Time no longer had shape.
It was no longer a straight line.
No longer a precise countdown.
It had become something heavy. Crushing. Sliding over them without warning.
When Rin looked up at the notification, it took him a moment to process it.
[Time Remaining: 44h 06m]
Almost twenty hours gone.
No victory.
No reward.
No clear evolution.
They were still walking.
They had eaten whatever they could find.
Drunk questionable water.
Slept in fragments too short to be called rest.
The group had slowed.
They had grown quieter.
Ha-joon barely spoke anymore.
But he heard everything.
He stopped abruptly.
“…He’s here.”
Rin didn’t need to ask.
Kingrat.
The same one.
Still intact.
It had been stalking them for hours. Sometimes farther. Sometimes too close.
Never rushed.
Never starving.
As if it knew they would break before it did.
Mi-sun clenched her jaw.
“It’s playing with us.”
“No,” Rin replied quietly.
“The System is.”
A heavy vibration rolled through the tunnel.
A toxic breath spread through the air.
Kingrat appeared partially at the corner of a corridor—massive, towering, its skin faintly gleaming in the darkness.
The System reacted immediately.
[ALERT.]
[Major Entity Detected: KINGRAT.]
[Required Level for Elimination: Not Met.]
[Recommendation: Flee.]
Rin didn’t move.
A second notification followed, more insistent.
[WARNING.]
[Engagement Attempt Not Recommended.]
[Estimated Survival Rate: 3%.]
Dae-hyun stared at him.
“Rin…”
“I know.”
But Rin didn’t step back.
He observed.
The movements.
The slow breathing.
The cracks in the ceiling above the creature.
“It’s not unkillable,” he said at last.
Mi-sun looked at him in disbelief.
“You seriously want to challenge that?”
“No,” Rin answered calmly.
“I want to understand what the System refuses.”
Ha-joon whispered, voice trembling.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
“There are dead zones around it. Areas where the ground’s already weakened.”
Rin turned toward him.
“You can pinpoint them?”
“Yes… but… if we’re wrong—”
“We die,” Rin finished.
“Just like if we keep running.”
Silence fell.
Then Rin spoke, without raising his voice.
“The Tutorial is exhausting us on purpose.
It wants us to accept the impossible as a rule.
I refuse.”
A new alert appeared.
[Final Warning.]
[Elimination of KINGRAT Is Not Intended Within Current Parameters.]
[Consequences: Unpredictable.]
Rin smiled faintly.
“Perfect.”
They moved.
Not in panic.
In precision.
Mi-sun drew the creature’s attention with controlled metallic impacts.
Dae-hyun triggered a secondary collapse, calculated to force Kingrat beneath an unstable section of ceiling.
Ha-joon guided them in a low voice.
“Two more steps…
Now.”
The ground gave way.
The ceiling collapsed—far more violently than expected.
An entire mass of reinforced concrete, cables, and debris crashed down onto Kingrat.
The roar that followed was different.
Not rage.
Surprise.
Then—
A deep, internal crack.
Silence.
One second passed.
Then two.
The System did not react.
Then, slowly—
[ERROR.]
[Anomaly Detected.]
Kingrat’s body no longer moved.
Its toxic skin began to fracture.
An unstable glow seeped through the cracks, pulsing irregularly.
“Rin…” Mi-sun whispered.
“Tell me you see this too.”
Another line appeared.
Cold.
Almost irritated.
[Major Entity: KINGRAT.]
[Status: Elimination Non-Compliant.]
Then, after a delay:
[Loot Recalculation in Progress…]
The group stood frozen.
Ha-joon suddenly clutched his temples.
“Something… is coming.”
The tunnel trembled.
And far away, Jin-woo stopped mid-step, pressing a hand against the wall.
“…Okay.
That’s definitely not normal.”
A final notification appeared before Rin.
[Time Remaining: 41h 19m]
Time had accelerated.
The System had learned something.
Even if it refused to admit it.
The silence that followed was wrong.
Not heavy.
Not calming.
Empty.
As if something had been removed from the world—
And the world didn’t know how to react.
Rin still didn’t move.
No one did.
Kingrat’s body lay there.
Or rather—what remained of it.
Beneath the rubble, its massive frame had collapsed sideways, crushed at an angle. Its once-toxic skin continued to crack, releasing an unstable glow that pulsed unevenly.
No attack.
No reaction.
“Is it… really dead?” Dae-hyun murmured.
The System answered before Rin.
A notification appeared—slower than usual.
As if hesitating.
[Analysis in Progress…]
The seconds stretched.
Then a new window opened.
Different from the others.
Simpler.
Colder.
[Bestiary Update — Tutorial]
Name: Kingrat
Rarity: ★★☆☆☆☆☆
Status: ELIMINATED
Physical Description:
Mutated bipedal rat, larger than an average human. Skin coated in toxins. Red eyes. Sharp teeth. Long, powerful claws. Intelligent and threatening posture.
System Note:
— Elimination achieved under unintended conditions.
— Behavioral data incomplete.
— Entity removed from Tutorial environment.
The group remained still.
Mi-sun inhaled slowly.
“It… acknowledged it.”
Ha-joon pressed a hand to his head.
The pressure hadn’t faded.
“But… something’s wrong.”
He was right.
The glow leaking from Kingrat’s corpse suddenly shifted rhythm. It contracted—like it was being pulled toward an invisible point.
The System finally reacted.
[Attention.]
[Essence Residue Detected.]
[Stability: LOW.]
Rin felt his chest tighten.
“Don’t go near it,” he said immediately.
Too late.
The ground vibrated.
A dull wave rippled through the tunnel, shaking dust loose from the ceiling. The debris around the corpse began to tremble, subtly drawn toward the center.
Then the Essence appeared.
Not like the Sharprats’.
This one was larger.
Denser.
Unstable.
A translucent mass threaded with dark veins hovered above the crushed body, pulsing dangerously.
The System displayed another alert.
[Essence Detected — KINGRAT.]
[? WARNING: Unstable Essence.]
[Absorption NOT RECOMMENDED.]
[Risk: Unknown.]
No one moved.
Mi-sun clenched her fists.
“So… even dead, it’s still dangerous.”
“Yes,” Rin replied.
“And the System doesn’t know what to do with it.”
As if confirming his words, a quieter notification appeared—visible only to Rin.
[Notification.]
[Behavioral Profile Evolving.]
[Enhanced Observation Initiated Following Non-Compliant Action.]
There was no reward.
No immediate punishment.
Just… increased attention.
“Rin…” Ha-joon whispered.
“I hear something strange.”
“What exactly?”
The boy hesitated.
“It’s like… the tunnel is breathing wrong. Like the place is rejecting what just happened.”
A sharp crack echoed somewhere deeper within the ruins.
Then another.
The environment was changing.
Slowly.
Subtly.
“We can’t stay here,” Mi-sun said.
“Even dead, it’ll kill us another way.”
Rin nodded.
“We move. Now.
The Essence stays.”
Dae-hyun frowned.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Rin cast one final look at the unstable mass.
“That’s not a reward.
It’s a consequence.”
They backed away cautiously, leaving behind the anomaly the System hadn’t intended.
As they rounded the corner of the tunnel, one last notification appeared.
[Zone Marked: MINOR ANOMALY.]
[Access Restricted to Beginner Participants.]
The timer appeared again.
[Time Remaining: 39h 52m]
Nearly an hour gone.
And far away, Jin-woo suddenly felt a strange pressure in the air. He stopped mid-step, frowning.
“…Okay.
Either someone just did something incredibly stupid.”
He looked up at the cracked ceiling.
“Or something incredibly impressive.”
The Tutorial continued.
But now, a truth had been carved into its foundations:
The rules can be broken.
But never without leaving a trace.
And the System—silent, observant—
Had just recorded another name.
Rin.
