Welcome back to the Tutorial…

  William woke up in the cell again. He began cursing like he had never done before, saying words he had never thought of in a sequence he was confident didn’t work together properly. It was simply too infuriating to die so easily every time to what constituted a shambling corpse and nothing more. He should have been able to dominate the fight! The thought of having to fight something that was made to kill or cause damage filled him with dread.

  Worse was that he hadn’t gained much from his two gruesome deaths. Nothing concrete and that he could point towards. No system upgrade, no new skills if they existed like that in this type of system in the first place, nothing but the quest and a promise for rewards. Including an (F+) ranked [Skill Shard]. Even more terrible was that the battle might not even be enough to level him up considering he needed nearly seven hundred runes just for the very first level.

  He had no clue what the Corrupted Guardsman would end up giving him.

  It was a basic monster at best. No strong roaming boss or elite mob, just a dead corpse.

  William would end up with three of the [Earthly Realm Rune Shard]s, but that would still only be two-hundred and twenty five runes in total. That was about a third of what he actually needed. He had a guess that the rune shards were meant as some form of currency in the ‘Shop’ to buy and sell things with. The same one he had no access to.

  He shook his head and stood back up. William put the shield and sword back on and readied himself for another battle.

  “No more bullshit. Third times the charm after all.” he said to himself, yet, he doubted that to be the truth.

  If anything, he was more intent now to slam the sword hilt deep into its eye socket.

  Plotting and planning did not seem like his style or game. Rather an attempt to brute force the entire process seemed like a better approach currently. Maybe that would help him overcome the darn thing. The hope was to cause it enough damage before it woke up and tore him to pieces. He could not fight it directly as the system assessment of its danger was proving to be true.

  William stepped out of the cell and approached the corpse. He retrieved his runes and prepared himself for the strongest strike he could generate.

  He took a few steps and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. William rushed in and torqued his hips as hard as possible while attempting to stab the blade into its eye socket–

  Only to miss it slam the sword into its forehead and the single hardest bone in the entire body. The skull cracked and even a small hole appeared, but otherwise it had not been enough. Worse yet, his rusty short sword shattered into pieces leaving him completely unarmed. His eyes widened as the Corrupted Guardsman’s red eyes flared to life and locked onto him. It snapped its arm towards him and grabbed his shirt and held tight.

  It screamed as it stood up to full height. William hadn’t recognized how large the thing was in all the mayhem so far. It towered over him like a giant.

  William only had a hilt and a small piece of the original sword in hand, smaller than a kitchen knife. He tried to stab its face, but could not reach and anything along the arms only scratched it.

  He learned a quick truth. William had done messed up.

  The Corrupted Guardsman screamed again—

  Welcome back to the Tutorial…

  William stared at the cell's ceiling. He laid there for a moment, listening to the constant dripping of water, to recollect himself. His death occurred very quickly and methodologically. Regardless of how hard he attempted to struggle, the guardsman was simply too far advanced for him to beat head on.

  Maybe not a stubborn mule then…? Somewhere in between? No! I just can’t make mistakes.

  The only chance he really had to kill it was if he did not miss like an idiot. Hit the mark and don’t mess up.

  The thought to go the other direction did cross his mind a couple of times as he laid in the puddle of cold water, but that was a possibility before this death. Not anymore. Things had felt personal now. He would kill the darn monster if it was the last thing he did. It represented everything that he had escaped; the weakness that afflicted him back on Earth, the inability to change, the injuries he sustained, working at a place that he absolutely hated, the overwhelming struggles that he had to overcome in order to make something of himself.

  Just as overwhelming as the Corrupted Guardsman.

  He could not turn his back away now. He could not walk away. To do that was to throw away everything he had built himself to be in the scant moments he had been here. The dream of becoming more than some nobody. The chance to become somebody rather than just another cog in the massive machine that ground people like him into dust.

  William walked into the battle again and again and again. Dying time and again and learning exactly why the system categorized it as [Overwhelming] for him. Yet, the more he failed, the more determined he was to kill it. The system did not think it was impossible and neither should he. Though he had come to learn that there were more ways to die than he thought possible.

  Whether it was getting a sword through the face, slammed into his head, having limbs cut off, small well placed cuts that he couldn’t stop the bleeding, stabbed through the chest, decapitation, he had died in more ways than he remembered.

  William, at some point during the constant fighting, did lose the three runes he had available to him, simply because he forgot to accept it in his haste.

  He felt nasty to have wasted them, even if they were almost nothing in the grand scheme of things.

  Now he didn't receive any glowing orb to retrieve.

  It was only after the nineteenth death did he get something to break the monotony of waking up, taking a moment to collect his thoughts, and charge in headlong towards the Corrupted Guardsman. The system dinged as a notification appeared in his vision.

  System Reward -

  [Stat Boost] for exceptional action -

  +1 Strength

  +1 Vitality

  William blinked at the notification. He pulled out his status page to verify what he had gained.

  Status User William (1oPg72j9) -

  [Class]- Locked

  Level - Locked

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  Runes Held - 3

  Strength - 6 (+1) -> 7

  Dexterity - 4

  Endurance - 7

  Vitality - 8 (+1) -> 9

  Intelligence - 6

  Wisdom - 7

  Arcane - 0

  Two entire attribute points were added to his system. All it took was getting killed and looping twenty times. William had a feeling this was a very unsustainable way to gain stat boosts considering the level of difficulty and how long it took for it to appear. He also doubted it would be this easy the next time around for it to appear. Would he gain another two stats after twenty five deaths? He certainly didn’t want to die that many times again.

  William shook his head as he looked down and stared at his hands for a few moments. He didn't feel different. Was there some type of change he couldn’t recognize? Or maybe was that too small for him to notice anything? Good thing he had a very easy way to test it out. Not that it mattered. This was his twentieth battle against the Corrupted Guardsman. Even if he tried to prevent the thoughts of being unable to defeat it from spreading in his mind, they still did. THough he was still determined to keep going until either it died or he broke.

  He just hoped that it was the former rather than the latter.

  The fight was different this time around.

  William did notice a change in the battle, even if it was a marginal one. He wasn’t as incredibly helpless as before. The increase in strength was clear to him because he understood fully what his swings looked like when damaging the Corrupted Guardsman. Anything different stood out like a sore thumb.

  He swung as hard as he could and for the very first time, he shattered its arm during the melee. A moment of silence occurred as he watched the sword, with an arm still attached to it, fell in slow motion and clattered on the ground. Bouncing a few times before coming to a final rest. William couldn’t help the bubbling laughter and joy that gushed out of his chest at the small triumph as he stared at his greatest success so far–

  The Corrupted Guardsman punched him in the face with a fist that felt like it was made out of metal.

  William dropped to the ground as the word spun. He scrambled to get back up, but his legs felt like they were made out of jelly and his sense of balance non-existent. He stumbled back and forth like a drunk and fell face first into the ground directly in front of the guardsman’s leather boots.

  It screamed as it picked up the sword with its remaining hand. Raising it high as William tried to move his body and dropped it down without missing, cleaving his head in half.

  Welcome back to the Tutorial…

  It wasn't until the twenty-fifth death did he figure out a very important bit of information.

  The Corrupted Guardsmen had a move set, at least in the beginning, that he could take advantage of. It grabbed, screamed, squeezed as hard as it could, and then screamed again, only then did it stab at its face. After that it was random and in response to what he ended up doing. Always quicker and reacting faster to counter whatever he came up with.

  William couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. The longer he fought the Corrupted Guardsman, the more he figured out that there was only one chance that he had to actually beat it. Anything after the initial exchanges would be out of his ability to deal with. There was a way out of this now that he recognized there were a couple of openings for him to inflict as much damage as possible and level the battlefield in his favor.

  Though he still needed to be extra careful not to shatter his rusted sword beyond what was usable.

  He had a plan now. Brute forcing it was all good and dandy, but he needed to find a balance of both plotting and planning verses going straight into the battle and slam his sword into its face.

  William’s new goal was to shatter its sword arm and dive to grab the blade before it could pick it up, discarding his rusted piece of trash in the process. He would fight the darn thing while it was unarmed and he had the only usable weapon in the area. For some reason, it never picked up its shield. Not once in any of his loops did it wield both its sword and shield at the same time. Not that he was complaining.

  He stepped out of the cell and stared at the corpse from a distance. He paused for a second as he noticed something he hadn't before. The last death hadn't been excruciatingly painful. If anything, he barely felt it. He shook his head. There was no point to think about it too much because he had much bigger fish to fry at the moment. Maybe if he ended up killing the guardsman could he afford to be introspective.

  William charged the corrupted guardsmen, slamming his sword into the thinnest part of its forearm. His rusted blades top half shattering into pieces, barely missing him in the process. The Corrupted Guardsman’s eyes flared to life once more, and followed its sequence exactly as he thought it would. It snapped its free arm to grab him, but he dodged it and struck at the sword arm one more time.

  Said arm shattered in half and his sword crumbled into nothing but a hilt. He threw it at the guardsman’s face and dove at the blade. He ignored the dangling arm still attached to it. He scrambled to his feet with the new weapon in hand. It was longer than he was comfortable with considering his rusted sword was so much shorter and it weighed more.

  The system dinged with a new notification, but it didn’t appear in his vision. William ignored it for now.

  He had no time to check it out or unwrap the guardsman’s tight grip on the sword as he backed up to give himself space. The Corrupted Guardsman shot up to its feet and played out the same exact sequence at the beginning. It screamed and squeezed his hand as though it was using the force. William could imagine his neck being in between those sharp fingers mostly because he had been caught by the same thing a dozen times already.

  William didn't hesitate for a second. He swung as hard as he could with his new sword at the other arm.

  Only to stumble forward as he shattered the offending hand with one swing. William stared in shock, he had been expecting more resistance, or maybe his rusted sword was just that trash? The skeleton moved its missing sword arm as though it was going to stab him again, going through the motions of the opening sequence of its moveset. This was his final opportunity before it started to become far more unpredictable.

  William sliced at its head, missing the open gap of its helmet but hitting it. Denting it even more.

  He winced.

  I want that helmet.

  The guardsman screamed with a muffled voice as it tracked him. Whatever function they used to find him had nothing to do with vision. The helmet was on wrong, covering its eyes, but it still knew how to target him and charge him. Not once pausing for a second to find him. It locked onto something else entirely.

  William didn’t have to worry about its reach anymore as it no longer had a viable weapon nor arms to grab him with. It was easier to keep his distance and chip away at it. He used the sword to stop its momentum with a few heavy strikes. Slowly breaking it down. It wasn’t until he slammed his sword into a gap around its hip that it fell to the ground unable to stand back up.

  “How does it feel to lose your balance now, huh? Don't like it, do you?” he taunted it.

  William felt confidence fill his chest, and began his stunting on the Corrupted Guardsman. He took his time to tear it apart, enjoying every second of cutting its limbs off one by one and leaving it with nothing more than a torso and a head. It did not blink once at its injuries, still fighting to crawl toward him using its stubbed little broken nubs on the shoulder. It snapped its mouth, screaming in hate and fury, at him in hopes to get a bite in. William made sure to be extra careful at this point. He did not want to do this again because he got careless and was bitten. It probably had diseases of nasty bacteria that would eat him alive on it.

  He took his time as he removed its helmet. It almost snapped his fingers off in the process.

  William stabbed his sword through its head and shattered its skull. Its red eyes flickered for a few seconds before they dimed into darkness; finally dead.

  The system dinged to life.

  Quest Completed

  Killed - [Corrupted Guardsman (E-)]

  Rewards in Inventory!

  Tips and Hints -

  Not all monsters can be tackled with brute force.

  Creatively adjust your plans to defeat difficult, specialized foes.

  Relief flooded his entire body as he studied the words. It was over.

  William took his time to read it over and over again. He couldn't help but laugh like an idiot as he dropped to his knees and felt his entire body go slack from the missing rush of energy that had been driving him the entire fight. Exhaustion unlike anything before filled his entire body as more notifications appeared in his vision one after the other. He felt his eyelids grow heavy with every passing second. All his deaths seemed to culminate to this moment, as an otherworldly fatigue seemed to grow stronger and stronger, something beyond anything he had ever experienced in his life.

  Worse than any day of work.

  William forced himself to stand back up, he couldn’t allow himself to fall unconscious in the middle of the hall in case something came by. He collected all the armor pieces and anything else he found on the thing, leaving it stripped naked. There was no way in hell he would not collect every bit of loot he could find. Not after all his deaths and struggles. He threw everything into his inventory without looking at them or noticing what they were.

  William shambled like a corpse back into the cell, falling asleep as soon as he tumbled face first into the puddle he always woke up in after death.