The words dug into Paari's eyes like brands.
[Initiating Integration. Please remain calm.]
The gym tore away—machines, floor, the humming fan—disassembled into white fire. He tried to shout, but his voice unraveled with the rest of him.
Impact. Grass. Cold air with a metallic tang.
He pushed up on shaking hands. Blades of grass cut clean against his palms, too vivid to be a dream. Above him, stars pulsed like circuitry stitched across a black sky. Far off, crystalline obelisks hummed. A chunk of land hung in the air, drifting like it had never heard of gravity.
"Paari!"
Meera hit her knees beside him, breath hitching, braid coming loose. "Are we—"
Arav crashed down on Paari's other side with a grunt and a very mortal, very panicked, "Where's the gym?! Where's the apartment?!"
"Gone," Paari said. The word scraped his throat.
They weren't alone. A dozen-or-so others staggered across the field—faces from the apartment blocks and the surrounding lanes: the old watchman; two college boys who haunted the lift lobby; the yoga uncle from Block C; a nervous girl with ink on her fingers. Fifteen at most. Not the whole complex. Not even close.
"Appa? Priya?" Paari turned in a frantic circle. No broad-shouldered silhouette. No familiar, unblinking gaze.
"Not my parents either," Meera whispered. "Where did—"
A chime cut the air.
A translucent panel blinked into being in front of Paari's eyes, its letters crisp and merciless.
[Welcome, Participants.]
You have been transported to a Tutorial Zone.
Each Participant has been scattered within this Zone.
Duration: 15 Days.
Objective: Survive and acquire Tutorial Points (TP).
Ranking: A public Leaderboard will track TP, Level, and Status. Top 3 at the end receive Unique Rewards.
Warning: Death here is permanent.
Time Remaining: 14 days 23:59:59
Gasps. A sob. Someone swore and tried to swipe the message away; it followed their gaze like it was painted on the air.
Another panel unfolded over the first—this one for Paari alone.
Name: Paari Vel
Race: Human (Lv.1)
Class: Spear Master
Health: 100/100 Stamina: 80/80 Mana: 40/40
Strength: 9 Agility: 11 Perception: 10 Endurance: 8
Experience: 0 / 100
Tutorial Points: 0
Skill:Basic Thrust — Precise forward strike; bonus accuracy vs. unarmored.
His pulse hammered. This was a system. Not a hallucination. He'd coded mock-ups of screens like this for years—only this one could kill him.
Arav gaped at his own panel, voice ricocheting between panic and glee. "I have a bow skill?!"
Name: Arav Krishna — Class: Archer (Lv.1)
Health: 90/90 Stamina: 70/70 Mana: 30/30
Experience: 0 / 100
Skill:Basic Shot — Accurate arrow strike.
Meera's panel floated into place, its light soft as breath.
Name: Meera Iyer — Class: Healer (Lv.1)
Health: 100/100 Stamina: 60/60 Mana: 60/60
Experience: 0 / 100
Skill:Minor Heal — Restore a small amount of HP to allies.
"Why me?" she murmured. "I… I'm not—"
"You are," Paari said, automatic as a reflex. "You always have been."
The watchman whispered a prayer. The yoga uncle blinked furiously at a panel that said Swordsman; a round-bellied man stared at Shieldbearer with one part horror, one part pride. A college kid grinned shakily at Scout. The girl with inky fingers tried to steady a fizzing palm: Mage.
A retired postman dropped to both knees. His panel had two cold lines:
Class: Laborer (Lv.1)
Skills: None.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" he rasped. "What am I—"
A tone like glass ringing.
[Emergency Quest Activated.]
Quest: Survive the First Monster Wave.
Duration: Until all hostiles eliminated.
Rewards:TP + EXP (individual).
Sub Quest: Achieve at least 1 kill. Reward: +20 TP, +10 EXP (per qualifying participant).
Party Milestone: If your registered party exceeds 10 combined kills, each party member gains +10 TP, +10 EXP.
Wave: 0 / 1
The ground split open.
Crimson fissures veined the plain. Insectoid things clawed their way out—dog-sized bodies plated in jagged black, eyes burning red, mandibles dripping hiss.
Twenty. Paari counted without meaning to. Twenty.
The young mother screamed. A man sprinted for the horizon, hit invisible force, and caromed back like a ball.
"We're trapped," Meera exhaled, fingers digging into Paari's sleeve.
Paari's bamboo staff wasn't a staff anymore. It wasn't anything he owned. An iron-tipped spear settled into his hands, shaft warm, weight balanced. Arav yelped as a bow snapped into being with a quiver across his back. Light pooled in Meera's fingers.
His father's steady voice ghosted through Paari's head: Don't push yourself too much. You're not a machine.
Right now, he didn't have the luxury of being anything else.
"Arav—shoot what I open up," he said. "Meera—heal anyone whose bar drops. Don't wait."
"And you?" Arav's voice went high and thin.
"I hold the line."
The first monster screamed and sprang.
Paari stepped in and drove the spear under its throat. The point punched through soft flesh, the body convulsed, then shredded to smoke.
[Enemy Defeated. +1 TP. +15 EXP.]
[Paari Vel — EXP: 15 / 100]
Another skittered at Meera, mandibles snapping.
"Left!" Paari shouted.
Her feet glued to dirt. The arrow that hissed past her shoulder didn't. It buried itself up to the fletching in a red eye. The body collapsed.
[Enemy Defeated. +1 TP. +15 EXP.]
[Arav Krishna — EXP: 15 / 100]
Two down. Eighteen to go.
Chaos tore through the group. The Shieldbearer planted himself, round shield flaring as two beasts slammed home. Sparks leapt across the barrier. Behind him the Swordsman hacked in panicked arcs, carving a smoking line in a carapace. A fizzing bolt from the ink-fingered girl clipped a leg; Arav's next shot finished it.
The man with Laborer on his screen stumbled backward. "I can't— I can't—" He turned, smashed into the barrier, rebounded hard enough to drop.
A beast reached him in one bound.
"Help me, please—"
Claws tore. The scream went wet and stopped.
[Participant 008 — DEAD.]
His body unraveled to ash on the wind.
Silence vacuumed the group. Meera's hands flew to her mouth. Arav went the color of paper.
"Focus!" Paari snapped, and hated the crack of his voice. "If you freeze, you die."
The Shieldbearer took a claw across his thigh and howled. His HP bar plunged.
"I've got you," Meera said, the words shaking. Light surged under her palms as she pressed them to the wound.
[Minor Heal Activated. +20 HP.]
[Effective Heal — +5 EXP.]
[Meera Iyer — EXP: 5 / 100]
The man's breath steadied. "Bless you," he said, half prayer, half shock.
Arav fired wide. "Damn—" He corrected, loosed again, and drove the second arrow up through a mandible.
[Enemy Defeated. +1 TP. +15 EXP.]
[Arav Krishna — EXP: 30 / 100]
Two more angled low for Meera. Paari slid, jabbed between plates, and ripped back. Smoke tore free.
[Enemy Defeated. +1 TP. +15 EXP.]
[Paari Vel — EXP: 30 / 100]
He pivoted, deflected a slash with the shaft, stepped inside, and punched the point into a joint.
[Enemy Defeated. +1 TP. +15 EXP.]
[Paari Vel — EXP: 45 / 100]
A third leapt from his blind side—Meera moved first. She snatched up a snapped-off crystalline branch the size of a nightstick, knuckles white, and swung. The creature had eyes for Paari; it never saw her. The club cracked across its head. It reeled. She hit it again, harder, a ragged cry tearing out of her.
It folded.
[Enemy Defeated. +1 TP. +15 EXP.]
[Meera Iyer — EXP: 20 / 100]
Meera stared at the improvised weapon like she didn't recognize her own hands. "I— I didn't mean—"
"You meant to live," Paari said. "Again if you have to."
Another charge slammed the Shieldbearer. Meera was already there, light spilling.
[Minor Heal Activated. +18 HP.]
[Effective Heal — +5 EXP.]
[Meera Iyer — EXP: 25 / 100]
The Swordsman found his rhythm, blade drawing cleaner lines. Arav put an arrow through an eye, another through a jaw.
[Enemy Defeated. +1 TP. +15 EXP.]
[Arav Krishna — EXP: 45 / 100]
Paari knocked a set of mandibles aside with the haft and drove the spear home. The point found the gap like it had wanted it all along.
[Enemy Defeated. +1 TP. +15 EXP.]
[Paari Vel — EXP: 60 / 100]
Another. And another. Six for him before his arms started to shake. Every kill felt like throwing a weight off a cliff and listening for the thud.
[Enemy Defeated. +1 TP. +15 EXP.]
[Paari Vel — EXP: 75 / 100]
[Enemy Defeated. +1 TP. +15 EXP.]
[Paari Vel — EXP: 90 / 100]
A beast lunged for the mage. Meera didn't think. She charged, club raised, smashed the creature's forelimb sideways, and Paari speared it clean.
[Shared Kill — +1 TP to primary, +0 TP to assist. +15 EXP primary, +5 EXP assist.]
[Paari Vel — EXP: 105 / 100] → [Level Threshold Met]
[Meera Iyer — EXP: 30 / 100]
"Again!" Paari barked, dazed by the flood of energy that wanted to break into him. "We're almost—"
Arav loosed two arrows in heartbeat rhythm. One, two. Both buried. The bodies fell like sacks.
[Enemy Defeated. +1 TP. +15 EXP.]
[Enemy Defeated. +1 TP. +15 EXP.]
[Arav Krishna — EXP: 75 / 100]
The last three went down to a mixture of panic and luck—Swordsman's ragged decapitation, Shieldbearer's crushing bash, and a final thrust from Paari that felt less like motion and more like instinct given shape.
Silence fell over ash and acid stink.
People stood with chests heaving and eyes too big, as if their bodies hadn't been told they'd lived.
A cool cascade of messages unfurled.
[Emergency Quest Complete.]
**Reward (Individual): +**5 **TP, +**20 EXP.
[Sub Quest Complete — You achieved at least 1 kill.]
**Reward (Individual): +**20 **TP, +**10 EXP.
[Party Milestone — Your party exceeded 10 combined kills.]
**Reward (Party Members): +**10 **TP, +**10 EXP.
And beneath that, their personal, per-kill accounting settled into totals:
Paari — Kills 6 → +6 TP, +90 EXP
Arav — Kills 5 → +5 TP, +75 EXP
Meera — Kills 2 (one solo, one assist counted as EXP only) → +2 TP, +30 EXP (+5 EXP assist)
Healing tallies flickered for Meera as well:
**[Meaningful Heals: 6] → +**30EXP
Final tallies pulsed:
Paari Vel — TP: 41 | EXP: 130/100 → Level Up!
Arav Krishna — TP: 40 | EXP: 115/100 → Level Up!
Meera Iyer — TP: 37 | EXP: 100/100 → Level Up!
The world edged brighter around Paari as the next pane hit:
[Level Up! — Paari Vel → Lv.2]
[Strength +2 | Agility +1]
[Level Up! — Arav Krishna → Lv.2]
[Perception +2 | Agility +1]
[Level Up! — Meera Iyer → Lv.2]
[Wisdom +2 | Vitality +1]
Power poured through Paari's muscles like cold water turning to heat. The spear no longer felt borrowed. It felt correct.
Arav flexed, eyes wide. "I can track their movement. Like… I can see the shot before I take it."
Meera sagged, relief breaking her apart. Then the memory of the Laborer's ending caught up and she folded to her knees, club clattering to grass. "He's gone," she whispered. "No body. No… anything."
Paari crouched, hand on her shoulder. "We can't fix it. We can keep the next one from happening."
The Shieldbearer limped over, HP bar healthy, armor crusted. "If you three hadn't stepped up, we'd be ash. Thank you." Some heads nodded. Others looked away, simmering at the math. The System rewarded the ones who drew blood more than the ones who stood behind. Fair by the rules; ugly in the heart.
The sky shimmered. Letters poured down a giant, floating scoreboard.
[Zone 113 — Tutorial Leaderboard]
Unknown — Lv.2 — 72 TP — Alive
Paari Vel — Lv.2 — 41 TP — Alive
Arav Krishna — Lv.2 — 40 TP — Alive
Meera Iyer — Lv.2 — 37 TP — Alive
Shieldbearer (R. Patel) — Lv.1 — 28 TP — Alive
Swordsman (K. Rao) — Lv.1 — 27 TP — Alive
Mage (N. Shalini) — Lv.1 — 26 TP — Alive
…Participant 008 — DEAD
Arav let out a shaky whistle. "We're… second, third, fourth?"
"Someone else is moving faster," Paari said, eyeing the Unknown at the top. Another sub-region. Another group. Another race clock already running.
He thumbed open the extended listings, breath caught in his throat until he saw the names he needed.
Zone 113 (Other Region):
Rajan Vel — Lv.1 — 19 TP — Alive
Priya Vel — Lv.1 — 22 TP — Alive
Ravi — Lv.1 — 24 TP — Alive
Relief hit so hard his legs almost let go. Alive. Both alive. The aftershock was dread. Ravi was near them, not him.
Meera wiped her eyes. "Sahana?"
A gentler pane unfolded.
[Minors detected.]
[All under-age Participants have been transferred to Safe Zones.]
Paari closed his eyes, a sound somewhere between a laugh and a prayer scraping loose. "Safe," he breathed. "She's safe."
Another System message chimed, businesslike:
[Tutorial Economy Online]
Tutorial Points (TP) may be traded between Participants in this Zone.
Use Offer TP → Accept to complete transfers.
Warning: TP transfers are irreversible. Exercise caution.
"That'll go well," Arav muttered. "What could possibly go wrong with money you can pass around in a death arena."
Arguing bubbled instantly among the others. The Swordsman wanted everyone to stick together and pool TP for "the good of the group." One of the college boys wanted to sell his TP for "protection." The watchman held his tongue and watched everyone.
Paari rose, shoulders aching, and found that people had turned toward him without meaning to. He hadn't asked for it. No one else had it in them.
"We're not a mob," he said. "We're not a cult either. Eat, sleep, fight—we'll need all three. Don't sell your TP to someone who promises you safety; there's no receipt for that. Form parties. Share information. If you want to stick with us, we're forming one now."
"Who made you—" one of the boys started, then caught himself, looked at the scoreboard, and shut his mouth.
Paari ignored it. "Arav, Meera—party with me?"
"Obviously," Arav said, too loudly. "Someone has to stop you from heroic stupidity."
Meera managed a small, wobbly smile. "Someone has to put you both back together."
[Party Created: 'Vel's Party']
[Members: Paari Vel, Meera Iyer, Arav Krishna
Party Bonus Unlocked:Shared Awareness I — Members see each other's HP/MP and mini-map pings.
Note: Party Milestones track only member kills.]
Paari's spear felt lighter. The obelisks hummed. Far off, something screamed that wasn't an insect.
"Fifteen days," he said. "We survive them. We climb. And we find Appa and Priya before someone else does."
"And Ravi," Arav added.
Paari didn't answer. He didn't need to.
They turned toward the nearest ridge. The grass whispered against their ankles. Behind them, arguments rose and fell; the scoreboard kept tally with unfeeling light. Ahead, the horizon glittered with runes and teeth.
Survive. Fight. Climb.
And never, ever fall behind.