Neo crawled and stabbed the leg of the burly man, using the dagger as an anchor to help him move forward.
Stab, dredge, pull, stab... Three simple movements that tortured the burly man, who shrieked and wailed every time Neo stabbed and dredged the dagger, always finding a gap in his metal armor.
The burly man tried to push Neo away from him, yet with every splatter of blood, he lost his strength.
Their struggle lasted for a few seconds before Neo could put his knees against the shoulders of the burly man, pinning him down.
The only thing the burly man could move was his head, which now snapped at Neo's tunic like a rabid dog; so that if Neo didn't jerk his legs away in time, it would be his legs and not the tunic getting bitten.
Neo met the burly man's gaze... and saw a torrent of hatred mixed with agony staring back at him.
His own eyes wavered for a moment… Still he held his gaze, steeling his resolve and drove the dagger into the burly man's neck.
The burly man's eyes widened for a moment and coughed, blood spurting from his mouth, bubbling and painting his teeth with crimson… Still, he tried to bite Neo's legs once again, only to lose his strength and stop moving… with blood flowing from his neck, drenching Neo's hand, trembling.
[You have slain Gros Valet Mirak]
[+10 Exp]
Tutorial or not, the feeling of killing someone wasn't pleasant.
Did he feel regret? No, only emptiness... that behind the soft skin protecting the burly man's neck, a single dagger, cheap and rusty, was enough to take his life.
'I-I'm sorry…'
Neo watched the burly man's eyes become glassy before deciding to crouch away once more, hoping not to get struck by the chaos.
***
The afternoon blue sky slowly turned to red, along with its clouds that looked the same as the bloody ground.
The sun almost set behind the towering mountain peak, slowly spreading its shadow against the thousands of mingled corpses who would not see the sunrise again.
For hours, Neo had lain still, watching flies gather on the face of the corpse that shielded him, listening to the moans of the dying slowly fade into silence.
"Puha!"
Panting, Neo shoved the corpse off him—it had been his only cover for hours.
His hair was disheveled as if he had bathed in blood; even his whole body was stained with it. He stank like a dead rat, yet his nose had gotten used to it.
Looking at it intently, no one would have thought that a person without armor would survive without a wound on the chaotic battlefield.
"This idiotic game! Does no one ever win? They just fight until sunset and retreat like nothing happened?!"
Neo sat and looked around, his optimistic eyes turning melancholic, while his body became numb, shivering not from the cold, but from the brutal, indifferent sight.
When he tried to rest his hands, they touched a beheaded corpse instead of the muddy ground.
Neo shrieked and scrambled away from the beheaded corpse, only to touch another one... with an arrow stuck in its head, its eyes surprisingly staring at him.
"Damn it, damn it! This isn't a horror game, is it?" His voice shook, the fear entirely genuine.
Neo stood and tried to look at the sky, now slowly turning dark.
His mind played tricks on him, conjuring all the ghost stories he had ever heard.
As his body involuntary shiver from the memory, Neo ran for his life… His feet slipping on entrails, stumbling and rolling over the mangled corpses in a blind, desperate scramble to get away.
Towards the dark forest beyond the field of the dead.
***
Neo weakly supported himself against a tree, greedily gulping air that rasped against his dry throat.
[Main Quest: Conquer the World!]
[Time Remaining: 3649 Days]
Sliding his back down against the tree to take a seat, Neo looked at the stars absentmindedly, and gulped to stop the tears that almost fell, without knowing if he was tired or glad that he had survived the sudden and unreasonable war.
"T-this is not a game… one wrong move and I'll be one of them."
His eyes stared beyond the trees and bushes, trying to look to where he was before, blocked by the impervious darkness of the night.
'Without a proper Walkthrough, I can only rely on the details of my Dad's story… and the basic things I learned at school.'
Neo's ears perked up when he heard beast howls and chirpings of the night creatures.
Scanning his surroundings with vigilant eyes, Neo knew he wasn't safe.
This Game was not only a World at War, but also Magical, in that the forest he was staying in now could be considered dangerous, especially at night.
'Tsk, I got used to the smell of blood… I forgot I reeked of it.'
Neo raised his left hand weakly, scrutinizing the emerald pendant that shone brightly without a light reflecting from it.
Gripping his dagger from the other hand, Neo stabbed the pendant with enough force. The emerald pendant broke into two, shimmering a luminous green light that brightened up his surroundings.
Then, a holographic globe suspended above it, making Neo's eyes widen from how massive it was.
Just as abruptly as it had appeared, it was gone without a notice, turning his surroundings dark once more, as if the light was just an illusion that played tricks in his exhausted mind.
[Hidden Feature Unlock: Map of the Conqueror]
Neo thought of "Status," and another interface suspended in front of him that only he could see, listing all the information about himself.
Name: Neo Spark
In-Game Name: Just Me
Title: —
Class: —
Level: 0
Experience Points: 10/100
Acquired Skill: —
Innate Skill: [Aggravation][Solitude]
System Features: [Map of the Conqueror]
Inventory: —
Equipment: [Dagger (Common)][Necklace of Shattered Promise (Damaged)][Villager's Tunic (Common)]
Tutorial: All acquired Skills, Levels, Items will be null after the tutorial.
'Aggra—what? I'll check it later.'
Without wasting another second, Neo summoned the [Map of the Conqueror]. Just like his father's story, a 2D Map, slightly transparent and flat, suspended in front of him without hindering his sight.
A small blue dot was placed at the center, indicating his current position, and with every turn of his head, the cone shape rotated with it, to where he was looking.
'I think looking at it every time will give me [Chameloen Eyes] kind of Skill.'
Neo sighed softly and tried to zoom in and out the Map, and when he thought of looking for the nearest place where he could take a bath, a green arrow based from the blue dot pointed southward.
He glanced in that direction, making the cone and the arrow overlap with each other, the excitement fading from Neo's face.
'D-deeper?' he stuttered, staring into the darkness beyond the trees.