Tutorial Rewrite 50 (Patreon)

The darkness fades and the light stabs me through the eyes so I startle awake.

“—Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, only a few of those who are wanted by our great Guild were captured. The few that we now have in our grasp will act as the final dying breath of the old generation, of the chaos that came before, of the world that once was. In this great moment, we can finally say with full confidence: Out with the old, in with the new!”

Hm. Okay, first things first, I’m having a bit of deja vu. I’m back in the dungeon. Well, not the dungeon, just a dungeon. A relatively nice one, too, now that I actually look at it. The bars aren’t completely rusty, the floor isn’t muddy with my blood, and although I’m once again hung perpendicular to the wall, the good news is that, at the very least, the clasps I’m hung with aren’t barbed on the inside.

Even better, I’m not alone!

There are three other people in there, though I’m the only one hanging on the wall, which means if someone’s going to pull that classic how’s it hanging joke, it sadly won’t be me. Bummer. Anyways, I can see them pretty well because there’s plenty of light streaming in from a barred window just above my head. In other words, I can’t see anything, but I can hear it.

It’s a speech. No idea who’s talking, but it is absolutely a speech.

“From this moment on, this great Guild, as well as the tutorial it represents, will no longer be some cobbled-together group of good men and women. Rather, we will be a true community, where each and every one of us has a word to say, and a voice to be heard! We will have our roles, and we will follow the rules that all of us have agreed to. That is our noble pursuit, and that is what we will now, finally, commit to!”

Eugh. Gross, he’s talking like a real moderator here. So, I guess, to do this, he’s gonna execute me. And these couple of lumps of sadness too, I suppose. And, sure, I would love to stay and chat and try to increase a few of my tolerances, but I’ve got places to be, things to see, and I can only really do that if I’m alive, so I’ll have to decline.

Escaping the dungeon is pretty simple since I’ve already done it once. I just have to break both of my hands, as well as both of my feet since there were clamps there too, and then I’m basically free. Hm. For some reason, my fellow cell-mates are staring at me weirdly. Well, that’s their problem.

I make my way over to the bars. They’re about the same size as they were at the other castle, so I just break my pelvis and my ribs again and jimmy my skull through, and then I’m free to go. Yippie!

<You have learned:

Brain Damage Resistance Lv.5>

<You have learned:

Fracture Resistance Lv.7>

<You have learned:

Fracture Resistance Lv.8>

Mm, good stuff.

Before continuing, I briefly roll myself into a ball, meditating only enough for my feet to heal, and then off I go. I’m not entirely sure where the best hiding spot is, but I kind of want to see what’ll happen outside, so I just head upwards to get a good vantage point. At least, that was my plan, because right as I head up the stairs…

“...Hm?”

“Huh?”

I’m met by a small band of people who could’ve been pulled straight out of an RPG. Which is to say that they look exactly like all of the other challengers I’ve seen so far, but I don’t care about that. My eyes are glued to one of them and one alone. Even if God Himself had been standing in front of me, I would not have seen it. Amongst them, clad in simple wizard’s robes, with his right arm tied behind his back by a leather band, stands the only man who has ever bested me.

LetsFraternizeTogether.

I freeze in place. The turbulent winds of Hell could not have moved me. All the storms that rend the sea would not have been able to twist a single one of my fingers. The world itself could have opened to swallow us whole and I would remain rooted in place.

I stare at him. He stares at me. Not even time moves me. His eyes narrow slightly.

And then his hand flies up and he points at me with his index finger, and

<Tie.>

Honestly, he didn’t need to. At this moment, no matter what he might have done, I would not have moved. It was superfluous, really.

One of the people next to him, a girl in light leather armour, steps forward and points at me, less so because she’s about to magic me to death, and more so to actually accuse me of something. “Who are you?” she barks. “What is your relationship with the Guild of Representatives?”

Another two-in-one. I glance at him. He’s still looking at me. I turn back to her. I have no idea if this will work, but it’s worth a shot.

“I’m the representative and also the executive of the Hell difficulty which means I’m super important and also I have all of the authority so you better not use any more of that magic stuff on me or I will go tell our leader and he’ll kick your asses so bad you’ll never do another squat in your life.”

She blinks at me. She glances back at one of the people behind her. “Is that, uh, true?”

They all shrug.

She turns back to me. “It’s not like we can just let this… guy… go free, so, uh…”

…Hey, why did you say guy like that? That’s totally suspicious!

She snaps her fingers. “Tie him up.”

Huh? Hey, wait a second, didn’t you hear what I said? Hey! I’m an executive! Treat a guy with some respect, damn it!

But, alas, with chivalry's recent closed-casket burial, they ignore my pleas and tie me up with ropes. I really wish I could pull off some superman bit and easily break out of them, but they were way tighter than I had expected, so there’s nothing I can do other than wiggle my shoulders pathetically. For some reason, I’ve got a feeling that even if I break every bone in my body, I won’t be able to escape. Damn it. You just can’t win with these sorts of people.

The girl holding my rope presents the end of it to… him.

“Here, Mole, you keep an eye on him since you’ll be in the back anyways, okay?”

…Mole?

His eyes hop between the rope and my face. He seems like he’s about to say something, but she just thrusts the rope into his hands anyways, and there’s nothing he can say or do to refuse that wouldn’t be at least slightly rude, so he unwillingly takes it anyways.

I’m starting to really believe in karma. That said…

Mole? As in…?

I look at him. He’s looking back at me. For some reason, he’s squinting, kind of like when you’re watching a movie and you just can’t place where you saw that actor before. Hang on just a second. Y-, you know, now that I think about it, it was like over half a year since he last saw me. And that was before I started my homelessness speedrun, and before any of this, and now I look pretty different, so, you know, there’s a chance that, well…

Maybe he just doesn’t recognise me?

There’s a chance. A possibility, really. It’s… plausible, right?

I try to muster some sort of positive facial expression, like I only just recognised him, too. “H-, hey, uh… she called you mole, so, um…” He looks at me oddly. I wish I could wipe the sweat from my brow. “Any chance you’re, uh, moleman?”

He furrows his brows. “I am. But I generally don’t make a habit of hanging around execs for the guild, sorry.”

“No, no, that’s not it!” I say with maybe just a dash of too much desperation. “I—I might not look like it, but it’s me! P-, Prissy—” the word gets stuck in my throat like a lump, refusing to come out. “Prissy—” I can practically feel his eyes burning into me, even more than the embarrassment of my own username. I take a few long, deep breaths. “I’m… uh… Kitty.” After that wasn’t enough, unwillingly, almost in a whisper, I continue, “I asked about, uh… dismemberment. Losing feet to goblins. That… sort of stuff.”

“Oh!” he exclaims, eyebrows shooting up. “Wow, really?” I nod at him. “Really, that’s… I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but…” He gestures at the whole of me. “—Yeah. Still, I didn’t take you for an executive type…”

“Oh, that’s, uh…” I try to shrug but the bindings make it hard. “It was really just a, uh, matter of, like… availability. You get it?”

After a second or so, he nods back at me. “I suppose that explains why they put you on the wanted list. Contacting you normally might have been a bit too challenging, so they went with a more direct route. Do you think that makes sense?”

I jerk at the question. “Makes sense? Oh, uh, yeah! Of course it does, perfect sense! Couldn’t think of a better solution myself, really.”

His facial expression turns difficult. I don’t like it when people look at me like that. It’s been happening way too much recently. After a minute or so of walking, Mole continues, in an almost hushed voice, “Do you even have any idea what’s happening right now?”

“Uhh, not really, to be honest. There was some kind of ceremony outside, but that’s about all I know.”

“They’re going to execute people,” Moleman says gravely. “They’re going to take dissenters, and they’re going to line them up, and right before they swear in their new leader, they’re going to kill them. One by one. But they aren’t dissenters, not really. They’re our friends. They didn’t do anything wrong, nothing to warrant execution, and still, they’re going to die. Not because of any sin they committed, but rather to make a point.” His voice turns low. “It’s wrong. So we’re going to put a stop to them.”

Hm. I don’t really get it, but there isn’t much I can say, so I just hum. “Hmm, sounds complicated.”

Moleman looks me straight in the eye, his face deathly serious. “The guild will be punished. Severely. All of the members, to some extent, but the executives more than all of them. Way more than all of them.”