Samantha started. We were in what seemed to be another "safe zone"--yet another white-walled room with glowing tables in front of me. My body felt like it was back in top shape--I didn't feel a hint of physical exhaustion from the recent battles I had fought. Although, I could still smell the stench of blood and vomit that had followed me into this room.

I mentally groaned at Samantha's announcement. That said, whatever else she had done, it couldn’t be worse than mind controlling me, right?

“No, wait,” I cut her off. “You’re saying the introduction would have happened the moment I appeared. Before I drank the potion that let you into my head. You were just in a bottle then, right? How could you disable a tutorial? Are you saying you can hack the Atropos Schema?”

Samantha said.

Samatha continued,

I thought about the implications of this. I guess this means I’m not a complete idiot for drinking the vial. My mind flashed back to when I had accidentally kicked the vial, and it had skidded across the room. What if it had just slid through one of the doorways? If I had kicked it just a bit harder…Would I even have survived the Easy Mode Tutorial?

I didn’t let myself get too carried away in counterfactuals. There were even more implications to what Samantha was saying. There was a faction that could hack the Atropos Schema, to some extent. People could successfully circumvent the Schema, somehow. And the vial wasn’t placed there as a random reward from the Schema.

“Does this mean that you aren’t part of the Schema?”

I ignored the troubling mental disorder analogy and the kumbaya bullshit. “How many other A.I.s were placed in these tutorials? And what does your faction hope to accomplish?”

Samantha said.

“Just to make sure I understand this correctly… your very presence is pitting me against something that is basically a god,” I said, feeling my frustration rise again. Samantha had tried to gloss over that part, just now. She had spoken quickly, moving on to talk about skills and titles just now. But the fact of the matter was, if the Schema figured out Samantha was in my head, I was dead.

Samantha said, after a slight pause. As if she had been considering lying about it.

“So, I can’t communicate with you when I’m around people?” I asked.

Samatha’s voice was once again hesitant, and I could tell I wouldn’t like what she was going to say next.

You’re saying you can read my thoughts too? Why did this not come up until now??

Samantha had the decency to cough politely.

Any more bombs you’d like to drop? I asked, trying to remember everything I’d ever thought "out loud" about Samantha.

Samantha said.

“What?” I shouted, this time. “Why? What about my family? Petra and Justin, are they alright?”

Samatha said.

“What about my brother and sister? Are they alive? Are they ok?” It was something of a relief, feeling my own concern for Petra and Justin. At least Samantha hadn’t taken that away, too.

Samantha sighed sadly.

My gut clenched. As if the Atropos Schema itself being out to get me wasn’t enough. As if the monsters that were probably attacking my siblings as we spoke wasn’t enough. I took a breath. Petra was with Justin. She wouldn't let anything happen to him.

Samantha continued,

I felt a wave of relief. “It’s common knowledge on Earth. People read books and play games where we fight goblins, orcs, trolls, and more. Sometimes in games, we can choose between humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, and so on as our avatar.”

I could hear tension building in Samantha’s voce. She actually seemed nervous.

“No, humans are the only sentient species on Earth,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. It was weird, having to pause and think about the question, and then doubting your own answer.

I thought for a moment. “Well, there are vampires, werewolves, martians, fairies, nymphs, dryads, undead—”

Samantha cut me off.

I thought for a moment. “As a popular genre, maybe 50 years or so?” I was enough of a nerd to know that The Lord of the Rings had popularized fantasy. “But legends of these species have been around for hundreds of years. Maybe over a thousand years?”

I shook my head.

Samatha said, sounding disappointed.

Samantha did not sound pleased about this possibility.

It had been in the back of my mind this whole time. I hadn’t thought much of it, because I had figured I was either in one of my own dreams, or transported into a different world. I hadn’t been sure yet, what genre this next adventure would be for me, so to speak.

But if I were to buy in to what Samantha was suggesting…people had written stories about this. Almost the exact same situation. Tutorials preparing people for the end of the world, when the world will be overrun by monsters, with the only hope of survival lying in leveling up.

I almost mentioned it to Samantha, but something held me back. There was something…special… about those stories. Something told me that they shouldn’t be shared lightly. And did I trust Samantha? The obvious answer, of course, was a resounding NO.

“Well, we have advanced technology--we’ve been to the moon, we have computers, cars, planes—“

I thought for a moment about the most lethal creatures I knew about. “We have sharks, alligators, snakes, and bears?”

Samantha said, as if she was ticking off a box on a form.

I thought for a minute. “We have gold, platinum, silver, diamonds—“

Samantha trailed off, as if she was thinking deeply about something.

I couldn't bring myself to care about E-rank metals, or the World Core. This was all too much information to process.

“To recap,” I said, trying to ignore my growing headache. “I have a mind-controlling parasite in my brain. The Atropos Schema is facilitating the destruction of my world as I know it, and if it discovers this parasite, then I’m as good as dead. Currently, my world is being overrun by monsters and soon other sapient species will fight for control over my world—unless they already control my world from the shadows.”

Samatha said.