Aster had drastically underestimated how difficult this dungeon’s rules would turn out to be.

  It had already been twenty four hours since she’d entered, during which time she’d gained several levels in both her class and profession, and she was struggling. Her health continued to tick down, only remedied by the strange Labyrinthine Health Potions, but that only added to the problem.

  The stupid monsters inside the labyrinth inevitably ran away from the exit, making every stop to hunt one down cost almost as much as it helped. This information was the result of encountering the same dead-ends multiple times, and then only after she’d marked them to double check her theory.

  Now, she was focusing on making progress and saving the one spare healing potion she had for when she had more need of it. As it stood, she was sitting around 70% health, at 247/350. After a particularly difficult bout with another one of those rodents she’d dipped under 50% for the first time since entering this Tutorial.

  It had been level 15, and obviously had another skill in addition to its short-area spatial magic as it was able to whip its tail around, leaving a temporary spatial anomaly that lasted just long enough to trip her up. She’d fallen and bonked her head hard enough to leave her seeing stars, which let the rat rip the hell out of her side. She’d healed with the help of three healing potions, but it had left her at around 40% health until the next time she could kill one of the rat bastards.

  Her notes about the labyrinth and its rodents she’d encountered, however, had been fantastic for her progress.

  Name: Aster Rose

  Race: [Human (G) – lvl 8]

  Class: Warrior (Medium) — lvl 11

  Profession: Novice Naturalist - lvl 6

  Health Points (HP): 440

  Mana Points (MP): 320

  Stamina: 290

  Free Points: 14

  She’d gotten five levels in her Profession and another in her Class. At this rate, she was nearing that level 10 threshold again, but this time in her Race level. She didn’t know what it was that was waiting for her there, but she could feel that it would be important.

  Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

  Anyways, her Level 5 skill selection had been pretty meh. There’d only been three choices, and just one had held any appeal to her at all.

  [Basic Field Dressing (Common)] - Grants practical knowledge of cutting, skinning, and salvaging from fallen creatures. Increases the amount and quality of usable resources gathered, such as hides, meat, bones, and other natural resources. Reduces the time required to harvest and lowers the chance of ruining parts during extraction.

  So far the skill hadn’t netted her too much, seeing as the variety of wildlife around her seemed to be limited to the same family of spatial rodents, but she was certain it would be helpful when she was out of this place. Maybe there were crafting opportunities with stuff like that? That was what usually happened in video games, right?

  She toyed at the tear in her shirt as she walked, frowning at the fresh skin on her side. It was smooth, with no hint of the bone-deep gash that had been there earlier. The rat had bitten clean through her chain shirt, the metal offering little resistance to the powerful rodent. Aster had toyed with the idea of just removing the armor as it didn’t seem to be doing anything for her, but kept it on just for the sake of it. It was the only real armor she had, after all.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  The hole was annoying, and she’d have to get it patched up once she got out of the labyrinth to keep from flashing anyone she came across. That led to thoughts of Maria Castle and how she might be doing. She was tough, and Aster had little doubt she’d followed through with her plan of finding others to help.

  Aster took inventory of herself, and, finding that she was in a good mental place to continue pushing forward, she began to run.

  Running had always sucked. She hated running. No sane person liked running. But… now that she didn’t run out of breath from basic physical exertion?

  Maybe it wasn’t so bad anymore.

  Even though she’d been living with this new capability for a few days now, it was still something she was having trouble reconciling. Going from having to beat Death off with a stick to… well, beating off giant rodents with an alternatively pointy stick, would jar even the most stable person.

  Not enough time had passed for her to come to terms with it. A rather loud part of her insisted this was just what dying was like and that nothing had actually changed, but that was easily brushed aside. Not brushed aside by logic or anything of the sort, mind, but because if she was dead or dying then she simply didn’t care.

  No. Aster was much more interested in the prospect that this was actually a new reality— one in which she wasn’t suffering and in which she had a chance to continue on.

  It wasn’t easy to watch those close to you die. It was easier to die yourself, or be dying, she figured, as she’d had the rare opportunity to experience that side of the coin herself. How did you continue after someone you cared about died? There isn’t an answer to that. You just do. But how do you continue after you yourself had been supposed to die, had cut off every relationship important to you, had suffered through each loss and doubly through each victory that only extended your suffering and the weight you’d leave on those you loved…? How would you face those people again? Did that even matter, or what if they weren’t in this tutorial or what if they’d died in the meantime while I was too involved in my own pity party to notice or to care? What if—

  Aster let loose a scream and swung her fist at the wall, breaking something, though whether it was the wall or her own hand she couldn’t tell.

  Something clattered to the ground next to her, and a disconnected part of her brain told her that it was her spear, but she didn’t care. Instead she held her hands close to her chest, bucking with tears as drops, both cold and hot, fell onto her thighs.

  It was too blurry to see what was happening, so she brushed the detritus away, wincing when her hand pained her, and scowling when hot, wet red was left on her face.

  What am I supposed to do?

  NO. She didn’t do that anymore. There is no supposed.

  It was a long time, over which she felt her knuckles pop back into place, before she decided what it was that she wanted to do.

  It was a flash of movement ahead, a new shape moving in the darkness, that had pulled her out of her self-inflicted self-reflection.

  She didn’t have answers. No, those weren’t within her reach.

  But this thing? This new monster? This prey?

  Her grip, sticky with dried blood, found her spear. The wood or her knuckles cracked. It didn’t matter which.

  She was beyond pain. She had an outlet now, as the figure ahead of her rounded a corner.

  Aster didn’t notice that the wall was still smoking where she’d struck it, nor that her grip left black recesses in the haft of her spear.

  The only thing she knew was that she was alive, for better or for worse, and that that fact was dependent upon her maintaining the momentum she’d been building up.

  And that meant that something else had to die. Something else.

  And she was okay with that.