The 2nd tutorial
As darkness ensued him, a blue screen appeared in front of him, giving him the info of the next tutorial.
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Tutorial- 2
objective - Get to the safe zone
Time Left - 2 Days
location - destroyed city
Distance covered- 0/6 km
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'Hmm, so it's not a killing mission this time, but rather a survival one?'
The darkness left, and Kirko could see again. All that surrounded him was in ruin; nothing showed signs of life. Buildings were toppled, streetlights stood melted, twisted into shapes that no longer gave light. The great towers had fallen, falling across the earth like defeated beasts. Ash hung in the air like a second sky, swallowing the sun's bright rays. The world was dark, and a heavy, eerie silence filled the ruins.
'So this is a destroyed city. What could have caused this?' Kirko looked around, but all that stood was a ruined city. Each step he took, the sound of broken glass and rustling of rocks filled his surroundings. "I hate this. Why am I alone?" He opened his system, trying to find a way to stop the silence which filled the air. He first opened his stats to see his points—
Strength - 8 Speed - 8
Endurance - 8 Intelligence - 5
Dexterity - 7 Perception - 9
He closed it and noticed an option written—direction, 'Hmm, what's this?' He clicked it, and a thin but long white arrow spawned in front of him, showing him the direction to the safe zone, and it even wrote how far away he was from the zone.
"Thank God I found this before I left." He felt relieved. "I can't waste any more time." He got serious. 'I want to get more SP, and to do that I need to get first place.' He took a deep breath, and just as soon as he was going to leave, a loud voice came from behind him.
"It's youuuuu."
Kirko jerked fast, and in a swift moment, he put his dagger right next to the neck of a slender but fairly tall boy, having smooth skin and short but slightly curly hair with nice green eyes.
He raised his hand. "It's me, Cain, I'm not a monster," he spoke, trembling.
Kirko made his dagger vanish. "Oh, it's just you."
Kirko turned around to leave, but before he could leave, Cain put his hand on Kirko's shoulder, stopping him again.
"Umm, can we do this one together?" He laughed awkwardly and scratched his head. "You can decline…"
"No, let's team up."
"O-oh, ok."
'Yes, yes.' Kirko was jumping inside, filled with joy.
Kirko was so happy to have company in this ruined city. Being alone in this place just felt wrong and dangerous, so having someone with him made him happy and relieved.
"Umm, so can I know your name?" he said while giving out an awkward laugh.
"It's Kirko."
Then an awkward silence filled the air, both of them looking at each other without saying a word. After a while, Kirko broke the silence.
"I want to get first place, so keep up with me."
Cain nodded his head, signifying that it's ok.
"Ok, let's go."
Kirko started running toward the direction the white arrow pointed. Behind him, Cain followed.
15 minutes later
Kirko turned back to notice Cain being far behind him and looking like a ghost. He waited for Cain to reach."How are you tired already?"
"How are you not!" Cain exclaimed, gasping for air. "We ran for 15 minutes straight."'Wow, I didn't know that increasing my stats makes that big of a difference.'
They entered a small house which still had a roof, but the place looked like it would be destroyed any second.
Cain looked at Kirko, confused while gasping for air. "Kirko, why are you going in there?"
"To take a break from all the running." He turned to Cain and saw his pale and tired face lit up.
Cain walked to a wall, then sat down leaning on the wall.
"So why are we taking a break right now?"
"Well, cause if we had continued, you would have become unconscious, and I don't want to carry you around."
Cain smiled and scratched his head. "Just give me 3 minutes, then I'll be better than ever."
Kirko took a seat a bit far away from Cain.
"So, what's your ability?"
Cain looked at him with a smirk, then replied, "My ability is called Sharpen—I can increase the sharpness of any weapon by 4x." Then with a cocky voice, "A cool ability, I know." He looked at Kirko's face, trying to find a shocked face, but rather he saw Kirko in deep thought.
'Sharpen. That's a helpful ability.' He looked toward Cain. "Can your ability work on my weapon?""Well, I haven't tried it on another player's weapon."
Kirko slid his dagger on the ground. "Try it now."
Cain picked the dagger up and brought out his sword, then held both of them in one hand.
Kirko looked at him, confused. "What are you doing?""Well, it's technically my weapon's ability, not mine, so I thought if both of them are close to each other, the dagger will also get sharpened."
Kirko didn't reply and just watched the process.
"Sharpen"
Both the weapons in Cain's hand started to glow slightly, and after the glow started to fade, both the weapons in his hand looked shinier."Ooh, it worked."Kirko looked at him with his head tilted slightly. "It did?""Yeah, my weapon got shinier the last time I did it, and this time both of ours did." He handed Kirko his dagger.Kirko took his dagger, then examined it. 'Hmm, maybe it did get sharper.' He stood up. "OK, break time is over, let's leave."Cain stood up and stretched his arm. "Let's go."
Kirko and Cain continued their journey through the ruined city while taking two more breaks during the journey. During their journey, nothing happened—no monsters came, nothing threatened to kill them. They just ran and ran. This made Kirko very wary of everything around him, and then a big and tall and thin glass wall was in front of them. In the middle of the glass, in white and bold, it wrote:1 KM — They finally reached the 1 km mark.
"Woah, it's so big." Cain's eyes widened.
"We can't waste time, so can you keep up?"
"Yeah, I can go for some more time." Cain looked at him, his breathing a bit unstable.
Kirko and Cain continued walking. When they reached the glass, Kirko put his hand out, and as soon as he did, the glass formed ripples, and he went through it. It looked like glass but felt like water.
'Woah, so cool.' Kirko kept putting his hand in and out of the mirror. Then he shook his head and turned around to see Cain doing the same thing. He pulled him and walked through the mirror and went to the other side.
"You know you could have just told me to come instead of pulling me," he said while rubbing his neck.
Kirko was going to reply, but the whole ground shook, and the ground in front of them opened. What came out of it made Kirko's and Cain's faces pale and horrified.