The mutant child made sure all the demons were properly incapacitated before sheathing his blades and pulling out a medical kit.

  He knelt before the wounded noble, who was moaning in pain as he lay on the ground with his face covered in blood.

  \-\

  Jorrais Dervaine

  Lvl 7 Nobleman (Wounded; Minor)

  A second son of House Dervaine. Unexceptional and not particularly beloved, Jorrais sought to prove his worth by becoming a Chosen like his older brother. Highly arrogant, but nonetheless holds potential for greatness if given the Chosen Blessing.

  \-\

  Eri moved quickly, removing the neck guard and injecting a pain-killing ampoule into the noble’s vein. He then swiftly bandaged the ruined face with deft hands and steady fingers.

  [Rolling Medicine…]

  [Medicine Check passed!]

  “Nobleman Jorrais, I have administered first aid and removed your Minor Wound. You are no longer Incapacitated, but I would suggest not drawing aggro anymore until we can heal you back to Full Health,” Eri said in satisfaction, uncaring of the blood on his hands.

  The boy looked back at the group. No one else was hurt, but everyone was staring at him. Even the dying gurgle of the imps at their feet could not pull away their stunned gaze.

  Eri pointed to a trio of well-armed nobles, huddled nervously at the back of the group. “You, you, and you. Hurry up and kill the imps. The XP will be enough to get you the Goddess Blessing Perk and gain your first combat Class.”

  The boy’s strange speech patterns confused everyone in the group, but the absurd meaning was grasped regardless.

  “Eh? Hang on, you are just giving us your kills?” One of them asked in shock. “W-what about you? Don’t you want to gain the Chosen Blessing first?”

  “Hey, why are you letting them go first and not us?” A girl protested — one of the village peasants. “It’s not fair that you let the nobility take all of the Blessings! At least give the rest of us one of the imp!”

  Another chimed in. “Yeah, maybe we should vote…”

  A small argument began breaking out. Eri frowned and drew a blade.

  The short, scawny-looking boy slashed hard at the dilapidated shack behind him. The single strike took out a support beam and caused the building to collapse.

  There was an ear-piercing shriek inside. Once the dust settled, it revealed yet another imp, now helplessly trapped beneath the structure.

  “The nobles are better armed and armoured. As of now, our party is too low level and geared for us all to make it out alive,” Eri calmly explained. “We need to prioritise our better fighters first. The three of you, hurry up and kill the imps. Everyone else, form a circle and point your weapons outwards. We stand a better chance of surviving if we work together.”

  Eri paused, tilting his head back at them before pointing to the wounded nobleman. “Or do the rest of you want to end up like him?”

  [Rolling Intimidation…]

  [Intimidation Check passed!]

  Faced with his haunting purple gaze and the blade in his hands, the group hastily moved to follow his orders.

  Eri nodded, sheathing his blade as he helped the injured noblemen to his feet. “Come, I need you to kill the fourth Imp. If you receive your Copper Core, there’s a chance that your HP will regenerate.”

  “I… I understand,” the nobleman named Jorrais weakly said. To Eri’s surprise, the man was holding up against the pain quite well. Even with the painkillers Eri injected just now, the agony must still be horrifying. His face had quite literally been flayed earlier.

  A high Endurance stat, probably. Eri nodded in approval as the man viciously stabbed the trapped Imp with his longsword.

  At the same time, the other three nobles got their kills. There was a collective grasp as the nobles started glowing.

  [Goddess Blessing received by four party members; Copper Core granted!]

  [Minimum Level raised to Lvl 21]

  [Lvl 7 Nobleman Jorrais promoted to Heroic Level 21 Rookie Fighter!]

  [Lvl 9 Noblewoman Alvine promoted to Heroic Level 21 Rookie Spearbearer!]

  [Lvl 6 Nobleman Bori promoted to Heroic Level 21 Rookie Warrior!]

  [Lvl 8 Nobleman Raharim promoted to Heroic Level 21 Rookie Priest!]

  “T-this is amazing!” The one named Bori exclaimed. “I feel twice, no, three times as strong already!”

  “You have all gained your first magic Core. Even if it’s only Copper-ranked, your stats have all gone up, as expected,” Eri explained. No one really understood what he was saying, but everyone nodded along. “Let’s go. We still have the rest of you to level up.”

  “W-wait! You are going to help all of us achieve our Chosen Blessing?” the peasant girl from earlier gasped. “Why are you going so far to help us?”

  Eri paused, then turned to them with a serious expression. “This Main Quest comes with Bonus Objectives. I get extra XP if all of you survive and get promoted. I haven’t failed a Bonus Objective before, and I don’t intend to start now.”

  ~~~

  One hour later…

  Noblewoman Alvine decided that the mutant boy leading them was utterly batshit insane.

  There was no fear in that boy’s body. Not a single ounce.

  Alvine was relatively sure the boy was not fully human either.

  It wasn’t just the purple eyes, the white hair, or even the little stubby horn growing out of the left side of his head. Alvine had seen mutants before. Some of them even served as servants in her household. They looked a little strange, but generally they behaved and acted like any other person.

  No, what made Alvine terrified of the boy named Eri was his stupidly terrifying competence.

  Another trio of demons charged at them from the rooftops. The group gathered into formation once more, as instructed by their tiny leader: Chosens with shields up front, while the remaining aspirants held spears and crossbows pointed outward.

  Alvine wasn’t entirely sure how effective the formation was, because for the past hour, not a single demon had even touched them.

  The boy had that weird, focused look in his gaze, all cold and steel that looked scarily out of place on his round, childish face. The demons had appeared out of nowhere, but before anyone else could get a shout in edgewise, Eri was already moving.

  One moment, he was standing beside Alvine. In the next, the kid somehow already had one of his dual daggers plunged into the chest of an Imp while the second blade was thrown square into the eye of another.

  For the last Imp that charged at him, Eri simply ran up to the demon, unarmed, and somehow leapt off a nearby wall before landing a perfect twisting kick upon the monster’s chin with his entire body weight.

  Snap. The Imp’s neck rotated 180 degrees with a horrifying wet crack before it fell to the ground, paralysed but still alive.

  All of it barely took a few seconds.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Whoever hasn’t killed a demon yet, hurry up and stab them,” Eri instructed flatly, not even out of breath as he retrieved his daggers. “I left them alive, but they will die from their wounds soon.”

  Nobody protested as a group of peasants numbly walked up and stabbed their spears into the crippled monsters.

  By that point, more than half of their group had already received their Blessing and ascended as Chosen, their new Copper Core brimming with unused power.

  Aside from Jorrais — the first nobleman who got his face flayed — none of them had so much as received a scratch, let alone died.

  Alvine would not be surprised if there were people in their group who were more afraid of Eri than the demons by that point.

  “So, any idea what he is?” Her blue-blooded peer, Bori, nervously whispered. “No way he’s just a kid.”

  “I bet he’s an alien,” Raharim joked. “The way he talks... It’s weird, right?”

  “You'd better hope he can’t hear you talking behind his back,” the wounded noble, Jorrais, solemnly said. “Remember, he can kill us all in a blink if he feels like it.”

  That shut everyone up. Alvine swallowed nervously.

  He can’t— Well, he won’t, right? The noble tried to reassure herself.

  In any case, they were almost through with the Trial. Just a few more kills, and everyone in the group would have received their Blessing.

  If only that boy would stop slowing them down by going through every random heap of trash!

  Alvine wondered if Raharim’s statement about the boy being an alien held more merit than it sounded. His behaviour made no sense. The mutant insisted on rummaging through every single container, clay jar, or open shack they passed by.

  When one of them finally mustered the courage to ask what he was doing, the boy had only shrugged and replied: “Free loot. Would be stupid to pass up.”

  The boy would pocket just about everything he found, no matter how worthless it seemed — rusty blades, empty potion bottles, rope, even children toys.

  [Miscellaneous Crafting Items x21 added!]

  And here was another absurd fact they found out: somehow, that pouch he used never seemed to run out of space. It absolutely swallowed everything.

  Perhaps the most baffling thing about it all was how the boy didn’t just find useless crap; he actually managed to scavenge proper weapons and armour in that desolate maze, hidden in nooks and locked within chests that the boy was somehow able to discover and open.

  [Observe Skill has risen!]

  [Lockpicking Skill has risen!]

  [6x Iron Spears, 5x Light Crossbow, 30x Iron Bolts, 8x Leather Vest added!]

  The recovered spears, crossbows, and leather vests all went to the confused lowborn aspirants, who were far more poorly equipped than the nobles. By the end of the hour, the group somehow ended up better armed and armoured than most village militias.

  Another hour passed. The maze, which had looked impossible to navigate at first, was slowly being cleared out, one desolate street after another. By the end of the second hour, miraculously, everyone had earned their magical Cores and ascended as Chosens.

  Everyone except Eri.

  “Why hasn’t he killed a Demon yet?” Bori asked. “I mean, the whole point of coming into the Trial is to gain the Goddess Blessing, right?”

  “Does he even need it?” the peasant girl — Julie — murmured. “He kills everything without breaking a sweat. I don’t even want to imagine what he’s like when he gets his Copper Core.”

  “I had to prioritise everyone else first to improve your survivability,” the boy suddenly replied ahead of them. “You were all too weak and underlevelled for this Tutorial; the last thing I needed was for someone to get one-shotted and make me fail my bonus objective.”

  No one knew how to argue against that. Their conversation was cut short when the people up front suddenly exclaimed excitedly.

  “There’s the exit!” Someone shouted, pointing at a large clearing ahead. There was a shimmering tear in reality at the centre, framed by a circle of shattered concrete pillars — the familiar signs of a portal.

  Everyone perked up, anxious to leave the Trial and escape the terrifying zone. However, nobody rushed to the portal. Instead, they waited for their diminutive leader to give the go-ahead.

  They had a few close calls before already, when they didn’t listen to him. The boy had an uncanny sense for danger, and the Imps had proven themselves adept at ambushes.

  Eri was silent for a few moments. When he spoke, his voice was a little tense. “There is a demon waiting for us up ahead.”

  The group visibly relaxed. “Only one? That’s good news, isn’t it?” Jorrais said. “You can kill the Imp and get your Blessing before we leave.”

  “... It’s not an Imp. Whatever it is, I don’t know if I’m strong enough to kill it,” Eri admitted.

  That made them nervous.

  “It’s not a Copper-ranked,” Eri continued, unaware or uncaring of the group’s rising panic. “I can’t read its level with my Observation Skill from here, meaning it’s at least Bronze or above. I doubt something like a Silver Demon would somehow find its way into a Tutorial area, so let’s assume it’s a Bronze-ranked Demon for now.”

  “T-that makes sense,” Alvine stammered. “Bronze demons sometimes get accidentally released into Trials. It’s rare, but not unheard of. A Silver Demon is impossible.”

  “In case you forget, in those cases where Bronze demons get loose in a Trial, all the Aspirants usually end up dead!” Julie hissed. “We’re screwed!”

  “No, we are not,” Jorrais interjected. “Because, unlike them, we have Eri.”

  Funnily enough, those words managed to make everyone calm down a little. It was strange to think that the presence of a nine-year-old boy would have a reassuring effect in the face of impending disaster.

  Eri carefully analysed the situation. “The portal is right there, but it can only accommodate one person at a time. The safest option would be for our tanks to draw aggro while everyone else exits the zone. Then, once there are only a few of us left, it would be easy for us to evade the demon and flee.”

  “But if we do that, you won’t get a single kill for your Trial,” Jorrais bluntly pointed out.

  It was true. Eri had been so focused on getting all of them a Blessing that he had completely neglected himself. Everyone shuffled about, evidently feeling guilty.

  If Eri leaves the Trial without getting a kill, he would never get a chance to be a Chosen ever again.

  “It doesn’t matter. I can’t kill the Demon alone, so the point is moot,” Eri said calmly. “We should focus on getting everyone out alive. Even if I can’t fulfil the main quest, I can at least achieve the bonus objectives.”

  “But you don’t have to fight the Demon alone. You have us,” Jorrais stressed. “We can help you kill it.”

  “Excuse me? You want us to fight against a Bronze-rank?” Julie squeaked. “No Aspirant ever survives fighting a Bronze-rank! We’ll die!”

  Surprisingly, the face-bandaged noble turned to the group and retorted. “We won’t. Think about it: our current circumstances are different from the other Trials. Not only are all of us still alive, but we are working together, and we have all received the Blessing except for Eri. There are more than twenty of us; We easily have enough raw power to take down a Bronze-rank.”

  “But there’s no guarantee that all of us will survive if we fight it,” Raharim hesitantly pointed out. “And besides… It’s not like we will gain anything if we kill it. Only Eri benefits. We should just leave.”

  The others began mumbling their agreement. They did not look happy, but fear for their survival overrode any discontent they might have had with the situation.

  For Eri, he did not mind their passiveness. If anything, the boy agreed wholeheartedly with their decision to flee and preserve their lives. It was the rational choice.

  Just when he was about to voice out his agreement, however, Joarris interrupted.

  “If the lot of you are so craven as to not repay a debt when the advantage is in our favour, then you should give up your aspirations on becoming a Chosen right now,” Joarris darkly said.

  The rest of the group reacted poorly to his harsh words. Their rising anger was cut short when Joarris spoke again, however: “None of you would be here right now if not for Eri. If you choose to walk out of this Trial without at least attempting to help him, then you will carry this shame for the rest of your life. You would have sullied the very first step you take as a Chosen, as a Hero!”

  The rest of the group flinched. The young nobleman continued.

  “I don’t know much about being strong, but even a blind man can tell that Eri is special. If we deny him this chance here, we are not just robbing him of his only chance at becoming a Chosen; we are robbing the Empire of a powerful hero in its time of need,” Joarris pointed out. “And if you need a reason for doing this beyond basic decency, think about how word would spread if we managed to kill a Bronze-rank together. Few other Aspirant groups had ever achieved such a feat. We would gain recognition instantly.”

  That last part managed to attract everyone’s attention. Everyone had different reasons for becoming a Chosen, but garnering notable feats and connections to their name was an essential boon for any Hero.

  If they could establish themselves early on, it would be an excellent jump point for their future fame and fortune.

  The others were coming around to the idea. Eventually, they came to a consensus.

  “Alright, everyone is in agreement,” Alvine grumbled. “We will help you kill the demon, Eri.”

  Eri looked back at the group. Everyone was looking at him with renewed resolve.

  He considered the odds for a moment. The group was far better off than they were at the start of the Trial. Ascending to Chosenhood had given them significant power, and the group's equipment quality was improved thanks to his scavenging efforts.

  It was doable. Eri nodded. “Alright, this party’s strength is acceptable. Let’s kill the Dungeon Boss.”

  “Hell ya, let’s do it!” Julie cheered. “That thing stands no chance.”

  ~~~

  “I take it back,” Julie whispered. “We are dead. We are so, so dead.”

  Looking at the monster before them, Eri could not refute her statement.

  Eight metres tall. Two hoofed feet. Skin black as coal. Three muscular arms wielding giant cleavers. A faceless head with two curved goat horns.

  “Capragore. Also known as the Goat Demon,” Eri dispassionately noted. “Silver-Ranked. At least Level 60. Every attack will one-shot us. Julie is right. We are about to get party-wiped.”

  The humanoid beast gave a mouthless roar and charged.