Hell Difficulty Tutorial

“Level at least 220, ranged base class, get into formation 5, full power from the start!” Obelia shouts, lightning immediately cracking around her.

A few of her guild with heavy armor immediately get to the front, mana surrounding their armor or shields and further strengthened by the barrier of their teammate.

More members get further back, mana surrounding their weapons or fire floating around them. Two of her members put their hands on Obelia's shoulders and the amount of mana she releases intensifies.

(Why would we fight, dear child?) Without the arcane archer's mouth moving, the words sound in the room.

The voice is quiet, yet chilling, lacking emotions.

(I don’t sense any invaders in between you, nor did I identify you as a traitor yet.)

The archer takes a step, reducing some of its mana signature, and to that, Obelia does nothing. She doesn’t attack, but she also doesn’t stop carefully observing the corpse in front of us.

I also take a step ahead, passing by Hadwin and Maya who moved to the front of our group the moment the corpse moved. Nice reflexes, something they built up while hunting with our group.

The archer looks at me for a moment, the eyes made of mana stones shining brightly, but then they move past me and he examines everyone in the room, all in a matter of a few seconds.

(Are you looking for death or knowledge?)

The voice that sounds a bit robotic continues to sound in the room and I slowly start realizing what the thing in front of us is. An imprint similar to what Lissandra did, an extremely delicate web of mana circuits able to store knowledge and personality.

Yet there is a huge difference. Where Lissandra created an imprint on my body with her Potent mana, the thing in front of me contains the imprint on one of the mana stones, either in the eyes or on the chest.

The imprint of the archer is much less intricate than Lissandra’s.

“We didn’t come to fight, we came looking for knowledge,” Obelia says in her calm voice and I can’t help but admire how quickly she got back to herself.

(Ask then, child of Nabulon.) the archer says, weirdly cooperative.

“You said child of Nabulon, what does it mean?” Obelia asks the first question.

(Nabulon is the name of the planet we are on.)

“Is Nabulon a planet where only humans live?”

(It used to be before the lynthari came.)

“How,” guild master of Storm Brigade shakes her head, “Tell me first who you are.”

(I’m a personality imprint of Champion Orven’s disciple, Reynar.)

I can hear a few people muttering, not because they recognize the name, they just seem amazed that something like this is possible. For them, titles like Champion, or Champion's disciple are something they only heard in legends.

“Are the real you and Champion Orven already dead?”

(With high probability. The imprint was created and imbued into this body before we collected the remaining force for the last try to fight the lynthari’s Absolute.)

“What happened then?”

(I do not possess the knowledge of that.)

The entire time they talk, I keep looking at the arcane archer, and dozens of questions swirl in my head, yet Obelia is asking the right ones so I just listen, collecting kinetic energy within me. My body with Arcane Resilience is capable of holding a terrifying amount of it.

“Who are the lynthari and why did they invade Nabulon?”

(They are natives of a planet that got Paired with Nabulon.)

“What is pairing?”

(I can't answer this question.)

This is when I join in, “Not even if I ask?”

For a moment the corpse just silences, the two eyes made of mana stones turning to me. Then, slowly its mouth turns into a smile that is too wide to be called friendly.

(This information is currently unavailable for tutorial attendees, yes.) It says.

Obelia shouts something about not hearing the words the corpse said, but the archer ignores her, the words it just said sounding less robotic than before.

(We’ve met, already twice before,) the voice that says that is the same voice that talked to me during both Beyond trials.

When I look around, Obelia and her guild are frozen still, not moving at all, nor blinking, only group 4 can.

“Should we fight it?” Tess asks, her [Stormcrown] already flickering over her head.

“I think it’s fine,” I shake my head and turn to the being that took over the body of the Arcane Archer, “You are limited in what you can do, aren’t you?”

(Yes, what you are talking to is only my intent that I was able to sneak into the tutorial's system. Usually, I wouldn't be able to interfere so much, but something weird is happening in your round of the tutorial,) the voice sounds almost amused, (So, what would you like to know?) it asks.

“I’m not curious about anything,” I say.

“Nat?” Tess looks at me with shocked eyes.

Yet I do not change my mind. A creepy voice out of nowhere sharing some information with me and helping us? Yeah, sure, it’s just another asshole trying to mess with us, manipulate us for more fun, feed us information it wants, and mess with her, the person responsible for the tutorial.

It is limited in what it can do within the tutorial, so there is no need to be polite and allow it to try to manipulate me. Even talking to it is risky, and it's something that should be done much later when I have gained more power or more information to build my own opinions without being subtly manipulated by it.

The laugh that sounds in the room is cold and amused at the same time and some members of the Storm Brigade, even unmoving, start bleeding from their ears and eyes.

But it does not affect us and when it talks again I swear I can hear a hint of danger in it, (So very prideful,) the way it says pride makes it clear that it knows or guessed my subclass, (So will it be.)

The presence disappears and the Storm Brigade start moving again.

“What is Pairing?!” Obelia asks the same question again, all of them unable to remember what happened. Only then she notices her bleeding guild members, “Prepare for a fight,” she says and with it, the conversation ends.

The same for the Arcane Archer who starts moving again. In its hand, an arrow appears, one made of mana, and the string of the bow starts glowing in the same blue color. The Arcane Archer draws the bow and aims at Obelia.

That’s when I activate the anchor I created next to it while we were talking to the being from Beyond. [Tether] activates and through that connection, I send a blast of kinetic energy towards the anchor, making it explode on the other side, throwing the corpse to the side.

Just that moment is enough and dozens of attacks fly at it.

An orb made of blue fire from Izzy, a javelin filled with Primordial lightning from Tess, and a shower of small orbs made of mana-conductive metal from Kim. A red lightning from Obelia that sounds as if tearing the space as it passes by.

And much more, the corpse gets bombarded, but only until the arrow flies from where it lies, barely visible under the attacks.

The mana arrow digs through the barriers as if they are not there, and the legs of one of Obelia’s guild members explode.

Immediately another one flies over, hitting Hadwin and throwing him to the side while he tries to shield Lily.

My [Mana Domain] encompasses the room and I radiate much more mana into it.

When an arrow flies at me, I create an anchor and teleport away, the arrow piercing through the wall.

Then I use [Infusion] to fill my [Mana Domain] with [Resonance]. Having seen and perceived the arrows, I continue to track them and every single one that enters my domain or tries to pass through it to hit someone gets disrupted.

One after another, a dozen arrows get destroyed like that while attacks continue to shower on the corpse. When they stop for a moment, all the effects of them disappear and in a massive crater created by them, a movement appears while even the walls around it are cracked.

The body, the personality construct of the disciple of the Champion stands up slowly, entirely inside a spherical barrier made of pale blue mana. The surface of the barrier ripples like calm water when a stone is thrown into it.

That’s when another attack flies at it, an arrow made of gray mana, and it hits the barrier. For a moment the corpse ignores it as the attack just crashes against it as if it’s made of smoke, but then we can see big chunks of the barrier get dissolved, disintegrated without any resistance.

As if awaiting that, I feel a strong pulse of mana from Tess and the javelin that flies towards the archer is glowing in red and white lightning, the material of the spear barely visible through it.

When Tess's attack is just an arm's reach away from it, the archer turns and looks at Lily.

And then he disappears.

I activate the anchor I left next to group 4 and mana flows inside my body at the same moment he reappears behind Lily. Another arrow forms in his hand, but he moves it down and stabs Lily with that arrow, the pale blue projectile made of mana piercing her back.

The black-haired girl barely staggers under the force of the attack and a few of her fingers disappear, and for a split of a second she moves terrifyingly quickly, grabbing the hand of the archer. Gray mana envelops it and [Disintegration] eats into the hand that she is holding.

When I reach them, the archer disappears again, missing a hand Lily destroyed. Instead of that hand, a limb made of mana is created and he starts shooting again.

The arrow stabbed inside Lily’s back glows brighter and brighter and I'm sure the following explosion will kill the girl if we don't do anything about it.

“Save your mana!” I shout at her, seeing she is about to use [Disintegration] on it and maybe [Sacrifice] a limb to do so.

Unable to destroy the arrow from the distance I reach out and touch it, finally breaking the resistance that blocked me from destroying it. [Resonance] tears it apart and Lily starts healing again.

I jump backward and the arrow meant for my head pierces the walls. In just that short moment, the archer killed two members of Obelia’s guild and Maya is barely keeping her [Armament] active, with a few wounds on her body.

Sophie is using her [Manipulation] to change the direction of arrows and her mind blender thingy doesn't seem to work. Yet her redirecting the arrows seems to be the main reason why no one in group 4 is dead.

Her and Biscuit.

A dozen dark purple tentacles swirl around the corgi while he floats in the air, even his eyes glowing in a similar purple color.

Each arrow shot is met with some of the tentacles, no matter how fast that arrow is. Biscuit just continues to deflect the ones Sophie can´t take care of while floating in front of Isabella. He even uses one to grab Hadwin and throw him towards Lily, only Hadwin´s [Strenghtening] keeping him standing with a massive wound on his chest.

The arrows pierce almost through everything.

[Regalia] forms around my body and I force more mana into it, the armor turning dark blue. At the same moment Tess steps to my side, [Stormcrown] made of lightning floating over her head and her body surrounded by flashes of red and white lightning.

“Together?” she asks.

“Together,” I answer as simply.

My domain expands and both of us rush at the corpse.