The Tutorial Is Too Hard Chapter 260:
Editor: Tide, Rektsatan,
[Lee Hochi]
A lot was happening right now . I couldn’t believe that someone was picking a real fight with me . It was too sudden . There was no way I could have done anything to make him hold a grudge . Oh, he must have thought I was Ho-jae .
I was immediately convinced . No matter who it was, if you were famous, you were bound to bear hatred and grudges . Ho-jae’s power was recognized among other planets as well . Perhaps that was why the silver-faced man looked like he was out for my blood .
[Don’t overthink it and focus on how you’ll deal with it . ] Ho-jae’s calm voice rang in my mind .
You want me to deal with him? And how exactly do I do that?
While I was thinking about this, my opponent, who had been silent all this time, opened his mouth .
“I never thought I’d get to meet the famous scammer . ”
What? What scammer?
[You know, you stole power from the gods back then, when you lied about being an apostle . ]
Oh right . There was that .
I ran away from home before the 61st floor became Ho-jae’s domain and became exposed to the gods’ eyes for the first time . Naturally, countless gods’ eyes fell on me, their interests peaked, and they gave suggestions
At that time, when I had a lot of worries about myself, some of those suggestions sounded very tempting . As I pondered over some of the proposals, there was a competition between the gods without my knowledge . The gods, who had repeatedly asked me to come under them, eventually offered power as a bait .
I came to my senses at that point . It occurred to me that if I followed anyone, I might walk the wrong path, so I decided to go back to the 60th floor after accepting the powers .
The gods had no idea what I was thinking . When one **** presented me with power, the other gods offered more, and I returned to the 60th floor, grateful for the powers .
[It was a clever move . ] Ho-jae murmured .
It was Ho-jae that benefited from those powers, not me . After all, I had never used them before, and above all, I wasn’t interested . Ho-jae participated in the research of those powers, but that was all .
“I can’t believe you stole so many powers and disappeared,” the silver-faced opponent continued .
Excuse me? Stole? Who stole it? I just took what I was given .
“Did you know that there are only two chances for a single **** to present power to a challenger? One chance is used up when they ask you to be an apostle . ”
Of course, I knew about it . Ho-jae had received similar offers countless times . He was a professional in that area .
“Do you know how many people didn’t get a chance because of you?!” the opponent suddenly shouted, eyes blazing with anger .
[He doesn’t seem to have the powers . Hey, ask him if he has any powers . ] Ho-jae urged me .
“Do you have power?” I questioned, following Ho-jae’s advice .
The opponent did not answer immediately . From that, I could figure out the answer .
“Oh . So you’re powerless, too . Is that why you’re angry? Because you don’t have power? Do you feel it was my fault? Don’t you think it was because of your poor abilities? “
I had never been in a battle since I was born, but Ho-jae had taught me enough . If I met with an enemy, I was to weaken the enemy’s confidence if I had the chance . And I was confident that I could do this well, even if I didn’t know anything else .
“No matter how much power I’ve stolen, I didn’t accept the apostle proposal . Oh, have you been offered the position of an apostle yet?”
[Aye . No way . ] Ho-jae chimed in .
“Hmm? Just by looking at you, I can tell that you’ve crossed 50 floors of Hell’s Difficulty, but you haven’t even gotten an offer? Oh, my God . That can’t be true . No way . Have you not been getting apostle offers from the sixth floor?”
“Shut up,” the silver-faced man growled .
“Huh? What?”
“Shut up!” my opponent shouted again .
“Huh? I couldn’t hear you . I can’t hear the weak cries of a powerless person . ”
╔═══════════════╗
[After 30 seconds, the duel will begin . ]
╚═══════════════╝
I had been teasing my opponent for a long time before a message appeared .
Damn it . Give me about 300 more seconds .
“I’ll kill you,” the pissed-off man mumbled to himself . Phew, what a crazy guy .
“Hey, what should I do?” I tried talking to Ho-jae again .
[What to do? Kill him . ] A simple answer came back .
[The Earth’s challengers have just come up . You know, if you let him go, he’ll come at them instead . Just kill him . Wipe out the issue . ]
While I was talking to Ho-jae, I heard the sound of paper tearing from the air, and Yong-yong’s head popped out .
“Uncle!”
“Yong-yong!” Our pretty Yongyong .
There had been so many layers of barriers, but he had ripped through them all .
“Would you like some help?”
“No . It’s alright . ”
It seems that he had sensed my danger and broke through the barrier . I was very grateful for his concern, but I had no intention of asking Yong-yong to fight for me .
“Huh? Is that a Hatchling? What are you going to do by summoning a little Hatchling, who has not even lived for 100 years? You don’t even know how to wield the enormous power you have . You certainly don’t even deserve the power . ”
“Yong Yong is not a baby!”
Yong-yong tried to display maturity by shouting, but it didn’t work out very well .
“Yong-yong, go back to Baek Sung-woong,” I said, stroking Yong-yong’s head .
Yong-yong asked back with a worried face, “What about Uncle?”
“I’ll join you soon . ”
Yong-yong thought for a moment and then disappeared, saying, “Okay . ”
I was glad to see him go .
[What’s good about it? It would have been good to let Yong-yong experience it . ]
“I don’t want to let him . ”
Of course, I knew well that Yong-yong had little resistance to fighting and wouldn’t hesitate to kill someone . Still, I hated it .
[Then how are you going to take care of that?] Ho-jae asked .
“Well…”
[What? You can deal with this quickly . Even if you don’t kill him, you can still subdue him . ]
“Still… . ”
It was hard to explain, but I didn’t want to deal with him .
Ho-jae sighed and said, [Yes . Even a tiny dog will bark and run, but who’ll deal with it sincerely? They’ll either shoo it away or ignore it . No matter how much you fight, you will win anyway . You don’t have to fight **** if you have nothing to gain . ]
Yeah . That was precisely how I felt right now .
[But it’s not always possible to avoid fighting like this . Someday you’ll end up fighting too . If I can’t help you, then you might regret not having experienced combat in advance . ]
I thought so too . I might regret it someday .
[Okay? Well, if I were there, I’d have to show my strength anyway . That way, those flies would be less annoying . ] said Ho-jae .
The message appeared at the same time as the words .
╔═══════════════╗
[In 10 seconds, the duel will begin . ]
╚═══════════════╝
Less than 10 seconds before the message appeared the space in front of me began to compress . Darkness flowed from the tear in space and soon engulfed my opponent and me .
“I’ll kill you this time . ”
* * * * * *
[Isad]
Looking at the oblivion in front of me, I thought about where this all had started . Was it when I was asked by the gods to test that power? Or when I was ordered to contact a challenger on the 57th floor? Maybe it was when I first received an invitation message from the Tutorial? I went back in time and slowly swam up in the river of my memories .
It was from that day when everything started . When the parasitic monster that the source vomited made our family a host . Since that day, I began to live with the idea of killing and destroying all the sources that exist in the world .
Although I was late, I chose Mado’s path and succeeded, beginning to conquer the sources one by one . Before I knew it, my name was spread all over the continent, and I was labelled a hero . Nevertheless, there were countless sources left on the continent, and there was still a long way to deal with them all .
Then the Tutorial appeared . The people who were invited there came back strong . Gradually, they began to root out the source .
I was happy, but I felt deprived . That had been my job; my duty; my role . It was not for those who used to plough fields and feed cattle .
While I was thinking about it, I was invited to the Tutorial . I thought the gods had finally recognized me . Of course, I chose Hell’s Difficulty . No matter how difficult it was, I didn’t have any difficulties .
Basic magic alone could clear most of the stages . Of course, the level of difficulty had increased rapidly, but so far, there had been no stage that tested my limits .
Even now, when I reached the 60th floor, I felt impatient . I was not much different from how I had been before the Tutorial . The only thing that mattered here was whether or not the gods granted me power . But no **** gave me any power .
I blamed them . The gods were unaware of my abilities, even though they were gods . It seemed as though all hope crumbled around me . I had given up . For some reason, I may never be able to grasp that power .
Meanwhile, the Dragon, whom I had met on the 56th floor, made a suggestion .
“If the gods don’t care, why don’t you work for the Tutorial?:
I readily accepted the authority that may be rewarded according to my performance .
According to the mission they gave me, I contacted a female challenger on the 57th floor and created a link with several challengers who were in a similar position . When I came in here, I was assigned to meet that wicked scammer on the duel stage and test his strength .
I was confident . Until I met that scammer, the duel opponents I encountered were all **** . Before entering the Tutorial, they had all been worse than the low-ranking mercenaries . It was disappointing .
When I faced the scammer, similar feelings of disappointment and disgust washed over me . He was the same as everyone else, no more disappointing than the rest of the population . The gods had granted him such enormous strength, but he didn’t know how to deal with it . In all ways, he was useless . He didn’t do anything .
I was furious that such tremendous power was gifted to such an incompetent b*stard . So when the message notified me that the duel was about to begin, I was delighted .
And then, darkness came .
The oblivion, which veiled my eyes, hid the scammer and gave off an ominous feeling . It reeked of danger . My self-confidence evaporated, and thoughts of survival were the only thing that filled my head .
But I couldn’t . I couldn’t escape or turn my eyes from it .
An outstretched hand, reached to me from inside the dark, made me tremble in horror . I became paralyzed in a moment of terror, unable to look away .
What I felt was beyond fear . It was despair clutching at every fibre of my being . What had I been thinking? From the beginning, I knew nothing .
The hands, wrapped in the dark currents, had several colourful bracelets, and as I watched, the bracelets vanished one by one . I was sure . This was my end .
“Die, wizard,” the oblivion spat .
* * * * * *
[Lee Yeon-hee]
Blergh .
I grabbed the stand and bent down to hurl my stomach’s contents . Many people were throwing up like me or were utterly unconscious . Most of them were high-level challengers . The low-level challengers would not even be able to sense what had just happened .
It was only I in this arena who knew what was happening now . For most people, only two words that came out of the darkness would show that the other person’s body had disappeared . The problem was the way .
It was not that hard to kill a person with a word . You could chant a spell to burn them, freeze them to death, stab them to death, or push them to their end . But you couldn’t just kill them directly .
Converting death to life was not a surprising ability, albeit rare . The gods could heal, revive, and resuscitate .
However, the ability to convert life into death, and to force one to end, was an ability that one had never thought of or even imagined .
If the finger hadn’t been pointing directly at Isad after saying those two words, the power could have affected everyone . Could I have survived that power then? It was hard to tell .
“Are you still sure?”
Before I knew it, my hand holding the ring was full of sweat . It felt uncomfortable holding the ring .
No answer came from the ring .
“Answer me, are you still sure?”
I clenched the silent ring in frustration and slammed it on the floor . The despair that I had imagined in my head finally materialized before my eyes . It was horrifying to see Ho-jae’s ambiguous power surface, and I stepped out of the stage in a gloomy mood .