Level Up Machine

Chapter  Tutorial (3)

Puuuk!

“Kurururu!”

A rough sword lodged into the orc’s neck.

From the orc’s neck, a fountain of dark red blood spurted out.

Another orc behind it screamed and charged.

The young man, who had thrust his sword into the orc’s neck, quickly pulled back, gripping his sword tightly.

With an unshaken expression, he lowered his body deeply and then sprang up, slashing another orc’s head with his sword.

Chwak!
“Kraaaargh!”

The orc’s head split in half, and its heavy body fell to the ground.

“Hoo?”

The young man, having dispatched two orcs in an instant, caught his breath and looked around.

It wasn’t just the two orcs around him.

The bodies of as many as five orcs lay sprawled on the ground.

The young man’s name, who looked handsome enough to radiate an aura just by standing still, was Cheon Tae-hwang.

He was a genius who had swept the world kendo championships at the youngest age.

“Five wasn’t too difficult.”

He turned his head and looked down at the orc corpses scattered around him, muttering to himself.

He felt the sensation of his blood, which had heated his entire body, slowly cooling down.

At first, when Cheon Tae-hwang saw the group of dozens of orcs, he immediately evaded them.

But that was only for a moment. His nature wouldn’t allow him to live while running away.

He ambushed a lone orc.

Though the orc had strong power, it moved sluggishly, so he could somehow deal with it even with a poorly made wooden sword.

Then, having obtained a rough sword from the orc, he began to prove why people called him a ‘genius.’

Cheon Tae-hwang wasn’t just talented with a sword.

He had an extraordinary talent for fighting itself, incomparable to others.

Originally, kendo was fundamentally a sport, so it was vastly different from the swordsmanship used in real combat.

However, Cheon Tae-hwang utilized his innate fighting talent to adapt kendo, which was used for sports, into a practical combat swordsmanship suited for himself.

‘I need a stronger opponent.’

With a look of dissatisfaction, Cheon Tae-hwang gazed down at the surrounding orcs.

He could not forget the thrill he felt when he killed the first orc.

A sensation of risking one’s life in a fight, unlike any sport.

He felt the longing for battle, which had weighed heavily on his chest for a long time, being released.

Instinctively, he realized that this was the true ‘battle’ he had been yearning for.

But that was only at the beginning.

As two weeks passed, continuously facing orcs, the thrilling tremor he first felt gradually dulled.

If he had not known that thrill, he might have been able to endure it, but once he had experienced it, it was hard to resist the intense temptation.

Cheon Tae-hwang roamed the area, searching for a more thrilling stimulus.

“Heh…”

A message window that had appeared in his mind before the first Orc showed up came to mind.

It clearly stated that the tutorial would end once the existence known as Orc Chieftain Krol was defeated.

‘Good.’

His blood, which had cooled, began to boil hotly again.

To him, whether the tutorial ended or not was not important.

What mattered more to him was the power of Krol, the chieftain of the Orcs.

A smile reminiscent of a ferocious beast formed on his lips.

He felt his heart pounding at the thought of a fight with a stronger being.

‘Surely, the Orcs can speak, right?’

He moved to catch a suitable Orc and ask for the chieftain’s location.

Only the corpses of Orcs remained where he had left.

***

Two weeks passed.

Humans are said to be creatures of adaptation.

In that short time, Yeong-sik and his party had somewhat adapted to life in this world.

“Shhh, shhh.”

Yeong-sik glared at the two Orcs wandering near the lodging they were staying at.

The orcs wandered through the forest, glancing around as if searching for prey.

Yeong-sik turned his head to look at Seo Ara.

Upon reading his gaze, Seo Ara nodded with a tense expression.

-Rustle.

“Hiss! Human! It’s a human!”

“It’s a human woman! A pretty human!”

The orcs snorted excitedly upon seeing Seo Ara revealing herself.

Remarkably, they possessed the sense to judge human beauty, and they charged at her in a state of arousal, as if driven mad by her attractive appearance.

In this sense, Seo Ara was the ultimate, no, the supreme bait for the orcs.

The orcs began to charge at Ara with faces full of excitement.

Ara looked at them and slightly grimaced.

She had grown weary of men who couldn’t hide their excitement upon seeing her, but seeing such behavior from monstrous creatures made her feel an incomparable level of disgust.

“Hiss! Hiss!”

The orcs snorted hot breaths as they drew close to her.

At that moment, Gil-soo, who had been hiding in the bushes along the path, sprang up and brought down his crude axe.

The orcs, distracted by Ara, were unable to respond to his sudden ambush.

-Thud!

“Grrk!”

Crimson blood spurted from the neck of the leading orc.

Seeing this, another orc’s expression hardened, and it quickly backed away.

Even though they were creatures almost devoid of intelligence, resembling beasts, they did not recklessly charge at a beautiful woman after witnessing one of their own get killed right in front of them.

The orc glared at Gil-soo, who had killed its kin, and let out a fierce roar.

It raised the greatsword it held, intending to strike Gil-soo.

It was then.

-Whoosh!

Bang!

With a loud sound of sparks being ejected, a right arm shot towards the orc.

The right arm, shooting like a bullet, smashed the orc’s head into a pulp before it could react.

-Thump!

The orc’s head was crushed.

Yeong-sik, now accustomed to retrieving his ‘right arm’, approached the orc.

Click.

After retrieving the right arm that had smashed the orc’s head, Yeong-sik reattached it and turned towards Ara and Gil-soo.

“It looks like we’ve almost dealt with all the ones wandering around.”

“Ha… I don’t know where these things keep coming from endlessly.”

Gil-soo looked down at the corpses of the orcs with an expression of exhaustion.

They had already taken down more than twenty orcs in the past two weeks, yet new orcs continued to appear in the forest every day without fail.

“Still, it’s fortunate that we can handle them.”

Seo Ara, who had played the role of bait, approached them and spoke.

As she said, just having the power to deal with the orcs was an advantage that couldn’t be compared to others.

“Well… that’s thanks to Yeong-sik.”

Gil-soo glanced at Yeong-sik’s right arm with a slight smile.

Yeong-sik slowly shook his head at Gil-soo’s words.

“No. If I were alone, I wouldn’t be able to handle even two orcs. This is a one-time-use weapon.”

Yeong-sik raised his right arm with a bitter expression.

He wasn’t saying this out of false modesty.

In reality, his arm was almost a one-time-use weapon, as it was extremely difficult to use again once it was deployed.

Over the past two weeks, Yeong-sik had conducted several tests on his body, confirming a few facts.

First of all, his body barely got tired from everyday activities.

Although he needed sleep, just an hour was enough for him to function, and he could wander around the mountains for hours without running out of breath.

Of course, in combat situations or extreme tension, he did feel shortness of breath and fatigue.

But even then, it was much better compared to Ara or Gil-soo.

One thing he was curious about was, “How sturdy is my body?”

His right arm was a mechanical device, but before launching it, it felt soft and warm, just like human skin.

Yeong-sik once tried hitting a nearby rock with his right arm as a test.

The result was excruciating pain radiating through his arm.

While his arm could destroy a rock when launched, swinging it directly couldn’t even leave a scratch.

‘Is it stronger than rock, but unusable due to the pain?’

Thinking this, Yeong-sik tried several more brute force tests on his body’s durability but had to give up each time due to the unbearable pain.

In any case, apart from the ability to launch his right arm and his exceptional stamina, his body was not much different from that of an ordinary person.

He didn’t have superhuman strength to crush rocks, nor the speed to move faster than the eye could see.

Of course, even now, he was quite different from ordinary people.

But for someone with a mechanical arm, it was somewhat underwhelming.

‘I can’t even take on a single orc without using my right arm.’

Orcs were quite sluggish compared to their strength.

But that didn’t mean Gil-soo or Yeong-sik, who had little combat experience, could handle them one-on-one.

Therefore, Yeong-sik used the orcs’ low intelligence to ambush and eliminate them.

Thanks to Seo Ara’s extraordinary beauty, the orcs charged more easily than expected, allowing Yeong-sik’s team to safely hunt the orcs wandering around.

“But still, it’s something that we can definitely take down at least one of those monsters.”

Gil-soo said this with a good-natured smile.

As he said, being able to fight and practically eliminate even a single orc was a significant advantage.

Ara nodded in agreement with his words.

“Right. Without Yeong-sik, it would have been much harder to kill these monsters so easily.”

She spoke with a voice that carried a certain level of trust, unlike her initially cold and rigid tone.

Over the past two weeks, she had started to open up to Yeong-sik and Gil-soo as they spent time together.

Though opening up didn’t mean engaging in personal conversations or sharing jokes, it was a significant improvement compared to the initial wariness.

“Well, let’s get out of here. The smell of blood might attract others.”

Yeong-sik, feeling a bit uncomfortable with the praise, changed the subject and started to move.

Ara and Gil-soo nodded and followed him.

Yeong-sik had gradually taken on a role similar to that of a leader among the group.

It wasn’t because he had a mechanical arm.

Despite claiming to have lost his memory, he possessed a level of cold, quick judgment and a peculiar charisma that naturally drew people to follow him.

Ara and Gil-soo were gradually adapting to this life by following him.

“Only one more week to go.”

Ara spoke with a voice tinged with a hint of anticipation.

There was no guarantee that they would escape this place once the tutorial ended, but there was a vague hope that things would be different when they reached the ‘mainland.’

There was even a possibility, however slight, that the mainland could mean returning to Earth.

“Yes. But please don’t let your guard down. This is the most dangerous time.”

Yeong-sik said this in a low voice.

Danger often arose when one thought they had become accustomed to it.

That’s when weaknesses were exposed.

Yeong-sik’s group couldn’t handle even three or more orcs at once.

Fortunately, most orcs they had encountered so far roamed alone or in pairs.

If they spotted a group of three or more, they avoided contact by evading them.

“Yes.”

Ara nodded at his words.

She knew well enough that it wasn’t time to let her guard down.

“Then, let’s fetch some water on our way back.”

Yeong-sik said as he pulled out a round container from his pocket that resembled a bowl.

It was a coconut-like shell they had used after eating the fruit inside, repurposed as a water container.

“I’ll do it.”

Ara, feeling she hadn’t contributed as much compared to Yeong-sik and Gil-soo, took the container from his hand.

Yeong-sik did not refuse her offer.

While Yeong-sik and Gil-soo kept watch around them, Ara reached the stream and filled the container with water.

-Rustle.

The bushes near the stream rustled slightly.

But no one in Yeong-sik’s group heard the sound of the rustling bushes.