The World Of Skill

Combat

The third NPC on the tutorial ground is called Randy, he is a muscular man wearing only a short and bare upper body. From his look, he is someone who appreciates sweat-producing exercise. 

“I will now teach you about combat. You can pick any weapon you want and hit that scarecrow.”

“How many times should I hit the scarecrow?”

“That is up to you. After all, the purpose of this training is to familiarize yourself with the weapon. After you choose a weapon, you will be given a replica of the weapon for your perusal.”

Noticing that this is where he will learn some basics about combat in the game, Ryu is looking forward to it. Even though the task is to hit the scarecrow, it will give him some idea of how the weapon works in the game.

Ryu looked towards the weapon rack that is located not far from the scarecrow. All kind of weapon has been prepared over there. Starting from a dagger, short sword, broad sword, throwing weapons like shuriken and flying needles, until makeshift g*n and small bomb.

This is his first time seeing so many arrays of diverse weapons in front of him so he took his time and try the weapon one by one.

“The flying needles sure is fun to use but the damage is too small. I also doubt I will like being in melee combat. Do I really have to choose the bow after all? Maybe a g*n will do for me.”

After trying out all of the weapons, he decided that being a ranged fighter feels more natural for him. His eye tried to move away from the bow but it always comes back to it.

“Argh, definitely I will need to pick up the bow if I want to be an archer. I really hope what Ginji said is true and girls will come flocking to me. Hehehe. Randy, I will choose the bow.”

“Alright then, since you have familiarized yourself and choose a weapon; your next task is to kill a monster. Try to kill five 「smiling」 over there.”

Randy pointed towards the east and Ryu can faintly see the figure of the monster that he should kill. It was a round slimy monster with a transparent body. There is a faint smiling face located on its body which is the origin of the monster name. The smiling is roaming over the fields and not flocking together in a group which makes it easy for Ryu to kill them one at a time.

From the weapon rack, Ryu gained a basic bow with 30 arrows in a quiver. He equipped them and slowly move towards the smiling. Nocking the arrow on the bow after judging he has enough distance, he aimed at the monster with focus.

*swish*

The arrow flew beautifully in an arc and unfortunately at the last moment when it was going to land, the smiling hopped forward and dodges the arrow.

“Darn it! I can’t believe I missed that.”

The trajectory is perfect and his aim is spot on but he didn’t take the monster movement into consideration. After all, Ryu was used to hitting a still target for archery. He didn’t give up and give it another try. One arrow missed isn’t the end of the world.

Contrary to his expectation, 10 out of 10 arrows all missed the smiling. The smiling didn’t attack him yet since he hasn’t successfully attacked the monster and gets the aggro.

“F*ck this! I always aimed perfectly but that stupid ball always managed to hop, roll, and walk away at the last moment when it was going to hit. Aiming assistance my a*s! “

Ryu is getting frustrated at the fact that as a gold medallist in the Olympic, he fails to hit the target inside the game.

“I even beat that Kim something as the 9th ranked archer. If even that Kim can do it, why can’t I? Sh*t now I’m out of arrow. I better get some more from the rack.”

While moving back to get some more arrow, Randy approached him.

“It seemed that you have some problem using the bow.” With an all-knowing sage-like look, Randy rubbed his non-existent beard and tried to act as a wise man.

“Ugh, stop with that look. Just tell me, where did I go wrong? How can I hit the target?”

“Well, there are a couple of ways. Firstly, you can try to move closer to the target, at a 1-meter distance you can surely land your arrow.”

“Duh, then what’s the point of using the bow like that? What’s next?”

“Secondly, you can try to trap the monster to stop its movement. Having a party member to act as a tank is the ideal situation.”

“So, will you tank it for me?”

“Of course not! The smiling wasn’t a monster at my level where I can fight to my heart content. With just a flick of my finger, it will be dead. What’s the fun in fighting like that?”

“Okay battle maniac. Tell me what else can I do?”

“Thirdly, you can examine the monster movement pattern and shoot your arrow by predicting its movement. Surely, they can dodge your arrow if they know it coming, but if they didn’t know it coming you can hit them for sure.”

“I’ve been trying to do that but it sure moves away at the last moment.”

“Maybe your luck is just bad. I’m sure it’s the same with your luck with girls.”

“Hey! It wasn’t bad. I wasn’t just interested in girls before.”

“Yeah yeah. You better go back there and kill 5 smiling for me. It’s even better if you change your weapon at this rate.”

Ryu really wanted to change his weapon at this rate but his pride is what’s holding him back. He returned to the field and examined the smiling. 

“For five seconds it will be wiggling around in place before it jumped to the right. Another wiggling session and it will roll forward. Move to the left after three seconds and right, and left, hop, roll, wiggle. Fuuuuu! They don’t have a set pattern of movement. It just moving around as it pleased. Randy must be bullshitting me. Screw this! Is it really this hard to be popular with girls? Erm, I mean to hit the monster?”

Ryu takes a deep breath and calmed himself down. He tried to remember some scenes of a hunter killing their prey. The most important thing about an archer beside accuracy is to make yourself unnoticed by the target. Maybe he thought that the smiling doesn’t realize his presence from afar but on contrary, they knew he was there.

“I am a rock, I am invisible. You can’t see me; I am just a dead tree over here.”

While reciting a mantra, Ryu took a shooting pose and hold still for a while. The smiling at first was moving around but after some time, it only moves around for a bit. Unlike its earlier movement that is prancing around, now it can be considered as not moving at all.

“Now is the time!”

The arrow is launched and it hit the target. The smiling body exploded like a balloon and turned into white dots of light before disappearing.

「Critical hit! You have killed the smiling. You have earned 10 experience.

The smiling 1/5 」

“Yes, I finally did it!”

As the first monster to kill in the training grounds, the smiling doesn’t have a lot of health and actually died with one attack. What makes Ryu surprised is a notification after the kill.

「You have learned 《Hide》」

“A skill!”

Ryu opened the skill page and check out the effect.

「Hide (F Rank) Level 1: 0.1% proficiency

Make yourself unnoticed by the target when you hold still for 5 seconds, take cover behind an object, or moving out of your target sight.

10% increase in a critical hit for the first attack after coming out of hiding.

Concealment range: 20 meters.

MP use: 0

Cooldown time: 1 minute. 」

“No wonder this game is all about skill. It was also my fault for trying to shoot in the open. If I hide behind a rock or a tree, I guess I will get to learn this skill faster. The smiling isn’t a big deal. I will kill you all and show who’s the boss.”

With his spirit renewed, it doesn’t take a lot of time for Ryu to kill five smiling. He returned to Randy and turned in the quest.

“Remember, when a monster you kill didn’t disappear immediately, it means that it dropped an item. You have to walk to the corpse before you acquire the loot. Items from the monster you kill will be protected by the system for 15 seconds. After the time passed, anyone can take the item or it will disappear automatically after 1 minute.”

Just from the explanation, being a spellcaster or ranged attacker has a bit of disadvantage when looting drop items but that was to be expected. The game tried to make it as real as possible and he is thankful enough that he doesn’t need to manually skin an animal or cut their dead body to get drop item.

“Is it really this easy to get a skill? Why don’t you tell me anything about it before?”

“The point of the tutorial is to teach you about the game, but if we tell you all about the secret of the game, won’t it kill your joy in playing the game? Knowing the present inside the box before you open it, will it make you happy? Only by discovering it by yourself, you will feel satisfied.”

There is a logic in Randy’s word and Ryu totally feels that it was right. On his first day playing the game, besides the virtual reality that felt so real, the system, the NPC, the easter-egg skill discovery, Ryu totally didn’t regret his decision of trading his gold medal for it.

“Okay, I agree. What’s next?”

“Next, please bring me 3 bitten carrots. You can loot them from 「Mad rabbit」.”

“Just wait, this one will be a walk in a park.”