From there on, the rest of the tutorial quests were practically a vacation by comparison. After her… entirely legitimate method of clearing the initial hunting quest, it was replaced by several new objectives, and thankfully none of them were more requests for monster kills this time.

[Collect salve herbs: 0/5]

[Find shelter.]

Well, she already had a basic gathering skill, so the first two shouldn’t take long.

The third one though… it seemed a bit arbitrary. But she could deal with it last, hopefully. She had as long as she needed after all, with it having been a few minutes at most outside of the game.

Her second mission beginning, she signaled for Silk to follow along, the cat-sized spider happily trotting along at her side, clearly either quick to forgive, or at least a bit ditzy.

The pair spent a while scouring through bushes looking for the herbs they needed, assuming they would be fairly obvious as a tutorial item. Unfortunately, as much as she just looked around, the primary issue wasn’t being addressed with the quest.

She had no idea what a salve herb looked like.

The entire tutorial itself had been a hastily put together setpiece the devs had thrown together a few weeks before launch, and it hadn’t been the subject of much of the testing they’d run on everything. And as such, things like failing to be able to locate what it requested from every new player were a very common occurrence for the massive influx of players that had only just made their first character for today’s full release.

In the beta, dedicated players had cobbled together lists and guides for basic activities like gathering or combat, and had shared them through various message boards and chat groups, making it all very common knowledge for just about anyone who’d had access to the test servers back then.

However, none of that applied to players who’d never served as beta testers, and that chunk of the playerbase had already massively outgrown the beta testers themselves as sales for the game skyrocketed. And now the learned and tested elites were miles ahead of that new competition as they struggled to learn things that had been solved months before.

Monica however, knew none of this, and would likely continue to know none of it for the foreseeable future. After all, where was the fun in just searching up a guide on how to play a game made to be completely open-ended like this?

She’d resorted to plucking handfuls of grass at random, licking at various weeds and flowers she found, finding that almost all of them were quite tasteless as well as totally useless for anything but environmental decoration.

The sun continued to set as she rooted about in the foliage, pulling up and chewing on the local flora like grazing wildlife.

And her search kept on as it got darker and darker still, the moon slowly rolling in from the other end of the sky to take it’s turn shining light on to the world. It was clearly much brighter than the real moon was, easily providing enough light to see her immediate area well enough as long as it was decently clear overhead.

However, the sunlight vanishing proved to be almost instantly helpful.

As soon as the sun had set and the moonlight had flooded out to replace it, the almost monotone landscape of the denser patches of forest slowly brightening as splotches of glowing foliage began to pop up here and there.

Silk chittered after her as she hopped through the overgrowth to the source of the lights, wedging herself in close and crouching low to get a good look.

She’d expected a flower of some sort, but what she found was… a patch of mushrooms. Each one was rather tall and thin, an unimpressive greyish outer skin covering it from top to bottom that, as she watched each individual specimen, was slowly starting to flare out, opening a wide cap that had been sealed tight around the stem during daylight hours, revealing a dazzling light blue underside, glowing incredibly bright in the overcast forest patch.

Carefully grabbing one near the base, she gave it a gentle upwards tug. It came loose of the stump they were growing on top of without much fuss, popping off completely intact in her hands.

[Mushmoon]

- Common gathering node material.

- Only gatherable at night.

It seemed like it only showed up because she’d gotten Gathering I earlier. And if it was gatherable it must be useful for something. Which meant she may as well pile as much of it as she could into her bag while it was still dark. After all, she did still have to gather the other items in question, so it didn’t hurt to take time harvesting anything else she found.

After a few minutes, she’d picked the entire spot clean of Mushmoons, having about 20 or so in her inventory for if she needed them.

She kept one of them out, pinching it around the base and using it as a makeshift lamp for her to search the area with.

The fox quickly established a routine, searching the bushes and clearings on her way from one patch of Mushmoons to the next, each node holding another 20 of them ready for harvesting.

And her method quickly paid off. Around the fifth patch she cleared out, she finally managed to spot something else that looked distinctive from the filler plants littering the area. A stout patch of tightly packed leaves, each one a bright, friendly looking green shade. She quickly pulled up the entire plant, checking it the same as the mushrooms.

[Salve Herb]

- Basic gathering material.

“Basic” seemed like a step below common. Which made sense, as otherwise this quest would wall anyone that hadn’t bothered getting a gathering skill before this point.

...At least it seemed like they’d tried to avoid some softlocks in the tutorial.

The clump she’d found was all 5 leaves she’d needed all on it’s own. How convenient! She packed them all in her inventory alongside her entire colony of Mushmoons, and the delightful little chime sounded a second time.

[Collect salve herbs: 5/5] COMPLETE

That went just a bit better than the first objective.

Now, all she needed was to figure out what the game meant by “find shelter”.

In the distance, a group of wolves howled, long and loud. Bugs chirped and buzzed in the silence between howls, and the grass crunched underfoot as she explored the wide open forest idly.

She knew this was just a game but… it really was beautiful.

The moon had made it about of a third of the way through the sky by the time the vague path she’d been following around finally stretched out to another large clearing. And near the middle of that clearing was the silhouette of a small cabin, loosely hewn together from logs and thatch.

Following along the path, she reached the cabin after only a few minutes more of walking, knocking at the wooden door with the back of her hand.

“H-Hello? Anyone home…?”

This was almost assuredly the shelter she was intended to find, but it still felt a bit rude to just barge in.

It was quiet after she knocked, and after waiting several minutes, she knocked again, louder this time.

Still no response.

Guess no one was home?

Shrugging, she opened the door, finding it completely unlocked and unbarred as she stepped inside. The moment she closed the door behind her, the chime sounded again.

[Find shelter.] COMPLETE

Old, 16-bit victory fanfare played in her head at another mission accomplished.

The cabin itself seemed to be almost entirely bare inside. There was a simple bed, a table, and a pair of chairs. Nothing more. It was definitely just a setpiece, and not anyone’s actual home. Not a terribly new concept for a videogame, but still a bit eerie in one this realistic…

She noticed something laying on the table, and she stepped over to towards it to get a better look at what it was.

A large, rather ornate scroll took up almost all the space on the shabby table, and it was covered in tightly packed scrawling text she couldn’t read at all. It didn’t look like any language she knew of.

She picked up an edge of it, trying to look it over, only to have it start turning into golden particle effects on contact. It quickly dispersed until nothing remained at all, a popup forcing itself onto her screen.

[The Hero’s Tale] KEY ITEM

- A scroll detailing the life of a hero soon to come.

- With this item, you will be acknowledged as a proper adventurer.

As soon as she could read it all, a bright light flashed behind her, accompanied by another notification.

[Congratulations!]

You have now taken your first steps towards becoming an adventurer of Shadows Land Argathy. Once you exit this cabin, you will leave the tutorial area, and enter into the full game proper. Set forth, and follow your dreams!

The door to the cabin, previously leading to a midnight forest clearing, now shone like the sun itself was right outside of it.

She was, frankly, a bit amazed that it had ended so abrubtly.

But she’d proven she was at least capable of the bare minimum needed to play, and had been given license to start the game proper.

She lifted Silk in her arms, setting the spiderling on her shoulder, where it perched like it had always meant to be there.

“Well… shall we then?”

“Chkchk!”

Nodding, she stepped forth, beginning the game proper.