The silence inside Room 1308 felt unreal after everything. "Now this is what I call peace."

Just soft blue lighting and a bed that felt like it was trying very hard to make him forget he nearly died a few hours ago.

Nobody lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. "...I survived that...Still...Barely."

His arm twitched slightly as if his body still remembered running for his life across floating platforms. "...This place is insane."

His eyelids grew heavier. The exhaustion finally caught up. And without resistance he slept.

The next day

A soft chime echoed through the room.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[System Notification]

Recovery Cycle Complete ~(￣▽￣)~

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody slowly opened his eyes. "...Morning already?"

He sat up. "Wow, the place really healed me completely. Now I have 410 hp again."

The door slid open automatically.

SHHHK.

Outside, the same glowing corridor waited.

Nobody walked out. "...Alright Ren....What’s next torture method?"

The moment he stepped into the central chamber, the environment shifted. The space expanded instantly into a vast circular arena surrounded by floating holographic barriers.

Ren was already there. Sitting casually on a suspended metallic platform, like it was a chair built for royalty.

Nobody stopped a few meters away. "...You really enjoy showing up before me, huh?"

Ren didn’t look at him immediately. "I was never absent."

"...Yeah yeah..no need to act all elegant."

Ren finally glanced down. "Rest done?"

Nobody shrugged. "I didn’t die, so I assume yes."

Ren smirked faintly. "Good." He stood up."...Alright."

"Then stage Two begins."

Nobody blinked. "...Stage two of what exactly?"

Ren raised a hand slightly.

The system responded instantly.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[System Update]

Tutorial Progression: Stage 2 Initiated

Name: "Hunt Response Training"

Primary Objective:

[] Combat under pressure from intelligent pursuit units

[] Improve decision-making speed in multi-threat situations

[] Develop counter-offensive instinct

Secondary Objective:

[] Maintain survival under escalating enemy escalation

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody stared at the window. "...That sounds like I’m about to get hunted."

Ren nodded casually. "You are."

"...You said that way too casually."

Ren turned slightly toward the arena. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

The space began to shift. The ground beneath Nobody shimmered. Structures rose, dark terrain formed, broken walls, collapsed buildings, narrow alley-like paths, a full simulated city ruin materialized around them.

Nobody looked around slowly. "...Okay."

"...This is definitely looking like a higher stage than the orc stage."

Ren lifted one finger. "Stage One taught you movement and survival.....Stage Two teaches consequence."

Nobody frowned. "...That sounds ominous."

Ren continued. "You will no longer face predictable monsters in isolated spaces."

The system window flickered again.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Stage 2 Warning]

Enemy Behavior Upgrade:

[] Adaptive tracking enabled

[] Coordinated pursuit units active

[] Ambush probability increased

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody slowly pointed at the system window. "...Why does it say ’ambush probability’ like that’s a normal thing to experience?"

Ren ignored the complaint. "In this stage, you will learn one thing properly. He stepped forward slightly. "Running is not enough."

Nobody narrowed his eyes. "...So I have to fight too."

Ren nodded. "Yes." Ren smiled faintly. "And the enemies will also learn."

Nobody exhaled slowly. "...Yeah....I was waiting for you to say something like that to make me feel fked up..."

The ground suddenly lit up with red scanning lines.

The system updated again.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Stage 2 Start Condition]

Survival Window Activated

Duration: Indefinite until extraction condition met

Extraction Condition:

[] Defeat or evade pursuit commander unit

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody froze slightly. "...Commander unit?"

Ren tilted his head. "You’ll meet it soon."

Nobody immediately looked at him. "That was not comforting at all."

Ren walked backward slowly.

His body began fading into digital particles. "Oh. One more thing."

Nobody narrowed his eyes. "What."

Ren’s crimson eyes gleamed faintly. "This stage... learns you as you learn it....So don’t expect it to stay fair."

And then....he disappeared completely.

SHHHH..

Nobody stood alone in the ruined simulated city. Wind passed through broken structures. Distant metallic echoes moved somewhere in the distance.

Then..

a sound.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Slow footsteps. Somewhere behind him.

Nobody didn’t turn immediately. "...Of course." He sighed. "...Stage two starts like this. Probably some soldiers are coming to hunt me."

A faint red glow appeared in the distance.

And the system window flickered one last time.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Enemy Units Detected]

Hunt Sequence Initiated

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody froze for a fraction of a second. Then he corrected himself immediately. "...Okay. They are ...definitely not soldiers." His eyes narrowed as the shapes fully emerged from the ruins.

Four legs. Low posture. Muscle-like shadows rippling under black fur-like material that didn’t look natural at all. Snouts angled downward like predators built purely for tracking.

Click.

Click.

Click.

The sound wasn’t boots. It was claws tapping broken concrete.

Nobody exhaled slowly. "...Wolves...huh..."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Enemy Update]

Pursuit Units: "Rook Hounds"

(◥◣ ܫ ◢◤)

Type: Quadruped Tracking Beasts

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

One of them lowered its head. Then it sprinted.

BOOM!

Not like a wild animal. Like a launched projectile.

Nobody reacted instantly. "OH...!" He jumped sideways as the wolf smashed into the ground where he stood.

KRAK!

Concrete exploded outward.

A second wolf followed immediately. Then a third from different angles. It was coordinated attacks.

Nobody widened his eyes. "...They’re flanking." He ran forward instinctively.

But the system immediately reacted.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Alert]

Multi-angle pursuit detected

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A wolf cut off his path instantly. Another appeared behind him. Another from the left. The space tightened like a cage forming mid-run.

Nobody slid to a stop. "...This is worse than the sluggish orc."

One wolf crouched low. Its muscles tightened. Then it exploded forward.

BOOM!

Nobody barely ducked.

The wolf passed over him, claws scraping air.

He rolled forward and stood quickly. "...No thinking delay...I have to survive...with pure instinct."

Another wolf came from above a broken wall. Nobody twisted sideways. The claws barely missed his shoulder.

FWOOOSH!

He stumbled slightly. "Gah...!"

The system flickered.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Stamina Warning]

Breathing instability detected

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody gasped. "...Already?" He forced his breathing. "I have to breathe to focus."

"In..."

"And...Out..."

Another wolf circled him slowly now. It was not attacking immediately. It was waiting and adapting to Nobody’s fighting style.

Nobody noticed. "...They’re adapting too."

The wolves suddenly shifted strategy. Two stopped chasing directly.

Instead, they spread out creating pressure from all sides. It was a containment ring.

Nobody stepped backward once.Then stopped. "...So this is Stage Two."

A voice echoed in the distance.

Not Ren.

System.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Training Directive]

Conditioning Phase Active

Objective:

Break instinctive panic response

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody laughed breathlessly. "...Oh yeah?...You picked the wrong guy for psychology class."

A wolf lunged.

He dodged.

Another.

He stepped sideways.

Another from behind..

He ducked.

But this time, he wasn’t just reacting; he started noticing gaps between attacks, between movements.

Between timing shifts. "...There." He moved forward instead of backwards.

The wolves hesitated for a fraction.

Nobody used that opportunity instantly. He sprinted through the gap.

One wolf snapped at his leg and missed.

Another turned too slowly.

"...Got it." He exhaled. "...Your coordination depends on spacing."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Adaptation Detected]

User is analyzing enemy formation timing

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The wolves growled louder. They increased speed. The chase intensified.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Concrete shattered behind him as they pushed harder.

Nobody jumped across broken platforms again. This time, his movements are more stable. Now, Less panic with more rhythm.

"In...and Out..."