The Place Where Everything Begins

*Fwuu...*

Jeremy let out a breath of air from his mouth and thought to himself,

'Those nuisances should have left by now. What a bunch of conservative cowards. Were they really intending to sacrifice everyone else's lives for a comatose murderer?'

'Anyway... At last, I've exacted my revenge to the moron for making me stabbed in the back...'

Despite the fact that it was only a painless death, Benjamin had already faced enough pain from the two goblins he fought, so there was no point for Jeremy to waste his further efforts with the man.

Upon finishing his thought, Jeremy reminisced about the earlier event that happened approximately twenty minutes ago...

After everyone knew the one who had killed Benjamin was Jeremy, they felt afraid of him at first. Some people even intended to criticize Jeremy for his 'bad' deeds.

However, after Jeremy emitted his 'intent', no one had ever dared to look directly at him again. It simply meant they shut their rotten mouths in front of Jeremy's absolute strength.

Thus, after some words from Mitchell, their leader, everyone calmed down a lot and thought about the positive sides of Benjamin's death.

That was they would finally leave this cursed chamber...

That also was no more monsters to fight against...

Just like that, except for some people's lingering dissatisfaction, everyone else settled down with the outcome of Benjamin's death.

Then Mitchell ordered everyone to pack and prepare their own things and bought rations for the upcoming second stage.

Not long after, most people were finally ready for departure...

However, at that time, when everyone had finished grouping up altogether, Jeremy suddenly told them that he would not be going with them.

As a result, everyone felt bewildered at his decision...

Would he stay here alone, at the hellish chamber with only five hours before the monsters came raiding?

Wasn't that a suicidal tendency?

Also...

If Jeremy didn't come with them, the total number of people who had passed the third tutorial mission would become 16. Which meant there would be 15 people and Jeremy, the sixteenth, left within the tutorial chamber.

Thus, there came another dilemma...

What should they do with this effing situation?

Should they force Jeremy to come along?

That was totally impossible...

Nonetheless, when Mitchell and everyone else were racking their brains to find a way out, Jeremy suddenly opened his mouth and told them that he already had a solution prepared for them.

Thus, after hearing how it should be done from Jeremy, everyone calmed down a bit but was still skeptical with the former's notion...

Nevertheless, they had no other choice but to believe in Jeremy, for they couldn't force him anyway.

But what if they begged him to come along?

Well, they never tried that...

Just like that, after telling everyone what had to be done to leave the tutorial and then receiving the skeptical looks from everyone, Jeremy promptly went inside the hard-difficulty door while leaving everyone behind.

After Jeremy had gone inside the door, that would leave 31 people at the tutorial chamber. It also meant that when 16 people chose to complete the mission and were teleported to the second stage, the other 15 would also be implicitly teleported out of the chamber.

Thereby, Jeremy was in the hard tutorial right now, whereas the other people should have left for the tutorial's second stage by now.

At this moment, Jeremy was looking around his surroundings left and right...

Unfortunately, he only saw blackness from all directions. So, Jeremy thought with a frown,

'What the heck is this place? Damned cupid... don't tell me I will be locked here for eterni...'

...

『 Hard Trial 』

『 Objective: Kill three gladiators to be teleported outside 』

...

'Hmm...?'

After seeing the sudden transparent window popped up shielding the dark space behind, Jeremy wondered to himself with a frown...

Then, when he finally realized...

'What!? Gladiators? Don't fucking tell me...'

Jeremy thought to himself with wide eyes after seeing the word 'Gladiator', as it was a word that would be heard regularly by people on Ortus.

So, it was astounding that the said word would actually appear here.

However, Jeremy was interrupted again by another notification...

...

『 It is detected that the difficulty of this trial is unjust for the Le'Liac species of the human race. Thus, the System has intervened and changed the Objective to 'Kill two gladiators to be teleported outside' 』

...

"The hell..."

Jeremy mumbled with a dazed look after seeing the new notification in front of him. Then he thought wonderingly,

'Copying our human branch's War of the Worlds is not enough; the fucking cupid has even set the difficulty too high for Earthlings to pass... If he is not stupid, he must be too lazy then.'

*Sigh*

Jeremy could only sigh while shaking his head helplessly at the cupid who designed this tutorial...

'Whatever...'

After finishing his thought, the blackness around Jeremy started receding ever slowly, bit by bit...

Then the bright light promptly replaced the dark space earlier, causing Jeremy to finally see what was around him.

Right now, he stood right in the middle of something similar to a giant, oval amphitheater built with countless stones. At the same time, there was row after row of seats that seated many humans sparsely on the seating section.

To be frank, if Jeremy were still on Earth, he would have thought that he was in the famous Colosseum.

However, he knew all too well that this place was not Colosseum but only something that looked similar.

This place went by the name of...

'Zodia Arena, the place where humans strive to win for greatness...' Jeremy thought to himself after realizing what this place was.

Then Jeremy, who stood in the middle of the rip-off version of Zodia Arena, inspected around him...

Right in front of him was a three-meter-high metal gate shut tightly, whereas the dirt under his feet was yellow-brown in color...

At this moment, Jeremy stood around 30 meters away from the circular stone wall with a height of approximately five meters.

Above the wall, many 'humans' were sitting sparsely on the stone seats in groups, with each group no more than ten people altogether. Those people sat in different rows and seats, which had more than twenty rows spanning from low to high altitude like a football stadium back on Earth...

Behind the people and the seats were high stone pillars stationed and spanning the entire arena's external layer, which comprised more than fifty thick pillars made of yellow stones...

When Jeremy saw such a rip-off version of Zodia Arena with his own eyes, he could only shake his head at the resemblance between the two.

Well, it could be said that the only difference was the 'size' of the actual one and this one, for the actual Zodia Arena was dozens of times bigger than this place.

'This might be a perfect place for Earthlings to adapt to Ortus' environment, but...'

'This trial is a hard-difficulty one... How the heck will a normal human be able to pass this trial in the first place? This one is also purely a fighting-related trial with no luck or coincidence into associating at all. That way, everyone, who is cocky enough to come inside, will just die a dog's death here...'

After thinking so, Jeremy shook his head again slightly to discard those unnecessary thoughts.

There was no point in thinking about the lazy cupid anymore...

Then as if he suddenly felt something, Jeremy turned his head towards the metal gate in front of him.

Simultaneously...

*Creaks!*

*Chrrrick* *Chrrrick*

*Chrrrick* *Chrrrick*

Evidently, the metal gate seemed to be pulled up by some mechanisms inside the wall, causing it to be opened up bit by bit, making the annoying sounds inside the arena...