Tutorial Rewrite 60 (Patreon)

Finally, I turn to the poet king. I don’t think there’s a single inch of me not covered in blood, and the floor of this throne room is no different. Slowly, I step down from atop the guard’s mangled body.

This would be the perfect moment to say a speech or make a cool pose, but I don’t really have anything like that to give. Really, it’s the poet king’s fault. If he’d sent both his guards at me at once, I would probably have died. Even more so if he went with them. But now it’s just me, and him. And I am ready.

The poet king’s eyes slowly move from one corpse to another before returning to me. “Do you truly feel nothing at this?”

Feel nothing…? That’s, well, uh… I feel pretty happy to level up? That counts, right?

He shakes his head. “Forget I asked.” Slowly, carefully, almost like an old man rising, he stands up from his throne. He takes the sword on his lap into his hand. It’s as long as I am tall, which isn’t actually that much. Even so, I don’t think I could lift it even if I tried. His eyes meet mine and I watch with a small bit of fascination as they harden, and with a single, magnanimous movement, he raises his sword towards me, holding it in only one hand. “I suppose, if anyone should beat this difficulty, they must be a beast, in both body and soul.” The gleam of mirth in his eye dies. “Expecting you to be anything else was arrogance on my part.”

I’m not sure how to respond to that, so I just hunch down, ready to pounce the second he releases his guard.

And for a second or two, we just stare each other down. Me, waiting for a chance. And he…

He draws a deep breath. “Take your posi—”

And that’s the chance I’m looking for. With wild abandon, I rush at him, claws spread and ready, my mind whirling with all the different ways I can kill him, all the soft spots he has, every artery on his body that might weaken him.

He doesn’t move.

But that only lasts until the very second I get into range. As soon as I’m close to him, as soon as my mind brings up the inevitable question of why hasn’t he made a move? I get my answer as his sword falls down atop me, inches away, and I stare dumbly at the sword crashing down atop me, with my body reacting on its own to avoid having our entire body bisected from head to toe, as I lunge to the right, leaving me instead to only lose my left arm instead of my entire body.

<You have learned:

Dismemberment Tolerance Lv.4>

<You have learned:

Dismemberment Tolerance Lv.5>

<You have learned:

Dismemberment Tolerance Lv.6>

<You have learned:

Slashing Tolerance Lv.6>

<You have learned:

Slashing Tolerance Lv.7>

At this moment my brain might as well not exist, because it’s only my body that reacts to this, throwing myself into a roll as I bound across the floor, rolling to a stop several metres away from him in order to get some understanding of the situation, my brain whirling as though it’s still stuck on the first floor.

What happened? What happened? Shouldn’t he only have the skills that I have? How can he use the sword like that? I couldn’t even see it move! This is way beyond unfair.

But it was only an arm. An arm is okay. It’ll come back when I’m in the lobby, and it was only my left arm anyways. I’m still fine. I can still win this.

It’s a shame my vision is so bad while I’m rolling or I would’ve been able to keep moving.

Rolled up in a ball, I look at him.

Slowly, he lifts his sword back up again, resuming his prior position. He looks like a samurai or something. Whatever pose that is supposed to be, it isn’t something a chump like me should be able to take. I should have thought of this before, but this guy really is only a shade in name. He only looks sort of like me. That’s all. His musculature and size and especially his brain is completely different.

Unlike me, he’s an actual warrior.

To win this, I’ll need to treat him as such. But I know his weakness. His one, single weakness. Unlike me, he’s actually chivalrous. That’s why I’ll be able to beat him.

Carefully, forcing my body to tremble like a wounded puppy, I undo the FPB, and while making sure he can see me, I stand up. Breathing shallowly, I stagger towards him. He isn’t moving, but he isn’t attacking either. Looking up at him, I can see his eyes shine with pity. Perfect.

Shivering, I raise my right arm in surrender, the only arm I have left, and while making sure to keep my voice wavering and pained, I choke out, “I—I think, um, I think… I’ve changed my mind. You’re—hic—you’re right. This isn’t the life I wanted. All this battling, all this fighting, all this killing… I hate what it’s doing to me. It’s making me into someone I can’t recognise, and—and, it hurts, you know? I see myself in the shades and I can’t even recognise myself anymore. I don’t want to do this anymore. So, please…” Staggering, trembling, I walk up to him. I’m so close he could easily strike me down right now. But he won’t. I know he won’t. I can see it on his face. And then when I look up at him, and I make my face so pitiful even a bear would hesitate, I finally say, “Please, can we stop this…?”

He looks down at me, and his eyes widen a little, and his sword falls just a little, just slightly, and his face softens and his eyes melt from that hard iciness and into pure sympathy, and right as he begins hunching down to me, to say something soft, something nice, something calming, right that very moment…

I strike.

His eyes don’t even have time to widen before I fly up at him, right into his face, and just like with his guard, I tear out his eyeballs, but before he can bite me or tear me off, I deftly fly to the back of his neck, and I tear and I rip and I rip and I tear.

<You have learned:

Eviscerate Lv.10>

<You have learned:

Maul Lv.1>

Yeah, that’s it. I maul him.

Blind, he bats at me, trying to get to me, but I just jump off of him, and before he can try to find where I am, I roll between his legs, briefly disorienting him right before I leap towards his soft-skinned belly. Although it’s protected by enough muscle for an entire banquet, once you actually start ripping, it’s surprisingly easy to get in there.

I tear up a hole in his abdomen, and then I stick my entire upper body in there, ripping apart anything and everything I can get my hands on. And once his abdomen is nothing but a slurry of sliced organs and blood and bile, I go further up, gripping hold of his quickly beating heart, and just as I have hold of it, I feel him grab hold of my right leg, effectively assisting me in such a way that when he tears me out of him, so too is he tearing out his own heart, not that he can see it.

I stab my hand through his heart.

His body gives a twitch.

His hand loses grip and he drops me to the floor. I watch with interest as he staggers back one, two, three steps, back to his throne, finally collapsing into it. His chest is still going up and down even though his heart isn’t there to pump anything.

I approach him. Maybe it wasn’t enough? Maybe I need to destroy his brain too?

I step up to him where he sits so still and soundless, and right as I start to think that maybe he really is dead, his hand shoots out and I’m just about to tear up his wrist when it instead falls softly onto my head, like a big hat. Since he’s so big, and I’m so small, it feels sort of like when you’re a kid, and your dad puts his hand and your head.

I stare up at the poet king, and his empty, bloody sockets meet me. He smiles at me. But it’s a sad smile. “I pity you,” he breathes. “But I hope that you find peace nonetheless.”

And then, without me even being able to find the words to say in response, he dies.

<Poet King (Lv.28) [BOSS] Defeated.>

<[Level Up]>

<You have reached Level 27.>

<Agility has increased by 6.

Strength has increased by 5.

Stamina has increased by 5.

Magic Power has increased by 2.

Disassemble has increased by 1.

Maul has increased by 1.

Dismemberment Tolerance has increased by 2.

Sharp Claw has increased by 1.

Sharp Fang has increased by 2.

Blunt Tolerance has increased by 3.

Slashing Tolerance has increased by 2.

Divinity Tolerance has increased by 1.>

I feel numb looking at it.

<You have cleared the fourth floor.>

<You have received 1 000

points for clearing the floor.

You have received an additional

1 000 points for being the first to clear

the floor.>

<For clearing the stage completely,

you will receive an additional reward.>

<To repay your debt,

the additional reward has been

traded for 5 000 points.>

<3 Gods have shown a positive response to you.

You have obtained 3 000 points.>

<21 Gods have shown a negative response to you.

21 000 points have been deducted.>

…It’s even more than last time, huh?

<To repay your debt,

the floor clear reward has been

traded for 1 000 points.>

So, in other words, I gained nothing at all from this, huh?