Ten minutes or so before the first announcement showed up. Even before Perse had woken up, when he was still lying in the alley with Chris and the others, a little slug was about to make its cocoon and needed a safe place.
The insect had a green body and its head looked like a cat's cutely. It found a good place in a corner between two buildings. The larva was excited to start working towards its new life when, suddenly, a meteorite hit the wall!
-ClankClank
The slug was trembling with fear! Its dream life was crushed by the sound of imminent destruction beyond his mere limit as a being!
"Bubu?" It said.
'Is this the end of my existence?' That is what it would've thought if it were human. Maybe.
The slug saw the projectile coming at it, again. It tried to turn around to no gain, as it was far too small to leave the grasp of an unfathomable destiny. Surrendering itself to an unavoidable tragedy, the insect accepted fate.
Then, it heard the most glorious sound ever.
"Ugh!"
A melody of life, death, and bravery. The insect looked at its savior. He who had intervened in his dream's destruction, with his clothes and skin full of dirt and blood. A true warrior.
-Hick.
The slug couldn't help but cry.
Perhaps it was the excitement or the adrenaline, but soon after it felt an intense amount of pain in its body. As if its body was thrown into an ocean of sharp ice for a thousand years.
Among the confusion it felt, it heard the warrior sing again, louder than before. Only this time he wasn't alone. And so, the slug fell asleep to a symphony of battle cries.
When it woke up again, it was laying against its savior's body. A beautiful black substance that seemed to embrace the exhausted human had saved the insect when it fell from the wall. Once again, this unknown giant had protected it.
If only it had the strength to repay the debt.
The slug turned its body to take a closer look at the human. Only then did it realize that… its body had changed!
It dreamed of the day where he would have the happiness of admiring its new body. However… The sensation was different from what it was expecting.
'Bubbububu?!' (Translation: 'What is this?!')
The slug had grown bigger in size. Way bigger. Its body was now covered in a coat of vibrant green fur and its length was now that of a house dog. Its mouth had teeth as sharp as those of a saber-toothed cat and Its eyes were just as black as the liquid surrounding its savior.
It could see and hear better. And it felt as if it could destroy the entire building behind it.
Still, the slug looked like a long spider without legs and two eyes.
A wave of different emotions washed through its body. It understood the sudden epiphany of a weakling that had been given a chance to survive in this cruel world. It knew what it had to do.
And just like that, the slug dragged Perse's body all the way to a somewhat empty district that was five train stations away from where Perse had been before.
That took a lot of time.
At one point, the wristwatch's constant beeping became too annoying for the slug to bear, so it cut the band with its teeth and just threw it away. After a while, it felt guilty so it had gone back for it.
Fortunately, the slug wasn't the only one who had noticed the warrior's greatness. Along the way, many other insects with particular characteristics had come to help. It entrusted the giant's safety to them before going to retrieve the watch.
Once the slug came back to the place where it had left Perse's body, it almost cried when it saw that its savior had woken up! It felt so happy that it forgot how to move!
The little thing felt its body give in from exhaustion. It fell asleep soundly after making sure its master was safe.
Minutes later, the wristwatch started to throb angrily. The slug immediately woke up and remembered that it had to give back the watch. It hurriedly approached the building where Perse had disappeared and began to climb hurriedly with the help of the other insects.
Although it couldn't have seen them or understood what was written in them, the screens now recorded a different message.
[NEO SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT:
ALL REMAINING USERS WILL BE TRANSPORTED TO THE TUTORIAL! (^_^)
15:59:50]
By the moment the slug arrived at the entrance of the hallway where Perse's room was, directed by a friendly and, the wristwatch's sound had become louder.
The slug had just gotten closer to the door when the watch let go an immense wave of electricity through the slug's body.
...
Despite the terrible world in which he was born, Perse did not have a hard life.
After his parents abandoned him, he met some not-so-horrible people who fed and clothed him.
They had tried to eat him, but, well, it wasn't all that bad. These things happen.
Sure, he was scammed a few times and his only job after dropping out of college was to steal old things from former-wizard houses and resell them, but still...
Perse always thought he was rather good at adapting to new situations. It was almost like a survival instinct to him. But, he was reaching his limit for the first time.
"Are you kidding?!" He said, loudly. Suddenly, a new system notification showed up.
[?NEO¿ SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT:
NOPE LOL!^^ YOU'RE DEAD! _(X3 J L)_一]
"Son of a-"
-Thud!
Before having any time to think, he heard a loud sound coming from outside his room. Cautiously,
Perse got out of the bathroom and put on the change of clothes he had found before.
All this time, the sound had been constant and, since he didn't know how to get rid of it, the system notification still shined brightly in the air, following him.
-ThudThud!
Perse looked around for something he could use to defend himself. Unfortunately, the only thing he could find after checking inside the lost luggage was a pair of kitchen scissors.
Sight. "Couldn't there be something else? I'm not asking for a gun. But, maybe a baseball bat or something." He said.
[-Ching%%%]
Perse looked, dumbfounded, at the place where the system notification was floating. The previous words had suddenly changed and it now showed a white spiral. A bright object was being made from the previous words.
"How?!" He didn't even understand how the projection was functioning without the watch, much less how it could create something out of thin air. For him.
He had been ignoring all the questions piling up inside of his head, but the uneasy feeling brought by the unknown situation had become unbearable.
'Did everyone else experience this? What about the people inside the tutorial? Is this magic or is it technology? Are we being watched by Them? Have They been watching us the whole time?'
Finally, the object fell to the hotel room's floor and the notification disappeared after flickering five times. Perse picked up the small object, hesitantly.
It was another pair of food scissors. For kids.
…Sight.
-ThudThud!
Perse tried to keep his cool and move towards the door with both scissors in his hands. Unlike before, he couldn't do anything to stop them from shaking.
Slowly, he opened the door. Glazing at the corridor, what he found was the inexplicable big dead body of a long spider with cat ears and no legs, convulsing against his door. It had Perse's cheap watch wrapped around its body. And at the other side of the corridor, an ant just as big as a labrador dog watching him with a weird look, frozen.
Perse tried to put a friendly smile on his face.
"Yo."
The ant ran away immediately. Perse could swear it was crying.
He stood there, not knowing what to do.
"Can things get weirder?" He said out loud, unconsciously.
[-Ching%%%]
[@!##&&& ANNOUNCEMENT:
YOU POSSESS THE QUALIFICATIONS FOR A [[C H A N C E]].
DO YOU WISH TO ENTER THE FEAST?
YES/NO]
Finally, the last string of sanity broke, and with his whole chest, he screamed at the air.
"How f*cking annoying!!"
The sudden scream startled the ant and made it look back for a second before continuing to run away. That human looked pissed when he had talked to it before, even more now that he was cursing at the air. The ant didn't want to stay there anymore and abandoned its dead friend.
Though, the ant couldn't understand why the human was smiling if he was so angry.