Chapter 5: Tutorial 1

[Tutorial will begin in 300 seconds. Please proceed to the town plaza.]

Another semi-transparent hologram popped from his vision, blocking the map.

"Where is the town plaza?"

The system responded by showing him a yellow blinking dot on the map, which he could see through the translucent image. It was just a few steps away from his location.

Following the map, Taesan maneuvered through the streets of Baekjeon. It didn't take long for him to finally arrive at the plaza, with the guidance of the map.

The plaza was a massive open area with a fountain located at the center surrounded by benches.

Taesan noticed other players already gathered there, with some chatting with each other, while others were practicing their weapons. Some were wielding swords, bows, and spears, while a few had claw gauntlets.

As he observed them, the least he had seen were equipped with thin blades, and the second was the whip chain.

'Since this is a game, does it mean that we'll have to fight and kill monsters?' he pondered the obvious.

'But what am I supposed to accomplish here?' he weighed deeper.

The loan sharks had

Taesan approached the fountain closer and a notification popped in front of him.

[Please stand by. The tutorial will begin in 180 seconds.]

He had two minutes.

Taesan glanced around and saw that all the other players had received the same message as him. Though, it appeared that each player could only see their own hologram.

"It's finally happening! It's finally happening!" said one girl with a whip chain clutched in her hands.

Many of the other players shared a similar excitement, but some had a serious expressions on their faces.

"She has an annoying voice, isn't she?" said a voice coming from his side.

Taesan turned around to see who spoke. He saw a group of three players standing a few meters away from him, and one of them was the speaker.

The young man had short, naturally blonde hair and appeared to be in his early 20s. He was dressed in a black jacket and jeans and had a long sword attached to his belt. His blue eyes were strikingly vibrant and did not appear to be artificially enhanced by contacts.

'Is he a foreigner?'

Taesan agreed that the girl's voice was indeed grating, but he didn't want to be rude so he didn't say anything.

The group seemed to have noticed Taesan's presence, and the young man looked at him. "Hey, wanna party with us? The name's Jason," he offered, introducing himself before proceeding to his teammates.

"Hello. I'm Taesan," he replied, looking impressed by the guy's fluency in Korean that he didn't notice he had been staring at him for too long.

"You can stop staring at my hair, ha-ha," Jason joked, noticing Taesan's gaze. "Also, I don't speak Korean. It's the system of this game that we can understand each other like this."

Jason explained he and his other teammates had also discovered this occurrence from the other group of players.

"And what happened to your face, Taesan? You look like you've been in a fight. And the tutorial hasn't even started yet," Jason asked, his voice carrying a hint of concern.

Taesan was taken aback. He rushed to the fountain to check his reflection, only to find his character's face bore bruises and cuts sitting in the same location he had been beaten by the old man before.

He examined his reflection and wondered about the strange feature of the game. It felt too real, and he couldn't shake off the disgustingly creepy feeling.

As he lightly touched the fresh bruise on his face, he winced in pain.

'This is unbelievable. Since when have we reached this level of technology?'

As he contemplated the reason behind the realistic appearance of his character, a voice interrupted his thoughts.

[Please stand by. The tutorial will begin in 5 seconds.]

Taesan checked the notification. He took a deep breath seeing that the countdown drew closer.

[...4.]

'If I can feel pain in this game, then that only means,' Taesan thought, his heart beating faster with anticipation and nervousness.

[...3.]

[...2.]

"I should go and tell someone–"

[...1!]

As the countdown reached its end, a sudden flash of light drew the eyes of everyone. It came from the huge hologram that appeared in front of the plaza.

[Greetings to 100,000 players from all over the world! Welcome to Ganghwa. Each one of you will be transported–]

"Shit, that means forming a party's nonsense," Jason muttered to himself as the system announced.

"Hey, Jason. Can I talk to you for a bit?" Taesan interrupted.

"Sure, what's up?" Jason replied.

[–to a tower in 3 seconds. This tutorial will teach you how to utilize the skills and weapons.]

"I think we should be careful since everything will probably feel real," Taesan warned.

"Oh, didn't they say that in the advertisement?" Jason said, already aware of the immersive nature of the game.

"What?" Taesan asked, surprised.

"That experience will feel real. Isn't that why we're here?" Jason said.

He looked at Taesan weirdly, looking surprised that he hadn't realized the nature of the game before. "What, did you miss the part where they said it would feel real?" he asked incredulously.

Taesan shook his head, feeling embarrassed. "Ah, I guess I forgot."

True that he was clueless. Minhyuk never told him. It could be that he was playing around to see how it would end for Taesan.

Taesan felt somewhat annoyed about his circumstance. From his unlucky encounter with loan sharks to being a pawn in Minhyuk's game.

[Transporting players to the tower...]

As the hologram's message ended, the system began to transport players to the tower.

"How could you forget about that, ha-ha." Jason leaned forward as he laughed hard. Wiping his tears, he said, "Welp, catch you later, Taesan."

"Yeah, see you around, Jason." Taesan returned the wave.

He watched in awe as Jason's party's bodies started to glow with a bright light, one by one. The glow intensified as their bodies began to fade, starting from their toes and moving up to their knees until it reach their torso to their head and completely disappeared from view.

In less than three seconds, they evaporated into thin air, as if they were being transported to another location.

Taesan took a deep breath, he braced himself once more for what was about to come.