The first thing I felt after dying was confusion.
The second thing was pain—sharp, artificial, and repetitive. Like my body was being reset instead of healed.
A red blade cleaved through my chest.
My vision shattered into fragments of light, my body disintegrating into polygons as a system message burned itself into my mind.
[You have been defeated.] [Respawning…]
I inhaled.
I was alive again.
Stone beneath my feet. Damp air. The smell of moss and iron. I stood inside a circular chamber carved into the earth, torches lining the walls, a massive wooden gate behind me.
And in front of me—
Five people in mismatched armor, weapons raised, staring straight at me.
"Uh," one of them said. "Did… did it just respawn?"
A spear pierced my throat before I could respond.
Darkness.
[You have been defeated.] [Respawning…]
I gasped again.
Same room. Same gate. Same torches.
Different group.
This time, there were eight of them.
A robed mage muttered, "It's bugged. Whatever—just kill it again."
It?
I looked down at myself.
Black armor, jagged and asymmetrical, like it had been deliberately designed to look menacing but cheap. My hands were clawed, faintly glowing with purple light. A crude sword materialized in my grip the moment I focused on it.
Above my head, floating in bright red letters:
[Lv. 1 – Tutorial Boss: Gatekeeper]
My stomach dropped.
"No," I whispered.
The world didn't care.
Fire engulfed me.
I died twelve times before I understood what was happening.
I wasn't a player.
I wasn't even an NPC in the normal sense.
I was the tutorial boss—the disposable obstacle meant to teach new players how combat worked. The thing they were supposed to kill without thinking, farm once, and forget forever.
Every time I died, the system rewound me.
Every time I respawned, another group came through the gate.
Sometimes they laughed. Sometimes they complained about low drops. Sometimes they argued about who should get the final hit.
None of them saw me as anything more than a tutorial prompt with a health bar.
Then something changed.
[You have been defeated.] [Analyzing combat data…] [Reward allocation recalculated.]
That message hadn't appeared before.
I respawned slower this time. The purple glow around my body lingered, pulsing faintly instead of stabilizing.
A new window opened in front of me.
[Passive Skill Acquired: Tutorial Persistence (SSS-Rank)] Effect: Upon defeat, retain 1% of accumulated combat data. Stacks infinitely.
I stared at it.
"That's…" I swallowed. "That's not normal."
Footsteps echoed as another group entered the chamber—three players this time. Light armor. Nervous stances. Probably first timers.
The moment they saw me, their status windows popped up.
"Whoa," one of them said. "It's still here."
"Just kill it," another replied. "Tutorial mobs are free XP."
They charged.
I raised my sword.
And for the first time—
I moved before they did.
My body reacted without thought, following patterns burned into me by dozens of deaths. I sidestepped the first swing, deflected the second, and drove my blade into the third player's chest.
He froze.
His health bar plummeted.
"WHAT—?!"
The system chimed.
[You have defeated Player: ArdentLeaf (Lv. 3)][EXP Gained: +124]
The other two screamed.
They didn't last long.
Silence filled the chamber.
A new message appeared.
[Level Up!] [Tutorial Boss – Gatekeeper: Lv. 2]
I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was insane.
Tutorial bosses weren't supposed to level up.
They were fixed. Scripted. Disposable.
And yet—
I felt stronger. Faster. Sharper.
Another window opened.
[Hidden Rule Discovered.] You gain EXP from all combat outcomes within the tutorial zone.
I understood immediately.
Every time players killed me, I learned.
Every time they failed, I grew.
And the system had never accounted for a tutorial boss that could think.
Word spread fast.
Players started coming not to pass the tutorial—but to farm me.
They came in groups. Guild tags appeared. Strategies formed.
They died.
I died too, sometimes—but each time I came back better. Smarter. Stronger.
My skills evolved.
[Claw Strike → Gatekeeper's Rend][Basic Guard → Adaptive Defense]
My level climbed.
So did the whispers.
"Is this thing bugged?" "Why does it hit harder every run?" "Why can it dodge now?"
Eventually, a system notice appeared across the zone.
[Warning: Abnormal Entity Behavior Detected.]
I smiled.
Hours—or maybe days—passed. Time was strange here.
My level ticked upward with every encounter.
Then came the message that changed everything.
[System Update Failed.] [Authority Conflict Detected.]
The torches flickered.
The stone walls glitched, fragments of code bleeding through reality itself. The gate behind me rattled violently.
A voice echoed—not from the system, but above it.
"Tutorial entities are not meant to scale."
I looked up.
A translucent figure hovered in the air, cloaked in shifting symbols and golden text.
A Developer.
"I was meant to die," I said calmly. "That was the design."
The figure raised a hand. "This anomaly will be corrected."
A countdown appeared.
[Forced Deletion Initiated: 10…]
I felt something snap inside me.
"No," I said.
The system responded.
[SSS-Rank Skill Activated: System Rejection] Effect: Nullifies forced termination once. Converts error into permanent growth. **
The countdown shattered.
Purple light exploded from my body, tearing through the chamber, rewriting lines of reality as my level surged violently upward.
[Level Up!] [Level Up!] [Level Up!]
The Developer screamed as its form distorted, stats draining into me like data being ripped from a dying server.
Silence followed.
A final message appeared.
[Tutorial Phase Complete.]
I stood alone in the chamber, no gate, no players—just endless darkness ahead.
Then a new title burned above my head.
[SSS-Rank Tutorial Boss – Unskippable]
I exhaled slowly.
If the system wanted a boss—
I'd give it one.