Chapter 6

Tutorial 1st Floor, Waiting Room (Part 3)

[Attempt 1, Day 0 . 1:28pm]

[Time left until Tutorial: 70 hours 32 minutes]

We sat in the centre of the stone chamber, the 1st floor waiting room and proceeded to introduce ourselves .

The bear-man who explained everything to me before was the first person to introduce himself .

The bear-man’s name was Choi Min Sik .

He was 47 years old .

Your average working man .

He was pondering on whether he should resign from his job when the message suddenly appeared before his eyes .

A special quality of his was that he was in the athletics team in high school .

Next was the short tempered rebel . His name was Cho Kyung Min .

He was 31 years old .

It was befitting to call him a gangster .

A special quality of his was that he really liked Korean RPG games like Lineage .

The only woman on the first floor, Park Su Ah, was next .

She was 21 years old .

A tertiary student .

She really liked Japanese anime .

“I’m Lee Ho Jae . I’m 26 years old and I was a pro-gamer . ”

“Pro-gamer? Lineage?”

Kyung Min asked with delight .

Were there even pro-gamers in Lineage?

“No . I was a pro-gamer in the RTS category . When I was young I learned to play many sports including kendo hence I’m also quite confident in my athletic abilities . ”

“Well, now that we know more about each other, how about discussing what is about to come?”

Min Sik began to speak .

However, we managed to only mutter to ourselves and as we tried to read our current predicament .

This was bound to happen since no one knew anything about each other . I guess it was up to me to man up and start the conversation .

“Well firstly, I believe that we all share the same understanding that this place is similar to a game, right?”

The other three agreed .

“They give you weapons, even a character status bar . It definitely resembles an RPG game . It’s kind of like Lineage, the game you like, Kyung Min . ”

“Yeah, it’s really similar . ”

Kyung Min loudly agreed with his voice .

“One of the most important things about RPG games is team play . In a party, we all get assigned a role and play as a team . So, let’s all show each other what type of weapons we have chosen so we can assign these roles to each other . ’

All four of us opened our inventories simultaneously and laid out our weapons .

Min Sik had a large trident .

The pole was wide and the blade was large also .

It was incredibly heavy .

It seemed to be roughly 2metres in length, a weapon that looked like it should be wielded by Guan Yu or Zhang Fei from the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms .

Kyung Min chose an axe . The blade was a little larger than a fire axe .

However, the long metal handle made it seem easy to use .

I thought I had seen this kind of weapon somewhere, then I realised, it oddly shared the looks of an axe that a dwarf would have used in The Lord of the Rings .

Including me, 3 of us had chosen a melee weapon .

Deep inside, I had hoped that Su Ah had chosen a ranged weapon . A bow, throwing weapon or maybe even a mage staff .

However, Su Ah had taken out a long katana instead .

It looked much larger than a normal katana .

Simply said, it looked like it was from an anime .

My god, how is she going to use that…

What are you, some sort of shinigami?1

All four of us had chosen a melee weapon . The combination was a little off-point .

While Min Sik and Kyung Min argued over whose weapon was better, I cleared my thoughts .

“I have an idea . Please listen . ”

The formation I thought of was this .

Kyung Min and I at the front .

Since I have the shield, I would stay slightly ahead of Kyung Min to block front on attacks so he could attack with his axe .

Min Sik at the back

With Min Sik at the back, he should be able to pierce enemies in sight between Kyung Min and I .

Lastly Su Ah has a free-role .

The katana was significantly long . Compared to Su Ah’s physique, it was too heavy so, she would have to use it as a two-handed sword . This is way too dangerous for a beginner to use .

Su Ah would cover Min Sik’s sides and read the battle . Moreover if Kyung Min or I get hurt/ if people are out of position, Su Ah would come to support and attack only if there is a sure-fire chance .

“So, what do you think?”

Min Sik and Kyung Min agreed to my proposed positions .

Min Sik seemed relieved that he was a bit safer one step back and Kyung Min was happy that he was the main damage dealer in the group .

However, Su Ah didn’t like the idea .

In all honesty, I thought that Su Ah would like this position the most since it was the safest position out of them all . It really surprised me when she displayed her dissatisfaction .

“Su Ah . I understand how you feel, but I think you should consider Ho Jae’s suggestion .

I understand that this may feel like a game to you, however we don’t know if we can get hurt or even die like a game . Moreover, we chose the hardest difficulty . We don’t know the dangers ahead of us and if we don’t have any other solid suggestions I believe we should follow Ho Jae’s safe and stable positions . ”

Min Sik calmly tried to convincing Su Ah .

Although Su Ah’s expression hadn’t changed, she nodded her head in agreement .

Then, we began our group training .

No matter how far we went, we were in an area where we weren’t able to get hurt, tired or even hungry . This was the perfect place to train .

Firstly, we began by getting into the positions I suggested .

Kyung Min and I at the front, with me slightly ahead of Kyung Min and Min Sik right behind us .

It was crucial to not get in Min Sik’s way .

We couldn’t stay too close, nor too far away from each other .

After multiple adjustments, we finally found the right distance we had to keep .

At this stage we just swung our weapons like madmen as a trial .

“This should be enough . ”

Kyung Min’s words were reasonable and we were a little jaded to continue .

And so we stopped swinging our weapons .

Shortly after, we began to spar .

I was worried our weapons would get damaged as we trained, but fortunately, this wasn’t the case .

There were moments where our weapons would get damaged, however the weapons would repair themselves to their original state soon after .

Not only did the waiting room heal us, it also repaired our equipment automatically .

Although we were in the waiting room where injuries could not occur, when we sparred, we didn’t train with the aim of inflicting major injuries upon one another .

We all lived a peaceful life until yesterday .

We weren’t prepared to fight to draw blood, even though we were in the waiting room .

Despite that, we did make improvements .

Kyung Min would swing his axe and I would block it with my shield .

We trained vigorously, full of concentration .

If I there was an opening, I also swung my sword .

To deny the opportunity of a counter-attack, Kyung Min naturally learned to swing his axe with efficient movements . Allowing it to be swung with more precision .

Min Sik was trying to get a hang of using the large trident .

The trident was too heavy; it couldn’t be used in a fancy way like you see in those Chinese martial art films . You could only use the weight as an advantage for a forceful stab .

Fortunately, our enemies wouldn’t be able to target our backs .

Su Ah was quite a problem .

Due to how large it was, she was barely able to swing her katana properly .

It was more like uncontrolled waving in the air .

She still had yet to win a match when we sparred with her .

I could beat her easily even without my sword .

I didn’t expect anything better from her, so I wasn’t too disappointed .

However, you could tell that she was pretty upset about it .

“How about we try swapping our weapons?”

Maybe it was from the frustration and anger of her continued losses, but Su Ah suggested we try swapping our weapons .

“Why though?”

Kyung Min replied in a rude tone against Su Ah’s suggestion .

You could clearly tell Su Ah was really upset by then .

“Let’s try it . Maybe if we tried using each other’s weapons, we might be able to learn more about them . ”

Kyung Min agreed to try each other’s weapons after I said so . He always tended to ignore Su Ah and made fun of Min Sik’s suggestions every time .

As odd as it was, he was fine with everything I suggested .

Maybe it was because I treated him like a superior ever since I met him .

Kyung Min always complained and had a short temper, but at least his personality isn’t completely trash . Knowing the fact that he was a gangster, he was quite well behaved .

Actually, when Kyung Min introduced himself as a gangster, the atmosphere in the waiting room got quite chilly . Luckily for us, it seemed like Kyung Min was able to get along with other people .

After having swapped our weapons, we began to spar again . Surprisingly, Su Ah won multiple times .

“Holy shit, this is hard to use . The people in the movies used this thing so easily . ”

Said Kyung Min after he had an attempt with the katana .

There was quite a bit of improvement once we started sparring with different weapons .

As we got to know more about each other’s weapons, we knew how to cover for their weaknesses .

Above all, something must’ve clicked in Su Ah as she swung Kyung Min’s axe .

She started practicing to swing the axe like cutting wood using all her strength .

Although hard to use in a real fight, it seemed ok for her role in the team .

Su Ah trained non-stop with the weapons as she started to gain confidence .

However there was one problem,

“Pierce the enemies’ soul! Judgement! Moonbeam Strike!”

Every time she swung her weapon she would shout something similar to this .

At first I tried to go over it like it was nothing because I believed it was to help her concentration, however I would be lying if I say I didn’t get embarrassed every time she shouted these things .

“Oi, why do I have to feel ashamed because of you?”

“You have to say the name of the skills if you want to activate them . ”

But I mean, why did you scream “Pierce”1 when you are striking downwards .

Makes no sense .