Chapter 3: Tutorial 2

All of the muscles in Hansoo's body started squirming around at a minuscule level.

His body, which he wasn't accustomed to due to the time gap, moved quickly according to Hansoo's will.

Hansoo, who had readied his body, slowly walked towards the goblins, who were crazily running towards him.

They were already trying so hard to get to him, so what was the point of him running?

It was important to conserve stamina in order to wield his dagger.

Hansoo deflected a goblin's swinging sword-arm.

Keeik?

Hansoo, who seemed as casual as someone going out on a stroll through the mountains, suddenly changed fiercely, while the goblin was flustered.

He released all the strength that he had built up.

All the runes were gone.

All the skills were also gone.

But the same strength, the same stamina, or the same perception had huge differences in effectiveness depending on how they were used.

The body was basically a tool of battle, and depending on the way the tool was used, the final outcomes would have differences like heaven and earth.

Hansoo rushed between the goblins and started slashing madly in all directions.

Kiiieeek!

A running goblin he slashed screamed in a beastly manner and dropped down onto the floor, rolling around.

In the spot where the goblin dropped, two things were left.

A crude Podao, which looked much more threatening than a dagger.

There was also a tiny rune.

Hansoo spread out his right hand, grabbed the Podao, and swung it fiercely as he grabbed the rune with his left hand at the time same.

At that moment, a part of Hansoo's body changed slightly.

'My luck is good.'

[Kang Hansoo] Strength: 11

Agility: 10.1

Stamina: 9

As the rune raised agility by 0.1, Hansoo's status menu changed.

Agility, which wasn't previously shown, appeared.

In a sense, one's strength is what made one faster, but agility was a little different.

The user's time twists and becomes 0.1 times faster, and their reaction speed becomes quicker, as well as the same movement becoming slightly faster.

As agility rises, the user starts to live in a different dimension.

Every rune stat other than strength and stamina, which were already present in humans, started at 10 due to the stats not normally being present in humans.

Hansoo moved his new, faster body without hesitation towards the incoming goblins and started to cut them into pieces.

Sometimes, a rune didn't come out. When one did, it was small, but since numbers were numbers, Hansoo's rune stats rose slowly but surely.

Of course, with his current status, no matter how weak goblins were, killing 200 on his own was a bit far-fetched.

The Podao was so feeble that two or three swings broke it, and Hansoo had to keep changing weapons as he fought the goblins.

Injuries rose as well.

The people who saw that stopped and stared at each other.

At this rate, they would all die.

Not from goblins, but from the hands of humans.

Also, they started to have feelings of greed.

It seemed like runes were very important.

But as one person ate it all, they started to feel anxious.

And they gained courage as they saw Hansoo, who only seemed to be a college student, fight so well.

From afar, his actions looked very sloppy.

The actions were not flashy, but rather only created due to him protecting himself, but as they saw the goblins falling to those slashes, the goblins seemed very weak.

"Fuck...eyy shit I don't know anymore!"

"Uwahhh!"

The people ground their teeth, but carefully approached Hansoo's back and started fighting.

Kiiiiek!

The goblins stared at the humans who were charging towards them with panicked looks, but then started fighting with loud roars.

And then chaos started.

"Ahhhhk!"

"Goddammit! Help me!"

They each held one dagger.

They knew they had to fight.

They knew they would get stronger if they fought.

The opponent wasn't that strong.

But even then, they were just ordinary people.

And the enemies were also armed with weapons, albeit they were a bit feeble, and had large amounts of killing intent as well.

A lot of injuries were occurring from all directions.

However, even in that chaotic situation, Hansoo continued to kill goblins as he absorbed runes and slowly walked forward.

Honestly, there was no need to rush and risk receiving a lot of injuries.

He could hide between the people and fight slowly, as if he were peeling an apple, and kill more leisurely.

But there was a reason why he rushed, despite receiving injuries.

'There is no time to dilly dally.'

Including this location, there were countless amounts of adventurers.

'There are probably over 10,000.'

The 100 people here was not everybody.

There are probably a few hundred of these locations just for Korea.

If the whole world was taken into consideration, there were many more.

However, everyone here was a new first year.

There were no adventurers from the previous years.

The fact that they didn't come here probably wasn't due to kindness towards the newbies.

This location would be protected for three months as the tutorial area.

If restrictions like this didn't exist, all the more experienced would come, kill everyone, and take their runes.

With only 1 year of experience, a person could kill 100 newbies very easily.

From one point of view, it seemed like the fairy was being benevolent, but Hansoo's thoughts were different.

'How do I say it? It was created to enjoy the chaotic fight between weaklings?'

It seemed like the protection was made because it would be boring if a strong person came and wiped out everybody.

Whatever the reason, this was a chance.

In 3 months, they would have to collide against people who had been here for 2 or 3 years.

With that in mind, they must become strong, fast.

Due to Hansoo flying around quickly in the front, the fight ended rather quickly.

As the battle ended and the tension was released, some people couldn't bear the fatigue and fell onto the floor.

'About 16 people died.'

This was a much better result than in the past.

If Hansoo wasn't here, at least 30 would've died.

While the 100 people fought 200 goblins, the number of goblins Hansoo killed by himself was at least 70.

The surrounding people tiredly stared at him.

As the people thought of Hansoo's mad actions of slashing in every direction with his Podao and dagger, they started slowly moving away from him, and the fairy appeared.

"Wow. The grade is really good here. Well, from this point onwards, you all should know how to survive."

'Fucking son of a mayfly.'

The people couldn't curse out loud, so they did it inwardly.

It was rather easy to realize who put up the goddamn wall.

"I will get rid of the wall now. From now, do it just like this. Fighting!"

As the fairy disappeared, people started mumbling.

Hansoo shook his head and then checked his stats.

[Kang Hansoo] Strength: 14.3

Agility: 10.9

Stamina: 10.1

Perception 11.2

'It's not bad'

Hansoo nodded his head.

As he expected, agility runes didn't come out easily.

And maybe due to the situation being a tutorial, skills didn't come out.

However, compared to the three goblins he had killed when he started off in the past, it was not that bad.

He even received perception runes, which increased his overall perception, so this start was pretty good.

'I even got something like this.'

Hansoo laughed as he saw the sword with a sharp edge.

<Podao Gained from Court's Recognition>

This well-balanced and sharp Podao was one of the more useful items obtainable in the beginning.

It wasn't a great weapon, but compared to the ones that had lost their edges with a few swings, it was much better.

With the dagger attached inside and the Podao attached by his waist, his whole body had multiple scars, as he had rushed in order to end it fast.

Hansoo, who had finished his basic preparations, thought of the things that he needed to do at the moment.

'Firstly... I won't be able to meet them.'

He was a 1st year adventurer.

On the other hand, Keldian, Kangtae and Eres were 19 to 20 year adventurers.

Since they had started 20 years ahead of him, they were probably running far ahead.

So, Hansoo thought of the next thing.

'Well, telling them about the Abyss is rejected.'

The dimensional corrosion of the Abyss was sped up depending on how much the corroded dimension knew about the strength, intel, and skill of the Abyss.

It was like ink spreading in the water.

If intel about the Abyss were to spread, the invasion of the Abyss would start earlier.

'First, strengthening myself is of utmost importance.'

He was here in order to change the flow of water.

However, having the strength to change that flow of water was the start, and was of utmost importance.

And with that, Hansoo thought of his friends.

Eres, Kangtae and Keldian.

It was planned that they would all return together with him.

Unlike him, who had become strong by struggling intensively, each of their actions were close to those posted in a guidebook.

And their survival was because of their strength.

'How did they say they did it?'

They had told him in the past.

How they had gotten strong in the beginning.

Eres told him.

<I gathered people and quickly created a clan. It wasn't that hard, since I was a physician.>

'Rejected.'

It didn't fit his personality, and more than anything, one needed to be at the level of Eres to do that.

Next was Keldian.

<That first day with 100 people inside that cage was great chaos. Shortly after the beginning of the first day, we fought and killed each other, and almost everyone died. I was the only survivor.>

Then, Keldian had eaten all the runes and he quickly rushed away.

'In my view, Keldian might have provoked them a little.'

But Hansoo shook his head.

In the words of Eres and him, who had come to save humankind, doing that sort of thing was absurd.

Also, there was more bad than good in the long term if that were to happen.

If you kill somebody, a rune will appear, but it didn't mean that the person who took the rune would have the dead person's strength added to their own.

Runes didn't drop in large numbers.

In reality, the man who had died earlier had more than 20 runes together, if you combined his strength and stamina, but the only thing that was dropped was a single strength rune.

If you look at it from the point of society, coexistence was the answer. That was the reason why Eres, who had included everyone, was able to stay as a leader until the end.

More than anything else, if he were to think of his plans, killing a person to obtain a rune was forbidden.

It might be different if they were to kill others, though.

'How did Kangtae say he did it?'

<For me, when I killed the goblins, agility runes started dropping here and there. Even a regeneration rune dropped.>

'...This doesn't help either.'

His luck was too good.

Agility was one of the most useful stats out of the beginning stats.

The increase in reaction speed allowed one to easily dominate others.

And there should be a limit to how lucky one can be, killing a tutorial goblin and getting a regeneration rune.

The methods of those three did not fit him.

Actually, their methods were a bit lacking.

He needed a way to leap over their standards and rush forward with dominance.

Hansoo knew of such a way.

'Something like this existed.'

A long time ago, one of his comrades from the Final Brigade had told him.

The tutorial area, where 10,000 people were trapped for 3 months, contained a secret.

In this place, there was a hidden dungeon.

For a beginner, the difficulty was immense. So, attempting to complete the dungeon would only end in failure. However, just getting to the halfway point would allow one to have an incomparably immense head start.

His comrade, who had only gotten to the halfway mark after a long struggle, became strong enough to the point of entering the Final Brigade.

Becoming one of the Final Brigade meant being one of the top 100 strongest humans.

Because of that, the hidden dungeon was one of the most important locations in the tutorial area.

This world was not fit for mankind to survive, but one thing was clear.

Something that seemed close to impossible would grant a larger reward when completed.

'First, I must accomplish that.'

Hansoo set his primary goal.