A Gamer's Guide To Beating The Tutorial

Its eyes sharpen.

“But you’ll still die for me?”

I was born for. However, that still assumes

you are capable of defeating me.>

I leap to my feet. “H—hey! Of course I’ll be able to defeat you, you big furry oaf! If I wanted to, I could tie a knot out of your limbs and go fishing with your wormy tongue!”

Somehow, in return, the beast actually smirks. Can dogs do that? Apparently.

actual enemies of this floor?>

“The actual…?”

And, as if on cue, a paw stretches out from inside the puddle, thin skin and loose fur stretched over a bony canine body. The rest of the creature soon pulls itself out, panting with every movement it makes like a malbred pug. The fur is wet and dark, saggy in some places where there is more flesh than bone, stretched thin where the dog’s meat and organs have grown bloated. The neck is choked shut by a thin piece of rope, upon which dangles a soggy, wet purse. Like an actual money purse. The kind a little old lady would keep her coins and little notes in—that kind of purse.

It turns to me, a spool of foamy saliva webbing down the side of its necrotic jaws. Empty eyes. Pupilless. It doesn’t really see me in the typical sense, the way the beast of fraud looks at me, or I at it. It’s more like an animatronic, rigid as it steps towards me, fleshless limbs dragging a bloated body.

I point a finger at it. “That thing? I have to defeat a bunch of those?”

It doesn’t answer me, probably because it knows what I said wasn’t really a question. Very well. If it wants to leave me to my fate, so be it.

I’ve dealt with zombies before. This will be no different.

I hunch down into position and the second it lunges at me I in turn fly at it, rolling into a ball mid-air to briefly confuse it. But it isn’t confused. Or, rather, it shows no confusion whatsoever. Like a dog flying after a ball that was never thrown, it keeps going, even though it doesn’t actually know where I am. It leaps into the air, jaws wide, luck alone guiding it to bite into an arm I chose to sacrifice.

We both clatter to the floor. I scrape up my back a little and I can hear one or two of the dog’s brittle bones breaking, but it doesn’t care and neither do I. Jumping to my feet, I abuse every inch of my enhanced balance skill to keep on my feet, something that proves itself more than difficult once the dog pulls me into a tug-’o-war over my own arm. One made all the more difficult since the floor is about as slippery as any political slope.

I loose footing within seconds, the dog mindlessly leaping atop me, jaws grinding the bones of my forearm to dust as its paws stab into my chest. It’s as heavy as you’d expect a drowned corpse to be, and it uses that to its advantage.

At this moment, the only thing between its frothing jaws and my head is my one arm.

Experimentally, I reach down and use my free hand to pop its bloated belly like a balloon. And it does indeed pop, releasing a stench more noxious than any can of surstömming alongside a homogeneous slurry of organs, each completely indiscernible from the other.

Enhanced Scent Lv.9>

Aaaaaaaand it just got worse. Ah, wonderful. Anyhow, I’ve had enough of this farce, so I reach up and tear out the jaw again, which is just as effective as it was underwater. Just as before, the dog isn’t very interested in giving up and sticking its tail between its legs, so it keeps going, now trying to scratch at me with its paws. An ardent attempt to be sure, but I don’t care.

I would have been more interested in how it keeps going even with its paws broken, but I’ve played this game before, and my strats are already perfected. Cut off the head, dismember the body, stick most of it into the inventory, wonder about how a cut-off head can still pant if it’s disconnected from the mushified lungs in its main body…

—Notice the purse. It’s still connected to the bit of string, but the purse remains unopened. Out of sheer curiosity, I pick it up. It’s far from heavy, though the being-fully-soaked aspect is weighing it down a little. Not as much as the small clinking things inside of it, though.

Only now that I open the purse does the dog show any hint of emotion, whining in fear. Hm.

I peek inside the purse. I can feel my brows furrow as I remove the two coins from inside. They aren’t from Earth, but they also aren’t any kind that I can recall from purgatory, though they’re heavy enough to be made of some kind of valuable material. The two coins have the same design, that being a goblin on one side and a dragon on the other—which looks really cool if you ask me—but they aren’t fully equal in shape, showing that they’re hand-made. I almost want to pop one in my mouth to see if I gain anything, but I don’t think I’d get anything other than a stomach ache and a judgemental look from the beast of fraud.

Remembering that I’m not alone in here, I peek over at the beast. It’s looking at me. It doesn’t even look away at my noticing it’s looking at me. That’s rude. I’m pretty sure that’s rude.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than watch me?” I spit at it.

“I don’t know. Chase invisible squirrels. Growl at empty corners. You know, typical dog stuff?”