AuthorPalt

Tutorial Rewrite 12

Added 2023-01-07 15:20:05 +0000 UTC

I awaken with a startle.

Wh-, where am I?! Did I win? Did I kill the leopard? Did I greet him?!?

Haah, haah, haah, haah…

This is… This is the lobby, right? Yeah, with that eternal whiteness and the pillars and the…

—My body. My body feels fine. It-, it even feels good! I’m-, I’m okay! My teeth are back, and all of my fingers are here, and my tongue, oh, I never thought I’d miss my tongue, and my palms, and my feet, oh, this is…!

<Time Until Floor 2 Opening:

18:01:09>

Th-, that’s…?

…No. No way. I am not throwing myself back into that craziness! I—I almost died! I could have died five hundred times over for how many arrows I took! No. Absolutely no way.

18 hours… Is not enough. No, not in the least.

But-, but maybe I’ll change my mind in 18 hours? Eh, probably not. But it’s possible, and, well, this is a room that heals everything. 18 hours is a long time in that sense, I guess.

“Groooo—ooowwl”

My stomach growls.

…I guess, for now, I should try to eat something. I doubt everyone else is just perpetually starving, so there really ought to be some sort of shop window.

<Top—Status—Community>

<05:59:30

Day 31>

<The third attempt will begin in

29:18:00:30

Floor 2 will open in

18:00:30>

We really are on the second attempt now, huh… Whatever that means.

By searching around a bit, I’m able to successfully find a shop window, where I also find out I currently have 3 500 points. Nice. Now, what to buy…

I look down at what I’m wearing. Yeah, no, my first order of business is to buy some proper armour. Let’s see, light leather armour would be best for my play sty—

<A full-body set of light armour that

protects the user from harm while

still keeping them agile.

Defence: 15>

<Price: 8 500 points>

E-, eight thousand—!?

Eh, uh, well, um, maybe that’s just an especially high-quality piece of equipment, right? If I check the used section, I’m bound to find some goodies!

<”Leather” “Shirt”>

<A thin piece of what might have once

come from an animal fashioned into

something that may in some circles be

called a “shirt”.

Defence: 2

USED ITEM>

<Price: 2 250 points>

<An aluminium knife

used for playing pranks.

The blade retracts.

USED ITEM>

<Price: 1 000 points>

<The skin of a goblin’s scalp,

tanned and refitted into a form

able to be bound around feet.

Slippery when wet.

Defence: 1

Agility: -2

USED ITEM>

<Price: 1 200 points>

…Right. So, uh, yeah, I think I’ll skip that, okay? Okay.

After much deliberation, I decided to invest in a knife for 1 500 points. Say what you will, but as is, my sword is blunt and I’m almost completely unable to use the spear and axe. I need some way of defending myself, right? Right.

And then I also bought a simple tracksuit for 1 650 points because I can’t run around in stiff, bloody hobo clothes all my life. The tracksuit even came with proper shoes, though I can tell that even a single slice will have them imploding on themselves.

But, good news, my items and equipment regenerate in the lobby, so I should be fine as long as I have the scraps left of them.

That leaves me with a full 350 points left to splurge on whatever I want!

For many long minutes, I simply stare at the food section.

Food is good. Humans need food to live. But I technically don’t. I can make it just fine without it. I don’t need it. I’m basically superhuman. No food and no water for thirty days does not make me a hungry boy. Absolutely not. I. Am. Fine.

I gaze into the screen.

The screen gazes back at me.

My hand hovers over the beef jerky.

I don’t need it.

…

At the very last second, my hand swerves to the side and accidentally presses the Princess Cake button, and then it slips again and enters 1 as the amount for purchase, and then tries a few discount codes before accepting fact and pressing summon directly.

Oh, no! Oh whoops, there go my 350 remaining points! What a bummer. What a shame. No beef jerky for me, I guess!

I stare at the cake in my hands and drool. It’s perfect. It’s absolutely amazing. A simple smell of almonds, an easy waft of scrumptious vanilla sneakily hiding just below the marzipan surface… Oh, it’s enough to make any man a true believer.

I summon my newly purchased knife. It’s smaller than I thought.

…Oh, well.

Tossing it to the side, I attack the princess cake with ravenous, bestial desire, tearing into it like a man gone wild, going so far as to eat the marzipan rose and leaves right at the beginning, barely even chewing it before I gulp it down like a fish swallowing water and then going back to it, ripping out layers of cream and vanilla custard, thrusting handfuls of fluffy sponge cake directly down into my guts, eating, swallowing, almost choking it all down, my hand acting like a plunger to press it all into my gluttonous stomach.

<You have learned:

Choking Tolerance Lv.1>

<You have learned:

Rip Lv.2>

<You have learned:

Tear Lv.2>

And by the end of it, I’m left lying straight on my back, staring up at the endless white. My eyes flutter closed, and without a care in the word, I fall asleep. And not half-asleep or half-awake, or even some sort of deep meditation. I just sleep, and that’s it. Not because I need to heal, not because I need my body to recover. Simply for the sake of sleeping because, for once, I can.

And I guess it’s the magic of the lobby, because when I wake up, I feel so inhumanly refreshed I might as well receive a status message reading:

But I don’t, because that ability would be too powerful. At least there’s no such skill as sleep, that’d be one step too far. On the topic of skills, I quickly bring up my Status and read through them, checking what they’re for and all.

The skills section of the Status is separated into Active and Passive, of which I have 7 and 42 respectively. Most of the passive skills are some form of tolerances or resistances, which is kind of insane. But, right now, I’m much more interested in the Active skills. To be specific, a certain [MAX]-level skill I just happened to receive from some guy up above…

<[Fetal Position Blowover(Lv.MAX)]

The God of Cowardice, who watches

over those that exhibit caution

above logic, has granted some

of His powers to His potential apostle.>

And there it is. Frank question: what in the world is this?

…Oh, there’s more of a description down here! Let’s see…

<Should the user go into

the fetal position, they will

become invisible to all enemies

and otherwise unsmellable,

unhearable, and untastable.>