“That wasn’t too hard.” I cockily laughed after seeing my experience going up rapidly.

The goblins weren’t so hard to eliminate. They all just sort of ran into my sword and died. Nothing too hard to pull off. I don’t know what you expected. Not everything needs to be complicated—

“Who are you?” Someone interrupted my growing narcissism. And when I turned around to see who talked to me, the big muscular guy stood right behind me, looking with gleaming eyes at me.

“Uhm, you mean me? My name is Sung-Jin.” I answered and extended my hand to greet him. It felt a bit awkward, and I was bad at holding eye contact with him.

“So good at fighting. Yet, so bad at socializing.” He beamed and grabbed my hand with both of his. He got all the way into my face as he continued to talk.

“My name is Daeshim. Nice to meet you, young man. You saved my comrade and even killed all the other goblins without breaking a sweat—”

“Hold up a moment.” I cut in as his praise, and the fact he was in my face was getting on my nerves. “I’m not really good in these situations. So can you please back of a little? Or I’m afraid you will become like the goblins that are on the ground over there…. Was over there….” My threatening tone made the man loosen his grip, and he took a step back.

“I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” He apologized with a sincere voice as he bowed down.

While socializing bothers me a lot, he didn’t have to apologize like that. It looks bizarre.

“Either way. If you don’t need my help anymore, twenty-one goblins remain, so I can’t waste my time here fiddling around with all of you guys.” I contended to get the conversation over with as I signaled to Daeshim to raise his head.

I wanted to hurry up to kill the rest of the goblins so I wouldn’t miss out on any experience.

-System: 20/30 Goblin’s remain

F*ck! Someone just killed a goblin! I have to go now or—

“What about staying with us? I think we can make a great team. The more we are, the better chances of surviving this nightmare we have.” Daeshim interrupted me as I was about to turn around and walk off.

It caught my attention what he said, and it made me continue to stay just a tad longer to hear where he was going with it, despite the apparent risk of the goblins dying.

“To be honest, it feels like an eternity since this tutorial thing started. However, I think only an hour or so has gone by.” He looked back at his nine teammates with an admiring smile. “But we ten quickly found each other and built teamwork together.”

Oh no…. I think he’s about to make a speech!

“We all here share a common goal. And that’s to survive. So being attracted to strong people is only natural in this situation. That’s why I became the leader of this group. They recognized that I was fairly strong, so they stuck with me. But now….” He took a deep breath before continuing.

“I want you to lead this group. You are far stronger than I am. Easily cutting the heads of six goblins alone is double as many as we did when being ten. So I think it’s safe to say that you would fit the role of a leader better than me.” He turned his gaze to me and stared me straight in the eyes.

His look seemed to indicate something I hadn’t noticed about him before. From what I have seen, Daeshim has created the impression of him as a strong-willed person leading a group to defeat adversity. But the way he looks at me…. It’s almost desperate…. I guess even the most brutal conditions can make the strongest person weak.

“Sorry. I’m not a person who teams up with others.” I explained my reasons not to join them. Though, I honestly felt a little bad for them and especially for Daeshim that seemed like he was out where he couldn’t reach. But I’m sure they can survive to the end. Probably because I will do the heavy lifting, but either way. They will survive.

“I do admire all of you. To think on such a short time, a team of this caliber got made. I will give you a little tip because of that.” I said and walked closer towards the big group.

“Listen closely. What I have gathered so far being here is that it’s not the world we come from. This is a different one. You have probably noticed that system thingy. And since I am a gamer, I tried to say ‘menu,’ and something popped up.” I whispered so only the ones who were now standing in a huddle around me could hear.

I wasn’t really telling the truth. Or at least not the whole. Maybe a few details did I leave out, but nothing major….

The reason for telling them this in the first place was to reassure Daeshim that there was still hope and he shouldn’t give up. Though it was out of character for me. This group has caught my attention, and I do actually admire them for what they are doing and how they will risk their lives for the greater good of everyone.

“Oh!” A collective gasp came from everyone as they did what I told them.

“Wow! This is impressive.” Someone who hadn’t said a word before now chimed in with glistering eyes.

Oh…. My thoughts went wild as I looked up to see who it was.

This girl was more beautiful than I thought. When looking from afar, I didn’t notice her beauty, but up close….

A girl with long blonde hair, a slender body, and a beautiful face befitting only a love interest in a fantasy novel. Looked with gleaming eyes at me.

“Uhm…. That’s all I know. I’m going to go now.” I advanced the conversation and began slowly backing off. The way she looked at me was too much for a guy. And I’m already bad a talking, so staying here any longer would be the worst idea.

“Thanks!” Daeshim yelled as I had turned around to make my way away from them quickly.

I didn’t turn around to look at him. I just walked. And soon stepped my foot inside the forest and was out of sight from the group of people.

“Finally! I’m alone. I hate all that socializing. It makes my head hurt.” I sighed a relief and found a tree close by I could sit up against.

This break will only be short. I have to check something before continuing the tutorial.

“Status!”

-Status Window

Name: Sung-Jin | Level: 3 | Age: 20 | Title: Dark Apostle | First Generation

Strength: 10

Vitality: 10

Agility: 10

Dexterity: 10

Intelligence: 10

Stat Points: 10

Skills: None

Titles:

-Dark Apostle: Lvl 1 [Exp: 0%]

I got two levels from killing seven goblins. And the difficulty of leveling up will only get harder….

“Ten stat points, though!” I comforted myself. “What will I use them on?” I kept mumbling to myself about what the best strategy would be, but I couldn’t come up with any.

One level equals five stat points, so it doesn’t matter what I spend them on since I will be able to level to infinity, I believe. However, I do want to build my character the way I play.

“Ahhh!” I snorted, frustrated about what to do.

Last time my stats were all over the place since I tried to balance them. But one thing I learned from that was it was useless. The strongest players are the ones who specialize in one thing only. I realized that too late, so it took way too long when I tried to build an assassin build, and I didn’t even reach my potential.

“So….” I looked back and forth at the stat points and the Agility number fast. But it didn’t take me long to decide what to do.

“I can decide what to do after the tutorial is done. But you can’t go wrong with high Agility stats, right?” I exclaimed and hurriedly used all ten points on Agility before I could regret it.

-Status Window

Name: Sung-Jin | Level: 3 | Age: 20 | Title: Dark Apostle | First Generation

Strength: 10

Vitality: 10

Agility: 20

Dexterity: 10

Intelligence: 10

Stat Points: 0

Skills: None

Titles:

-Dark Apostle: Lvl 1 [Exp: 0%]

“That’s what I like to see!”