Chapter 2: Welcome to the Tutorial

Mason came back screaming.

Not heroically. Not with some clenched-jaw, iron-willed bellow against the cruelty of fate. He came back with a wet, shredded sound ripped out of his throat, both hands clawing at his chest because his last memory was of being dissolved from the inside out.

Acid in his lungs. Teeth like broken glass. A translucent green mountain folding over him while his bones softened.

He rolled onto his side and vomited nothing but air.

The red field stretched around him, exactly as before.

The grass was still the color of old blood, each blade long and slick and too sharp at the edges. The sky still hung low and crimson, bruised with black cracks like a pane of glass that had been punched from the other side. Far above, enormous pixelated fragments drifted through the clouds, rotating lazily, pieces of some broken interface the size of continents.

And in front of Mason’s face, flickering blue and cracked down the middle, floated the window.

WELCOME TO THE TUTORIAL

Prepare yourself, new arrival!

Basic movement quest pending.

Mason stared at it.

His breathing came in short, panicked bursts. His shirt was intact. His arms were intact. His torso was not an open, bubbling wound. His legs were there, trembling under him as he pushed himself onto his knees.

He touched his face. His neck. His chest. He expected to find slime residue, pits burned through skin, maybe a rib sticking out for flavor.

Nothing.

No pain.

Only memory.

That was worse.

“No,” Mason whispered.

The word disappeared into the enormous empty field.

He looked around wildly, half expecting the slime to already be there, wobbling across the grass with its impossible crown of horns and its bloated HP bar filling the horizon.

No slime.

Just the starting field. The leaning black stone. The dead tree with its silver leaves rattling though there was no wind. The path of pale dirt leading toward the ruined archway in the distance.

The exact place he had woken the first time.

“No, no, no.” Mason staggered to his feet. His knees nearly buckled. “Nope. Hard pass. I decline. Uninstall. Refund. Negative review.”

The blue window chimed cheerfully.

Basic Movement Tutorial

Objective: Walk forward ten steps.

Reward: 5 EXP, Starter Snack, Sense of Accomplishment.

Progress: 0/10

Mason laughed once, sharp and humorless.

“Sense of accomplishment?” He jabbed a finger at the window. “Your level one slime turned me into soup.”

The window flickered. A thin black line crawled across the text like a crack spreading through ice.

Quest feedback detected.

Thank you for helping improve the Tutorial experience.

Error: Feedback repository not found.

Error: Development team not found.

Error: Mercy not found.

Mason went still.

“That last one better be flavor text.”

The window did not answer.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, though there was nothing there, and forced himself to breathe. He had spent twelve years testing games that barely held together with duct tape and investor denial. He knew panic. He knew broken systems. He knew what happened when a build failed so hard the devs stopped responding to emails.

He also knew one thing with absolute certainty.

If he had respawned, there was a rule.

Something, somewhere, had decided death was not the end state.

That meant there were mechanics.

And if there were mechanics, they could be abused.

Mason swallowed hard. His hands still shook.

“Okay,” he said to the field. “Okay. We test.”

He took one step.

Progress: 1/10

Nothing attacked.

He took another.

Progress: 2/10

His eyes scanned the grass. Every ripple looked like a predator. Every glossy red blade seemed to lean toward him.

Step three. Step four.

The sky made a low grinding sound overhead. A chunk of ruined blue interface tumbled behind the clouds, briefly illuminating the field in ghostly light.

Step five.

A wet plop sounded somewhere to his right.

Mason froze.

The grass stirred.

“Absolutely not,” he said.

A green dome rose from between the blades thirty yards away. Smaller than the first one had seemed at full extension, but still big enough to swallow a horse. Its surface pulsed with cloudy shapes—half-digested bones, rusted swords, a boot, what might have been a stone statue’s arm. Its golden nameplate glitched into existence above it.

Verdant Beginner Slime

Level 1

HP: 48,992 / 48,992

Status: Evolved, Starved, Tutorial-Native, Raid-Grade, Hungry

Mason’s stomach dropped through the ground.

The slime turned. It had no eyes, but he felt its attention lock onto him with the intimate certainty of a cursor snapping to target.

“We are not doing this again,” Mason said.

The slime compressed.

Mason threw himself sideways.

The creature launched like a siege engine. It crossed thirty yards in one gelatinous blur and smashed into the place where he had been standing. Earth exploded. Acid sprayed across the grass, hissing as it ate smoking holes through the red blades.

Mason hit the ground hard and rolled. Something splattered across his left sleeve. Heat bit through the fabric. He slapped at it, cursing, and the cloth dissolved under his palm.

No pain. Not much, anyway. A sting. A burn. The acid wasn’t killing him instantly from a splash.

Information. Useful.

“Great,” he wheezed, scrambling backward on hands and heels. “Patch notes: direct contact bad, splash damage survivable. Wonderful. Hate it.”

The slime peeled itself from the crater with a sucking noise.

Mason’s gaze darted toward the leaning black stone ten steps away. It was waist-high, jagged, shaped almost like a broken obelisk. If this was a starting area, maybe it was decorative. If the world was as busted as everything suggested, maybe decorative meant lethally important.

The slime compressed again.

Mason sprinted.

He made it three steps before the ground shuddered behind him. He didn’t look back. Looking back was how NPCs in escort missions died. He dove behind the stone as the slime landed.

The impact knocked him flat.

Acid splashed over the obelisk. The black stone smoked, but did not melt. Runes glimmered across its surface—thin, angular lines hidden beneath centuries of grime.

Mason’s eyes widened.

“Oh, you’re not scenery.”

The slime flowed around the stone, slow now, spreading wide to flank him.

Mason grabbed a loose rock from the ground. It was black, heavy, and warm against his palm. He threw it.

The rock vanished into the slime with a soft glorp.

Attack failed.

0 damage.

Hint: Try using your equipped weapon!

Mason looked down at his empty hands.

“You first.”

The slime surged.

Mason pressed both palms against the black obelisk and shoved himself around it, keeping stone between them. The slime slammed into the other side. The obelisk groaned. Runes flashed brighter.

For an instant, the air filled with blue static.

Unregistered Tutorial Anchor detected.

Integrity: 2.7%

Function: Spawn Binding / New Arrival Calibration / Emergency—

Error.

The window fractured into overlapping panes. Lines of text spilled down Mason’s vision faster than he could read.

Death Event Logged.

Respawn Event Logged.

Unauthorized persistence detected.

User soul signature mismatch.

Class assignment pending…

Class assignment pending…

Class assignment failed.

Requesting administrator review…

Administrator not found.

Requesting divine verification…

Divinity gateway sealed.

Requesting tutorial supervisor…

Tutorial supervisor deceased.

Applying fallback protocol.

Applying fallback protocol.

Applying fallback protocol.

“Now?” Mason shouted as the slime battered the stone again. “You’re doing character creation now?”

The obelisk cracked.

A chunk of black stone sheared off and struck Mason’s shoulder. He grunted, pain flaring bright. The slime oozed over the top, pseudopods stretching down like dripping arms.

Mason ducked under one. It splashed against the ground, sizzling. The heat kissed his cheek.

More text flooded his vision.

Class assignment complete.

Congratulations, New Arrival!

You have been assigned the class:

DEATHLESS DEBUGGER

Rarity: [ILLEGAL]

Origin: Unknown

Role: Error Persistence / Corruption Extraction / System Rewrite

The world went silent.

Even the slime paused.

The cracked blue windows hovering in front of Mason’s face bled into a deep, warning red.

FATAL SYSTEM WARNING

Illegal Entity detected in Tutorial Layer.

Designation: Mason Vale

Status: Dead / Alive / Dead / Alive / Inadmissible

Containment Response: Tutorial Guardians alerted.

Recommended Action: Terminate permanently.

Mason stared.

“Permanently is doing a lot of work in that sentence.”

The slime screamed.

It wasn’t a mouth sound. It was a boiling, furious vibration that rattled Mason’s teeth. Its nameplate flashed crimson. The word Hungry transformed into something worse.

Status: Commanded

“Of course.”

The slime surged over the obelisk like a collapsing wave.

Mason ran.

There was no plan beyond away. He sprinted through the red grass, lungs burning, bare hands cutting on the blade-like edges. Behind him came the hideous percussion of the slime’s leaps—compress, launch, impact, hiss. Each landing shook the ground.

New windows popped into existence around him as he ran.

Deathless Debugger – Core Traits

Respawn: Upon death, return to last bound Tutorial Anchor. Memory retained. Physical corruption purged. Progress instability may occur.

Error Sight: View corrupted data, broken mechanics, and hidden System faults.

Code Leech: Extract fragments of corrupted logic from damaged or slain entities.

Patchwork Rewrite: Spend extracted code to modify minor System functions.

Warning: Unauthorized use may attract Guardian enforcement.

“Everything attracts Guardian enforcement!” Mason shouted. “I attracted Guardian enforcement by existing!”

The grass ahead rippled.

A second slime rose from the field.

Mason skidded so hard he nearly fell.

Verdant Beginner Slime

Level 1

HP: 51,104 / 51,104

Status: Evolved, Starved, Tutorial-Native, Raid-Grade, Commanded

“Oh, come on.”

The first slime landed behind him. The second compressed in front.

Mason looked left.

Open field. Razor grass.

Right.

The dead silver-leaved tree. Its trunk twisted upward like a skeletal hand, bark pale as bone, roots gripping the red earth in thick coils. Beyond it, a shallow ditch cut through the field where the ground had split. At the bottom of the ditch, something blue glowed faintly.

Possible hazard. Possible loot. Possible instant death.

In Mason’s experience, the difference was usually marketing.

He bolted right.

Both slimes launched.

Mason dove under the tree roots. Gelatinous bodies collided behind him with a thunderclap. Acid sprayed over the dead tree. Silver leaves rained down, each one chiming as it hit the ground.

One landed on Mason’s wrist.

It sliced him open.

Blood welled bright and red.

For half a second he stared at it, absurdly relieved. Human blood. Human pain. Human body.

Then the root above him cracked.

“Right, sentiment later.”

He crawled through the tangle of roots and slid down into the ditch. Mud smeared his jeans. The blue glow pulsed ahead, half-buried beneath dirt and dead grass.

Behind him, the slimes hammered at the tree. Wood splintered. Acid hissed. The whole trunk leaned with a dying groan.

Mason dropped to his knees and dug.

His fingers closed around something smooth and cold.

He yanked it free.

It was a sword.

Or it had once applied for the position of sword before being rejected by every sane blacksmith in existence. The blade was only eighteen inches long, triangular, chipped, and translucent blue like frozen glass. The hilt was wrapped in rotten leather. A tiny window appeared above it.

Training Sword

Rarity: Common

Damage: 2-3

Durability: 1 / 40

Status: Broken, Ancient, Quest-Locked, Embarrassed

Restriction: New Arrival Only

Mason gripped it.

“Embarrassed? Buddy, same.”

The dead tree gave way.

It fell across the ditch in a storm of silver leaves and splintered bone-white branches. One slime poured over it. The other squeezed between roots, body stretching like liquid hatred.

Mason raised the training sword.

The blade wobbled.

“Two to three damage,” he muttered, eyeing the forty-eight thousand HP monstrosity bearing down on him. “Great. Only sixteen thousand perfect hits. Speedrun strats.”

The nearest slime lunged.

Mason stabbed.

The sword pierced the surface with a soft pop. Resistance clenched around the blade. Green acid smoked against the blue glass.

Critical Weakness Not Found.

2 damage.

The slime’s HP bar ticked from 48,992 to 48,990.

The training sword shattered.

For one crystalline instant, fragments hung in the air. Blue shards spun between Mason and the slime, catching the red light of the sky.

Then the slime engulfed him.

This death was faster.

Not better. Faster.

Acid filled his mouth before he could scream. The pressure crushed his ribs inward. His skin came apart like wet paper. His thoughts detonated into white panic, then green, then nothing.

Mason came back on his knees, gagging.

The red field. The leaning black obelisk. The dead tree whole again in the distance.

The blue window flickered.

RESPAWN COMPLETE

Deaths: 2

Bound Anchor: New Arrival Spawn Stone

Memory Retention: 100%

Body Restoration: 99.3%

Psychological Damage: Not covered by Tutorial warranty.

Mason breathed through clenched teeth. Sweat—or something like it—ran down his face.

He waited for his heartbeat to stop trying to escape his chest.

It did not.

“Two deaths,” he whispered. “Okay. I can work with two deaths.”

His voice cracked on work.

He put both palms flat against the ground and lowered his head.

For a moment, there was no sarcasm. No snappy one-liner. No game tester brain eagerly dissecting systems through trauma.

There was only Mason Vale, thirty-one years old, exhausted before he died and terrified after, kneeling in red grass under a broken sky while monsters designed as jokes had become gods of digestion.

He wanted his apartment. His busted office chair. The tower PC with the side panel off because the fans rattled unless he kicked it just right. He wanted stale coffee and bug reports and the comforting misery of deadlines that didn’t involve being eaten alive.

Then a wet plop sounded to his right.

Mason raised his head.

The slime rose from the grass.

Same one? Different one? The nameplate said 48,992 HP, which suggested either a fresh spawn or the world was rude enough to heal it on his death.

Probably both.

Mason stood slowly.

His fear remained. It did not vanish. It settled behind his ribs, hot and sharp.

But something else woke beside it.

Annoyance.

Deep, professional, soul-aged annoyance.

“You,” Mason said, pointing at the slime, “are a bad tutorial enemy.”

The slime jiggled.

“No telegraph clarity. Absurd stat inflation. Spawn camping. Unavoidable death loop potential. Acid damage overtuned.”

It compressed.

“And your hitbox is bullshit.”

The slime launched.

Mason did not run straight away this time. He sprinted toward the obelisk at an angle, counting under his breath. The leap covered distance fast, but it committed hard. Its body stretched midair, shadow spreading over him.

“One, two—”

He dove left.

The slime hit the ground where he would have been, splashing acid in a wide fan. Mason had already rolled behind the stone. A few droplets burned across his back. He hissed but kept moving.

The obelisk hummed as the slime struck it.

Blue static sparked.

Mason’s Error Sight—or whatever the illegal class called it—flared without warning.

The world changed.

The red grass remained, but now every blade trailed faint strings of light, code-thin and trembling. The sky cracks bled black symbols. The slime became a knot of green flesh wrapped around a skeleton of glowing commands, thousands of lines tangled and knotted.

Most of them were corrupted.

Mason saw repeating loops spinning inside it.

BeginnerSlime_AI.idle

BeginnerSlime_AI.wander

BeginnerSlime_AI.detect_new_player

BeginnerSlime_AI.consume_new_player

BeginnerSlime_AI.consume_new_player

BeginnerSlime_AI.consume_new_player

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