Tutorial Rewrite 74 (Patreon)

I can tell when morning comes because a loud, piercing scream emerges from the base camp.

Ah, my good work has already been discovered, huh? About time, if you ask me.

Even though there’s no real need to, I go over to the base camp, just to watch the shades scramble. Some of them are even crying, which is interesting to watch. After a while, they remove the bodies from the tent, and bury them on the outskirts of the camp, though not quite close enough to the forest for me to do anything. There should be something I can do with those bodies to freak them out even worse. Hm.

All very important to think about, but even more fun is that I can both hear and smell the people walking into my booby traps. The first ones were the ones at the small base, and then a group trying to get to the river fell. Since I didn’t get any message, I can assume that none of them died, but my main thing here isn’t to kill, but to scare them.

Once the river gang returns to base and informs them of the traps, when others go out and don’t come back, they won’t instantly assume that I killed them personally. After all, it could just be that they got trapped.

Man, I really wish I had some way of making poison. Or to spread a plague of some sort. I guess the only real way to do that would be to level up my Touch of Reverse Tolerance more. The last time I used it was against a gombie, so I don’t actually know how strong it currently is. General logic would, however, dictate that it won’t actually be very useful until I get it up to the resistance level. Assuming it can even get there, of course.

I should probably train it a bit against these shades.

But, first, I need to do a few hit ‘n runs.

They’ve started sending out a number of squads. They’re trying to locate me at any cost, and to expand their base area to weed me out. Of course, this is very hard to do if they are dead. My only goal is to make sure they don’t find exactly where I am. Once they know that a squad is dead, I’ll already be too far away to pursue.

And so, I start systematically taking out every squad of red-clothed shades I see.

But while I was doing this, I caught the scent of something else. A larger group of people were heading towards the river. And I’m on the other side of the glade, several minutes away even if I run.

I sink my clawed hand into the throat of a shade throat and click my tongue. They got me. The good ol’ diversion got me, huh? I guess I underestimated these people. Not very hard to do when they all look like teenagers and regular teachers, but it was still hubris on my part.

<Shade (Lv.24) Defeated.>

<Shade (Lv.20) Defeated.>

<Shade (Lv.21) Defeated.>

Taking out the remainder of the squad, I head towards the river. But as I pass the main base, I have a thought. A large part of the shades are either aimlessly wandering around in the forest to get killed by me, or just straight-up gone away. The cat isn’t home. That means it's the perfect time for the rats to play.

I approach the base. While I was away doing a good old slaughter, they’ve begun setting up an encroachment. A number of them are digging a small trench around the camp and putting spears at the bottom. But they aren’t even covering it with anything, so I think it’s more of a warning on their side. There seem to be four entrances where there aren’t any spears, so for them, it will probably more so be a matter of being able to properly guard the few entrances that they do have. The dirt they dug up from the trenches are being used in conjunction with some rocks to form a wall behind the trench itself.

It’s all very complex, but it won’t stop me in the least.

I’m not entirely sure whether this will work or not, but it’s worth a try. Right in daylight, I pull on my maths-teacher disguise. Wearing it, I approach one of the four entrances.

“Mister Park?” one of the shades says. I just wave at him as I casually stroll by. “Wh-, what happened to you? Are you alright?!”

<You have learned:

Impersonate Lv.2>

Let’s see… What did Mister Park usually say in times like these? “Oh, it’s no worry. I was attacked by that awful Ho-Jae, but I made it out alive. I just need to get to the barracks and I’ll be fine.”

The shade frowns at me. “You sound somehow different, but… Okay, hope you get better. And…” His eyes glance down at my nethers and up again. “Try to put something on, alright?”

“Alright,” I say. “I will.” But that’s a lie, for, as a matter of fact, I’m already wearing something! Haha, get tomfooled! Man, these people sure are dumb. They really just let me stroll right on in, wearing the saggy skin of some old fart! This game is easy.

Now, where’s the food court?...

After wandering around for a bit, I involuntarily find my way into the infirmary, even though I had wanted to do the exact opposite. Hm. Funny way the world works, huh?

“Mister Park? Is everything alright? You look pale—why don’t you take a seat?” I look up to find the school nurse looking at me. She’s younger than most of her profession, with an unusual liking for what she does. Most school nurses would just sneer at me whenever I came to them. Elementary school was the worst. If I didn’t have a broken nose or something, she’d just send me out and tell me to just wash it off myself. “Mister Park?...”

“H-, huh?” I say, taking a step back. Oh, yeah, I’m in the tutorial. I—I forgot for a second there, that’s all. “No, I’m fine, I was just…”

But then I look around. The sick bay isn’t too big, barely the size of a standard building, but it’s already full of people. Some with no visible injuries, others with pierced legs, an arrow still stuck in them. I recognise a few of the faces from my year. One of them is the economics teacher. When I told him I was going to be a pro gamer, he hadn’t laughed, or told me off for it. He’d just encouraged it, and told me that the gaming industry was really taking off.

I swallow down a lump that hadn’t been in my throat seconds ago.

“—I just wandered into the wrong tent, that’s all,” I finish.

She smiles at me. “When are you going to stop being such a ditz, Mister Park?”

I know she’s talking to me, but my brain is spinning with razor-sharp thoughts.

The sick bay is the heart of their operation. If I just take this place out, then no matter what I do, eventually, I’ll be able to win. She’s the base of it all. With her dead, recovery for the wounded will be impossible. If they get wounded, and if the wound starts to fester, then there won’t be anything left to be done. They’ll just die. That’s all. That’s it.

I should kill her. And then I should kill everyone else in the sick bay. And then I should escape before the other soldiers arrive. That’s what I should do. That’s what I need to—

“Mister Park?” Her hand falls on my forehead. On the forehead of the skin I’m wearing. “Oh, my! You’re so cold, we’d better get you something warm. Do you think you might have gotten a co—”

Her eyes meet mine. Not where she probably thinks Mister Park’s eyes are. Nothing like that. My eyes. The ones peeking out from beneath the empty sockets, the flaccid eyelids, the eyeless eyes. And for just a second, she’s so still and so pale that anyone could mistake her for a marble statue.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.

So I just act.

My hand, straight and firm, flies out and slices up her throat. She falls to the floor. She didn’t even stumble, or say anything. I look down at my hand. The skin gloves of the disguise are torn, and my sharp, claw-like nails are sticking out from within.

<Shade (Lv.21) Defeated.>

<You have learned:

Impersonate Lv.3>

<You have learned:

Sharp Claw Lv.10>

<You have learned:

Dagger Nails Lv.1>

After she drops, I just act. I’m not even really thinking. It’s like I’m wearing not only mister Park’s skin, but my own, too. Like I’m peeking out from inside my own eyes, seeing but not acting.

I see myself flying through the infirmary, deftly severing the arteries of men and women and young and old lying listlessly in their beds, none of them so much as able to put up a fight. I just kill them. There’s a scream in the room and I don’t think it’s mine but it could have been mine because my lungs and my throat and my tongue aren’t mine anymore. I’m just moving. I’m just doing. And when the room doesn’t contain any breathing save for mine, when the skin I wear is torn and stretched and wrinkled in places it shouldn’t be, only then does someone enter.

A young soldier. I think he’s fourteen or so. He’s holding a spear, but it won’t do him any good. He looks at me with wide eyes. “M—Mister Park? What happened in here? What is—”

And then he’s gone. It was so easy. He didn’t even raise the spear to me. The last thing he does, moments before letting out his final breath, is to look up at me, and to see me, to see the me that is within the sockets of Mister Park, and within the sockets of Lee Ho-Jae. He sees me. And then he’s gone.

<Shade (Lv.20) Defeated.>

I leave the infirmary. Crouching down into a ball, I roll my way out of the base camp.

Once I’m far away, I remove the skin I’m wearing. I don’t put it back in my inventory. I don’t like the look of it. So, instead, I return to base camp. There, from a tree, I roll the skin into a ball and toss it at a random guard.

The look of surprise, horror and shock is a sight for sore eyes.

Hm. I’ll need to find a new skin.