Arin stepped slowly outside, his heart pounding as the strange sound echoed again.
His little house had no roof, no door, just four walls of rough wood, yet it felt like a cage he was forcing himself to leave.
The moment he crossed the threshold, his eyes widened.
A woman stood just a few steps away.
She was breathtaking—her beauty so unreal that for a second Arin forgot the danger. But she was in a miserable state: blood trickled from a wound on her forehead, streaking down her cheek. Her pink lips were smeared with red. Her thighs and arms were torn open with cuts, her clothes ripped in several places, exposing smooth skin beneath the dirt and blood. Even so, in her trembling hands she still clutched a blood-stained sword.
"P-please… help me…" she whispered, her voice fragile, her body swaying.
Arin froze, his mind a mess.
But then the world itself roared.
A deafening cry thundered from the skies above. Arin's head snapped upward just in time to glimpse a massive shadow cutting across the sun. A scaled beast with wings stretched wide soared through the sky, vanishing into the horizon.
His entire body stiffened. No way… was that… a f*ing dragon?!
The woman collapsed with a thud, snapping him back to reality.
"System!" he hissed, panicked. "Was that a dragon just now?"
[Affirmative. But a small one—only about ten blocks long]
"Ten blocks? How big is that?"
[Ten meters.]
"Ten meters?! That's not small!" Arin's face twisted. "You—you never said there were dragons in this world!"
[I was about to… but you skipped the tutorial.]
"Damn this system!" Arin clenched his fist, shaking with frustration.
[Look at the woman first.]
Arin turned, and his breath caught again. She was lying unconscious, her chest rising and falling faintly, blood soaking into the grass. She looked… human. Not blocky like the trees or terrain, but flesh and bone—like him.
"Wait… she's not blocky?" Arin asked.
[This world has both types—blocky inhabitants, and humans who appear like you.]
His eyes widened further. "This… this is new."
[You can also change yourself into a blocky form, if you wish.]
Arin crouched beside her, staring at her blood-stained face. For a moment, guilt flickered in him. She looked so real. So alive.
[Now let me explain about dragons-]
Splash.
The sudden sound of metal piercing flesh silenced the system.
Arin stood, gripping his pickaxe, the sharp edge buried deep into the woman's chest. Her body convulsed once before falling still, lifeless.
[WHAT the hell did you just do?!]
Arin scowled. "Isn't she just a mob anyway?"
[…Well, you're not wrong.]
Her corpse lay still on the grass floor of his house, blood spreading beneath her body.
A panel appeared before his eyes:
[EXP +100,000]
[System Points +1,000,000]
Arin blinked at the floating text. "Exp? Points? …System, you didn't tell me about these either!"
[…You really should've finished the tutorial.]
Arin could only grit his teeth, staring at the unmoving body, the echo of the dragon's roar still shaking in his chest.