Quill stopped dead in his tracks with his eye twitching as he glared at the new system prompt.
You have received a quest!
The Invasion has begun!
You didn't think those in power played by the rules did you? But then again, can we really call them rules if it's only selectively enforced?
Objective: kill, subdue, or align yourself with the infiltrators. 0/3
reward upon completion: A system imposed peace treaty on the two kingdoms that border your planet for 200 years after the veil has been lifted.
“This is some grade A bullshit! I'm supposed to take out these supposed alien infiltrators and you don't even tell me how or where they are?! Not sure if you realize this but the planet is a big fucking place!” he might as well have been shouting at nothing while in the middle of the forest for all the good it did him.
Whatever this quest was, he was just going to ignore it. There was no punishment for doing so and thus it shall be ignored. He was not going to dance to the system's tune like some puppet.
He heard some animal or beastly creature howling off in the distance likely in response to his own shouting and he had to remind himself that he was still in unknown territory with who knows what lurking about. He couldn't just be blundering through the woods like an idiot.
“Even though that's kind of what you're doing before your little shouting session.” Grey commented.
“Well it's not like I have much wilderness experience.” He instinctively tried to defend himself only to again feel like an idiot for responding to her so easily and quickly.
“Face it. you just can't ignore me. I'm too cute for that.”
“ I can't ignore you because you are constantly in my head rattling off various comments regardless of the situation.”
“Don't deny that you aren't at least a little bit entertained. Remember I can read you pretty well, in many cases literally. Even if you do suppress it I know when you find something I say at least a little funny.”
Refusing to acknowledge her, Quill instead continued on his way through the woods to where the clearing he saw up on the mountain was. He had briefly debated about going towards the giant tree, but that also screamed “here be monsters.” or at least an area that would attract monsters. So he decided on heading towards the clearing instead.
He had been jogging through the forest for about a couple of hours now. He had no idea about how much distance he had covered but he knew it was a lot. Thankfully he hadn't run into any monsters. Mostly bugs and the occasional unranked animal that even his identify skill could make out.
But if that howl he heard meant anything. There was definitely at least one thing in this forest that would likely cause trouble. He proceeded to look for the tallest tree he could find to try and scout things out from the tree top. Then realizing the stupidity of that, manifested a pillar underneath his feet and shot upwards into the air till he breached the tree covering before looking around in order to reorient himself and figure out how much further he needed to go. Maybe also spot potential dangers if they were poking their head out through the tree top like an idiot.
“ Aren't you poking your head out of a tree top?”
“That's why I said like an idiot.”
“ Oh please, you aren't an idiot. Well, you aren't an idiot in regards to survival…. Or at least not an idiot with things that aren’t wilderness survival”
“ The fact that I am still responding to you even after everything kind of shows I'm an idiot when it comes to regular survival too.” he muttered despairingly as you continued to look around.
He had gotten a lot closer to the clearing, if he actually started running he'd probably get there in a couple of hours or so. But the fact that he was still so far away given his progress indicated just how far the clearing actually was. He turned around and faced the mountains, they were distant now so he had made good progress. Just not enough.
His enhanced hearing picked up some thrashing of trees going off in the distance and he turned to see what the commotion was only for a system screen prompt to flash in front of his face obscuring his vision
Congratulations to everyone who has passed and survived the tutorial!
Now that every sentient individual has left the tutorial store we will now be creating the status ranking! This will monitor everyone who registers level and power and be shown off to everyone inside your planet. Feel free to register or not. The status ranking will disappear once the veil of your planet has been lifted.
Would you like to register for the status ranking?
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
He read The Prompt and quickly rejected it. Why the hell would he want to be put on some kind of status list. Before he could turn his attention back to the forest where the noise was coming from he got the same prompt again.
Would you like to register for the status ranking?
He again rejected the question, getting a little annoyed that it actually asked him twice in a row.
“Why are you even rejecting it anyways? Don't you want to show everyone how powerful and cool you are!”
“No. I do not need to go through a dick measuring contest with a bunch of other people that I do not know and probably wouldn't like if I met them. And again, I will not play to the tune of the system and be its little dancing monkey.” the moment he finished saying that a third system prompt appeared.
You have received a quest!
dance monkey dance
You don't get to reject this.
Objective- register for the status ranking
Reward Upon completion- none
Consequences for failing-You will be teleported and dropped in front of a C-grade boss who has a penchant for hating humans
Would you like to register for the status ranking?
He stared at the screen for a second longer before letting out a sigh of resignation. “I don't even know what I should have expected at this point.”
He almost rejected it again as a final fuck you but still agreed to the prompt and then quickly closed the screen.
“What? not even going to look and see where other people place? Maybe there might be some people ahead of you. Maybe you'll be surprised about some potentially new information if you looked? Perhaps there is something about you that you would like to see~” her voice clearly had an excited tone to it which was all the more reason why he was not going to look for as long as possible
“ I, and you said it yourself, can be defiant as long as I'm open about it. Well here is my defiance. The system can make me dance to its tune in some ways. But I will not play its game if I can. It wants me to register? Fine, I registered. But it can’t make me care. Also you telling me I should look at my ranking is just going to have the exact opposite effect.” he grumbled as he looked back out over the sea of trees only to not spot what had been making that noise and causing such a commotion. Whatever it was, it was gone now.
“Technically speaking it isn't gone. You just aren't looking below you.” Grey spoke with clear amusement and Quill slowly turned his head downwards to see a massive ball of fur sniffing at the pillar he was currently standing on.
If he had to describe it, it would be a giant 8 ft tall squirrel, if said squirrel had four extra arms, two tails with needle-like fur, and Bone like Spurs sprouting across its back. He quickly casted and identify on it.
?
This useless fucking skill! He glared down at the oversized rodent. Why was the first thing he ran into in the tutorial an oversized rodent and the first monster he saw when getting out was also an oversized rodent. This was just sad.
“So are you going to jump down and kill it or just keep staring at it like it’s going to do something.”
He shook His head at that. While his identify skill might not have been the highest he was still a decent level in his mind. If his understanding of the identify skill was correct, it tended to factor in your level as well as the thing you were identifying level as well. The fact that he got zero information from trying to identify it heavily implied that the giant weird looking squirrel was likely way stronger than him. Sure he had been punching above his weight class for a while at this point but why keep doing that if he didn't need to.
Instead he manifested a board for him to step on and had it stretched as far as it could away from his pillar. Even when he felt like he was at his limits he just kept pushing. Quietly placing one foot in front of the other until he was pretty sure he was starting to feel his skin cracking from the overexertion. Finding the nearest tree with a strong looking branch, he leapt off his elongated board and quietly landed onto the branch. His manifestation quickly dissipating in the process.
Then he just waited several minutes, keeping his ears trained to ensure nothing was pursuing him while also giving his body a small chance to rest.
Once you ensured the coast was clear, he jumped down and landed softly in the tall grass. He probably could have kept going with his manifestation now that he thought about it. He certainly had pushed himself beyond his limits before but he wanted to keep his energy reserved in case he did have to flee from a monster spotting him.
Plus when he did get to the break in the trees, he'd be wide out in the open and wanted as much energy as possible in case something did see him and decide he was a tasty snack.
Still, the fact that there were monsters like that in this forest gave him more pep in his step and, while trying to be as quiet as possible, ran as fast as he could away from where the monster squirrel was.
Thankfully the trip didn't have any more unexpected monsters. The main threat of his running for the past 2 or so hours was trying to keep his mind wary and not let it wander off out of boredom. He supposed the technical term was dissociation. Or maybe it was maladaptive daydreaming? Either way he was trying not to let his mind go elsewhere when he was in a forest of highly dangerous oversized rodents.
He finally saw the break in the trees and after stepping past a few bushes a system screen appeared in front of his face.
You have entered an f-grade Zone
Region unlocked, monsters can come and go from this region to other regions.
There was some brief confusion before something dawned on him, and he quickly stepped back a few paces and got a new system prompt.
You have entered an E-grade zone
Region time locked. monsters are unable to come and go from this region until the timer reaches zero
2 years, 9 months, and 18 days
This fucking system put him in an e-grade Zone and didn't even tell him! Now he knew for certain that if he had tried to attack that squirrel he would be dead! Also he takes back everything nice he said about the system previously!! It had just casually dropped him in an area that would have easily killed him and disguised it as a blessing with the lake!! The crafty piece of junk!!!
“Well On the bright side you now made it to an f grade zone without any scary monsters trying to snack on your innards, so silver lining. And hey, who knows, maybe this f-grade area will be beneficial to you.”
Somehow he doubted that. His gaze drifted off towards the fields that had a slight elevation to it and furrowed his brow. He quickly stepped back into the f grade area and ran till he was fully clear of the trees before manifesting a pillar and shooting himself upwards to get a better look.
As he gazed out across the fields he quickly realized that they weren’t as wide as he thought they were. But the most important part was that the fields dropped off to a cliff that plummeted down into the ocean which once again begged the question. Where the hell was he?????
