“W-wait! Why?! What happened?”

Maria exclaimed in surprise, how could she have suddenly experienced a race change right at the start of the game.

“Grrrr...Didn’t I just explain it Little Miss? You overused your Angel’s Rage skill.”

“But I don’t get it! How could I have gotten that skill anyway?! I was only level 0!”

“Level 0? Grrr, you must have been blessed by the Dark God then.”

“D-dark God?”

“Let me take you to the place, your questions will be answered there.”

Maria wanted to say more, but her heart was beating way too fast and she was in a panic.

‘Oh no! Oh no! Calm down, calm down Mary...deep breathes...deep breathes...remember, this is just a game! Race change or whatever, it’s all just a game!’

Speaking of the game, she suddenly grew furious. Maria remembered that she had clearly set her pain parameters to only 20 percent, so how could the attacks from the wolves have hurt her so much then?!

If that was only 20 percent, then maybe she should have just turned it down to 0 percent after all! Maria never wanted to experience that kind of torturous pain ever again. It was too much to bear.

She quickly reopened the settings window and noticed something wrong with the parameters.

“Huh? How come it’s set on 80 percent again?”

Maria quickly readjusted the percentage to only 20 percent once again. She then realized her blunder.

“...I forgot to press the apply button...”

That’s right, this idiot had forgotten to press the apply button before exiting from the settings window.

This time, she immediately tapped on the apply button and exited from the window. She then pulled out one of her black feathers from her wings. To her surprise, she only felt a small jolt of pain coming from her wing. It was like someone had only lightly pinched her back.

“It actually works...I can’t believe I was so stupid and forgot about it...”

Maria sighed at her stupidity... the agonizing pain and despair that she went through earlier...she never wanted to experience it ever again.

This was supposed to be a game right? She was supposed to be enjoying her time while she was in here, not crying and wailing like a baby like what she had done earlier.

The wolf and angel continued walked deep into the forest. Maria turned a little restless since the deeper they walked, the darker it got.

“Uhm...Mister wolf, where exactly are we going?” Maria asked in apprehension. She felt like they have been walking—at least the wolf had—for over 2 hours by now.

“Don’t worry Little Miss, we’ve already arrived. See that shrine up ahead?”

Maria looked up and strained her eyes. It was already night time and it was way too dark in the forest, but she could see the silhouette of a building. Presumably, this should be the shrine that the mister wolf was talking about.

“What’s inside, Mr. Wolf?”

“Grrr...You’ll find a teleportation gate inside. Only the Fallen can access it because this is a shrine of the Dark God.”

The wolf brought Maria up to the shrine’s staircase and let her down. Maria hesitated a bit, but she decisively walked up into the shrine. She almost forgot one thing and quickly turned her body around to face the wolf.

“M-mister Wolf! Th-thank you for bringing me here...and not eating me...”

“Hurhurhur! Grrraah, don’t worry Little Miss. Ah! By the way, right now I’m only an AI taking control of this wolf’s body. Once you leave through the teleportation gate, this wolf will turn back into the Epic Field Boss, Black Fenrir Gram.”

“Fenrir? Gram? Ah! The one from Norse Mythology!”

“Aren’t you a knowledgeable one,” The AI possessed wolf replied.

“Hehe, I’m smart after all!”

“Grr...Not from what I saw.”

“Ugh...a-anyway Mr. Wolf! Thank you again!”

“Sure, Little Miss. Just make sure you don’t come back here and try to speak again with ‘Mr. Wolf’. He’ll only try and kill you again.”

“Uhhh yeah...I’m not that stupid!”

“Sure, you aren’t.”

“I’m not!”

The AI began laughing once more. It found this little unfortunate girl to be somewhat amusing to talk to.

“Grrr...the development team should compensate you for the traumatizing experience you just went through...this should be reported as a bug, but 80 percent in the initial pain parameter should be readjusted, grrrr...”

“Yeah! You people should make it start at a low percentage y’ know! If another unfortunate gal like me was to experience that kinda horrible thing, then you’ll go out of business soon!”

“Grahahaha, don’t worry Little Miss, you’ll be compensated later once I’ve reported this to the main AI. You should get going now. You’re already behind compared to the other players. I wish you well on your grand adventure.”

The AI possessed wolf lowered its head and turned around to walk back into the forest. Not long after, a long, ferocious howl echoed out from within the depths of the forest.

Maria shivered in fear and didn’t dare to linger. She quickly rushed into the shrine and quickly found the gate that the AI mentioned.

“Is it not active?”

The gate was silent. It only appeared to be a normal archway situated within the middle of the shrine. When Maria was finally within 3 meters of the gate, it suddenly sprung to life. The magic circles that were engraved on the floor of the shrine immediately began to light up.

The space in the middle of the archway began glowing and a spinning vortex formed not long after.

“Uhm...what was it again...[Inspect]!”

[Teleportation Gate: Enoch]

After a quick inspection, Maria quickly jumped into the gate. Not long after she had jumped in, a large black wolf with ominous green eyes stalked into the shrine.

The light of the Teleportation Gate had only died down, but the large wolf immediately realized that someone had just been inside the shrine. Someone had dared trespassed into its territory!

“GRAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!”

The large black wolf gave a ferocious roar that shook the entirety of the shrine. It began to sniff around the area and it quickly found a black feather close to the teleportation gate. It once more roared, but this time not in fury. Instead, it was...elation? Joy?

The large black wolf circled the archway 3 more times before it finally decided to wrap its body around the small archway and settle down to sleep.

The body of the black wolf began to harden and turn into stone. With the archway surrounded by a stone sculpture of a demonic wolf in the center of the shrine’s inner room, it once more descended into silence.

********

In the large demonic city of Enoch, an Angel with black wings suddenly appeared in the teleportation building near the east side of the city.

Maria felt groggy after stepping through the teleportation gate.

“Ugh...I feel like throwing up...”

Since the game had only started, there weren’t any players visiting the teleportation building just yet. Unlike in other games, the use of teleportation gates in Unitale was pretty expensive.

The city charged 1 gold coins for every use. For the current players, 1 gold coin was a massive fortune.

100 bronze made up a large copper coin, 100 coppers made up a silver coin, and 100 silvers made up a single gold coin.

Without realizing the significance of her presence while inside the building, Maria happily walked out right after her grogginess had faded.

“Hey, is that girl an NPC?”

“Woah! I’ve never seen that kind of race before!”

“She’s an Angel, but with black feathers! So maybe, a Fallen Angel?”

“That’s so cool! How come there wasn’t a Fallen Angel race during the character creation?!”

“Don’t forget, she just walked out of the teleportation building! That means she’s already got a gold coin!”

“She’s a cheater?!”

“No way man! A girl that hot can’t possibly be a cheater...maybe she’s a BT?”

Maria’s presence alone had caused a stir and many players had snapped a photo of her using the in-game snapshot function. Her pic was immediately posted on the Unitale Forum and it caused quite a stir.

A race that wasn’t present during the character creation. This means she was a Beta Tester or BT for short, that had secured an early advantage and managed to race change immediately right after the game’s launch!

The person in question however didn’t know any of this. Maria was still merrily going about her way. She had already received the compensation box that the AI had promised in her mail. She still hadn’t opened it right now since she was still busy reading the Help menu.

“Uhm...so I should go find an instructor? Okay then...but where are they?”