Chapter 6

[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 j.a.panese 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 a.s.signed a role and play as a team. So, let’s all show each other what type of weapons we have chosen so we can a.s.sign 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 G.o.d, 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 s.h.i.t, 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 embarra.s.sed 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.