The world did not fade in gently. It slammed into Ren's senses with the violence of a car crash.
One moment, he was staring at a glitching blue screen in a classroom that smelled of floor wax and teenage boredom. The next, the floor was gone, replaced by a terrifying, weightless vacuum. Ren felt his stomach lurch into his throat as he plummeted through the dark.
THUD.
The air was driven from his lungs in a single, brutal burst. Ren hit the ground hard, his shoulder taking the brunt of the impact. He rolled, dirt filling his mouth, the metallic taste of blood sharp on his tongue. He lay there for a heartbeat, gasping like a fish out of water, his vision swimming with white spots.
The classroom was gone. The ceiling fan, the whiteboards, the desks—all erased.
Ren pushed himself up, his muscles screaming in protest. His palms dug into rough, damp soil and crushed grass. The air was different here; it was thick, heavy with the scent of pine, rot, and something ancient.
Around him, the clearing was a scene of pure, unadulterated chaos.
"My phone! Why won't my phone turn on?!" a girl shrieked, frantically tapping a piece of useless glass.
"Is this a prank? Where are the cameras?!" a boy yelled, his voice cracking with a rising note of hysteria.
Ren didn't join the shouting. He knelt, his eyes darting across the clearing. Towering trees, their trunks as wide as houses, circled them like silent sentinels. The sky above was a bruised purple, choked with green-tinted clouds that didn't move.
Then, the screens returned.
Hundreds of blue, translucent panels flickered into existence, illuminating the terrified faces of his classmates.
"I... I have a Class!" someone shouted, their fear momentarily replaced by a spark of awe. "I'm a Warrior! Look at my Strength stat!"
"I'm a Mage! I have mana! I can feel it!"
Ren looked at the empty air in front of his own face. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, hollow sound. He raised a trembling hand and swiped at the air, mimicking the motions he saw others making.
Nothing.
The blank blue panel he had seen before was gone. There was no interface. No stats. No skills. Just the cold, indifferent forest.
'Why?' Ren thought, a knot of dread tightening in his gut. 'Even in a new world, am I still the one who has nothing?'
He remembered the coins in his pocket. He reached in, his fingers finding the two 100-yen coins. They were still there. In a world of magic and systems, his only asset was 200 yen of useless metal.
"Everyone, stay calm!"
The voice was loud and authoritative. Marcus Hale, the captain of the basketball team, stood in the center of the clearing. A bright blue screen floated before him, casting a heroic glow over his broad shoulders.
"The System says this is a Tutorial," Marcus shouted, his eyes scanning his own interface. "We just need to reach the Safe Zone. If we work together, we'll be fine. I'm a Level 1 Warrior. I'll lead the way."
A few students gravitated toward him, looking for a savior. But Ren noticed something Marcus didn't. The forest had gone silent. The birds had stopped chirping. The wind had died.
Boom.
The ground beneath Ren's knees vibrated.
Boom.
It was a rhythmic, heavy sound. Something was moving through the brush, something that didn't care about "Tutorials" or "Safe Zones."
"Did you hear that?" a girl whispered, her face turning pale.
The bushes at the edge of the clearing exploded.
A creature the size of a small child, but with the musculature of a pit bull, lunged into the light. Its skin was a sickly, mottled green, and its ears were long, jagged points. It wore nothing but a loincloth of filth-stained leather and carried a rusted, notched blade that looked like it had been forged in a nightmare.
A goblin.
The creature didn't hesitate. It let out a shrill, ear-piercing shriek and charged the nearest student—a quiet boy named Tanaka who had been staring at his Mage interface.
"Tanaka, move!" Ren shouted.
But Tanaka was too slow. He was too busy reading his skill descriptions to notice the reality of the blade.
SHLICK.
The rusted iron buried itself in Tanaka's throat.
The sound was sickening—a wet, gurgling noise that would haunt Ren's dreams forever. Blood, bright and hot, sprayed across the grass, drenching Tanaka's blue interface. The boy's eyes went wide, his hands clutching at the wound as he fell to his knees.
The clearing went dead silent for a single, frozen second.
Then, the screaming began.
"HE'S DEAD! OH GOD, HE'S DEAD!"
"RUN! RUN!"
The goblin shrieked again, pulling its blade free with a wet pop. It looked around, its yellow eyes landing on a group of girls. It crouched, ready to spring.
"GET BACK!"
Marcus Hale surged forward. His face was pale, but his movements were guided by something more than just adrenaline. A golden light flared around his fist.
[Skill Activated: Enhanced Strength]
Marcus swung. His fist connected with the goblin's chest with a sound like a breaking branch. The creature was launched backward, its ribs caving in as it skidded across the dirt. It tried to rise, coughing green bile, but Marcus was already on top of it. He grabbed a heavy stone from the ground and brought it down on the goblin's head.
Once. Twice. Three times.
The goblin's body twitched and then dissolved into a cloud of shimmering gray particles, leaving behind nothing but a small, dull stone on the grass.
Marcus stood there, chest heaving, his hands covered in green slime. A chime echoed through the clearing, audible to everyone.
[Player: Marcus Hale has slain a Level 1 Goblin.]
[Experience Gained.]
[Level Up!]
"I... I leveled up," Marcus whispered, staring at his hands. A look of terrifying realization crossed his face—a mixture of horror and a new, dark hunger for power. "I'm stronger. I can feel it."
Ren watched from the shadows of a large oak tree. He saw the way the other students looked at Marcus now. It wasn't just respect anymore; it was submission. In the span of five minutes, the social order of the classroom had been demolished.
The System had chosen its elites. And it had chosen its fodder.
Ren looked down at his own hands. They were shaking, but not just from fear. He felt a cold, sharp clarity. He had no skills to activate. No strength boost to rely on. If that goblin had jumped at him, he would be lying next to Tanaka.
He looked at Tanaka's body. It didn't dissolve. It stayed there, a broken, bloody reminder that in this "game," there were no extra lives.
'The System protects the players,' Ren realized, his mind racing. 'But I'm not a player. I'm a glitch. I'm an NPC in my own life.'
From the depths of the forest, more shrieks answered the first. Ten, twenty, maybe more. The rustling in the bushes intensified, circling the clearing.
"There's more of them!" someone screamed.
"Marcus, save us!"
Marcus wiped the green blood on his pants and gripped the stone tighter. "Form a circle! Warriors to the front! Healers, get ready!"
The students scrambled to obey, desperate for direction. Ren stood on the outside of the circle, ignored and forgotten. No one called his name. No one told him where to stand. To them, he was already dead weight.
Ren's gaze fell on the small stone the goblin had dropped. It was a Mana Shard, a low-level currency used for basic crafting or selling to System shops. To the others, it was a trophy. To Ren, it was the first piece of data his mind could truly process.
'Everything has a value,' he thought, his fingers twitching toward the coins in his pocket. 'If the System won't give me power... I'll have to find a way to buy it.'
A shadow fell over him. He looked up to see three goblins emerging from the treeline directly behind him, their rusted blades gleaming in the purple twilight.
They didn't go for the circle. They went for the straggler.
Ren turned and ran into the black heart of the forest, the shrieks of the hunters echoing in his ears.
If this is a game, Ren thought as he leaped over a rotting log, then the first rule is simple: The poor don't survive the tutorial.