In a remote cave, a place where there aren't many demons around. There was a group of players and villagers hiding in the cave in order not to be seen by the demons outside.
In this world, there are two types of humans: Players and Adventurers. Players are humans from Earth, and Adventurers are the local humans of this world.
"Shh! Don't make any noise guys." [David]
"Yes… by the way, can you track and see how many demons are there outside?" Tom asked David.
"Sorry, I can't do that. That's too risky as they might sense us if I use my tracking skill." [David]
"Then are we just going to stay here and wait forever? It's been two weeks and we'll soon run out of supplies like food and water." [Dongwoo]
"He's right. If we don't take action now, sooner or later we're all going to die of hunger." [Jack]
"I agree with Jack, we have to do something." Amelia nodded her head in agreement.
"I understand you guys are concerned, but let's wait for a few more days and see. Who knows, by then the demons might start patrolling elsewhere." [David]
"Fine. In the meantime, since we're going to fight in a few days, shouldn't we start coming up with a plan now?" Tom said in a suggestive manner.
…
…
…
***
It has been an hour exploring the forest. So far, Sol has only encountered animals, but no demons or monsters yet.
"What a beautiful forest."
Sol was amazed by the beauty of nature here. Unlike Earth, this world has no pollution, and also the nature here was many times richer than Earth. Even the air in this world smells so much better, which gives a very refreshing feeling.
Sol felt relaxed, as he took his own sweet time walking in the forest with his two hands resting behind his head.
Out of nowhere, a group of Giant Wolves about the size of a Siberian Tiger ambushed and surrounded him.
'Speaking of the devil, I was getting bored and looking for some action, what a great timing.'
ROAR!!!
ROAR!!!
ROAR!!!
One of the Giant Wolves in the front made its first move and charged at Sol. Not long after, the other Giant Wolves followed along and attacked Sol from all directions.
Instead of dodging the attacks, Sol stood still and absorbed everything. Naturally, none of the bites were strong enough to penetrate his skin, let alone even leaving a scratch.
"Is that all you guys got? Well, that's disappointing."
Compared to the monsters in the Tutorial World, the monsters in this world were easily a few times weaker on average.
"Alright, my turn now."
With that, Sol punched one of the Giant Wolves in the stomach, normally, this would've sent the Giant Wolf flying away, but somehow nothing happened.
"Eh?? What's going on?"
Sol was confused because normally a punch like that was more than enough to destroy a mountain, so killing a Giant Wolf shouldn't be a problem for him. However, for some reason, his punch didn't do much damage, let alone even hurting it.
[Warning!]
[Debuff: Your body has not fully adjusted to the outside world. As a result, you've suffered a side effect that reduced your Attack Power & Speed greatly.]
"What?! You gotta be kidding me, right?!"
RAWRR!!
RAWRR!!
RAWRR!!
Since Sol's attacks do very little damage, he has no choice but to kill those Giant Wolves by focusing their weak spots, such as their eyes, nose, ears and at the same time, he also happened to find some stones on the ground nearby, which he could use as a weapon to deal extra damage.
Roughly 45 minutes later…
After killing all the Giant Wolves, Sol sat down near a tree and tried to process everything that just happened to him.
Despite the long fight, Sol doesn't feel tired at all. It seemed the debuff only reduced his attack damage and speed, but other areas such as stamina, endurance, or physical fitness in general still remained the same.
"Goddammit! I feel so weak. It seems like my strength and agility stats have dropped to the level of a normal human being."
Thankfully, his defense stats still remained the same, otherwise, he would've been long dead by now.
'Man, this debuff is annoying. It doesn't seem to have any timer on the debuff either, does that mean the debuff will last forever?'
[Tips: There is a potion that removes debuff, you can find and buy them in the System Shop.]
'The System shop sells it? I see. Well, looks like it will take a while before I can unlock the System shop and get the debuff potion.' Sol sighed.
After a while, Sol got up and began moving again.
His goal right now is to acquire more information about this world. And to do that, he needs to find people and ask them.
A few days later…
Outside the cave, David's group and the other villagers were seen fighting the demons.
They managed to kill up to 14 demons, but because of the commotion they made, they ended up alerting more demons nearby. Before they realized, ahead of them about 75 meters away, they saw at least a few hundred demons approaching.
"Dammit! This does not look good!" [Jack]
"David! What should we do now?!" Dongwoo said in a worried tone.
Seeing that, David immediately yelled out loud and said, "Everyone! Stop fighting and run toward the south now!"
"Huh, what?"
"Go south?"
Everyone was confused.
"There's no time to waste! Just shut up and follow me now!" [David]
Without hesitation, everyone stopped fighting and immediately ran south.
"Heh, you think you foolish humans can run away from me?" Barus, the demon leader laughed evilly.
"Get them! Don't let them escape!" Barus yelled at his army.
"Huraaaaaa!!" The demon army yelled to boost their morale.
Not long later, David's group reached a dead end, and arrived at the edges of a cliff.
"Goddammit! This is a dead end!" [Dongwoo]
"To think we're all going to die here… Fuck! I can't accept this!" [Tom]
David's group began to panic when they realized there was no hope for them to escape.
"Hahaha! I have to say you humans did a good job surviving until now," Barus said while clapping his hands, "So what do you guys choose? Die by our hands or suicide by jumping off the cliff?"
"Everyone, I know you might not like this, but let's kill ourselves by jumping off the cliff. This way we can ensure we don't get torture and suffer before we die." [David]
In some cases, depending on the mood of the demons, sometimes they would torture their victims for fun before killing them.
"Fuck it! If we're all going to die anyway, then I would rather kill as many demons before my life ends. As long as each of us could kill at least two demons, I say it's worth it." [Dongwoo]
"Well, that works too, I guess." [David]
When Barus the demon leader heard that, he smirked evilly.
"Hohoho! You think I would let you guys do that? Good move! But as long as I'm here, none of your plans are going to work."
It was at this time, Barus got off his demon horse and decided to take matters into his own hand.
"Haha… we're screwed. Change of plan, let's just jump off the cliff because there's no way we can win this." [David]
Meanwhile, not far away from where David's group was, below them, Sol was climbing up the cliff and it's about time he will encounter David's group.
"Come on, just a little more, almost there." [Sol]
After a short while, Sol finally reached the top of the cliff and to his surprise, he saw many people.
"Eh? What's going on here?" Sol asked in a curious manner, "Hey, what are those things in front of us?" Sol said while pointing at the demons.
Sol had never seen a demon before, so he had no idea and if anything, he was intrigued by the demons' appearance.
The demons' appearance looks very similar to humans, except they have horns, sharp teeth, and reptile eyes.
Hearing what Sol said, everyone was speechless because that was probably the dumbest question they had ever heard in their life.
'Is this guy a joke? Came out of nowhere and doesn't even know what a demon is?' David thought.
'What's up with this guy? Has he been living under a rock or something? How the hell doesn't he know what a demon is?' Tom thought.
In order to have a closer look at the demons, Sol walked forward and eventually arrived right in front of the demon leader, Barus.
"Woah! Nice horns you have, are they real?" [Sol]
"What a stupid question. Of course, they are real!" Barus replied proudly, "Alright, no more playing games, time to die!"
Without mercy, Barus took out his giant sword and swung vertically aiming at Sol's head.
VERTICAL SLASH!
CLANG!
Just one finger was all it took for Sol to block it.
"Hey man! It's rude to attack suddenly without any reason." Sol was a little annoyed.
Meanwhile, everyone had their mouths wide open as they couldn't believe what they just saw.
"No way…! Did he just block it with one finger?"
"Umm, tell me I'm not dreaming right now? This has to be a dream, right?"
"No, I can assure you're definitely not dreaming."
Sol turned around and said to one of the players in David's group, "Hey you, can I borrow your weapon, please?"
Jack was still in shock, but he still responded nervously, "Sure…! Take it!"
Jack threw his sword at Sol.
Sol caught it and said, "Thanks."
Facing Barus, Sol said, "I don't know who you are, but one thing I know for sure you are an enemy."
"For your info, that dude you're facing is a demon. A threat to all mankind," Tom said to Sol.
"A demon? Hmm. Now that I look closely, his appearance does actually look like a demon." [Sol]
Barus wanted to speak, but he was still shocked from earlier when Sol blocked his attack with just one finger.
'To stop my attack with one finger… this guy… he's definitely at least Diamond-Rank or higher. Looks like I've messed with the wrong person this time. Dammit! No one told me a Diamond-Rank player would be here. Fuck, this isn't looking too good.' Barus thought.
Barus was a smart guy, he was not the type that would fight a battle if he knew he would lose. That's the reason why he was able to survive until now.
[Name: Barus]
[Title: Demon Leader]
[Age: 266 years old.]
[Class: Warrior]
[Rank: Silver]
"I see, thanks for the info," Sol replied to Tom.
Sol knew his damage was low since his attack power got nerfed by the debuff, so he had no choice but to rely on weapons to do damage for now.
Ranking system in this world:
From the weakest to the strongest: Bronze-Rank - Silver-Rank - Gold-Rank - Platinum-Rank - Diamond-Rank.