The Primal Hunter's
Reflection & frustration

Murder. Murder. Murder.

The act of taking ny*wa someone else has many names in the community. No matter the name given, it was a crime. It's immoral. And even if morals are completely ignored, the act of removing other members from society is, in many cases, a disadvantage to that society. The act of ending another life is innately repugnant to humans, and even if the act is one hundred percent justified, it will often leave the killer traumatized by the experience.

In many comics, every time a hero kills a villain is when he himself becomes a villain. This is seen as the turning point of the character - the fall to the dark side.

These are just some of the thoughts swirling around in Jake's head as he sits on the grass, staring at the ground, pondering his feelings about what happened that night.

He had killed not one, but three people. Logically, he knew that it was self-defense. They had tried to kill him, so he killed them instead. It is justified, and in many countries, it can even be considered legal. Heck, it could even be said that he was in a situation comparable to a war zone, making the laws of war applicable, in which case he only killed enemy fighters.

Even if he forgot the fact that he had killed them, the way he had done so could not be ignored. He did not think about the ferocity of his actions during the fight, but when he saw the corpses, it could not be clearer how brutal he was. Especially with the archer, he had pinned it down and kept stabbing it over and over again with the arrow until he finally stopped moving. It was a textbook example of excessive force.

The act of brutality may be explained by Jake's experience in battle, the adrenaline pumping through him as he fights, and his heightened instincts taking over, the, but what he couldn't explain was how he felt while doing it. He felt nothing when he killed them. It seemed like he had just checked the three items on the list as he ended their lives one by one.

After the battle, the only thing he felt was euphoria. He's never felt better. More alive. The relief, the feeling of superiority, and the sensation of 'win' being too strong, are too addictive. If the feeling was due to his heightened instincts as he had expected.it meant his basic instinct, he was at the core of his being, enjoying killing.

No, it was wrong, he corrected himself. He did not feel any pleasure from killing the ferret, nor did he feel any strong emotions after the huge boar. He felt a sense of satisfaction after that. He does not enjoy simple killing actions .. he enjoys hunting. Murder challenge. He enjoyed the feeling of winning over his enemy.

Jake is never the confrontational or aggressive type; in fact, he strives to avoid conflict whenever possible. But he enjoys the challenge. He enjoys pushing himself to the limits of his abilities and tries to improve. To throw his entire being into something and strive to be at the top. That's why he managed to be very good at archery. That's how he managed to graduate as one of the best in his class. It wasn't that he was so smart, he just liked to see the numbers on his test scores go up, so he worked hard to make it happen.

He remembers one of his professors describing him as 'encouraged' and 'ambitious'. Jake isn't sure if he agrees with either of those, but he enjoys a tough fight and being on top. However, what people misunderstand is that it is not because of the reward of the challenge. He did it for the challenge himself. The results are not necessarily relevant.

That was how he felt about the fight that ended up resulting in the death of three humans as well. He felt the outcome, their death, was ultimately irrelevant. It was a battle process that became his goal and not the death of the three of them. It was just the inevitable result of a life and death battle.

Which is the core root of the problem. After pondering her emotions and boiling everything down, she realized that she did not care much. Be it humans or animals; in the end, they were just challenges to overcome. The only feeling of remorse or regret he has ever felt during this tutorial is when Joanna was hurt.

Even so, Jake knows that he thinks it was his own fault more than his fault. A part of him hated feeling that, but when he thought about the scenario, he couldn't find anyone else to blame other than him.

He couldn't have tripped, to begin with. As a caster, he could at least try to use the Mana Barrier they had created for all the casters. Freezing right after a stumble certainly doesn't help his chances. If he doesn't, launching from the street costs will be more than possible.

If all of that failed, he could at least manage to avoid having his limbs trampled so that they could refine it with potions like the other legs. In other words, if he were in his position during the fight, he would not lose a single leg.

But it happened, and he was now just a burden. He and everyone in the group were aware of it, but no one really wanted to voice it. Leaving him was no different from letting him die. None of them wanted it based on their conscience, and no one wanted to leave colleagues and friends. Even Jake doesn't, despite being annoyed at him, but at the same time, he can't stay like this forever.

He finally realized that he didn't fit in with the group, perhaps a little late in retrospect. They are company workers, civilians in every way. The only fight they ever fought was a sport like boxing. He doubted any of their entire group had ever fought in a bar or anything similar except for one person.

Bertram is prominent. He was firm and strong even before the tutorial. He handled his shield and sword well, and he did not hesitate when attacking. The man has the eyes and attitude of a warrior and, without a doubt, is the strongest person in the group except Jake, but he is attached to Jacob. Comparing their group of office workers to the ones he killed was day and night.

While still amateurs with their weapons, the ambushers who attacked him were far from new in battle. They have an attack plan, which he thinks is very good, and they have the guts to fight. They had the courage to supervise a group of 10 with only three people. Their hope was most likely to kill him quickly before he could even wake the others up. Then proceed to annihilate their entire camp before they could counterattack.

Their level also spoke with their proficiency. They dared to hunt down ferocious beasts or other humans to gain their level, which meant they had been fighting almost the entire time since entering the tutorial. They're just unlucky to meet Jake as a scout. If it was someone else, it was likely that the majority of their group would die by now.

Comparing the three of them to his own party only felt pitiful. They may lose some people, if not completely exterminated, to face the big boar if Jake is not there. Perhaps they would even suffer injuries from the first group of ferrets. They were weak, not only in fighting strength but also determination.

He realized that this line of thinking was a spinning negative black hole, but he had to admit it. If his instinct, his natural disposition, was to enjoy hunting and overcome challenges, then he could only see himself completely insane by suppressing those desires.

He finally looked up from the grass, after finding determination. He will hunt, and he will grow stronger.

Others were still talking about the bodies of the two soldiers, and Jake could hear their discussions, which seemed to mainly revolve around who the assailants were, where they came from, and whether there were more of them. Jake looked at them. They are her friends, her colleagues, and see Caroline, her crush. He wanted them to live, from the bottom of his heart.

Take the attack of the intermediate warrior where his sword was coated with a red luster. His instincts had no warning, and he was eventually stripped and nearly died. The attack was harmless to him directly as it was not aimed at his body, only his knife. It was an attack to disarm him, and his natural instincts could not recognize such a complex attack. He also needed to think more while fighting and combine instinct and logic.

With a strong determination, he walked towards the other group, except for Lina, who was still beside Joanna.

"Jake .. Can you tell us what happened?" Jacob asked as he watched her walk closer. Everyone seemed to avoid seeing those corpses, which was perfectly understandable. It was understandable that they also avoided seeing the killer.

“Ya... I was on guard when I heard-”

He explained exactly what had happened, and he saw the worry on Jacob's face as he described the ambush. That worry seemed to grow into confusion as he described how he turned the situation around.

“But... why are they attacking us for no reason?” ask Caroline.

“Experience, tools, and tutorial points,” Jake replies immediately. He then went on to explain the points he got with his level. He deliberately left behind an entire bloodline. The fact that one of the attackers had reached level 7 was a huge shock to them, as the strongest of them, Bertram, was still only level 2 in his class after the boar killed.

"But just to kill someone .." Caroline muttered as she directly looked at Jake with a mixed look.

"It was Caroline's self-defense, she was. We had no choice but to defend ourselves" Jacob said, coming to Jake's defense. “He may have saved us all. Please don't blame him for that. We may need to reconsider our strategy for-”

As the others continued to speak, especially filled with worries for the future, Jake walked over and picked up the knife he dropped as the middle soldier attacked him with a glowing weapon skill. As he took it, he also finally solved the mystery of what had been thrown at him when they first jumped at him.

He saw a dead badger, with the arrow he shot stuck in it. It was already dead before he even hit it, with what looked like a piece of a long sword in its stomach, something he had suspected was the cause of his death. He doubted he would be tricked like that again with his new Sphere of Perception, which was the name he set for his new spherical vision.

Set back to his colleagues' ongoing conversation, he wasn't too happy. Group discussion seems to lead to finding a safe place to hide and wait for a tutorial, only fighting if absolutely necessary or to get food. As Jake listened, he started to get more upset. Was he really the only one who understood their situation? She finally snapped as she began to speak in a much louder voice than they used to. Use enough curse words so HR needs to be called.

“Wake the fucking people! This whole damn tutorial is focused on murder, oh, and it's called a bloody TUTORIAL! As in TRAINING! What do you think the tutorial is for? Good corporate office work? Or, I don't know, maybe somewhere more chaotic than this place? What do you think is more likely? The world has changed, and you all have to move and adapt if you want to survive.”

Jake was panting towards the end, everyone just staring at him with wide eyes. He was well aware that the explosion was completely out of character. He just had enough. He has decided himself that he wants them alive, that he wants them to pass this tutorial in one piece, and they want to hide in a hole in the ground for more than two months?

One person who had fought a little during the tutorial would be able to annihilate them easily in just a few days if they did not gain any strength. Random ferocious beasts could come at them and kill them as well. Jake doesn't like to think about it, but he's sure that right now he can defeat them all alone in an ambush, only taking them one by one with arrows from a distance.

"What do you suggest we do?" Bertram stepped up and asked. Bertram is the bravest and most competent so far in the group, excluding Jake. He had walked in front, and he had even chosen a class during the introductions that allowed him to stand up for others. His tone was not anger or confrontation, but sincere.

“I suggest you do whatever you need to level up and survive this nonsense. Even if you don't want to fight others, you at least need the strength to defend yourself when they want to fight you. In other words, hunting wild animals. Get experience, get power, do what the system wants you to do, ”end Jake.

"I agree with Jake" Casper said as he also joined the conversation. “We need to learn how to take care of ourselves. What if Jake's not on his guard, but someone else? What if they arrive a few hours early? Are you going to be confident against three people at once who are all above you, Dennis?”

Dennis shook his head, it was clear that he would probably be a corpse on the ground now if his surveillance plans were different.

Jake hopes the explosion can serve as a warning to all of them. He didn't want to just leave them alone and go alone. He was afraid of the consequences of that. They cannot live alone as they are now.

He gave them space to think about it as he exited the group and went to inspect the corpses, starting with the two dead soldiers. He knelt on the ground and started rummaging through their bags. If he and his colleagues get six potions at the beginning of the tutorial, so do these guys. He quickly picked up the bag from the corpse and looked inside. Both of them had a considerable amount of potions, a mixture of stamina, health, and mana.

Looking at the mana potion, it confirmed that the three had either been part of a team with a castor or a deceased healer, or they had killed the caster or priest. He personally leaned towards the latter. There was a total of fourteen health, eight stamina, and five mana potions, also including the contents of the dead archer bag.

He turned to the group once again, who only looked at him as he looted. It was still dark, but the fire from the makeshift torch they were carrying made the scene bright. The problem is that the forest is still too dark to leave. They had to wait for the morning before they could do anything.

“For now, try and rest more. It's still my turn to keep watch, so I'll do it. Get energized. Tomorrow we hunt,” said Jake, sitting on his logs once again. Doubting any one of them would get even a wink of sleep.