The young man opened his eyes to find himself in a place he had never seen before.
He could see soldiers standing on a long wall, clad in what looked like iron armour, bows in their hands and quivers on their backs.
He could clearly hear cries for help, smell the scent of burnt flesh in the air, and see fires burning on the other side of the wall.
He walked around to get a better sense of what was happening and realised he was in a city.
He seemed to be standing on the ramparts, defending the city alongside its soldiers.
He swallowed hard and could see that the city's barriers had already been breached. He could clearly see dozens of strange creatures roaming around inside the city, within the ramparts.
"Goblins?" he muttered to himself suddenly, feeling as if he were truly inside a game.
At that moment, he heard a voice right beside him:
"MOVE, SOLDIER!!!"
When he turned his head towards the source of the voice, he saw a soldier dressed in finer, more beautiful clothing and was taken aback.
This soldier was pointing outside the walls.
When Altair finally reached the edge of the wall, he could see the scene before him.
Across an endless expanse, perhaps forty or fifty thousand monsters were advancing towards the city, and this was only the part he could see.
Although he didn't know it, the same thing was happening on all four sides of the city.
In the seconds he stood there, someone within this enormous city was dying every second, reaching a state close to death.
"What is happening...?" Altair muttered to himself, and at that moment, the explanation of his mission appeared before him:
[Welcome to the Hell Difficulty Tutorial!
Your mission will be to protect the "Nyx" status within the city.
This status contains an essence. Every twenty years, this essence draws a great monster raid towards the city, but unfortunately, no one knows about it.
There are two separate sections to complete the tutorial:
Reach Nyx's status,
Once you have reached it, take the essence within the status and break it into pieces.
Good luck, Altair Moon.]
When Altair saw this sentence, he took a deep breath and immediately drew the knife at his waist, gripping it tightly in his hand.
He had very little self-defence training, but this place was very different. It was very different here, with monsters around him that were truly ready to kill him.
Since childhood, he had grown up with stories from the tower, from within Aculon. He truly knew many things.
The real problem was seeing and experiencing these things with his own eyes.
Still, he wasn't a coward, so he wanted to act immediately, but... he didn't know where to go.
He didn't know the city he was in. He didn't recognise the buildings or the streets.
While these thoughts were running through his mind, the soldier who had spoken to him grabbed him by the shoulders and said, "Are you alright, soldier?!"
Altair immediately nodded his head up and down, and as he did so, he heard the words, "Then climb down the wall, kill the monsters advancing on the city, and protect the people! You have no armour; you cannot stay here!" and at that moment, he nodded his head again.
Immediately after doing so, he quickly descended the stairs leading up to the walls.
His body had already started pumping adrenaline. His mouth quickly went dry, and he began to struggle slightly even to breathe.
It wasn't because he was scared, but because he was worried.
When the young man descended from the walls, he wandered around for a while, easily hearing the shouts of many soldiers and the clanging of metal.
At that moment, he heard a distant voice, as if the goddess herself, Nyx herself, had touched him.
A cry for help amid all the shouting, explosions and screams:
"PLEASE HELP!!!"
With this deep cry, Altair immediately turned his head towards the source of the voice and saw a woman with several children behind her.
The woman was standing in front of a few goblins and seemed to be doing everything she could to protect the children from harm.
Altair lunged forward as if suddenly filled with strength and began running towards the two or three goblins in front of the woman.
Within just a few seconds, he reached the area and, gripping the high-quality hunting knife in his hand tightly, threw himself at the nearest goblin from behind.
It was the first time he would harm a living thing, and so he felt strange, even disgusted.
Still, he didn't care about anything else. Because of the value of the children's and the woman's lives, he stabbed the goblin steadily five times in a row, right in the back.
"KIIIEEEEEKKK!!!"
The goblin's screams echoed around, and the woman and children covered their ears to protect themselves.
Whether it was due to adrenaline or not, Altair truly felt nothing and, having managed to secretly kill one goblin, stood his ground against the other two.
The goblins immediately pounced on him, both together, almost leaving Altair no chance to escape.
Still, the young man did something strange and normally considered foolish, leaping right between the goblins to try to avoid their attacks.
Strangely, he actually succeeded.
He rolled on the ground for a second, then jumped back up and pounced on the goblin closest to him, on the right, like a wolf, leaving three cuts on it.
As the goblin recoiled in pain, another goblin leapt onto Altair and attacked him directly at the throat.
The moment it did so, green blood began to spurt onto Altair, and the goblin fell to the ground.
The other goblin stood up but began to tremble.
When Altair saw this, he felt pity for a second, but remembering the fate of the woman and children, he mercilessly pounced on the goblin and killed it in a short time.
At that moment, he collapsed to his knees and vomited a handful of blood.
It was the first time he had taken a life, and he had done it three times in a row.
The strange thing was... he didn't hate it.