A Gamer's Guide To Beating The Tutorial

Sure, it’s not like Moleman made it look easy or anything, but running a city is absolutely not something I’m fit for. Trying to keep everyone on the same page and up to date is a logistical nightmare, and combined with the fact that I’m simply not good at talking to people, it makes things all the worse.

At least the weather is nice. Yes, in fitting with it finally becoming May, the rain and cold have actually let up! It’s now sunny, mild weather, and the sky is a cloudless blue. It’s honestly a very pretty day. Such a shame that the warmth makes the bodies rot faster.

“That house has one in it, that one has two, and that house is full, so send in a squad,” I say, pointing to each designated house. At my side, the most recent captain of the guards nods hurriedly, his head slung low, eyes moving wildly as he starts barking orders at his equally frazzled-looking subordinates. Most of the guards are now wearing the leather hazmat suits to cope with the plague, but this guy—whatever his name was—has his face visible. That’s how I can tell that his eyes and cheeks are sunken in—a good sign for his working diligence. “Chop, chop, chop.”

I glance back. It’s only the first gathering of the day, and we’ve already got three carts full of bodies. Most of them are fairly fresh, but a few are really old. Since I’m busy with things, I only assist with the gathering once a week or so. If I didn’t, a certain some groups of people would refuse to give us the bodies of their deceased family members for dumb sentimental reasons. But since I’m here, I can just sniff, point, and whoosh! One more body to make rations out of.

One more body to spend five minutes eating and transforming into rats. Oh, boy, I sure do have my work cut out for me. Yippie. This floor is soooooo fun.

As I grumble about such things, someone bursts out from their house. Ah, it’s a kid.

It runs up to me, panting and trembling from weakness. Desperately, it grabs onto the tatters of my clothes. “Angel!” it says. “Angel, please… save my dad! He’s sick, and I’ve heard you can commit miracles—miracles that cost a life. I’m prepare to give mine, so please—”

“You’re breaking quarantine,” I say. “You do know that’s a death sentence, right?”

The little kid goes pale. From the corner of my eye, I spot the latest captain of the guards, Mr Whatshisname, averting his gaze, unable to bear watching. Well, whatever. If I’d been someone of actual importance, I might have chastised the guards for allowing a potential assassin to get so close. But considering that I’m hardly the one in danger here… I’ll let it slide.

The kid looks down at the ground between us—at his tattered shoes, and my pale, clawed feet. When he looks up again, his eyes are glittering. I’m not sure if it’s from awe or tears. “But you’re an angel. You can save my father. I’ll give my life—anything else I have is yours. Please…”

I raise my hand to execute him, but then another goblin rushes out, slightly larger, and going by the lack of mane, female. She clutches the kid in her arms. “No! He doesn’t know what he’s talking about—please! Let us go. I beg of you, angel…”

“You’re also breaking quarantine,” I say. Does this entire bloodline need a lesson in obeying the laws or something?

Her ears fold back like a scared rabbit. Silently, head bowed, she goes down on her knees, pushing her kid down as well. “Please. Spare us. We have nothing. With my husband’s death, there is nothing left for us. I beg of you, use your power to…”

She keeps speaking, but I’m looking up at the house she came from. Sniff sniff. Yeah, he’s dead.

I turn to the latest captain of the guards, pointing at the house. “One in there.” And then I point down at the two in front of me. “Two over here.”

His body jerks. He looks like he wants to say something. The last captain of the guards had done that, too. And then he’d made the mistake of speaking. Not very clever. He didn’t last long. Considering that this latest captain isn’t saying anything, he might last a little longer.

The mother looks up at me. “What are you—”

I do away with them both.

The latest bodies are thrown into the cart, and then we move on. This really is tedious. It just never ends, you know?

We arrive at my office. Since the raid, and since I did away with all of the nobles, the mayor’s manor has basically been left to rot. But I had a better idea. So, now, the entire manor has been converted into a little office for me, which also works as a rat slaughterhouse and skinning operation. Because, yes, I’m so nice that I have the rats skinned and gutted before handing them out as rations. If there was an ‘employee of the month’ for this city, I’d have earned it five times over.

Anyways, I wave the carts with the bodies into the east wing, where they’re unloaded into the butchering section. There, a couple of workers disassemble them into more manageable chunks, which are funneled directly into my office. Going into said office, I take a seat and begin my part of the operation—namely converting the meat into rats. Isn’t that nice of me? I could just have fed everyone the diseased meat and been happy, but instead, I’m giving them fresh, healthy rat flesh! I’m too kind, really.

Anyway, meat goes into my mouth, rats go out into a specific hole in the wall which goes into the rat manufacturing portion. All rat rations—or rations, as I would call them if the pun didn’t work too well to be legible—are distributed fresh, on the daily, delivered straight to their houses. Truly a luxury.

While in my office, I receive some visitors.

The first one is… some guy who cares too much about healing people.

“With your assistance, oh angel, we believe that we may be able to…”

“Could you lift your head so I can actually hear you? Thanks.”

Still kowtowing, trembling in every limb, he raises his head. “Forgive me. Please forgive me. It wasn’t my intention to—”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, just tell me what you wanted to hear.” Saying so, I take a bite out of a foot, frowning slightly at the rotten, putrefied taste.

“Y—y—yes, of course, erm, that is…” While he continues rambling about whatever it is he’s worried about, I let my eyes trail around the room. I refuse to do paperwork, so I don’t have a desk. Instead, I have a pile of yet-to-be-eaten flesh, which is continuously added on by a hole in the wall flushing in the latest additions. Originally, I hadn’t intended on having to talk to anyone in here. But then someone who’s no longer with us mentioned that if I’m anyways just sitting around, I might as well use the time more productively by accepting guests. Which… Yeah, okay. That works. Unfortunately, there’s one issue with this plan.

It’s just so boring to listen to people whine about things I couldn’t care less about.

“Rejected,” I say randomly, not even listening for a lull in his monologue to inject it into. He looks at me as though I’d killed him already.

“P—pardon?” he asks with a stutter. Why do they always stutter? It’s getting old. Should I just do away with him to avoid the droll stuttering? Ah, but then I’d have to pull him apart… Or I’d have to call someone to drag his body away… That’s such a chore. If only Moleman was here, I wouldn’t have to care about this stuff. I could just zone out, and… Well, I’m zoning out already, but whatever. “Angel, I—I assure you, I hold nothing but respect when I ask of you…”

“If you don’t leave in the next minute, I’ll consider it treason and execute you.”

That usually gets them moving.

Not this guy, though. So, he’s stupider than I initially thought.

“Angel, I hate to ask this, but… Before, I had very good interactions with—with your master… The honorable SuperMoleman. I was thinking, if you only let me speak to him, then—”

I put the foot down and swallow what was in my mouth. Then, I stand up.

He draws back in fear. “Ah—ah, no, s—sorry, I misspoke! I meant no harm, it really wasn’t—”

I do away with him. Staring down at what’s left, I frown. Opening the door, I lean out and wait until I can see a worker. “Hey, you—come clean up this mess, will you?”

They hurry over. Soon, the body is gone. A few minutes later, he shows up again through the chute on the right, adding to the pile of flesh. I convert him to rats. Life goes on.

And in the afternoon, I go to the hospital. I walk alone. The streets are empty. There are no bodies. There are no rats. All of them have been scavenged, scrounged up and turned into food for the remaining survivors—which is not a lot, mind you. Less than half of the original population remain. The majority of them are sick. If we’d followed Rat’s plan, those people would’ve been healed now, and the plague would’ve been over. But there’s no point in mulling over the past.

I spot someone down the street. I give a sniff. Ah, he’s breaking quarantine. Bad, bad goblin. I head towards him to tell him that, only to have him run towards me. Soon, he plants a knife in my chest, right through my heart. He lights up in triumph. I sigh.

“You’re breaking quarantine,” I say tiredly. “Also, trying to kill me is illegal, though not a death sentence like the former is.”

His expression falls. Now that I look at him, he looks pretty ragged. The plague really did a number on this guy, huh? I pat him on the shoulder. He looks briefly confused before I do away with him and eat one of his hands to recover my heart. It’s unusual for them to go straight for the heart, though. Most of them go for my stomach, or my neck, which is a good bet, but still incorrect. I guess you’d need a mob to pull together a proper attack on me now. Unfortunately, since I keep track of any large gatherings, this isn’t very feasible. Well, whatever.

After a bit more walking, I reach the hospital, where I go to visit an old friend.