Perhaps it was the darkness that gave her confidence, maybe the knowledge that he couldn't see how hideous she was gave her strength. Or perhaps it was the way he looked at her like a person, not the freak she really was.
Whatever the reason, Rachel didn't mind walking the whole way back to the town with Lan, and when he offered to help her with practising telepathy, she accepted. Immediately after she regretted that, but it was too late to take it back.
So, after dawn broke and the beast wave was pushed back, she would see him again. As she lay on the rickety cot in her run-down hut, her stomach churned just thinking about it. And she fell asleep in a mess of anxiety and excitement.
***
Lan woke up on the wrong side of the bed. His bed was very particular like that. One side was perfect, maybe a little damp, but he had slept in worse. The other looked like it had been put inside a blender.
Springs and sharp pieces of metal jabbed out through the ancient mattress and despite his best efforts, he had ended up waking on this side.
With a wince, he got up, feeling his robe snag on a twisted bed spring and tear slightly. The room was gloomy, with only a single barred window, it felt more like a cell than somewhere a person should sleep.
But Lan could only regret that he walked behind the rest of the crowd on his way to the town. By the time he had finally arrived all the good huts had been taken and he was left with… this thing.
It looked like a bunch of mishappen pieces of wood had just happened to fall on top of each other at just the right angle to form a box shape. And then there was the smell, it wasn't the worst thing he'd smelt, but it was close.
His hut was right beside the barrier, which was handy since he could be one of the first people to respond to the beast wave. But as it turned out, the bodies of the wolves didn't just disappear after they were killed.
Instead, they were pushed into a huge pile at the edge of the forest and that pile had begun to reek of rotting flesh and blood.
There was no wind in the tutorial, and the smell sort of sat there, permeating the surroundings in a toxic miasma that had begun to creep into the town. It just so happened that Lan's hut was on the same side as the pile of bodies.
'Maybe I should just burn them, I'll have to see if I can find something to light them on fire with first,'
Lan clambered off the death trap he called a 'bed' and stumbled out into the cold artificial light of 'day'. The town was already buzzing with energy as people ran to and fro, the crafters frantically trying to reinforce the barricade before the next wave and the fighters trying to make the most of the daylight.
Last night, everyone had learned the hard way that going out when it was dark was almost suicide. Which made the meagre hours of daylight all the more precious.
Yesterday, he had decided that while his bone spear, which he refused to let go of, was a decent weapon, it could use some company.
If all he used was a spear, he wouldn't be taking full advantage of his talent and he needed to increase his arsenal in both diversity and size.
His first thought was to steal someone else's weapon, but that was proving harder than he had expected. Like him, almost everyone walked around with their weapons tightly clenched in their hands, so that if they died, their weapons would stay with them.
'The salamander has tough skin, and its eyes are the only real weakness I've found so far. If I want to target something like that… then I need a weapon I can throw,'
He noticed that one of the crafters repairing the wall had a toolkit full of heavy metal bolts and as quietly as he could, sneaked over, grabbing a fistful as he walked by.
Without turning around to check if his theft had been noticed, he strode out of the village and onto the cobbled path, constantly scanning his surroundings for any vultures that might take him as an easy target.
Right now, he was taking a risk. By leaving the town behind, he would most likely miss the beast wave entirely, and a lot of points and experience. But he needed to get that salamander while he was still level 1. And if he ended up levelling while fighting the beast wave, he would miss out on his chance to earn the title.
'Besides, I'm sure they won't miss me during the beast wave. I'm probably one of the weakest people here,'
Walking along the road, he did his best to remain inconspicuous as he tried to find the place where he had first left the path yesterday. The pockets of his robe were heavy and clinked as he walked, the bolts rattling freely.
Eventually, he managed to retrace his steps and after a slightly easier trip through the forest this time round, he arrived at the river, following it to the pool.
Back where he had died the day earlier, he looked for the level 4 salamander's body but found only bones that gleamed a bright white. Its skeleton had been picked clean by something overnight.
Shaking his head, he remembered the deafening chirping and compared it to the serene quiet of the forest now. 'At night, it's like it becomes a completely different place. I wonder if my body is still there...'
Morbid curiosity led Lan to the river which bubbled peacefully, hiding the monsters beneath its tepid surface. But no matter where he looked, his body was gone. Not even bones remained.
'That's weird, maybe my body was healed rather than creating a brand new one,' he figured that would be cheaper for whoever ran the tutorial.
For some reason, he found that he was actually kind of disappointed that he couldn't see his own dead body. 'It would have been kind of cool just to know what I look like,'
He took a step back from the river and followed it down to the waterfall that fed into the pool where the level 6 stayed.
The river itself was quite wide but shallow, only a few feet deep at most. While the riverbed was the same rocky colour as the salamanders that hid in it.
Setting to work, he began using one of the salamander's leg bones to dig a trench from the top of the waterfall, around to the stream that ran from the pool.
As he dug, he began to wonder just how this environment had come to be. 'It makes sense that the salamanders would stay underwater all the time, to avoid whatever the hell comes out at night. But did they evolve that way, or is that just how the tutorial was designed?'
Everything about the tutorial felt artificial and curated. And now that he was thinking about it, the administrator had said that the empty space in the hall had a purpose before the factions appeared to fill it.
'Perhaps everything is more layered than I think. But the question is, what can I gain from figuring this all out? I'm sure most people come here and focus entirely on clearing the beast waves, so maybe only the second-generation kids know what sort of opportunities hide beneath the surface in the tutorial,'
The river began to be diverted, flowing through the trench he had dug around the waterfall and joining up with the stream further down. Gradually, the water level of the pool began to lower and as Lan widened his trench, the rate at which water left the pool only decreased.
As he waited for the water level to fall low enough that the level 6 salamander was forced to leave, Lan went about setting up a trap.
Thankful for his increased strength, he managed to dig a shallow pit and covered it with fallen branches and leaves, making sure to memorise exactly where he had put it, so he didn't end up catching himself.
He was just putting the finishing touches on the trap when he heard water slosh as something huge slid out of the pool.
It was huge, bigger than a horse even and the first thing it saw when it left the pool was Lan, staring right into its bulbous eyes.
The salamander growled lowly and glared at him. But neither made a move to attack nor run, simply standing in deadlock on opposite sides of the pit.
Lan reached into his pocket as slowly as he could manage, cursing the shitty material of his robe as it rustled while he pulled out a few heavy bolts about as thick as his thumb.
Time stood still as his breathing slowed and Lan's mind was filled with inspirations. He knew how to grip the bolt just right and how hard he should throw it. He knew when he should let go and he knew exactly how to move his arm so that he didn't overextend himself.
Everything came together in his mind like a giant jigsaw puzzle and like a baseball pitcher, he put one foot forward, winding back his arm and letting the bolt fly.
He held his breath as the metal streaked through the air and smashed into the salamander's wide-open eye. Blood flew and the monster screeched, furiously shaking its head as it tried to dislodge the bolt.
Lan didn't have any time to celebrate, as he was just barely able to grab his spear from the ground when the Salamander threw itself at him.
Just like the previous one, instead of its extreme speed while in water, on land the salamander was clumsy and sluggish. Its long, flat tail was little more than weight dragging it down out here.
But it was still a level 6 creature that had at least double Lan's stats. And what it lacked in finesse, it made up for in pure strength. It barrelled through fallen logs, pushing away anything that got in its way aside with frightening ease.
Cursing, Lan stood rooted to the spot, praying it wouldn't notice the trap and would simply fall into the pit he had dug. Every instinct he had was screaming at him to run but he had come this far, 'Besides, it's not like I'll actually die,'
The salamander was almost on top of the trap and Lan could only watch on with his heart in his mouth, as it placed a huge, scaled foot onto the leaves and plummeted through, landing in a twisted heap in the pit.
"It actually worked…" Lan stood stunned for a moment, not quite believing it had been so easy.
In the pit, the salamander had gone deathly quiet, but he knew it wasn't dead since he didn't receive any notifications.
To check, he threw another bolt, but it bounced uselessly off the creature's rocky back, pinging into the forest.
Gritting his teeth, Lan tiptoed over to the edge of the pit and looked down just in time to see the tail whip towards him like grey lightning.
He threw his head back, just barely avoiding decapitation and rolled away. Springing to his feet, he glanced at the pit where the salamander had begun to slowly climb out.
'Shit, shit, shit, I can't let that thing escape!' Desperately, he ran over to the pit, where the salamander had stuck its head over the edge and was now clawing at the loosely packed earth, raising clouds of dust and dirt.
He threw another bolt, but it bounced uselessly off the creature's closed eyelid, joining the previous one in the forest.
'Why the hell is its skin so tough?!'
He contemplated just throwing the bone spear at the closed eyelid and preying that worked, but if that didn't kill it, he would be completely unable to hurt the salamander at all.
What he needed to do was get close enough to stab the salamander, but if he did that, he would also be close enough to get hit by its tail.
Gritting his teeth, Lan ran up to the struggling beast and before it could swing at him, kicked dirt in its bulbous eye, forcing it to flinch closed.
Then, he followed the instructions of his talent, twisting his whole body as he stabbed out with the spear, sending the bone spike a few inches into its closed eyelid.
The salamander's tail lashed out and caught him in the hip, shattering the bone and sending him sprawling into the dirt.
In the pit, the creature roared and thrashed, raising so much noise Lan became terrified it would attract the attention of more beasts.
He tried to stand but his legs gave out, screaming in pain from his ruined hip. Helplessly, he was forced to watch as the salamander crawled from the pit and slowly advanced towards him, blood streaming from both of its ruined eyes.
It hissed and spat as it stumbled towards him, and Lan could feel the ground tremble from each step that it took.
"Agh!" He screamed, rolling over and grabbing the bone spear that had fallen beside him.
The Salamander growled in response, opening its mouth wide enough to bite his torso in half. When Lan looked down its gaping maw, he could see bits of flesh stuck between its cruel, serrated teeth, 'Its breath stinks,'
Suddenly, Lan's mind which had been clouded with pain became crystal clear. A single inspiration overwhelmed him, and he lent back and launched the bone spear forward.
It flew like a javelin and somehow, Lan knew it would strike true before it had even landed. The piece of bone flashed white as it tunnelled into the salamander's open mouth and impaled straight through the back of its head.
Lan was just about to celebrate when the salamander toppled forward, its massive bulk crushing him as it fell.
Pain like he had never quite experienced before exploded out from his entire body, before the whole world went black and he was, once again, in the great hall.
The soft red carpet beneath his feet was becoming worryingly familiar and he wondered if maybe he was taking his inability to die a little bit too lightly.
For the moment, though, he didn't care about anything other than the notifications that had just appeared on his screen.
[Title acquired: Class Of Your Own
Description - You have spit in the face of convention and levels, managing to defeat something 5 levels above yourself. Continue on this path, and you will be rewarded.
Reward: +5 in all stats]