Infernal Apocalypse

It was pretty dark as I stood in the forest kind of confused. I’ve had a relatively easy time dealing with the Goblins, and I didn’t have any close calls with my life, nor did I manage to generate any more black flames. Everything was going pretty decent I’d say, even with the lack of black flames.

I might’ve lost count a couple times, but I should have well over 100 orbs in my pouch, a pretty haul in what must’ve been a couple of hours of fighting. The plan was to keep going for a while longer, but I couldn’t find any Goblins anywhere. Hence my confusion.

I searched and looked high and low but, nothing. Didn’t spot a single one. It was very weird. Did I kill all the Goblins in the forest? Surely not right? This Tutorial is supposed to be all deadly and about surviving and what not right, surely there can’t be only a few hundreds of Goblins in this Forest. That doesn’t feel right.

Hmm…maybe there running from me? That might explain it a bit I guess. I did go all scorched earth on them the other night, and I just killed at least another 100 of them. I would be scared of the murder hobo going around killing my people too, so I understand it a little.

Even though I thought all of that, I didn’t believe that was the case. Oh, and speaking of scorched earth, I went to the area where I believed my black flames manifested last, but I didn’t see any signs of anything being burned.

No scorch marks on the ground, no burnt tree barks, no signed leaves. Nothing at all. It was all very weird but I’m sure I’ll learn mor about them eventually.

Anyway.

I still have a missing Goblin problem. Do I just go back to the Outpost and try again tomorrow? Maybe I can ask Greja about this, she might know something about what’s going on.

Ding!

Stage Two of the Tutorial begins Tomorrow

Monsters in all Regions will be Improved

Prepare

Hm, so a couple of things here, the Tutorial book I read said Stage Two will begin on Day 6, and this little alert thing says tomorrow, so I guess that means it’s currently midnight and now Day 5? Things are moving along, and I’ve been out here later than I thought.

Now considering it said all Regions, I wonder if it’s safe to assume this forest is one those regions? Maybe the Tutorial world has other biomes after all, and since it didn’t specify Goblins but instead said monsters, do these potential other biomes have different types of monsters?

That sounds really fun when I think about it…maybe I can pack up my rucksack and go exploring till I reach one of those other biomes if there are any. Maybe they have other fantasy monsters like Orcs or something. Though I would love to do that, the last one word in the alert probably means I shouldn’t. Prepare. In red. That’s not ominous at all.

I don’t think it would say that for no reason. I almost lost my life once by underestimating this Tutorial. I won’t do it again. So, what can I do to prepare? Cultivate. My natural healing should be a big advantage during the Tutorial, so I need to take advantage of that. As long as every stage of Body Tempering was as easy as the first one, then I should be able to blaze through it. Being able to actually control my flames should help as well. Moving on.

I guess this whole Stage Two thing kind of explains where all the Goblins went. I’m guessing they are all going through this improvement thing? Or maybe the Tutorial is giving us the day off to genuinely prepare for what’s to come…That’s a little bit exciting.

Weird ideas of fun aside, I should probably go back to the Outpost, and get some rest. I want to be in the best possible condition when I try to advance again.

And with that Raizen quickly made his way back. With his new strength it didn’t take him very long to run all the way back to the Outpost. Eriog was still calmly standing in front of the Outpost as always, which caused Raizen to wonder if the guy ever got any sleep but didn’t pay it too much mind before making his way back to his house, where he didn’t waste any time in going to sleep.

What Raizen didn’t know though, was that there were two sets of eyes watching him as he entered the Outpost.

One of which was of course Jrino, who was still floating high in the sky as he observed the other party down on the ground hiding in the shadows. One of Richard’s people stared at Raizen walk in over to his house like a hawk, before quickly scampering off back to the house Richard lived in.

In fact, for the entire time Raizen was outside, Jrino watched on as the group of people rotated in shifts to watch the entrance to the Outpost.

He didn’t really care about the situation, as he believed it would be Raizen’s job to deal with the people of his own planet. So, after observing the situation a bit he made his way back to his office.

Meanwhile, the person who was watching Raizen walk into the Outpost, made it inside the house Richard lived in and woke him up.

“Richard…he came back.”

After only just waking up in the middle of the night, it took Richard a few minutes to shake the grogginess off and fully wake up and digest what the person in front of him was saying.

“…How did he look?”

“He looked perfectly fine. I didn’t even see a tear in his clothes.”

“Not even a tear huh…and his pouch? How was that?”

“I couldn’t see well enough to tell for certain, but it looked like it was fairly filled. Oh and there was an alert from the system about something called Stage Two and preparing.”

That last sentence caused Richard to fully sit up with his eyes widened.

“What aler…-”

Ding!

(Previously Hidden due to State)

Stage Two of the Tutorial begins Tomorrow

Monsters in all Regions will be Improved

Prepare

“Wake...wake everyone up…”

“It’s in the middle of the night Richa…-”

“We can’t sit around any longer! We barely made it to the Outpost as it is! How many more people have to die before we change. The system itself is telling us to prepare, we need to take this seriously. Wake everyone up.”

“I…I understand.”

And with that the individual who spent a decent portion of his night left to head to the other houses the group rented, with each of them filled with tens of people due to the limited space. He didn’t need to take up anyone in the initial house as Richard could that on his own. It took a few minutes of running around and literally shaking people awake, but he eventually did the job, and before long around almost everyone was now up, and finally seeing the alert from the system, with the only exceptions being young children and the elderly.

The red writing caused a little bit of panic, but the situation was mostly calm despite the grunts and sounds of unhappiness at being woken up in the night, though eventually everyone gathered outside around Richard.

“Firstly, I would like to apologize for waking everyone up, but I’m sure you have all seen that alert by now. Things are changing. We were barely good enough to get through the Goblins as they are now. If they got too much stronger than this, while we stayed the same, we wouldn’t be able to go kill them for orbs, which means we probably wouldn’t be able to afford rent and would need to leave.

We have to get stronger. I know we knew that already, but this is an emergency. I will try to reach the Body Tempering realm as they call it tonight. Hopefully when I am successful I will the rest of you to do the same.”

Richard let the words sink in to the crowd before him, before he continued.

“I bought enough manuals so that every house could get a few of them. Please read them fully and study like life depends on it, because it does.”