Chapter 2: Class: Tutorial Boss

The first thing Kai Mercer learned about dying twice was that the second time came with an audience.

They emerged from the corpse field with laughter on their lips and weapons already loose in their hands, five figures in mismatched beginner gear picking their way between bodies like shoppers browsing a clearance aisle. The blood-red sky glazed their faces in wet crimson. Charcoal clouds crawled overhead, low enough to feel like a ceiling. Every few seconds, pale sparks drifted up from the dead—tiny motes of dissolving light that rose from open mouths, severed hands, crushed ribs—and vanished into the air with a sound like coins dropping into a distant well.

Kai crouched behind the remains of a shattered wagon, one hand pressed to the torn cloth over his ribs, the other sunk into black mud that smelled of iron and rot. His lungs still hadn’t decided whether they were human lungs or some cruel imitation. Every breath scraped. Every heartbeat thudded too loudly in his skull.

Above his right eye, the broken interface flickered.

ASCENSION ONLINE

Regional Spawn: Mirefield Graveplain

Player Designation: Kai Mercer

Status: Uncontracted Soul

Respawn Coverage: None

Warning: Death without contract may result in asset liquidation.

Asset liquidation. Nice. Death had corporate language now.

The scavengers spread out with practiced ease. They were young, or wearing youth like a skin. The tallest, a broad-shouldered man with copper hair and a dented buckler, lifted his chin and sniffed the air as if fresh panic had a flavor.

“I saw the spawn flare land over here,” he said. “Red tag. No guild sigil. Probably fresh-fresh.”

A girl in a blue apprentice robe groaned. “If it’s another Hollowed Peasant, I’m logging out. I swear to every watching god, Bran, I did not pay for a two-hour dive to collect cracked femurs.”

“You paid to follow me,” Bran said. “And I paid for the route. Mirefield fresh spawns are easy coin if you hit them before they crawl to the shrine.”

“Easy coin,” echoed a skinny boy with twin daggers, grinning so widely Kai could see the gap between his front teeth. “Easy marks. Easy screams.”

The fifth member said nothing. She was small, wrapped in a gray cloak too clean for the graveplain, a wooden staff clutched against her chest. Her eyes moved over the bodies without resting. When she stepped around a corpse whose face had been eaten away by black beetles, she whispered an apology.

Kai noticed that. He also noticed the floating text above each of their heads, translucent and pale, as if the world itself had labeled them for convenience.

Bran Oakshield — Level 3 Fighter

Lysa Emberneedle — Level 2 Apprentice Mage

Pip Quickhand — Level 2 Rogue

Harl Venn — Level 2 Spearman

Mira Vale — Level 1 Novice Healer

Levels. Classes. Names.

His own interface was still glitching like a cracked phone screen after a truck ran over it. Which, given the last memory he had of headlights and screaming brakes and his body moving before his brain caught up, felt offensively on theme.

Kai looked down at himself. Mud-caked boots. Torn black pants. Delivery jacket, or what was left of it, the logo on the chest smeared beyond recognition. No sword. No staff. No magical beginner dagger conveniently wedged in the dirt. Just a body that ached like it had been assembled from spare parts.

He swallowed, tasting ash.

The last thing he remembered from Earth was a woman in a yellow raincoat frozen in the crosswalk, phone slipping from her fingers, eyes huge under the silver blast of oncoming headlights. He remembered dropping the insulated food bag. Remembered sprinting. Remembered the sound of the truck horn turning the whole world white.

He had saved her.

Probably.

Better have tipped, he thought, because terror made room for bitterness in familiar shapes.

A boot crunched nearby.

Kai tightened behind the wagon.

“Come out, little spawn,” Pip sang. “We just want to see your starter kit.”

“Pip,” the healer murmured.

“What? I’m being welcoming.”

“You’re being disgusting.”

“Mira,” Bran said, not looking back, “if you don’t want the farm run, you can wait at shrine. We talked about this.”

“We talked about wolves and bone imps,” Mira said. “Not people.”

Lysa snorted. Her robe hem dragged through sludge, collecting strings of corpse moss. “Fresh souls are not people until they hit Level 2. Read a doctrine once in a while.”

Kai’s jaw flexed.

Something cold and ugly moved under his fear. It wasn’t bravery. Bravery sounded noble. This was the same thing that had made him stand between a drunk customer and a teenage cashier at a gas station at two in the morning. The same thing that had shoved him into a crosswalk faster than thought. A stubborn little engine in his chest that coughed smoke and said: No.

His interface spasmed, lines of text overlapping.

Initializing Starter Class…

Available archetypes unavailable.

Soul vector mismatch.

Heroic template: rejected.

Fighter template: rejected.

Mage template: rejected.

Rogue template: rejected.

Cleric template: rejected.

Searching legacy designations…

Kai blinked hard. “Now?” he whispered. “You’re doing career counseling now?”

The wagon shifted. Not by itself.

Bran’s buckler appeared over the broken plank, then his face. Copper brows rose when he saw Kai crouched in the muck.

“Found him.”

Kai moved.

He didn’t think, didn’t plan. He grabbed a jagged length of wagon spoke and drove his shoulder into Bran’s knee from below. The impact rattled up Kai’s bones, but surprise did what strength couldn’t. Bran cursed and stumbled sideways, buckler clipping the wagon, sword half-drawn.

Kai scrambled out the other side, boots sliding, mud sucking at his soles.

“Runner!” Pip cried, delighted.

An arrow hissed past Kai’s cheek and buried itself in a corpse with a wet thump. Not an arrow—Harl’s spear, thrown badly but hard enough to make the dead man’s torso jerk.

“Don’t kill him yet!” Lysa snapped. “Tag first! If he dies untagged, loot rights scatter.”

“I know how farming works!” Harl shouted, already yanking a second spear from the rack on his back.

Kai sprinted through the field of dead.

The graveplain fought him every step. Hands protruded from the mud like roots. Ribs cracked under his boots. A face opened its clouded eyes as he stepped over it and released a sigh of blue dust. The air tasted of old pennies and stormwater. Somewhere far off, a bell tolled once, deep enough to vibrate through the sludge.

His lungs burned. His ribs screamed. Behind him, the party gave chase with a chaotic mixture of laughter and irritation.

“He’s fast for a Level 1!” Pip said.

“All freshies run fast,” Bran growled. “Fear bonus.”

Kai vaulted a half-buried shield, nearly fell, recovered by slapping a hand onto a dead horse’s flank. The flesh collapsed under his palm. He gagged and pushed off harder.

The interface kept unfolding in front of him, completely indifferent to his current desire not to be murdered.

Legacy designation found.

Compatibility: 97.8%

Warning: designation archived.

Warning: designation non-player.

Warning: designation deprecated under Divine Entertainment Accord.

“Great,” Kai gasped. “Love warnings. Big fan.”

A bolt of fire flashed over his shoulder.

Heat slapped the back of his neck. The firebolt struck a mound of bones ahead of him and burst, scattering burning fragments. Kai threw himself sideways. Pain exploded through his hip as he hit the ground and rolled through mud. His shoulder clipped something hard. A skull. It shattered beneath him like a clay pot.

He came up coughing.

Lysa stood twenty yards back, blue robe fluttering in the hot wind from her spell, fingers raised and glowing ember-orange.

“Hold still,” she called. “It’s literally less painful if you don’t make me aim.”

Kai spat mud. “That line work for you often?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, he talks.”

“Only when chased by budget Halloween costumes.”

Pip burst out laughing. Even Bran’s mouth twitched before he remembered he was angry.

“Mouthy spawn,” the fighter said. “Fine. Cripple him.”

Harl rushed first, spear leveled at Kai’s thigh. The man had farmhand shoulders and a frightened eagerness in his eyes, like hurting someone was a task he had practiced in theory but not yet made peace with in flesh. Kai saw the attack coming and still barely moved in time. The spearhead sliced his pants and opened a hot line across his outer thigh.

Kai hissed, staggered, and swung the wagon spoke.

It bounced off Harl’s leather pauldron with a dull crack.

Harl blinked at him.

“Was that your attack?” he asked.

“Warm-up,” Kai said.

Bran hit him in the ribs with the flat of his sword.

The world vanished in a white burst. Kai flew sideways and landed on his back in a puddle that swallowed his ears. For one awful second, the red sky looked like a lid closing over him. Sound became muffled thunder. His body refused orders. Breath would not come.

Bran planted a boot on his chest and leaned down.

“Listen,” he said. “You don’t have a contract. That means you are walking loot. We tag you, kill you, maybe you drop a soul shard, maybe a starter item. If the gods like it, maybe we get a clip bonus. Nothing personal.”

Kai stared up at him through rain that wasn’t rain. Some kind of black condensation fell from the clouds, speckling Bran’s face and Kai’s cheeks.

“Feels personal,” Kai wheezed.

“That’s because you’re new.”

Mira appeared behind Bran, pale under her hood. “Bran, stop. He’s conscious.”

“That’s the point.”

“He doesn’t know where he is.”

“Neither did we.”

“And you hated the people who did this to you.”

For a second, something passed across Bran’s face. Not guilt. Something older and more worn down. Then Pip skipped up and ruined it.

“Can I do the tag? Please? I never get first tag.”

Lysa rolled her eyes. “You got first tag on the last Hollowed Peasant.”

“That was environmental assist. Corpse vine did most of the work.”

Kai tried to lift the wagon spoke. Bran pressed harder. Pain pinned him in place.

The interface finished loading.

CLASS ASSIGNMENT COMPLETE

Designation: Tutorial Boss

Path: Monster / Encounter / Hidden

Player Compatibility: ERROR

Administrative Review: PENDING

Patch Priority: LOW

Everything went quiet.

Not actually quiet. The field still groaned. The scavengers still breathed. Somewhere nearby, a corpse beetle clicked its mandibles against bone. But Kai’s mind emptied around two words.

Tutorial Boss.

Not Fighter. Not Mage. Not Hero.

Boss.

Bran’s eyes flicked to the space above Kai’s head. His expression changed.

“What the hell?”

Pip leaned over, upside down in Kai’s vision. “What? What’s he got?”

“No level,” Bran said.

Lysa hurried closer, robe swishing. “Move.”

She made a sharp gesture, and blue light formed a pane in front of her eyes. Her face went from annoyed to confused to hungry in the space of a heartbeat.

“Hidden class,” she whispered.

Pip made a sound like a dog seeing meat. “Hidden hidden?”

“Monster-path.” Lysa’s voice sharpened. “No. That’s not possible. Players can’t roll monster-path. Check the tag.”

Bran did something with his fingers. A system pane flashed, invisible to Kai except for its pale reflection in the fighter’s eyes.

“Tutorial Boss,” Bran read slowly.

Harl barked a laugh. “That’s a joke.”

Kai, still pinned under Bran’s boot, raised one finger. “For the record, I did not pick that.”

Lysa’s gaze snapped to him. “Do you have a core?”

“Lady, I have no idea if I have health insurance.”

“Check his inventory.”

“How?” Pip asked.

“Kill him.”

Mira stepped forward. “No.”

All four looked at her.

The healer’s knuckles whitened around her staff, but she didn’t step back. “Hidden class means guild claim protocols. You kill him without contract arbitration and we could get marked.”

Lysa scoffed. “Marked by who? We’re in Mirefield.”

“By the System.”

“The System barely knows this zone exists.”

Kai coughed, and it tasted like blood. “Love being discussed as paperwork.”

Bran’s boot shifted. “Quiet.”

A new message crawled across Kai’s vision, each letter stuttering into place as though forced through broken glass.

Tutorial Boss

You were not designed to begin the climb.

You were designed to end it for others.

Growth Method: Survive encounters against qualifying challengers.

Experience gained when higher-ranked enemies fail to kill you within encounter window.

Bonus growth gained from fear, frustration, retreat, wipe, and repeated failed attempts.

Boss Core: Missing

Lair: Unclaimed

Encounter Boundary: Unstable

Kai read the lines once. Then again, faster, because Bran was raising his sword and Lysa was practically vibrating with greed.

Survive encounters.

Higher-ranked enemies.

Fail to kill you.

His eyes shifted to their nameplates. Levels 1 through 3. He had no level. Did that make them higher? The System seemed stupid enough to count it.

“Wait,” Kai said.

Bran paused despite himself. “What?”

“If you’re going to murder me, could I at least ask one newbie question?”

Pip snickered. “This is my favorite kind.”

Bran sighed. “Make it fast.”

Kai looked him dead in the eye. “What’s an encounter window?”

Lysa’s face went still.

A low sound rolled across the graveplain.

It began beneath them, deep in the mud, a grinding hum that made the puddles shiver. Corpse lights guttered. The red sky pulsed once, as if some colossal heart had beaten behind the clouds. Around Kai and the five scavengers, the air thickened, taking on a faint amber edge. Lines of light scratched themselves through the mud in a crude circle, connecting corpse to corpse, wagon wheel to broken spear, rib cage to half-buried milestone.

ENCOUNTER INITIATED

Unregistered Boss Entity detected.

Encounter Class: Tutorial

Challenger Party: 5

Recommended Party Size: 4

Recommended Level: 1

Scaling Error…

Scaling Error…

Scaling locked.

Defeat the Tutorial Boss.

For the first time since they arrived, none of the scavengers laughed.

Bran lifted his foot off Kai’s chest and stumbled back, sword up. “Lysa.”

“I didn’t do that.”

“Cancel it.”

“I didn’t do that!”

Pip spun in a circle, daggers drawn, grinning again but with the grin stretched thin. “Oh, that is weird. That is very weird. Bran, his nameplate turned red.”

Kai pushed himself onto one elbow.

The world had changed around him. The graveplain beyond the amber boundary blurred, as though seen through heat haze. The distant bell stopped mid-toll. Even the smell shifted—less rot, more ozone and hot metal. Somewhere, impossibly, a cheering crowd murmured beneath the wind, millions of voices layered so faintly Kai could feel them more than hear them.

Above the party, tiny motes of gold appeared like fireflies.

Lysa looked up and went pale. “Divine eyes.”

“Here?” Harl said. “In Mirefield?”

Mira’s whisper barely carried. “They’re watching.”

Kai dragged in a breath. His health—because yes, the interface now showed a bar, rude and red and nearly half empty—stabilized at forty-one percent. His thigh throbbed. His ribs ached. He was unarmed except for a wagon spoke and whatever cosmic clerical error had decided he was a raid mechanic.

Bran set his jaw. “Fine. We clear it. Tutorial difficulty. He’s still just a fresh spawn.”

“A boss fresh spawn,” Pip said.

“A dead one in thirty seconds.”

Bran lunged.

He moved better now that he wasn’t strolling after prey. Shield forward, sword low, boots finding solid patches between corpses. Kai rolled away from the first slash, mud splashing into his eyes. He swung the wagon spoke at Bran’s ankle. The fighter absorbed it with his boot and kicked Kai in the stomach.

Air left him in a broken grunt.

Harl came in from the side with his spear. Kai twisted. The spear point punched through his jacket and grazed his ribs instead of opening his belly. Pain flared bright enough to make his vision spot. He grabbed the shaft with both hands before Harl could pull back.

“Let go!” Harl shouted.

“Busy!” Kai snarled.

Pip appeared behind him.

Kai saw the rogue’s shadow stretch over the mud a fraction before the dagger came down. He jerked sideways. The blade still bit into his shoulder, sliding under skin with cold intimacy. Kai’s grip spasmed. Harl wrenched his spear free.

Lysa’s voice cut through the chaos. “Spark!”

Lightning snapped from her fingers.

It struck Kai in the chest.

For one insane instant, his skeleton became a white tree inside him. Every muscle locked. His teeth slammed together. The world flashed red-black-red. He collapsed to one knee, smoke rising from his torn jacket.

Health: 22%

Encounter Timer: 00:47

“Again!” Bran shouted.

“Cooldown!” Lysa snapped.

Kai tried to stand. His leg betrayed him. Bran’s shield crashed into his face.

The impact split his lip and filled his mouth with blood. He fell backward into the mud. Above him, the gold motes brightened, and the whispering crowd seemed to lean closer.

He had been in fights before. Not fantasy fights. Not sword-and-spell nonsense. Parking lot fights. Kitchen fights. The kind where someone slipped on spilled beer and someone else kept kicking because anger had momentum. Kai had learned one thing from them: people expected pain to make you smaller.

Sometimes it did.

Sometimes it narrowed you to a point.

Bran stepped in for the finishing blow.

Kai hurled mud into his eyes.

Bran cursed and flinched. Kai surged up, not away but forward, slamming his shoulder into the fighter’s waist. It was like hitting a refrigerator. Bran staggered one step. One was enough. Kai hooked a foot behind Bran’s ankle and drove with everything left.

They went down together.

Bran landed on his back with Kai on top of him. Kai raised the wagon spoke and smashed it into Bran’s sword hand.

Once.

Twice.

The third hit cracked something.

Bran roared. His sword fell into the mud.

“Get him off!” Bran shouted.

Pip came laughing, dagger flashing.

Kai snatched Bran’s fallen sword with his left hand. It was heavier than it looked, slick with mud, the balance wrong in his panicked grip. He swung blindly.

The flat clipped Pip across the face.

The rogue yelped and stumbled, more offended than injured. “Hey!”

“Sorry,” Kai said, and kicked Bran in the ribs as he rolled away. “Reflex.”

Harl’s spear thrust forced Kai back. Lysa’s next firebolt hissed past his ear, close enough to crisp hair. Mira stood at the edge of the fight, staff glowing faintly, eyes darting between Bran’s damaged hand and Kai’s bleeding shoulder.

“Heal me!” Bran barked.

Mira hesitated.

“Mira!”

Her mouth tightened. She lifted her staff. Soft green light flowed into Bran’s wrist. The swelling eased. His fingers flexed. He grabbed his sword from the mud and rose, face dark with humiliation.

Kai’s interface chimed.

Challenger recovery detected.

Encounter pressure increased.

Passive Skill awakening…

Error: Boss Core missing.

Substituting soul trauma.

“Substituting what?” Kai said.

Then Bran hit him again.

This time the fighter didn’t use the flat.

The sword opened Kai from collarbone to chest, not deep enough to split him, deep enough to pour heat down his torso. Kai stumbled, looking down in disbelief at the red spreading through his already ruined shirt.

His health bar plunged.

Health: 9%

The crowd-sound swelled.

Gold motes spun faster above them. Lysa’s eyes shone with reflected light, her fear buried under calculation. “He’s low! Burst him!”

Pip darted in from behind. Harl lowered his spear. Bran raised his sword with both hands.

Kai’s body wanted to fold. It wanted to lie down in the mud and be done. The truck had been quick. This was not quick. This was being carved into a system message one wound at a time.

And in that knife-thin moment before they reached him, Kai saw Mira.

She wasn’t looking at Bran.

She was looking at Kai like she was watching a man drown while everyone else argued about who owned the river.

No, Kai thought again.

The engine in his chest coughed smoke. Caught. Burned.

Pip’s dagger pierced his back.

Harl’s spear punched through his side.

Bran’s sword descended toward his neck.

The passive skill awakened.

PASSIVE SKILL UNLOCKED: FIRST WALL

A tutorial boss exists to teach failure.

When reduced below 10% Health by qualifying challengers, fatal damage is converted into Stagger instead.

For 10 seconds, incoming damage cannot reduce Health below 1%.

During this window, all challengers who damage you suffer Doubt.

Bran’s sword struck Kai’s neck.

It should have ended there.