The red-tinted morning sky stretched endlessly above the four trainees. Mountains towered in the distance. Ancient forests covered the valleys.
The strange world of [1EOjk] felt far larger than any tutorial stage Nobody had experienced before.
Nobody, Julias, Ethius and Mayra walked along a rocky trail winding between the hills.
For now everything seed peaceful. Nobody had learned long ago that peaceful monts never lasted. Especially inside tutorial-related nonsense.
Ethius stretched his arms behind his head.
"So..." He looked toward the others. "I heard this stage is supposed to be different."
Julias nodded. "Yeah." The goblin warrior kept one hand near his sword.
"So what exactly are we fighting?"
Mayra adjusted her robes. "Probably stronger monsters. Maybe elite creatures. Perhaps...Maybe bosses."
Ethius imdiately frowned. "Please don’t say bosses."
Nobody nodded. "Agreed. Every boss I fought tried to emotionally damage ."
The group looked confused.
Nobody pointed. "Long story."
Mayra smiled. "Don’t worry, guys." She twirled her staff slightly. "I’ll support everyone during combat."
Julias grinned. "Nice. A support mage is always useful."
Ethius nodded enthusiastically. "See? Now we’re forming a proper team."
Then all three suddenly looked toward Nobody.
Nobody blinked. "...Why are you all staring?"
Julias pointed. "We told our stories. What about yours?"
Nobody scratched the back of his head. "Well...I am an NPC being."
The group stopped walking.
Ethius, Mayra and Julias blinked. "...What?"
Nobody nodded confidently. "NPC."
Ethius looked toward the others. "Did he just say NPC?"
Mayra nodded. "He did."
Julias rubbed his forehead. "...Okay."
Nobody continued proudly. "And I am pretty good at fighting."
Julias looked him up and down. The office clothes and average build. The slightly awkward posture. Then he looked back up. "Dude. Are you sure you can fight?"
Nobody imdiately looked offended. "Yes. But why?"
Julias shrugged. "Your body looks a little fragile."
Ethius nodded. "Yeah. You look more like an accountant than a warrior."
Nobody pointed dramatically. "I am really used to fighting."
The trio remained unconvinced.
Mayra tilted her head. "Your world must be pretty unique."
Nobody froze. Then looked toward us. Yes, us. He pointed dramatically.
"Unique?"
"UNIQUE? Guys.I live in a webcomic world!"
"Of course it’s unique!"
The three stopped walking.
Ethius slowly looked around. "...Who are you talking to?"
Nobody imdiately coughed. "Ahem. No one."
Julias raised an eyebrow. "You literally pointed at empty air."
Mayra looked concerned. "Should we be worried?"
Nobody laughed nervously. "You guys must’ve seen it wrong."
Ethius looked toward Julias. "Man. You’re a weird guy."
Julias nodded. "Definitely weird."
Nobody sighed. "The story of my world is more weird than ."
The group continued walking. The trail gradually descended into a grassy valley. The wind beca stronger. Bird-like creatures flew far overhead.
For a while....everything remained calm.
Then suddenly.....
A familiar notification appeared before Nobody.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING](꒪⌓꒪)
Hostile Entity Detected
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stopped instantly. The others noticed.
"What happened?" Mayra asked.
Nobody stared at the screen.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Unique Monster Group Approaching]
Entity Type:
Elental Slis
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s eyes widened. "Guys..."
The others imdiately beca alert.
"You feel that?"
Ethius suddenly nodded. His assassin instincts activating. "...Yeah." His hand moved toward his daggers. "I sense monsters approaching."
Julias slowly unsheathed his sword. "I feel mana signatures."
Mayra raised her staff.
The air itself seed to vibrate.
Then....
SLURP.
SLURP.
SLURP.
Dozens of strange creatures appeared from behind nearby rocks. So bounced. So rolled. So slid across the ground.
Everybody stared.
"...Slis?" Nobody blinked.
The first sli bounced forward. Its body glowed crimson. Flas danced inside its translucent body.
The system imdiately identified it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Fla Sli]
Classification:
Elental Monster
Attribute:
Fire
Description:
A sli infused with concentrated fire mana.
Skills:
• Fireball
• Burning Body
• Heat Burst
Effects:
• Causes Burn Damage
• Resistant To Fire Attacks
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ethius pointed. "That thing is literally on fire."
Another sli bounced forward.
This one glowed blue. Frost covered its surface.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Ice Sli]
Classification:
Elental Monster
Attribute:
Ice ❄︎❄︎
Description:
A sli infused with concentrated frost mana.
Skills:
• Ice Shard
• Freeze Touch
• Frost Mist
Effects:
• Slows Movent
• Can Freeze Targets
• Resistant To Ice Attacks
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mayra frowned. "Elental variants."
Then another creature erged.
Bright yellow.
Electric sparks danced across its gelatinous body.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Thunder Sli]
Classification:
Elental Monster
Attribute:
Lightning ⚡︎⚡︎
Description:
A sli infused with concentrated lightning mana.
Skills:
• Lightning Bolt
• Electric Surge
• Paralysis Shock
Effects:
• Chance To Paralyze Targets
• Fast Movent Speed
• Resistant To Lightning Attacks
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody pointed. "Guys....They each have different powers."
Julias nodded imdiately. "Yeah...I can sense their mana." The goblin warrior raised his sword. The red-haired warrior’s expression beca serious. "Don’t underestimate them."
Ethius pulled out both daggers. "Slis usually aren’t dangerous."
Nobody pointed at the glowing monsters. "Those are literally elental bombs."
"Fair point."
Mayra spun her staff. Blue magic circles appeared around her. "I’ll support from the back."
Nobody summoned his Twin-Bladed Crowbars. Blue pixels scattered through the air.
SHING.
The weapons appeared in his hands.
Ethius blinked. "...Okay...That looked cool."
Nobody grinned. "Thank you."
Then....
The Fla Sli suddenly launched a fireball.
WHOOSH!
The projectile flew directly toward the group.
"INCOMING!" Nobody shouted.
BOOM!
The fireball exploded against a nearby boulder. Fragnts of burning rock scattered everywhere. The peaceful valley instantly beca a battlefield.
"Spread out!" Julias shouted.
The goblin warrior charged first.
CLANG!
His sword flashed through the air.
A Fla Sli attempted to ram into him.
Julias t it head-on.
SLASH!
The sli split into two burning halves.
But to everyone’s surprise the pieces started moving again.
Ethius’ eyes widened. "Uh...They’re regenerating?!"
The system imdiately appeared before Nobody.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Monster Information Updated]
Info: Elental Slis Possess
Minor Regeneration
Suggestion: Destroy Core To Eliminate
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody pointed. "Guys! They have cores! Hit the cores!"
Mayra imdiately raised her staff. Several glowing magic circles appeared. "I’ll expose them!"
WHOOSH!
A powerful gust of wind erupted. The spinning air pushed several slis backward.
For a brief mont, small glowing crystals beca visible inside their bodies.
Julias grinned. "There!"
SLASH!
His sword pierced directly through one of the cores.
CRACK!
The Fla Sli instantly collapsed into harmless goo.
"One down!"
anwhile...three Thunder Slis rushed toward Ethius.
CRACKLE!
Electricity danced around their bodies.
Ethius imdiately panicked.
"Nope!"
"Nope!"
"NOPE!"
He jumped backward. A lightning bolt narrowly missed his face.
BOOM!
The ground exploded.
Ethius looked horrified. "WHY ARE THE CUTE ONES ALWAYS THE MOST DANGEROUS?!"
Nobody said," Dude, use your daggers too."
Ethius said," Do you think I fight slis daily??!"
Then suddenly....
a blue Ice Sli launched several frozen spikes.
SHING!
SHING!
SHING!
"Watch out!" Nobody imdiately dashed forward.
CLANG!
CLANG!
CLANG!
His crowbars deflected all three projectiles.
The ice spikes shattered into frozen fragnts. The Ice Sli bounced happily. As if proud of itself.
Nobody pointed. "Why does it look cute while trying to murder us?"
The system responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Unknown]
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Helpful as always."
Nearby....Mayra’s magic continued supporting everyone. Small streams of wind redirected incoming fireballs. Ice attacks lost accuracy.
Even the Thunder Slis struggled to aim.
Julias looked impressed. "You’re amazing!"
Mayra smiled. "Focus on fighting!"
Suddenly, more slis erged from behind nearby rocks.
Dozens.
Then dozens more.
The valley floor began filling with colorful bouncing monsters. Red, Blue, Yellow. Everywhere.
Ethius stared. "...Guys."
Nobody looked. "...Oh."
Julias looked. "...That’s a lot."
Mayra looked. "...That’s definitely a lot."
The system imdiately displayed a new warning.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Threat Level Updated]
Large Sli Colony Detected
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody slowly tightened his grip on his crowbars. A nervous smile appeared.
"Okay...Maybe this stage is starting to get serious."
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