"That was easy." Karyn said as Emily ran down the alley. "We should have asked around from the beginning."
"Yeah, I don't know why I didn't think of that," Emily answered surprisingly easily while still running. "I have to remember they are not normal NPCs, and I can talk to them like with real people."
Suddenly, they heard the scream of a little girl and almost at the same time, they saw the girl curled up near the end of the alley while a rat was barring it's teeth at her. "Lyla?" Emily called her, making the girl look toward her.
She had tears in her eyes and was clutching her doll. "Help!" She shouted as the rat was approaching her.
Emily ran faster toward her, but once again, the world stopped, freezing her in an awkward position midstep. "What now?" She asked, a little annoyed. She tried looking at Karyn, but her position made it impossible to look up.
"There's a tutorial about battle." Karyn said. "J... Emily, I think you're going to have to fight the rat. That's... pretty disappointing, actually."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I thought you would be fighting bigger things, like wolves or bears at least." Karyn explained.
"Hey! It's my first fight and I don't even know how to fight! I'm glad it's not a wolf or a bear."
"But still, can't you just smash it under your foot if it's just a rat?"
"If it's anything like the other games I played, it will probably harder than that." Emily explained. She wouldn't have been so careful a few hours earlier, but she remembered something the game had said to her, that the protagonist of a video game often got hurt. She didn't think anything bad would happen to her in the long term, but she wasn't looking forward to the pain of taking a sword strike or anything like that. "What does the tutorial say?" She asked as Karyn wasn't saying anything.
"Wait a minute. It's pretty long." Karyn said while still reading. There were more informations here than in most earlier tutorial and she was struggling to take everything in. "From what I understand, I can either take total control over your actions or let you handle the fight while I give commands you have to follow." She explained eventually. "Like, I can make you attack an enemy in particular and you won't be able to attack anyone else until you do, or I can tell you to use a skill and you have to use it, but you'll still have some control while you do what I tell you... It's pretty complicated, and I'm not sure I understand everything... It also says you can use the environment however you like, but that you'll have to deal with the consequences after the fight is over if you do something you're not supposed to."
"Okay... And how do I fight?" Emily asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Well... I don't know how to fight in reality, so is there something that makes me better at fighting than normal?"
Karyn took a moment to reread the tutorial. "It doesn't say anything about that. I'll ask the game. Game, can you answer J... I mean Emily's question?"
The answer will be given in a future tutorial.
"But Emily needs it now." Karyn argued.
If Emily can't defeat an enemy on her own, You can help her by taking control like the tutorial said.
"Great... Really useful!" Emily said sarcasticly. "So what now? I just go and swing my feet at it?"
"Well... I don't have any better ideas."
Emily sighed. "Well, it's only a rat... It can't be that bad."
Karyn closed the tutorial, causing the world to go back to life and Emily to fall as the momentum of her running earlier came back unexpectedly. "Sorry!" Emily heard Karyn say but didn't answer as Lyla let out another scream.
"Fuck!" She said, standing up. She started running toward the girl again, or more accurately, toward the rat. It only took a few seconds, and the rat was sent crashing into the wall as Emily's boot made contact with its body. "Huh?" Emily looked at it as it was standing up slowly. "It's easier than I th..." She was interrupted as the rat suddenly began running toward her at full speed and began biting her leg. "Ah! Fucking..." Emily shook her leg, sending it flying again, but it landed safely on the ground this time. She looked at her legs for wounds but was surprised to find it completely undamaged, like nothing had happened. Even the pain had disappeared.
"J...Emily!" Karyn shouted as the rat began running toward Emily again. Emily was looking at her leg and was taken by surprise again as it began biting her other leg. It made her notice that it wasn't as painful as she first thought. She could feel the pain, but it was dulled. It didn't feel like the rat was biting her, but more like it was pinching her lightly.
Emily's first instinct was to shake her leg to send it flying again, but instead, she bent down and grabbed it's tail. The rat began attacking her hand almost immediately, but she didn't let go. She lifted it above her head and slammed it violently against the ground, then repeated the process a second time. She was about to do it a third time but the rat suddenly disappeared in her hand. She had defeated it!
