Alex Rivera had always been known as the quiet, awkward guy in the accounting department.
Pale and skinny, he felt far more comfortable sitting behind a screen and playing games than trying to socialize with other people. Rolling dice for online tabletop campaigns or grinding his favorite builds in whatever new MMO was popular that month were the kinds of activities he genuinely enjoyed more than speaking to anyone face-to-face.
He had been suffering from severe social anxiety for years, ever since the intense bullying he endured throughout school. Most of that bullying had been born from pure spite toward his awkwardness and nerdiness as a child — traits that, unfortunately, had not changed very much even as he grew into an adult.
Society could truly be harsh toward those who were different. It sometimes almost felt like some kind of self-defense mechanism, where anyone who did not fit the mold was bullied and discarded without a second thought.
Nonetheless, he struggled through life however he could. He forced himself to wake up every morning, go to work, and deal with his often annoying coworkers while maintaining an awkward smile and attempting to appear sociable, even though he failed at it almost every single time.
Well, not everyone in the office was completely unbearable. A few of his coworkers, here and there, were decent enough for brief small talk. Even so, he had never truly clicked with anyone. After all, he had never managed to hold a conversation with any of them for longer than ten minutes.
Life, as it currently stood, seemed as boring and monotonous as always. He was certain he was not the only person in the building who hated their job yet still had to endure it simply to survive.
That was why, when he went to fetch coffee on an ordinary Monday morning, he suddenly felt something he had not experienced in years.
Yes — just as a large blue notification screen appeared directly in front of him and all of his coworkers, causing him to drop his cup of coffee in pure shock.
[The Multiverse has reached integration threshold. Earth is now under System administration.]
Was this real life?
Was he dreaming?
Just what was this strange phenomenon?
These questions kept fogging his mind. For a brief moment Alex genuinely thought he was going completely insane… until he realized that every one of his coworkers could see the exact same screen.
“Huh? What’s this?”
“Is anyone else seeing what I’m seeing?”
“What?”
“Um, is this some new holographic thing you installed in the office, Edward?”
“What?! No, there’s no way I would’ve put up holographic— Wait.”
Alex carefully analyzed everyone’s reactions and felt a wave of relief that he was not simply losing his mind. At the same time, he felt a growing terror about what all of this could possibly mean.
Unfortunately for him and everyone else in the office, the notifications did not wait for them to process the situation.
[All sapient beings will be transferred to a Tutorial Instance for acclimation.]
[Survival is optional but recommended.]
Alex’s heart began beating faster and faster. His breathing grew increasingly erratic.
Was this actually real?
He still did not know for certain.
But despite how afraid he felt, a desperate part of him wished with all his heart that it could be true.
Could these be aliens? The Illuminati? Reptilians?
To Alex, the exact identity of the force behind this did not truly matter.
For the first time in his entire life, something completely insane was finally happening.
“What does this mean by ‘acclimation’?”
“This is some bullshit. Is anyone even going to believe this— Ah!”
“Wait!”
Suddenly something even more impossible occurred. Darkness began spreading everywhere. The office itself started vanishing before everyone’s eyes.
“…?!”
Alex’s heart pounded harder as he watched his coworkers disappear one after another, leaving only faint trails of blue data behind them.
He quickly took a step backward, trying to escape the encroaching darkness while desperately attempting to make sense of the situation.
“Just what the hell is going on?!”
As he screamed, he grabbed a nearby keyboard and threw it into the darkness. He watched in disbelief as it instantly vanished, completely consumed into pure data.
“?!”
He ran alongside several other people, but the darkness only moved faster. Ultimately it engulfed him along with everyone else.
FLASH!
And from one moment to the next…
“Ah… Wha…?”
In the blink of an eye he found himself standing in a dense, misty forest alongside twenty-three other confused office workers from his building.
The office had completely vanished, yet scattered pieces of electronics still lay here and there — objects that had been absorbed and transported along with them.
Alex’s heart continued racing. He was panicking internally yet still trying to keep himself calm. His hands trembled and he was sweating rapidly.
“Fuck… this was real… it’s actually real!” he thought while forcing himself to remain composed.
Even though he was screaming inside, on the outside he appeared to be the calmest person present.
Alex possessed a strange quirk where he would go completely cold and almost paralyzed the moment he panicked. His face would turn completely expressionless.
It was a weird condition, but one that often made people believe he was somehow immutable — which only tended to annoy them further.
He slowly analyzed his surroundings, eyes darting in every direction. Enormous trees towered overhead like living skyscrapers. The soil felt slightly moist beneath his shoes. The fresh scent of wilderness filled his nostrils in an almost refreshing way.
However, he and his coworkers were not alone in this place. Distant, guttural roars echoed through the thick mist.
“What’s happening?!”
“Where are we?!”
“W-What the fuck!”
“Is this the end of times?”
“W-Why were we teleported out of nowhere?!”
“Aahhh! I’m scared!”
“D-Don’t touch me! Get away from me!”
“Calm down everyone! Please calm down!”
Most of the people present were panicking. Some cried openly. A few attempted to organize and talk among themselves in an effort to make sense of the situation.
Alex continued looking around. His face showed almost no emotion beyond mild surprise, even though inside he was screaming with a chaotic mixture of excitement and fear.
As usual, his strange outward calm drew the attention of one of his coworkers — a young blonde woman named Emma. She was someone he knew from the office, and overall she had always seemed like a reasonably nice person.
She was among the few people who had been somewhat friendly toward him, even if it might have only been out of politeness rather than genuine sincerity. He still appreciated the effort.
“Um, Alex? A-Are you okay?! Do you know what’s going on? You look awfully calm…”
“I have no idea what the hell is going on, honestly… But…”
“…What?”
“Look.”
Emma’s eyes widened as she followed the direction Alex pointed. A floating holographic screen shimmered in the air. It looked almost otherworldly — futuristic and completely out of place in this forest.
[Welcome to the Tutorial, everyone. I am your assistant for today. I have no name and you shouldn’t remember me after this.]
[As sapient lifeforms, you’re allowed to choose a class before the Tutorial begins.]
[Once you choose a class, you will obtain the necessary tools for survival.]
[You will remain in the Tutorial for a total of 30 days. Only those who survive until the end will be allowed to return to your newly terraformed Earth.]
[There will be plenty of Tutorial Missions, Objectives, and Hidden Dungeons scattered everywhere, courtesy of the God of Earth, your patron, who has vouched for all of humanity and purchased the [Sapient Lifeform 30-day Tutorial Package] for your entire species.]
[Now please, don’t be afraid. Monsters may be approaching, so please choose your Class.]
The mechanical voice sounded far too cold and eerie. Most of the people stood frozen in place, too terrified to step forward. They whispered among themselves, desperately trying to rationalize what was happening.
Noticing that nobody else was speaking up, Alex became the first to ask a direct question.
“Who are you exactly? What’s going on here?”
[I am a System Administrator. I already told you that.]
“Take us back home!” Emma cried out.
[Would you really like to return? The world as you know it… will soon be gone.]
“My parents…! I left them at home! What will happen to them?!” a tall young man with blonde hair shouted in distress.
[They will undergo the Tutorial like everyone else.]
“What about children? Newborn babies? Do you expect them to do the damn Tutorial too?” A woman with short brown hair cried angrily, tears already in her eyes. “My sister is living with me; she has two babies!”
[Children will be teleported alongside their parents if they are within proximity. It is part of the Package. There are no other benefits.]
A cold chill ran down everyone’s spine. The mechanical voice made it brutally clear that it held no genuine concern for human life whatsoever.
In just a few short minutes their entire world had been flipped upside down, and so far there was absolutely nothing any of them could do about it.
“Take me back! I left my daughter at school!” Emma ran toward the hologram and tried to touch it, only to phase straight through the image. The sight surprised Alex, who had been quietly observing while still trying to calm his racing heart.
[That is not part of the package benefits. Please choose a Class.]
Hearing that cold, mechanical answer, the crowd grew increasingly restless. People began screaming, complaining, and crying with pure fury.
“Take us back!”
“Get me out of here!”
“Are you some kind of alien?!”
“It has to be aliens, dude!”
“This is a violation of human rights!”
“Take me back!!!”
“Where’s your manager?! I want to talk to your boss!”
“You cannot just kidnap us like that! It’s surely illegal!”
Even though the people continued shouting and revolting, the screen only repeated the same emotionless command over and over again.
[Please choose a Class.]
[Please choose a Class.]
[Please choose a Class.]
[Please choose a Class.]
[Please choose a Class.]
[Please choose a Class.]
[…]
It was clear that the “System,” or whatever this entity truly was, had no interest in their emotions or how they felt about the situation. It had simply been assigned a task, and that was the extent of its concern.
“This is getting ridiculous…” Seeing the growing panic, Alex became the first to step forward. Before everyone’s eyes he made his choice. “You give classes, right? Then give me one.”
The artificial intelligence quickly responded with a cheerful chime. At last someone had been smart enough to engage with its basic functions.
[Very well. Do you wish to choose from the Beginner Class Selection or test your luck with the Random Class Generator?]
Alex took a small step back, slightly confused.
“Random Class Generator?” he asked.
[There is a small chance you may receive a very interesting class… or something far worse than the available options.]
It was an interesting mechanic. If he took everything he had witnessed so far seriously, it might either bring about his doom or grant him something truly incredible.
It was a pure gamble. Alex forced a slight smile onto his face. At this point, after seeing so many ridiculous things unfold, he had almost ceased to care about the risks.
He swung his hand toward the hologram. Something new appeared. At the bottom of the list, beyond the five standard “Basic Classes” of Warrior, Healer, Archer, Rogue, and Magician, he saw a brand-new experimental option.
[Random Class Generator]
Newly implemented feature. Uses advanced generative AI to create a unique class based on the user’s soul signature, memories, and subconscious desires. Warning: Results may be… unpredictable. There is no guarantee the class will be strong or effective, and it might weaken the user instead. Choose with responsibility.
“Huh…”
He felt a surge of fear, but seeing how everyone else was staring at him in complete silence, analyzing his every move, Alex felt overwhelmed by the pressure.
He swallowed hard and forced himself to tap the option, feeling the intense weight of all those eyes focused solely on him.
In that moment the panel flashed pure white. A surge of blue light particles pierced his chest and flooded through his entire body.
As this happened he felt a sharp pain in his chest for several seconds. His vision grew cloudy, and he suddenly saw something else entirely.
Memories he had never lived before flooded his mind — visions of revenant armies, of strange ghost-like creatures hissing at him, of a never-ending dark night, and of skeletons rising from the dirt.
“What the fu— Ack! Cough, cough…!”
He coughed hard as the images faded, still unable to fully understand what he had just witnessed.
However, he slowly began to piece the vision together. Those images represented the class he had just obtained.
And it turned out to be the exact class he had always loved most whenever it was available in games.
It even came with a slightly edgy description as the cherry on top.
[Class Assigned: Necromancer (Unique Variant – Soulweaver Necromancer)]
As someone who has never lived his life, as someone who has never had dreams, you walk the line between life and death. Command the fallen. Weave souls into obedient vessels. Because you’ve never had a will of your own, the dead are not just your tools; they are extensions of your will.
Alex’s eyes twitched as he read the description. Was the System actually commenting on his own real life?
But seriously — no dreams? What was this? The wording almost made him angry. He felt oddly insulted.
However, in the end it was still the class he had always wanted, so he decided it was fine… right?
“So a Necromancer…”
Feeling the heavy irony of everything — the weight of everyone’s eyes, his internal panic, and the sheer absurdity of the situation — Alex let out a small laugh. It was a genuine, delighted sound that made the others stare at him as if he had completely lost his mind.
“Yes! Finally! This is the class I always wanted. In every game, every campaign… I finally get to be the necromancer!”
Sure, the entire situation was weird as hell. But now that everything was changing forever, why hold back any longer? He felt powerful. He felt alive. For the first time in his life, he truly felt alive. Maybe the System had not been completely wrong about him after all.
FLASH!
“Oh?”
What surprised him most was that he suddenly found himself wearing an entirely new set of clothes. The System had even provided a starter robe that looked properly edgy — black fabric with faint bone embroidery.
The strange blue particles flowing through his body turned deep black, almost like liquid night.
“Oh wow… this is awesome?” Alex was not even sure whether he should say that out loud, but at this point he no longer cared. “Huh?”
Then he realized that everyone was staring at him with wide eyes and open mouths, completely unable to believe the magic they had just witnessed.
In that stunned silence, every person present realized that Alex was no longer just another ordinary human. He had gained real power.
And now everyone wanted a piece of that power for themselves.
“Get out of the way, Alex!” the woman with short brown hair roared as she roughly pushed him aside. “You already got your stuff, right? Move!”
Then everyone else came running forward to claim their own Classes.
“He got a class?! Give me one too!”
“W-Whatever can help me survive!”
“I got here first, get out!”
“No, I did it first!”
“Fuck off, bastard!”
“W-Why are you treating me this way?! We were all coworkers!”
“Please everyone, calm down! We must remain calm and work together to survive!” the blonde young man tried to restore order, but the crowd had already descended into complete chaos.
“Ugh!”
They shoved him aside without hesitation. Alex stumbled and fell onto his backside, watching as everyone frantically demanded their own classes as if their lives depended on it — and perhaps they truly did.
Alex carefully observed what they were doing. Some chose the safe options — Warrior, Healer, Archer, Rogue, or Magician — while others risked the Random Class Generator in the hope of receiving something as good as what Alex had obtained.
However, because the situation was so chaotic and confusing, he was not able to clearly discern every result.
“Haaa… Maybe I should just get out of here.”
He still knew he was not good with crowds, let alone with socializing under pressure. He slowly stood up, brushed the dirt from his new robe, and began walking away from the group.
However—
“Alex!”
Emma, who had already received her class, ran after him.
“I heard you got a Necromancer Class?” she asked with a bright, excited smile. “That sounds so cool! Is it something about dark magic?”
“I did, yes,” Alex answered. “More than just ‘dark magic,’ I believe it’s about raising the dead and casting curses… or at least that’s how it usually works? Mine seems kind of… different, in a weird way.”
“Oh my god, is this really real? Is this not a dream?” Emma kept asking frantically, overwhelming him a little with her rapid questions.
“I believe it’s real. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but… maybe it’s aliens?” Alex shrugged. “What did you get?”
“I… I chose Magician. I didn’t want to risk it with random crap… You got lucky, it seems,” Emma said. “Maybe I should’ve gone for the random generator anyway? What do you think?”
“Hmm… Maybe. Well, you’ve already made your choice. I don’t think you can go back on it, unfortunately,” he replied while awkwardly scratching the back of his head.
“What do we do now, though?” she asked desperately.
Alex was still wondering whether he should stick with her or return to the larger crowd, but Emma’s friendliness ultimately lured him into keeping her company for the time being.
“I don’t know yet, but I think I can summon a skeleton,” he said after analyzing his status and finding a Skill called “Summon Undead.”
“I see… maybe that could help us survive?!” Emma asked hopefully.
“I guess so,” Alex nodded. “I’ll try that first. Afterward we can maybe find shelter and—”
“Aaaaaagh!”
“W-What is that?!”
“Someone help me!!!”
Unfortunately, their brief moment of relative calm shattered as terrified screams filled the air. The strange sensations and distant presences Alex had felt earlier lurking in the mist were likely the source of those cries.
“Monsters?”
Like any good RPG, one could not progress without fighting monsters to level up. But now that this was real life, the thought terrified him more than a little.
He looked around and noticed large silhouettes moving through the trees, attacking his former coworkers with relentless and visceral brutality. The group had barely begun testing their new classes when the first “monsters” appeared.
From what he could tell at a glance, the creatures were very wolf-like, yet slightly humanoid — similar to werewolves. They possessed glowing red eyes and ravenous, razor-sharp teeth.
The beasts savagely leaped onto people’s backs and tore into their necks with those fangs.
“Fuck…”
Right in front of Alex and Emma, several of their coworkers were being mauled alive.
“R-Run!”
“Aaaaahhh!”
“Wolves?!”
“Wait, we have classes now—fight back—AAACK!”
“I’m getting the hell out of here!”
“Wait, everyone! We have to remain together!”
It was too real. Too visceral. The blood, the agony, the screams. Alex felt himself becoming slightly paralyzed, yet the new power pulsing through his body pulled him back together just enough to stay functional.
The survivors scattered in every direction. Alex held his ground for a moment, heart racing with both fear and a strange anticipation.
“Alex, what do we do?!”
Emma stayed close to him, her entire body shaking. Her voice finally woke him from his stunned state.
He looked around carefully, eyes darting in every direction, until he noticed a dense section of forest not too far away.
“Come on — run!”
He grabbed Emma’s hand and sprinted until they reached a quieter clearing deeper within the trees while the others either fought or fled. He gasped for air after the intense run. Emma was in no better condition, clinging to a tree trunk as distant screams continued to echo through the forest.
“Alex, this is really bad…” she muttered. “W-What do we do? Can we even fight them? They’re so fast!”
Alex shook his head. “We cannot keep running forever. We’ll eventually have to fight. Do you have any skills of your own?”
“I think so? I have… Magic Arrow?” she wondered aloud. “Is that something strong? I don’t know!”
“It’ll have to be enough!” Alex said while looking at his Undead Summon Skill. “Alright, let’s do this… calm down, Alex… you can do it… just calm down…”
This was it — his first summon.
He forced himself to calm down even as his heart continued racing, carefully reading the skill description.
He raised his hands and began the short chant listed in the Skill’s description.
It was a simple chant consisting of only a few words.
“Rise, servant of bone. Answer the call of—”
Emma watched in awe… until her eyes suddenly widened in pure horror at something looming behind them.
“GRAAAAHHH!”
A thunderous roar cut him off mid-cast. Alex gasped and spun around, eyes widening as he saw the massive figure approaching.
Its heavy footsteps made the ground shake violently. Nearby trees snapped like toothpicks as the titan walked toward them.
Alex found himself completely paralyzed as it drew closer.
A small name floated above the creature’s head.
[Giant Forest Troll – E Rank]
A monster straight out of legends and myths, easily four meters tall with moss-covered hide and arms like thick tree trunks, burst into the clearing. Apparently it had been stalking the noisy group of humans and had chosen this exact moment to attack the pair that had separated from the crowd.
Alex gripped his staff tightly and attempted to prepare for a fight. The magic circle beneath him was still active, as if waiting for him to finish the cast.
“Aaahhh! Noooo!!! Go away!”
However, before Alex could do anything about the situation, Emma screamed in pure panic and ran away. In her desperation she glared at him with a face twisted by madness and shoved him hard, sending him stumbling straight into the still-active magic circle.
“W-Wha…?! Wait, Emma!!!”
Alex cried out as he tried to stand, but it was already far too late.
CRASH!
The troll’s massive wooden club smashed into him before he could finish the incantation. The attack was quick, yet it was anything but painless.
His bones shattered. Agony exploded through every nerve in his body. Alex had often wondered what it would actually feel like to die.
Now he was experiencing it firsthand, and it was goddamn awful.
His vision went black as the creature pulped his fragile human body in a single brutal swing.
[You have died.]
That was the only message he could still see as his vision and sense of self rapidly faded away.
However, the magic circle beneath him continued pulsing with violet light. The spell had already been cast and, apparently, had not yet fully ended.
In that precise moment — when Alex completed the spell and died directly on top of the magic circle — an error rippled through the System itself.
♢♢♢♢
After being brutally murdered by a giant troll wielding a massive wooden club, Alex could only perceive darkness.
He found himself floating in an endless void without any physical body — just a soul, or perhaps something even less certain.
He did not really understand why he had suddenly regained consciousness in this place.
Alex had never been a religious person, and he had never even believed that souls truly existed.
Well, it seemed he had been wrong — at least regarding the existence of souls.
However, something else lingered within his weakened mind as he stared into the endless void.
“Emma… she pushed me away?”
Alex realized he had been a complete fool to trust her so readily. He had heard certain rumors about her in the past but had chosen not to believe them. Emma was well known around the office for being vicious whenever it suited her needs. She sometimes manipulated others into doing her work, frequently asked for free favors, and would skip entire days only to be easily forgiven by acting cute in front of the boss.
And yet, to the somewhat naïve Alex, her betrayal still stung far too deeply. He had finally chosen to place his trust in someone. He had genuinely wanted to help her. He had even imagined the two of them surviving this nightmare together. Reality, as it turned out, was much harsher.
She had only stayed near him for temporary protection. The moment real danger appeared; she used him as bait and shoved him forward without the slightest hesitation in order to buy herself time to escape while the monster crushed him to death.
Alex let out a long, weary sigh. Now that he was dead, did any of that even matter anymore? There was nothing he could do to change what had already happened.
Slowly, he tried to make sense of where he currently was.
“Where am I, anyway?”
As he continued falling through the abyss, he looked downward and noticed strange dark lights and shifting forms moving in the distance. His eyes slowly widened at the horrors waiting far below.
“W-What the…?!”
What awaited Alex at the end of this fall was not mere darkness, nor the peaceful infinite void he had briefly hoped for so that he could simply meditate in silence.
Instead, it was an endless hell of infernal blue flames, dark caves, and glowing ominous crystals. Within that nightmare, skeletons, zombies, ghouls, and ghosts tore one another apart in eternal torment.
“Is this hell…?”
But the horrors did not stop there.
Alex noticed something massive overseeing the endless chaos and suffering.
A colossal bone creature loomed over the lesser undead, methodically smashing and crushing everything into dust.
And from that dust, endless streams of dark energy flowed upward into the giant being.
Was it consuming these souls? Just what was it doing?
However, he suddenly felt a powerful presence focusing on him.
Far above, a pair of crimson eyes like twin blood moons stared down at him with intense interest.
“Welcome to the Netherworld, young Necromancer.”
The monstrous voice — composed of countless overlapping voices merged into one — made Alex’s entire soul scream in existential dread.
It felt as though he was not even ready, nor supposed, to hear such a wicked welcome.
“This is the land where you will spend the rest of eternity, as someone who has betrayed the Order of Life to align with us, the Followers of Death.”
“…?!”
Alex was completely perplexed and horrified by what he had just heard.
Order of Life?
Followers of Death?
He had been nothing more than a regular office worker less than an hour ago, and now he was being condemned to all of this simply because of a class he had been given at random?!
And to make matters even worse, he was apparently going to spend eternity being tormented in the Underworld — the literal Hades.
Alex could not accept it. He stared up at the two blood moons even as he felt as though his very essence was being slowly peeled away by the agonizing, horrifying pressure.
“W-Wait! You… You got it wrong! I… I didn’t—”
As he tried to muster the words to defend himself, something odd interrupted him.
[Critical Error: Summoner killed mid-cast.]
[Spell and Soul anchor has been lost.]
[Re-routing summoning target to closest compatible vessel…]
His vision was suddenly overlaid by another System message even as he continued to fall.
Alex could not believe it!
“Huh? Wait, what? The spell was still ongoing?”
The powerful entity above noticed something strange about him. Its red eyes widened with interest.
Its presence grew even larger, exerting massive pressure as it attempted to drag Alex downward into an eternity of torment.
“He’s mine now! Who dares oppose the forces of death itself?!”
It spoke with its monstrous voice, addressing someone else — a being that existed between Life and Death itself.
Someone capable of even defying these primordial laws and snatching a soul away if it so pleased!
Out of nowhere, an invisible force slowly began pulling Alex back upward toward the distant light. The endless torment below grew smaller and smaller.
RUMBLE!
However, giant bony claws suddenly rushed toward Alex from the depths of the Netherworld. The same monstrous titan he had seen crushing millions of undead and absorbing their essence responded to the blood moons and tried to seize him.
“MY SON! SEIZE HIM! THAT SOUL…! HE IS A SPECIAL ONE! WE MUST HAVE HIM! WE CANNOT LET LIFE TAKE HIM!”
“Yes… great mother…”
The situation was completely insane. The titan’s movements seemed to pierce through space itself; distance meant nothing to this strange being.
Alex panicked and tried to stop them as the claws drew closer and closer.
“W-Wait! Wait!”
And then…
[Success.]
[Error resolved by binding caster soul to summoned vessel.]
FLASH!
Alex felt a sharp pain piercing through his chest.
“Ugh?! Wha…! What the…?!”
Like a fish caught on a hook, Alex was literally yanked back toward the world of the living by a golden thread that suddenly connected to his soul. The thread stretched upward into the void he had fallen from and pulled him rapidly away, barely allowing him to escape the entity’s grasp as a flash of bright light greeted him once more.
However—
RUMBLE!
Another deafening rumble echoed through the void, leaving Alex even more shocked.
“NO! HE’S MINE! GIVE HIM BACK, SYSTEM! YOU HAVE NO AUTHORITY IN MY REALM! HOW…! HOW DARE YOU!”
The monstrous voice boomed as an aberrant being made of millions of fused corpses, with long bone legs and arms, began crawling through the void like a giant, disgusting spider. The pair of crimson eyes resembling moons gleamed above the nightmarish mass in a confusing, impossible arrangement that Alex could not even properly comprehend.
“AAAHHHH!”
Alex screamed in pure horror as his mind began to melt from the mere sight of the creature. Its claws kept reaching for him, growing closer with every second.
[Hidden requirements have been met. Unique Class Evolution Triggered.]
However, another notification appeared at that exact moment. This final message allowed him to be pulled fully into the light, winning the desperate race against whatever that abomination was.
♢♢♢♢
Alex woke up.
He had followed the light and had actually returned.
However, he immediately felt that a great many things about himself were now strange and wrong.
He felt empty. He could not breathe. He could not even gasp.
His sense of touch was dull, and his vision felt strangely nebulous.
“Huh?”
He dropped to his knees. He could still hear the world and see it, yet it felt as though he no longer possessed proper eyes or ears.
He was incredibly cold, yet this coldness did not make his body tremble.
But unmistakably, he was back inside the Tutorial. His senses were greeted by blue skies, tall distant trees, wet soil, the smell of blood, and mist slowly rolling in from the far east.
“What… happened to me?”
He tried to recall the recent events, but his memories remained blurry. He still remembered the darkness, however, and those blood moons staring down at him.
And… that thing that had chased after him.
“I’m… definitely not human anymore.”
He looked down at his own hands and confirmed the fact.
Yes — he had returned to the world of the living, but he was hardly “alive” in any conventional sense.
His hands were pristine white and made entirely of bone. In fact, his entire body was nothing but bone. When he touched his face, he found it just as hard and fleshless.
He had not even been allowed to return as a zombie with some remaining flesh hanging loosely from his bones.
No — he had been stripped clean of all of it.
“I’m…”
A skeleton.
Alex sat down, forced himself to calm down, and tried to properly assess the situation.
“Okay. Let’s… let’s take this one step at a time.”
He sat up slowly. His bones clicked softly in response. That sensation would take some time to get used to. He examined his body once more and confirmed again that there was no flesh and no organs. He was simply clean white bone wrapped in faint black threads of murky ethereal energy — energy he believed to be “Mana,” the source of magical phenomena in this world. It was mostly a guess, but when he opened his status screen that belief was confirmed.
♢♢♢♢
[Name]: [Alex Rivera]
[Titles]: [Necromancer] [Self-Summon]
[Race]: [Undead Skeleton (Bound Self-Summon – F)]
[Level]: [1/30]
[Class]: [Soulweaver Necromancer (F+)]
[Profession]: N/A
[Health Points (HP)]: [65/65]
[Mana Points (MP)]: [140/140]
[Nether]: [95/95]
{Stats}
[Strength]: [8]
[Agility]: [14]
[Endurance]: [6]
[Toughness]: [18]
[Wisdom]: [16]
[Intelligence]: [17]
[Perception]: [19
[Willpower]: [20]
[Spirit]: [22]
[Free Points]: [0]
{Passive Skills}
[Self-Binding (Tier 1: 30%)]: You are both the Necromancer and your own first minion. You may issue absolute commands to yourself with zero mana cost or resistance. Pain, fear, and hesitation can be forcibly suppressed. You gain both the Skills and Abilities of the Necromancer and their Undead Minion and enjoy both of their benefits… and penalties.
[Undead Evolution (Tier 1: 30%)]: Your skeletal form can be upgraded through absorbed death energy, bones, or rare materials. There are no biological limits. No need for food, air, or sleep. Once upgraded, you will be able to “evolve” more than just bones, but your very soul.
{Active Skills}
[Summon Undead (Tier 1: 25%)]: Use your Mana and chant the necessary words to create a Summoning Circle and summon a Lesser Undead bound to you. The amount of Undead you can bind depends on Skill Tier and your Soul Capacity. Limit: 1/1. Chant: “Rise, servant of bone/rot/phantom. Answer the call of your new Master.”
[Soul Thread Weaving (Tier 1: 1%)]: Manipulate your own soul threads to repair, reinforce, or temporarily enhance your frame. Any future Undead you summon will be made stronger under the influence of your Self-Binding, sharing a piece of You. A combination of Nether and Mana is required to use this Skill effectively.
[Death Echo (Tier 1: 0%)]: Once per day, you can replay the final moments of any creature you kill and absorb a fragment of its strength.
{Changelog}
After becoming a Skeleton, your body is no longer alive, thus there’s no Vitality and you cannot possess Stamina either.
Vitality has been replaced with Spirit.
Stamina has been replaced with Nether.
♢♢♢♢
“Huh… I’m really nothing but bones…”
Alex flexed his bony fingers to analyze how they functioned. It was truly odd how all these bones remained held together with no meat or cartilage between them. It seemed to be entirely the work of “magic.”
However, he had to admit something important: he felt… better. He was lighter and somewhat faster, most likely because he no longer carried the weight of flesh and organs.
Somehow, his old awkward human clumsiness had completely disappeared. It was shocking. The same fears he had suffered for so long — his phobias, his anxiety — were simply gone.
In their place was a bizarre sensation of pure, cold efficiency, almost like that of a machine.
And that feeling was, bizarrely enough, strangely liberating for the young man.
“Hah…”
He did not even feel afraid anymore. He felt relaxed, looking around and simply admiring nature for what it was.
Somehow, after the initial shock passed, he was not even particularly surprised by his new condition. Most of his human worries and fears seemed to have vanished along with his flesh.
“Strange.”
He felt cold, yet oddly at peace with himself. He did not know whether this was how all undead felt or if the sensation was unique to him. He had not yet met any other Undead in person to compare.
He looked down at his empty pelvis. An old “friend” had been lost in the transformation.
“Nothing down there either, hah. Why did I expect anything else, though?”
After sitting motionlessly for some undefined amount of time, he let out a long, ghostly sigh.
“Oh?”
The very action made him realize he could somehow still “breathe” through the strange movements of the dark energies that animated his body.
“How interesting.”
As someone who had always been fascinated by anatomy and biology, becoming an undead creature opened an entirely new world of possibilities.
How does my body even function now?
What makes a skeleton move when it is already dead?
What exactly are Mana, Spirit, and Nether?
So many questions filled his mind, each one leaving him quietly fascinated as he examined every inch of his new form.
“If I no longer feel fear… if I am still here… then…?”
Now completely free of his old human hesitation and anxiety, he wanted to experience everything this new world had to offer.
“I should test my Skills.”
First he needed to see what each one could actually do. Descriptions alone would never be enough — he wanted to feel their effects for himself.
He started with Self-Binding.
“Stand up and run ten meters.”
His body obeyed instantly.
He ran exactly ten meters. Then he ordered himself to perform a backflip, then to climb a nearby tree — actions the old Alex had never done and did not even know how to perform.
Every command was executed with perfect precision. It felt exactly like the Auto-Mode feature in the mobile games he used to play during short breaks at work.
“Right… my old belongings.”
When he remembered the items he had been carrying, he searched through the bloody clothes left behind near the site of his death. Apparently he had returned not far from where he had been killed.
His phone was smashed beyond any hope of repair. At least his wallet remained intact, so he kept it in case he ever needed his ID to prove who he truly was.
As he looked at his old identification card, he continued thinking about what Self-Binding had allowed him to do.
“Interesting,” he thought. “I really can force myself to do anything. There are no excuses and no fear at all. It’s… perfect.”
With nothing else immediate to do, Alex began wandering through the surrounding forest as the sun slowly descended toward the horizon.
The area was now mostly deserted, but numerous corpses littered the ground — mostly half-eaten human remains.
Except for one particular body.
“Oh? Someone killed this thing?”
He looked down at what was clearly the corpse of the very same troll that had killed him.
The beast was covered in large, slowly melting icicles. It was completely dead.
Someone possessing an incredible class must have destroyed it thoroughly.
Alex felt a light sense of relief that his death had at least been avenged.
If he ever met the person responsible, he would thank them.
Then a new thought crossed his mind. Did he not have a Skill that interacted with corpses?
“Death Echo, was it?”
He placed his bony hand on the troll’s massive head.
In an instant a pulse of black fog traveled from the corpse into his hand and then throughout his entire body.
A faint surge of fragmented memories and raw energy flooded his empty soul.
The memories were incomplete, but he learned that the troll had come from a nearby mountain nest controlled by a Troll Queen. This particular giant had only been a weak scout; the truly powerful members of the nest had not yet left the mountain.
FLUOSH!
[Death energy absorbed: +47%]
[Your Nether has increased by +10]
[Your Strength has increased by +12]
[Your Spirit has increased by +7]
[Your Toughness has increased by +8]
[You learned the Active Skill: [Brutish Force (Tier 1: 0%)]: Charge Mana and Nether into your body and charge, doubling your Strength and Agility while piercing 10% of a foe’s defenses.]
[Undead Evolution: 77%]
[Once you reach 100%, you can undergo Undead Evolution.]
Alex was surprised. He could already feel himself becoming stronger and faster.
“Not bad at all.”
A grin he could no longer physically form still bloomed inside his mind. This was clearly an easily abusable skill.
However.
“Hey, so…”
“Yeah, over there?”
Voices suddenly approached from the trees.
“?!”
Alex fell completely silent and looked toward the sound. The surviving humans — his former coworkers — stumbled into the clearing.
They saw the dead troll and the lone skeleton standing over it, violet eyes glowing faintly.
“A skeleton?! Wow, that’s insane. Wait, is it trying to loot the troll?!”
“One thing after another… Hey dude, we got here first!”
“Why are you even trying to speak with that thing?”
Alex recognized every one of them. They were people from his office. He had interacted with them a handful of times before.
He tried to speak to them. “Wait, it’s me—!” but his voice came out as nothing more than a horrifying dry hiss. “Ack?!”
They could not recognize him. The System had completely overwritten his old identity. To them he was simply another Tutorial monster:
[Undead Skeleton – F Rank]
“T-Take it down already! It scares me!”
Suddenly a spear thrust toward his skull. Alex dodged on pure instinct, narrowly avoiding a potentially fatal blow. He knew that as a skeleton he lacked many ordinary human weaknesses, but he was certain that if his skull was crushed to pieces it would severely damage or even destroy him.
Several more thrusts followed, yet he continued dodging them with surprising dexterity. He quickly realized that evasion was much easier now. Bones were far lighter without the weight of meat and organs.
“How can I communicate with them?”
He racked his mind for a solution, but they had already surrounded him.
Alex flinched as Fireballs began flying toward his face.
A sword then swung toward his legs in an attempt to destroy them so he would fall and become easy prey.
They were clearly eager to kill him without further discussion.
Alex could not entirely blame them. They were panicking and likely half-insane from everything that had happened in such a short time.
However, that did not mean he would simply allow them to do whatever they pleased with him.
He kept trying to speak and gesture, but every attempt produced only a ghostly, empty, and terrifying voice that only made them more frightened.
“Damn thing, is it mocking us?!”
“How is this thing so fast?!”
“Die already!”
Alex rolled his nonexistent eyes and sighed internally. From the clumsy way they fought, their stats were likely less than half of his own. He was easily avoiding every attack they threw at him.
Becoming both a Skeleton and his own familiar had caused his stats to skyrocket far beyond what a normal F-Rank skeleton should possess. Even so, this advantage would not last forever.
As he had already realized, every single movement consumed a small amount of Nether — the fuel that powered his Undead body.
He needed to end this confrontation quickly somehow.
“Okay… let’s do this carefully.”
He activated Self-Binding once more and gave himself a simple, clear order in the hope of neutralizing them without unnecessary lethality.
“Take them down without killing them.”
His eyes gleamed with cold light, and his body moved entirely on its own.
Even as a skeleton, he did not want to kill these people. He did not want to abandon what little remained of his humanity.
These former coworkers were terrified and had no idea who he truly was now. Alex chose mercy over cruelly slaughtering them.
Unfortunately, he had not been specific enough about the exact condition in which they should remain “alive.”
“Aaagh!”
“W-Wait!”
“Ugh?!”
He moved like lightning. His bony hands were incredibly hard thanks to his high Toughness stat, and the soul threads animating him made his body flexible, like a puppet perfectly controlled by his will. Every motion felt almost instinctive.
A precise palm strike shattered the swordsman’s elbow. A powerful kick twisted one woman’s leg in the wrong direction. Finally he grabbed a dropped sword and sliced through the spearman’s right hand, leaving the man bleeding and helpless on the ground.
Staring at the pitiful scene he had created, Alex felt a lingering sense of guilt.
“Ah… I think I screwed that up.”
He knew that despite having become a skeleton, this was not something he should have done so carelessly.
“Aaaahh!”
“Uuuggh!”
“A-AAHH!”
Although his mind remained strangely cold and detached, he still felt a weird, residual sensation of remorse.
He did not want to lose that sensation, because it meant there was still some humanity left within him.
This guilt, this remaining humanity — they were the foundation of his own personality. To lose them completely would mean losing himself and becoming nothing more than a wild, mindless beast.
With no way to heal the injured and with the faint fear that staying longer would only make the situation worse, he quickly fled while still holding the sword he had taken.
“Sorry. I’m really sorry.”
He hoped they would somehow survive, but deep down he knew that what he had done might ultimately prove worse than simply killing them outright.
His soul felt deeply conflicted. Becoming undead was a strange and unsettling experience. There was still a part of him that felt genuine guilt, yet there was also an overwhelming colder half that felt almost nothing at all.
He feared that the colder half would eventually consume everything he once was. He had to find a way to fight against that gradual erosion so he would not lose himself entirely.
“Haaa… I have to get away from humans for now. I don’t want something like this to happen again. I need to learn how to properly move and fight before I risk hurting anyone else.”
He shook his skull and ran toward the distant mountains where the Troll Nest waited.
From the troll’s absorbed memories he knew that the Troll Queen guarded a precious treasure of some kind.
Even as a skeleton, Alex intended to survive and grow stronger.
He did not know what kind of hell awaited him once he eventually returned to Earth, and that uncertainty was exactly why he needed to grow as powerful as possible during this Tutorial.
A nest full of monsters was the perfect opportunity to test his limits and learn how to fully control his new body before he attempted to interact with humans again.