain another class or evolve a preexisting class, always keeping the previous skills. This remained true for all moments, apart from the first one, where one always had to evolve a preexisting class.

Track, being a man of little patience, was also able to bake in a tutorial for how Will should use the skills he already had. “-Open the Skill Menu.”

Skills

Slash (I)

(Active) Damage increased by 25% for a single hit with a sword-type weapon. Cost: 7 mana

Block (I)

(Active) Damage received decreased by 30% if using a shield or long-sword. Cost: 5 mana

Frenzy (I)

(Active) Increase taken and received damage by 40% for 10 seconds. Cost: 10 mana

Strength (I)

(Passive) Increase Strength stat by 15%.

Fortitude (I)

(Passive) Increase Defence and Vitality stat by 10% each. William Ainsworth Class Warrior (Tier 1) Title(s) Sub-leader Health 45/45 Mana 17/17 Status Strength 24 (+3,6) Intelligence 9 Vitality 19 (+1,9) Wisdom 4 Defence 19 (+1,9) Dexterity 14 Skill points: 0

After a few more minutes, Will finally had all his skills equipped (and had his new stat points allocated). In the meantime, Tin mournfully equipped her new skills. Going by her incoherent mumbles, they were all focused on sharpening her sight or shooting true and far. Nothing to do with daggers or short-swords. Still, according to Track, there was nothing stopping her from continuing to use her daggers. It just wouldn’t do as much damage as the higher-ranked Archer skills. It didn’t make much sense to Will, but Track assured him that once he got to level 10 as well, Track would gladly explain it. Again. His deep, soul-wrenching sigh made Will think that he saw this as more of a chore than anything.

Will made sure to remember not to overwhelm Track. Overworking one’s workers and acquaintances only made them less efficient as contacts and workers.

“Okay, okay. Now that you’ve completed the third objective,” observant as always, “and in turn completed the second tutorial,” wait, hold on, “it’s time to fight some Bryyns.” Track crossed his arms, the thick blue sleeves of his robe rolling up to reveal more of his pale, freckled arms. “So, um, since you’re level 8, and she’s level 10, and I’m level 14… we should be able to win over one? Maybe?”

Ah. A mistake has been made. Will tapped his fingers against the hilt of his sword. It has only lost 4 durability over the entire hunting time, thankfully.

But this… this was a bit of an issue. Will hadn’t finished the second tutorial, since he hadn’t signed up for one of those 'Class Guilds'. Track must have assumed that he did (for whatever reason) and was now shuffling him over to the next stage of the tutorial. Killing a Bryyn. -Whatever that was.

“-So, what we need to do is to just kill a bunch of Leercats, specifically in a gruesome and drawn-out manner,” Track said. His face was torn between a fiery drive to kill and a meek fear of strong enemies. Could Will really say no to such a face? Passion drove his company. If his Managers and workers and fighters and scientists didn’t have a passion for what they did, they would never be willing to give their lives on the front-lines or even work in such an illegal business. Will would never - and could never stifle the passion of those around him, especially since he himself sorely lacked in that department.

“Of course,” Will said. “I’ll follow your lead.” He couldn’t tell Track he was wrong. After all, the idea of fighting some great unknown enemy excited even him.

Tin clutched her daggers close. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll just keep going as if I didn’t royally fuck up everything,” she said. “-Wait. Hold on. We?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fighting with you. You don’t seriously think you two newbies could take on a level 15 Bryyn by yourselves, do you?”

Tin mumbled something but didn’t complain any further.

With nothing else to discuss, Track wasted no time resummoning his weapon: a metallic staff that he twirled around on instinct. After a second or so of the impromptu-dance, Tin couldn’t hold it in any longer and started laughing loudly, making Track freeze mid-pose. “BWAHAHAHHA!! The hell are you doing? Are you the Star Wars kid or something??”

Will had never before seen a man turn entirely red in a mere second. “Y-, y-, you-!! Argh! Whatever!!” Track threw his hands in the air.

Unlike Tin, Will didn’t see anything to be laughed at (or admired) in Track’s acting, and therefore, he saw no reason to react with anything apart from indifference. So, then, when Track stormed off in the direction of a confused, leering Leercat, Will had no reason not to follow him. “Uh? Wait up!” Tin called out, quickly recovering from her bout of mocking laughter.

Track reached out his staff towards the Leercat, his nostrils flaring. “Fireball!!” The trigger-word caused a ball of fire, roughly the size of a baseball, to form in front of him. He didn’t hesitate to shoot it at the Leercat, which burst into flame in a second, giving a death-screech to rival a chainsaw grinding through a frozen cat. A second later and all that remained was a dropped pelt and fluttering red pixels. A single hit was all it took. “The hell are you two looking at? Get killing!”

Will and Tin shared a single glance before getting back to it.

In the beginning, Will and Tin fought in a duo and Will never stopped teaching Tin the basics of dagger-combat, while Track stood on the side, throwing fireballs and magic needles at various Leercats. But after a while, the three actually started to work together. It wasn’t much and it certainly wasn’t fluid, but they collaborated, as a party ought to. Since Will gradually (especially with his level-up) became the heavy-hitter of the group, soon enough Tin and Track actually worked together to gradually torture Leercats to death by the repeated use of Magic Needles and finishing dagger-stabs.

It was effective, and even before Will hit level 10, they were rewarded with a screech that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.

“HHIHIHIIGIIIITIRIIIGIIIGIIIGGHHHH”

Leercat (Lv.8) has used skill: Rallying Cry (Bryyn)

And there it was. Track really hadn’t lied, the ground actually started shaking and rumbling as if an earthquake was taking the time to personally come for a visit. The Leercats scattered like masterless sheep, clearly just as afraid as Tin. Will? No, Will wasn’t afraid. He knew there were people out there who could cause earthquakes. They were rare, sure, but they existed. So, Will had no real reason to fear. But he wasn’t entirely calm, either. there was a buzz in his ears and a fuzz in his mind. Excitement. He felt it in his chest, how his heart beat just a little quicker. His grip on the hilt of his sword tightened as the earthquake grew more hectic, stronger. Nearer.

It emerged without fear, and unlike its minions, it didn’t even bother staying in the ground.

Bryyn Lv.16

It wasn’t as big as the boa, but it was close. Large and hulking. It had two pairs of arms, two being large and muscular and clearly means for digging and two being small and slender and sharp-clawed. A long muscular tail swished to and fro behind its muscular frame, tufts of hair speckling the entirety of its alabaster body.

“GOUUUUUUU,” it roared, not wasting any time to charge at them. Will knew at a moment that he would not be able to stop its charge at Track, and so, he instead positioned himself to counterattack it once it came close enough.

But not so.

“Barrier!” Track shouted, summoning a semi-transparent blue half-dome in front of both him and Tin, which stopped the Bryyn’s charge for just a moment. A moment Will took great use of.

“Slash.” For the first time, Will tried using a skill. He had no idea what it would do, and it didn’t seem to do anything except for making his sword shine a bright red, but once he swung it in a downward arc against the beast’s neck, it caused a small red explosion, proving that the skill had hit.

Critical Hit!

Unlike his fight with the Boa, at this moment, he truly felt that the hit went though. The Bryyn roared and withdrew from the barrier and the group, readjusting itself. Its teeth clicked together as the small front arms moved erratically. It was preparing itself.

Track’s barrier fell as soon as the Bryyn withdrew, but clearly not because the barrier reacted to its presence, but more so because Track released it.

“I’ll support you from the back, get at it!” Track said. Will obliged and closed the distance between himself and the Bryyn within a matter of seconds, Tin following him closely in order to stab at it once it let down its guard. The only problem with this was the fact that Will didn’t have the defence necessary to take the Bryyn’s attacks. But Track would change that. “Bind!”

Roots and plans shot out of the ground, weaving between the Bryyn’s limbs and tightening until it could no longer move. It gave a snort, and Will used the moment to slash at its neck again. Tin followed his lead and aimed for the neck as well since the chest was hidden.

Critical Hit!

The Bryyn roared again as it burst from its bindings, and Will and Tin were once again forced to gain as much distance as possible while Track readied more magics.

The battle didn’t take long, and once they got into a rhythm, it wasn’t too hard, either. And when Will buried his sword into the nape of the Bryyn’s neck for the final time, he felt truly relaxed. Like he’d been at a high-stakes meeting all day and finally got home and drank a glass of some high-quality liquor he took to so gladly. It felt good. He enjoyed it, and he’d likely enjoy it even more if it happened again.

You have gained 56 Exp

Level progression: 5,1%

Level up!

You have reached Level 10!

Select Class-Evolution:

Paladin

Knight

Fencer

Pikeman

Assassin

Will froze in place. Aha. There it was.

The thing Track had told him about.