Ren could not believe his eyes… as the dust from his attack subsided, there laid visible a moderately sized hole in the ground with small patches of grass being burnt from the blast's aftermath.

There in that same hole laid one small glowing figure, all bloody and nearly completely charred, with clear scar marks on his entire body that seemed almost dead, his wings ripped, burnt and broken, patches of his previously purple hair missing. Yet, for a fact, Ren knew he was still alive, not just because essential NPCs couldn't die, but also because of that mystical yellow glow surrounding his body, healing him from all of his wounds that Ren felt for an instant looked too graphic to be kept in such a game.

Yet, despite all that he was seeing, the nearly dead, unconscious Luck was the least of his concerns at that moment…

"Did they really enable friendly fire!? What the hell!?"

Ren knew that the developers vowed to make the game more realistic, but friendly fire was a firm exception that they promised fans would never be enabled in that pursuit for realism. So, why was it enabled now? Did they just straight-up lie to all of their players? What did the company gain from doing that but a bad reputation? Nothing made sense to him…

His mind kept on spinning round and round in circles trying to wrap his head around what had happened but it always came back to the same conclusion that sounded so unreal that even he began to doubt his own thinking.

'I've been transported to another world! This is all real!'

From all the extensive isekai novel and anime knowledge that he never thought he would ever rely on, only one thing sprung up in his mind that would confirm if he was in a game or not. Simply having the same game system as he was used to was now no longer good enough.

He thought in his mind, and the usual long list of options showed up exactly where he expected them to be until he scrolled down to the absolute bottom to check if one option was missing…

[ Log Out ]

It was there — the log-out option was there, which oddly gave him once again, a feeling of both relief and disappointment.

It was common knowledge in any isekai that if the logout option was missing, then a person was confirmed to be in another world.

However, that fact only served to further enrage him when the realization that the developers actually enabled friendly fire after all that they promised and after all the players pushed them to keep it disabled.

"I guess I'll reload the save for now to get Luck back,"

He mumbled to himself as he thought:

However, this only led to a message appearing at the top of his vision instead.

{ Error, the player has yet to finish the tutorial! Please try again once you have! }

"What the fuck is this shit?"

Ren's eyes grew wide reading the message.

He, the top pro player had never once in his entire time playing the game reloaded a checkpoint before the tutorial, so he never knew that such a game mechanic even existed or if it had been recently added.

Ren grunted, clenching his fists even tighter before he completely let them go and took multiple deep breaths to calm his nerves.

New Era might have ruined the game in some aspects but they definitely improved them in others. And, so far the positives far outweigh the negatives. He had never felt so alive playing this game or even in real life for that matter. If he ever imagined how life was like over 100 years ago before the world and its nature got ruined, it would be what he was experiencing now and he was not about to let some changes ruin his experience— although he will complain to the developers later on.

For now, he merely had to finish the tutorial as a dummy play-through where he will not try too hard for once and just relax and admire the world while noticing all that had changed from the old version at the same time.

Slowly, he walked over towards Luck's injured yet mostly healed body and picked him up like he was some sort of action figure and simply placed him in his pocket.

Now, seeing Luck's body once more made him think about something that he only just now considered.

Luck was the one leading him out of the forest, but now he was almost dead so that was no longer an option.

'What am I supposed to do now?! How do I finish the tutorial!?'

He inwardly screamed before a sudden realization dawned on him, he couldn't believe that he was so stupid.

Since the game didn't say he failed the tutorial or restart, that must mean one thing…

"Of course! Luck getting injured was supposed to be something scripted! All I did was speed it up! He would have gotten injured whether I hit him or not! But maybe I skipped an important cutscene by doing so… This just means the next part of the tutorial is pretty straightforward, find a way to heal Luck!"

His gaze shifted towards the forest ahead, managing to spot a vast, open plain ahead deducing that was where he was supposed to go.

As he walked through the final stretch of the forest, he could not help but smile and take various breaths in anticipation of what he was about to se— A scene even more mesmerizing than he could ever imagine…

It was a hilly, vast open plain filled with green grass being blown by the heavy wind as far as the eye could see, large mountains far away in the distance. The full, bright, white moon in the stunning black, stary night sky was finally clear and unhindered by the thick layer of trees of the forest. The sight's beauty was so clearly seen to the point he almost shed a tear… It filled a craving and desire in him that not even he knew he yearned so much to see... It was the first time he saw the moon in such a state— It was clearly nothing like the virtual moon he was so used to seeing.

Ren walked slightly forward, still taking in everything before suddenly, he felt a different texture than the grass he was on prior, looking down only to see himself walking on a broad, clearly man-made heavily trodden dirt road with signs directly in front of him showing two directions.

The right sign read "Goldcrest" while the left one, which was the same way as the destroyed village read "Nuxvar".

Ren could not help but smile at the conveniently placed signs.

'The devs might have made the game more realistic but they couldn't keep such things more subtle? Well, a game is still a game after all,'

The sign almost seemed like they were placed specifically with him in mind, waiting in that exact place for him to emerge from the forest to show him directions to the next city where he was supposed to go which was probably not the destroyed town to his left.

He shifted his vision towards the direction of Goldcrest and began slowly walking in that direction, admiring the scenery, high on air taking in as much as he possibly could.

When, suddenly, he heard a sound coming from behind him. The sound of carriage wheels rolling and the nay and galop of a horse in the distance, making him turn around only to see exactly what he expected to see.

"Greetings Traveler! I could not help but see that you are headed in the same direction as us! Would you like a lift? That will be of course at a small cost…"