The Tutorial NPC Knows Something She Shouldn't
Character Profile: Kaito "The Grind"
Age: 24
Class: [NONE—Deleted during beta test]
Level: 947
Signature Move: "Thousand Cuts" (Animation-cancel combo, 15 hits/sec, ignores dodge)
Motivation: Protect Yui. Survive the Patch.
Flaw: Cannot ask for help. Would rather grind for three days than trust someone for three minutes.
The slime died with a pathetic *pop*.
Blue jelly splattered across my boots—boots I'd been wearing for three days straight because the inventory system locked until you left the starting zone.
I didn't leave.
[Slime defeated! +1 EXP]
[Current Level: 847]
The notification floated in my vision, translucent and glowing. I swiped it away like an annoying ad.
"You're still here?"
The voice came from behind me. I didn't turn around. I knew who it was.
Everyone on this server knew who she was.
"Day three, Tutorial Forest." Her footsteps crunched on the pixel-perfect grass. "Most people clear this in twenty minutes. The record is eight."
I stabbed another slime.
*Pop.*
"You're that beta guy, right?" She circled into my peripheral vision—blonde hair, custom armor that cost more than a car, and a guild emblem floating above her head like a crown. *Aurora*, the top-ranked Paladin. Streamer. Idol. The face of the new world.
I said nothing.
"The forums say you're bugged. Soft-locked." She crouched, resting her elbows on her knees, staring up at me with eyes too blue to be natural. Probably a cosmetic drop. "They say you can't leave the starting zone. That you're grinding mobs that give one experience point forever because you don't know how to open the menu."
I knew how to open the menu.
I also knew that in six days, twenty-three hours, and fourteen minutes, the Final Patch would deploy.
And when it did, everyone would be judged by their **Total Level**—not their class, not their equipment, not their guild rank.
Just the number.
And the only way to break past level 999 before the world ended was to exploit a hidden mechanic that the developers never fixed: **Diminishing Returns Immunity**.
If you never left the tutorial zone, your EXP gain never decreased.
Every slime was still worth one point.
At level 847, I was already stronger than ninety-nine percent of the player base.
They just couldn't see it yet.
"Hey." She snapped her fingers in front of my face. "I'm talking to you. Kaito, right?"
I finally looked at her.
Not at her face.
At the countdown timer only I could see, burning red in the corner of my vision:
**06:23:14:52**
Six days.
"You're wasting your time," she said, standing up. Brushing off her armor like she'd contaminated herself by speaking to me. "The real content starts at the Capital. World bosses. Territory wars. The actual game."
*Pop.*
Another slime.
[Level: 848]
"The tutorial ends eventually," she said, walking away. "And when it does, you'll be a level 900 nobody with starter gear. Good luck surviving the Patch with that."
I watched her disappear into the trees, her level indicator floating above her head like a badge of honor.
**Level 34.**
I almost laughed.
Instead, I opened my inventory—still locked to anyone else, but functional for me thanks to a sequence of button presses only beta testers knew.
Inside, gleaming with an aura that shouldn't exist in the tutorial zone, sat the **Slime King's Crown**.
Seventeen of them, actually.
Each one increased EXP gain by 0.1% per level.
At level 848, that was 848% bonus experience.
Per slime.
The math was simple. Brutal. Beautiful.
While Aurora and her guild fought over raid bosses that gave ten thousand EXP once, I was earning eight hundred and forty-eight points every three seconds.
Compound interest.
The oldest cheat code in existence.
I knelt down, wiping slime residue from a crown that looked like compressed sapphire. The item description flickered:
*[Developer Note: Removed in Patch 1.0. Final Build only.]*
Final Build.
The world after the countdown.
I stood up, stretched my back, and looked at the forest around me—not as a beginner zone, but as a factory. A machine designed to manufacture power.
My phone buzzed.
A text from my sister, sent through the game's integrated messaging system because the real world's infrastructure was already failing:
*"Everyone's going to the Capital for protection. When are you coming?"*
I stared at the message for a long time.
Then I typed back:
*"Don't go to the Capital. Go to the Tutorial Forest. Northwest corner. Bring food."*
I hit send before I could second-guess myself.
Trusting someone with the secret was dangerous.
But leaving her to die in the Capital when the Patch hit?
That was impossible.
I looked at the sky—rendered in perfect 4K, artificial clouds drifting on predetermined paths. Beautiful. Deadly.
**06:23:11:08**
Three seconds gone.
Three seconds closer to the end of the world.
I drew my rusted starter sword and walked deeper into the forest, toward the secret spawn point where the Elder Slime respawned every hour.
Time to work.
