The Place Where Everything Begins

Twenty minutes later...

At a small river, aka creek, with the shape of a ribbon-like body of water flowing downhill from a high mountain in the far distance. The creek was not too deep as a person could wade across with some effort.

It looked like the small river was very clean as there were many small animals within the surrounding areas, including some fish swimming freely within the clean water.

The creek was situated roughly half a hundred meters away from the green forest. The distance away from the forest was far enough to give whoever desired to camp here an appropriate time to prepare themself for a possible ambush from the enemy.

Right now, a group of eleven people was spotted along the riverbank, with some filled up their bottles of water, some went fishing, some rested and tended their wounds, whereas some went hunting for small animals in the surrounding area.

After turning his head around the creek's periphery and seeing everyone was doing their own jobs, Morgan turned his head back to the two people before him and said,

"Alright, for the two of you, Kurt and Jessy, you guys will scout for any anomaly or possible ambush around this area."

Having heard Morgan's order, the two nodded their heads before going their own ways to scout the surrounding areas.

When the two were gone, Morgan turned to look at the middle-aged man, whom had stood beside him all along, and said,

"Now, let us talk..."

"Alright," replied Jeremy as he sat down on a big rock.

After Morgan sat down in front of Jeremy, the former opened his mouth to talk first,

"First of all, before talking about the camp or other things, can you tell me where were you teleported to after finishing the first stage?"

"Inside this forest, of course," answered Jeremy while raising one of his eyebrows in skepticism as if asking 'why do you even ask me this question?'

"Emm... I mean, where was it 'specifically'?" Morgan asked Jeremy again.

Upon hearing Morgan's question this time, Jeremy's facial expressions went 'Oh!' before replying,

"I see; in fact, I didn't know about the exact location as everywhere around me was all green with tall trees and vegetation. After being teleported there, I've been roaming randomly around this forest for more than three days, I think."

Morgan frowned slightly after hearing Jeremy's words as he mumbled audibly,

"Strange, all of us had been teleported to a specific location nearby the camp without exception."

Shaking his head slightly, Morgan continued the conversation,

"You know, you were very fortunate not to encounter our enemy's scout team or the fearsome beasts inside this forest. Anyway... Back then, was there anyone from the first stage teleported there with you?"

"From my first stage? Sadly, none..." replied Jeremy with a somewhat downcast expression on his face.

"None?"

*Sigh...*

Jeremy sighed with a sad expression before answering 'truthfully',

"Well, they were all dead; only me had survived..."

"What!? How is that even possible? Can you tell me what happened in the first stage?"

'I will have to keep it short to reduce any plotholes,' thought Jeremy before speaking,

"It's just that we had decided to challenge the tenth horde, and all of my twenty-four comrades were all killed by it. At last, only me has survived."

Upon hearing such an outrageous statement, Morgan's eyes went widened as he spoke,

"Twenty-four? Wait, including you, that means you guys have twenty-five people to fight with the tenth wave of monsters..."

"Yes, that's right," said Jeremy.

"That's a huge number. You guys seem to be very, very capable of surviving that far. By the way, if you guys had managed to survive till the tenth wave, all of you should have finished many missions by the time. So, why didn't you and your companions choose to teleport out?"

'This guy has pointed out one of the four inconsistencies in my story...'

Jeremy thought briefly as he had already prepared for such a question as he replied with a dejected expression,

"We... we were too arrogant. We've agreed not to leave anyone behind and to survive the tutorial together. Afterward, upon seeing the rewards we've received for the past nine hordes, we thought that the last wave would give us even more SP to buy skills, but..."

Shaking his head crestfallenly, Jeremy continued with a reminisced expression,

"But who knows the last wave would be so hard... that all of them were killed even before they had a chance to teleport..."

'The story is a bit unbelievable... Is he lying? Still, what will he get from telling a fake story.'

Contrary to his inner thoughts, Morgan's expressions morphed into an empathetic one as he sighed lightly after hearing Jeremy's story before asking,

"If they didn't even have time to teleport out, then how did you manage to survive?"

"I killed it... a clean strike directly at its brain. After that, I went on to kill its spawns that had killed most of my companions," replied Jeremy, with a bitter smile.

Simultaneously, Morgan raised his eyebrows in surprise before inquiring,

"You said 'it' and 'spawns'... What do those mean?"

"That means the tenth wave consists of only one monster that is capable of spawning hundreds of offsprings mid fight. It has the appearance of a monstrous spider," said Jeremy.

"What? A giant spider?" Morgan asked with wide eyes as he didn't know this before.

After all, no one within the camp had ever fought with the tenth wave before. At most, some of them had teleported to this place after finishing the eighth horde.

"Yes..."

After hearing Jeremy's confirmation, the light finally dawned upon Morgan as he mumbled to himself,

"A big boss in the last horde... That makes sense..."

Jeremy suddenly 'pretended' to get curious after hearing Morgan's mumbling, so he asked,

"By the way, don't you know about the tenth wave?"

Morgan smiled bitterly at Jeremy's question as he replied,

"No... My first stage had ended in the seventh wave. We were teleported here right after some struggling and running around the chamber to escape the monsters' encirclement. At last, only twelve of us had managed to survive in the end."

"My condolence..." said Jeremy with empathy written on his face.

"It's okay, I only knew those people for a brief period, so I didn't feel that bad. Now, let's talk about the camp," said Morgan as he decided to change the topic because he didn't want to linger around his traumatic past for long.

"Okay..."

"Before that, did you also receive the same tutorial mission, survive II?"

Morgan promptly asked something about the tutorial mission as Jeremy only replied shortly in perplexity,

"Yes..."

"Then, you should have seen the word 'kenku' written in the second mission, right?"

After thinking for a few seconds about the term 'kenku', Jeremy replied,

"Let me check..."

Having said so, Jeremy promptly opened the tutorial missions list, and 'pretended' to look at it...

...

『 Tutorial Mission: Survive II 』

⎯ Survive until only 500 humans remain (Teleportation Ticket)

⎯ Kill until only 500 kenkus remain (Teleportation Ticket)

⎯ Find and open a secret treasure chest (★★★★★)

⎯ ??? (✰)

⎯ ??? (✰)

⎯ ??? (✰✰)

『 After finishing one of the Tutorial Missions, you can choose to be teleported to Ortus 』

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