Tutorial Area – 1

As soon as I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a stone ceiling. Moisture and cold seeped into my back from the floor simultaneously. As goosebumps prickled my arms, I calmed myself and got up.

I was inside a prison, surrounded by stone on all sides.

At that all-too-familiar sight, my mind quickly finished assessing the situation. It was a space I absolutely couldn’t not know, and a space I shouldn’t not know.

‘This is ridiculous.’

In my mind, I recalled clicking the beta tester application link for BraDk 5, and with a bright halo of light, my figure being sucked into the monitor came to mind. That was my last memory in reality.

The very first feeling I had was absurdity. These crazy bastards were now even using the bait of winning a beta tester spot for a new game to transmigrate people.

Even if it wasn’t me, anyone who thought they’d played BraDk 4 a bit would clearly have been grandly hooked by this trap. I wondered if this level of creativity was necessary to go around transmigrating people.

The next feeling that came to mind was regret.

‘I must have been crazy. Why did I have to go and clear the ‘Enemy Enhancement Mode’ as the world’s number one?’

Right, what kind of world is it these days?

If it was transmigrating into a novel that only I had followed to the end, or if it was a reader who uniquely followed an author’s work to the end transmigrating the author, then it could at least be said to have some basis.

These days, the world is one where you transmigrate even into novels you haven’t read, transmigrate even into novels you’ve only dabbled in, transmigrate even if you don’t leave comments, transmigrate even if you only look at the cover, transmigrate even if you filter out works, transmigrate while criticizing a novel, transmigrate while criticizing an author, and transmigrate again after being dragged away once and returning. It was a truly chaotic and unsettling world.

In such a world, someone who’s logged 30,000 hours of playtime, a hardcore player? I was the perfect prey to be eyed by certain terrifying beings who were desperate to rack up achievements with humans.

But what could I do? I had already done it, and I had actually been marked and dragged in here.

I got up from my spot. The floor was too cold, making it difficult to sit there any longer without clothes. Moreover, if a little more time passed, the first event of this tutorial area would begin.

Plans automatically popped into my head, one after another. This was a section I had already passed through thousands of times. I knew exactly how to move and act here.

ㅡSave me! Aaaah!

No sooner had I finished thinking, than from a distance, the sound of people running away and terrible screams could be heard.

‘It started.’

I took a deep breath, and took a spot against the wall furthest from the prison bars. Outside the bars, people were pushing and shoving each other, running away with all their might.

The prisoners on the opposite side, with bewildered faces, approached the bars and peered at the situation outside. Since people were running away en masse as if their lives depended on it, they must have wondered what on earth was happening outside.

ㅡThump… thump…

From a distance, the ground began to rumble slightly. As the rumbling grew closer, the prisoners, with eyes that clearly showed they had no idea what was going on, looked at each other.

Finally, the thumping rumble was felt right next to them, and one prisoner, who had been pressing their face against the bars to look outside, at that very moment, as if confirming something, collapsed in utter panic.

ㅡROOOOAR!

From beyond the left corridor, a hideously shaped monster appeared.

Its body was incredibly fat from side to side, almost filling the corridor, and hideously distorted scales covered the skin of its entire body.

Its legs and thighs were much thicker than an average person’s torso, but because its torso was even fatter than that, it paradoxically seemed balanced.

Its arms were so short they weren’t even half the length of its legs. Despite that, in one hand, it held a wooden club almost as tall as itself. The club was already covered in blood.

Its face was distorted beyond recognition, and from its mouth, torn almost to its ears, unkempt teeth protruded jaggedly.

The boss of the tutorial area, it was the Human Butcher.

The prisoners in the opposite cell who saw its appearance screamed as if to tear the prison apart. Perhaps drawn by the noise, the Human Butcher stopped coming towards me and turned towards the opposite cell.

Its incomparably massive body bent the iron bars like taffy and entered the cell. Soon after, along with desperate screams, the sound of human bodies being crushed was heard.

Blood splattered all over the prison walls. Up to this point, everything was exactly as it was in the game. Compared to the graphics of BraDk 4, which weren’t particularly outstanding, the crushed flesh was so vivid that it made my stomach churn a bit.

True to its name, the Human Butcher, who had literally butchered the prisoners, walked out of the cell. Fresh blood, layered over dried blood, dripped from its club.

Now, I was the next target. Its massive body moved again with thumping steps. The iron bars of the prison door couldn’t withstand even a single second and bent weakly.

The Human Butcher, with half its body inside the cell, took its next step and raised the arm holding its blunt weapon towards me.

ㅡCRRRACK!

Just before its arm was brought down, from the spot where it had stepped, a large crack appeared, and the floor began to split. The monster, startled, stopped trying to bring down its club and retreated backward.

But the crack didn’t stop and continued, and soon the entire prison floor split with loud cracks. It was a precarious sight, as if it would collapse at any moment.

‘It’s starting now.’

The Human Butcher, perhaps thinking I would fall to my death, snorted once, then turned its body. It was true that I would fall along with the collapsing floor after this.

But I wouldn’t die.

I closed my eyes and braced for impact. The floor reached its limit shortly after, and unable to bear its own weight, it collapsed with a crash. At the same time, my body, along with the collapsing pile of stones, plummeted deep underground.

“Cough, cough.”

Because I had properly inhaled the dust, a cough burst out.

I raised my arm and pushed away a stone lying right in front of me, then cleared away the pile of stones heaped all over my body. Only after repeating that for a long time could I finally crawl out.

The place I fell to was the lowest level of the prison.

From here, it could be said that the real beginning of BraDk 4 started. Before falling here, what happened in the prison above was merely an intro level in game terms.

I roughly collected myself and exited the prison through the bent iron bars. It was quiet all around. It was truly the exact scenery I had seen in the game.

That I would experience this myself I truly never imagined. I felt a complex and subtle emotion.

‘I wonder what my background was chosen as.’

I looked down at my body. A considerably muscular body, wearing only a loincloth. Unfortunately, background and physique were separate, so I couldn’t guess from this.

Honestly, I briefly thought it was fortunate that I wasn’t a female character.

‘Since I can confirm it right away anyway, there’s no point in thinking about it here.’

I walked towards the nearby stairs. If I just went up these stairs, a battle with the tutorial area’s trash mobs would begin for the first time, and at the same time, I would be able to confirm what background the player had chosen.

Lying in front of the landing, I picked up a crude wooden club, and carefully ascended the stairs, trying my best not to make any footsteps, while listening to the conversation upstairs.

“…….”

No sound could be heard.

‘I’m screwed.’

As soon as I realized that fact, my face instantly contorted.

If you move by walking up the stairs without making any footsteps, when you reach about halfway, you hear the enemies’ conversation. It was a conversation arguing about how to distribute the spoils.

If they mentioned armor, a longsword, and a shield, the background was a Knight; if they mentioned a dagger and magic scrolls, the background was a Rogue; if they mentioned a staff and a robe, the background was a Mage. It was something like that.

But if nothing was heard, it meant the player character’s background was ‘The Forsaken’. As soon as I realized that, a surge of emotion briefly welled up inside me.

‘There are 10 possible backgrounds to choose from, and it had to be that one?’

The Forsaken was, among the backgrounds a player could choose, an uniquely weak character. Not only did it start at Level 1, all stats were also 1, and no items, weapons, or armor were given.

Because all stats were 1, in the appropriate PvP level range, it was indeed the character with the best stat efficiency, but that was the extent of its advantages.

Moreover, just reaching that point was a challenge. Its health was low, its stamina was trash, its attack power was a mess, and it had no items or armor equipped.

What is commonly said, the background a hardcore player chooses when they want a self-imposed hard mode, could be said to be precisely The Forsaken.

In the game, even if you chose The Forsaken as your background, you could just clear it with infinite retries, but now I was in a situation where I had been sucked into the game. Where was the guarantee that I would revive after dying?

I let out a deep sigh inwardly and picked up the club. Whatever it was, it was better than nothing. Gripping the wooden club firmly, I slowly walked up the stairs. The sight of the upper floor gradually came into view.

‘As expected.’

As I expected, the spot where items indicating the background should have been was empty. Prisoners dressed in crude clothes held wooden planks and loitered casually next to it.

It was identical to the scenery I had seen countless times in the game.

If so, what I had to do would also be identical to what I had done countless times in the game.

I took a deep breath, and stepped onto the upper floor.