They walked over to the coach, all of them making sure to check behind them every now and again. The coach was also walking over to them, so it only took a few minutes to get to each other, while only walking.
“So what did you guys decide on?” The coach asked.
“Weren’t you watching to make sure we were ok?” Radun asked, with a confused tone.
“You guys are all 6 foot, something, varsity athletes, a little green man wasn’t going to do anything.”
“Yeah, but half of us are still children,” Chris, the server sub, said with a slightly angry tone, which meant he was furious.
“Fine, but either way, what did you decide to do?”
“I attacked it,” Radun answered. “Because I honestly didn’t know what else to do, and nobody disagreed.”
The coach only grunted in agreement. God why did they have to get such a douche for a coach, the worst part is that his only experience in volleyball is that he binged Haikyu!. Which frankly was just straight up bad, and is probably the least accurate sports anime of all time.
He took his mind off the negativity, and asked, “Uh, coach, how are we supposed to get food and water?”
“Take a quick look around, and I know you saw the forest, there’s no way there isn’t any food in there.”
“I don’t think that’s smart,” John, one of their middles, disagreed. “The forest is clearly very dangerous, and do we have anything to boil the water?”
“Whatever, We’ll figure it out.”
“Coach, that’s not good enough, and you know it!” Chris finally snapped, “If we don’t figure this stuff out, we will die!”
“I can probably boil water,” Radun tried to calm Chris down. “So we have a few days to figure out food.”
“See, Chris, everythings fine,” The coach said in a snarky tone.
“How ‘bout we all go look around the clearing for food?” Matt asked.
They all agreed to that easily, because they knew if they left Chris around Mr. Smith any longer and they would probably start fighting each other.
Radun, and Mike walked off towards the lake, which he was just noticing. He wondered why he hadn't looked around the clearing yet.
He took a quick look, the lake was near the center, there were trees here and there, a few bushes, and flowers, and everything you would expect in a clearing. The flowers could have some edible parts, the bushes could have edible berries, and the lake could have edible fish. Now that he looked around he realized there could be a lot of food.
“Yo, Mike, I think we could make this work for a while,” the libero said. “I mean as long as the water is freshwater, and magic water can boil it, we have water, and now that I look around, there could be a lot of food.”
“Yeah, but how long will the food last for? A week? Maybe a month?” Mike responded, “I mean we have 13 men, all but one are athletes, that are probably going to need to fight, and the last one is kinda a fat ass.”
“Yeah, and what if you need to be full to gain mana?”
“Yeah,” Mike said with a sad tone.
“We could learn to farm the fruits and veggies, if there are any,” The libero tried to give the right hitter hope. “And if there are fish, we just need to not over hunt them.”
They walked in silence until they got to the lake.
“Holy shit it’s deep,” Mike said. “And there’s fish!”
“How can something be so deep?”
“You’ll learn when you’re older,” Mike, put his hand over Radun's shoulder when, and cracked a grin as he said that, and Radun laughed.
“God, Chris was right, we’re such children.”
“Anyways, we should check if you can boil the water,” Mike said, becoming more serious.
“Yeah,” While Radun said that he condensed his mana into a rock cup.
When he dipped it in, the water stayed in the, which was a good sign. He made mana go under it, and vibrated it at an insane speed, and started a fire under it.
It was taking too long, so he tried something. He put his mana into the cup, attached the actual atoms to it, which took a lot of his focus, and burned his mana insanely quickly, and sped them up. The water started boiling instantly.
“How long do I keep it boiling for?”
“How should I know?”
“I don’t know,” Radun said in a faux exasperated voice. “I’ll do it for a minute and a half just in case.”
“Probably smart.”
They stood in an awkward silence for a bit, before he flash cooled the water.
“Since I made it drinkable, I think you should drink it,” He threw Mike under the bus.
“That’s exactly why I think you should drink it; I mean you worked so hard to make it, you probably need it more.”
“Yeah, but it made me too tired to drink it right now, you know?”
“No, I don’t, wouldn’t drinking some water, cooling you down, especially with all the exercise you have been doing,” Radun knew he would lose after hearing that.
“Fine, but if I die, I’m haunting you.” He said before downing the water in his ‘cup’.
“Feel like a brain eating ameba has invaded your body?”
“Maybe? I mostly feel fine though.”
He made another cup for his friend, before making a massive trough, with a top, and filling it with water, for all of them to share.
“Do you think that if you made water from mana, that it would be drinkable, and if it would stay in your body?”
“It would probably be drinkable, but definitely wouldn’t stay, the second I stop focusing on my mana it breaks apart.”
“Yo, Radun, can I ask you about something from the fight?”
“Sure?”
“What was that black thing that seemed like it dragged everything towards it?”
“I think it’s called void, but I don’t know much, since it’s one of my given skills. But the skill that controls it is legendary, so it’s probably really strong.”
They walked back to where the coach was at, and set the trough down.
“Finally, some water!” The coach said happily.
“Only 1 mug of water per person,” Radun almost laughed as the coach’s face slowly become redder, and redder. “Although you can earn more water by doing things for the group, like fighting, taking a gauding shift at night, or helping with the camp, Coach.” He made sure to say ‘Coach’ in the most annoying way.
The coach looked about ready to burst.
“How dare you, I’m the one who should make decisions on these things!”
“Why, just because you’re the coach?”
“Yes!”
“So you get everything, and make all the rules, and don’t have to do anything?”
“Yes!- Wait no, because being in charge is a job.”
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“Yeah, have fun convincing ‘6 Foot, something, varsity athletes’ of that.”
“I don’t need you guys to put me in char-” He stopped yelling, as Chris started walking into their direction. He would really need to ask what Chris did to make the coach so scared of him soon.
He was probably being a creep one day, and Chris saw, and jumped him. God He hated Mr. Smith so much.
He waited for everyone else to come back before saying, “Yo, everyone, The lake is extremely deep, like I can’t see the bottom deep, and it was filled with fish, and plants.”
“I found some berry bushes,” Ty, their defensive specialist, said. “But, I don’t know if they’re poisonous or not.”
“I also found some food,” Nick said. “I found some root veggies, like potatoes, and carrots.”
“By the way, I think I was able to make the water drinkable,” Radun shared the good news. “I’m not completely sure though, I drank some, gave some to mike, and didn’t tell the coach, so give it a day, and see if we’re ok first.”
They all agreed, and did their own things for a while.
—
“Yo, guys, it’s getting late,” their setter said. “Does anyone know how to make a fire?”
“Yeah, I was in the boy-scouts for a year,” Mike said. “I’ll get some wood, and try to light one.”
“I think we should also do rotations for sleep, and since there are 12 people we can trust, we do 4 pairs, of 1, or 3, depending on our decision,” Justin continued to get ready for the night. “We should decide if we should also do a 3 day rotation between people watching, and have the most amount of well rested people possible, or make us as secure at night as possible.”
“I mean I think that the 3 day one is the best option, anyone disagree?” Radun asked in the same way he did earlier that day.
“I kinda like the 3 people one more, it’ll make it easier to fall asleep,” Mike disagreed. “Also why can’t we just have 2 people watch?”
“Because that’s unfair to 4 people, who won’t be able to sleep a full eight hours one of the 2 nights,” Justin explained. “Plus it’s not even as secure as 3 people staying up, so if we did that we would be as cooked as possible.”
“So, who agrees with me?”
6 people agreed, so there would be 4 rotations of 1 person.
“Now we should probably get some food, and sticks,” Justin ordered.
Radun, and Mike walked back to the lake, and he made some mana spears, and passed one to Mike.
“Since when did you learn to spear fish?” Mike questioned.
“I didn’t, so you have any worms? Or a couple of free hours?”
“Yeah, that’s fair.”
“Do you know how to, or are we extra cooked?”
“We’re burned.”
Radun just sighed and got ready to jump into the water. When he jumped in, he created some ‘air’ around his mouth and nose, before doing the same with Mike.
He began to look around. He saw a fish, and used his mana, and speed boost to stab into the fish, before pushing it down the spear. After a while he made a bag so he could get even more fish, then another one for some plants.
When he surfaced he saw Mike getting dressed. After they were both done getting ready, Radun dried all the stuff they picked up. He got 20 fish, and some sea plants, while Mike got 10 fish. He made a vortex of air to carry the food back to their camp.
They must have been down there for an hour or two, it was starting to get dark.
As they were walking back he noticed a fire. The pyre was decent sized. He made a bunch of spikes out of rock, and stabbed the food into them, and wrapped some of the sea plants around the food.
They sat around the fire and chatted until it was time to go to sleep.
“Yo, guys do any of you know the goblin?” Radun started, “Do you think it will come back in the night?”
He got a bunch of mixed reactions.
“I mean probably, it would make sense, since this is supposed to be deadly,” Patrick agreed with what Radun was thinking.
“I don’t think so, if there really is someone behind this, they wouldn’t be that cruel,” Matt hopefully said.
“I mean they very much could, there were way crueler people before all this,” Collin said
“True,” John said. After that they went into a peaceful quiet.
After a while everyone but John, and Colin went to bed.
—
Jack got Radun up, and he met up with Mike near the softly burning fire.
“So, you agree that there will probably be two goblins attacking at some point tonight, right?” Radun said.
“Yeah, probably.”
After a remorseful silence Mike continued, “What do you think is happening outside?”
“I don’t know, maybe everything is the same, except maybe a volleyball coach being investigated for kidnappings. What do you think this is preparing us for?”
“What do you mean?”
“This is a tutorial, meaning it’s probably getting us ready for something?”
“Probably,” He paused for a moment, thinking of an answer. “Probably, a life not worth living, if this is going to go the way I think it will.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that, there wouldn’t be a point in the ‘system admin’, or whatever’ to lie about how bad this will be, and how many will die.”
“Yeah,” they fell into another silence, this time filled with fear, and acceptance.
After a while Radun thought he saw something in the distance, “Yo, man, I think I see something in the distance, stay here while I check it out.”
He made a small fire hover over his hand, creating a convex of air to protect his hand, and used mana to protect it against the wind, before sprinting towards the thing he saw.
When he got closer he saw exactly what he expected to. A goblin, and going off its condition it was the same one as before. He saw a glimmer of fear in its eyes, and didn’t know how to feel about that.
He created another volleyball, not using the ‘void’ like before, partially because he couldn’t control it that well, mostly because he didn’t have enough. When he smacked the ball it erupted in flame. When it hit the goblin its hair erupted in flame, leaving it scarred with burns.
After that he made a ball of water, this time bringing it to a boiling when he smacked it. When it hit the goblin’s face, which barely resembled a human’s, with it’s long jagged ears, it’s nose that barely poked out of its face, with 2 slits for nostrils, green skin, and too large, too round eyes, he made the ball stop. He didn’t want to watch as he drowned the goblin, instead running as far as he could without dropping the mana, and not turning around.
When he got a notification, he dropped it out of surprise.
[You have slain 1 goblin(s)]
[Great job! You have earned experience!]
[You have gained 2 goblin skins, 3 goblin flesh, and 3 goblin bones!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up your {Spiking} from level 1 to level 2!]
[You have earned the Achievement(s) {First Blood}, and {Level Up!}
[Achievement(s) earned
{First blood}
Description: You are the first to kill an enemy in your tutorial, this is the first of many. You gain 1% more experience when killing a monster, or sapience. You unlocked the {Inventory} menu, and gain 2 extra slots for being the first in your tutorial to kill something.
{Level Up!}
Description: You are the first in your tutorial to level up, great job! But this is only the beginning of your journey. Gain 1% more experience, for being the first to level up. Youed the {stats} menu, and gain 1 extra stat point, from being the first in your tutorial.]
‘God damn, that’s a lot,’ Radun thought to himself, before checking his new menus.
[Stats]
[Name: Radun Jaden, Mcfinn]
[Class: Unassigned]
[Rank: Unranked]
[Race: Human]
[Hobbies: N/A]
[Tier: F]
[Level: 1]
[Health: 128/132]
[Mana: 100/275]
[Stamina: 140/214]
[Void: 2/6]
[Strength: 13]
[Endurance: 14]
[Vitality: 15]
[Defense: 9]
[Speed: 15]
[Perception: 14]
[Proprioception: 13]
[Intelligence: 12]
[Wisdom: 11]
[Void Storage: 6]
[Void Regen: 3]
He wondered why his health wasn’t full, he wasn’t hit or anything. He looked at his hands and realized that maybe his timing wasn’t great when he transformed his balls. Now that the adrenalin was running out he was beginning to feel the burns on his hands. Good thing he had another menu to distract himself with.
[Inventory]
[Slots used: 3/12]
[Currently being held: Goblin skin; Goblin flesh; Goblin bones]
[Levels until next slot: 49]
He began walking back to their camps, lamenting at his injured hands.
“Yo! Mike!” He yelled, trying to get his friend’s attention, “There was a goblin, I-” his voice broke, realizing what he did.
He finished walking back to the camp before continuing, wanting to let the others sleep, “I had to kill it. I- I couldn’t even kill it humanly, I drowned it in boiling water.”
“I’m sorry man, but I think I saw another one.”
“I- What?”
“There’s another in the dark. I’ll take care of this one, ok?”
“Fine, but call for me if you get hurt, ok?”
“Yeah,” is all he said before he left in the direction he saw the goblin.
When Radun noticed he wasn’t making a light, and was grabbing a torch, he made the same type of light he made earlier. He made the mana follow him, with the same instinctual knowledge he’s been using for everything. God he couldn’t wait until he could figure these things out for himself, and stop relying on the power given to him.
He waited, and waited some more. Radun knew he agreed to stay back unless Mike screamed for help, but he was getting worried.
He walked off in the direction he saw Mike go, and made a bright light. He saw 2 bodies on the ground, but only one was breathing. He rushed over to see who was breathing, he couldn’t tell from the distance, and angle.
