The wrestling arena dissolved into countless glowing pixels. The cheering audience vanished. The ropes disappeared. The lights faded. Even the lingering sound of Muscle Bob shouting "Yahoo!" slowly disappeared into the distance.

FLASH.

The next moment....

Nobody, Ren, and Blossom returned to the tutorial chamber. Nobody immediately stretched both arms. "Man..." He exhaled deeply. "Today was crazy and fun at the same time."

Blossom jumped from his shoulder. "Atta!" The bunny seemed to agree.

Even Ren looked more relaxed than usual. The rabbit coach folded his arms. "Well...At least you did good."

Nobody smiled proudly. "Thanks."

Ren continued. "Especially for not doing anything crazy with Bob."

Nobody looked offended. "Hey. I wasn’t that crazy."

Ren stared. Nobody stared back. Both remained silent.

Then Ren pointed. "You emotionally damaged him."

Nobody pointed back. "The system told me to."

"Fair." The rabbit couldn’t argue with that.

Nobody sat down on one of the floating platforms. His body felt exhausted. Not physically but mentally. Stage Seven had done something no other stage had managed. It had attacked his sanity repeatedly with cartoon physics.

Nobody sighed. "Though Bob was kinda wacko..." A small smile appeared. "...I did feel a friendly vibe from him."

Ren nodded.

For once he didn’t make a joke. "Yeah. That’s just how Bob is."

Nobody blinked. "...Wait. You know him?"

Ren immediately looked away. "No."

"You totally know him."

"No."

"You do."

"No."

Nobody pointed dramatically. "SUSPICIOUS!"

Ren ignored him. Which only made him look more suspicious.

Blossom meanwhile was sitting nearby eating a carrot somehow obtained from nowhere. Nobody didn’t even question it anymore. His standards had changed after Stage Seven.

Then Ren suddenly spoke. "Oh. By the way."

Nobody immediately became nervous. Whenever Ren started a sentence like that something terrible followed.

"Yeah?"

"Today you’re not getting a rest period."

Nobody froze. The chamber became silent. Even Blossom stopped chewing.

"..."

"...What?!"

Ren smiled. That one dangerous smile.

Nobody stood up immediately. "WHAAAAAAT?!"

"YOU HEARD ME."

Nobody pointed aggressively. "EVEN AFTER THAT CRAZY FIGHT?!"

"Yes."

"THE KANGAROO TURNED ME INTO A CAT!"

"Yes."

"AND A GIGACHAD!"

"Yes."

"AND A MAKEUP GIRL!"

"Yes." Ren shrugged. "Skill issue."

Nobody almost fainted. "SKILL ISSUE?!"

The rabbit nodded. "Skill issue."

Nobody grabbed his head. "This coach is evil."

The system immediately appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[CONFIRMED]

User does have skill issues.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ren pointed. "See? Even the system agrees."

Nobody looked betrayed.

Then Ren dropped the real bomb. "You want a face or not?"

"..." Nobody froze. "...Yes."

"Then stop whining."

Nobody sighed. The face thing remained one of his biggest motivations. Even if he pretended otherwise.

Ren smirked. "Good. Then go to Stage Eight like a good boy."

Nobody immediately looked suspicious. "Did you just call me a good boy?"

Ren smiled. "Maybe."

"I don’t like that."

"No one asked you."

Nobody groaned dramatically. Then something clicked. His eyes widened. "Wait." He pointed toward Ren. "You just said Stage Eight."

"Yes."

"The next stage."

"Yes."

"The final stage."

"Yes."

Nobody froze completely. The realization hit. "...Final?"

Ren nodded. The chamber became quiet. Even Blossom stopped moving.

Nobody swallowed. The joking atmosphere slowly disappeared. Because this wasn’t just another stage. This was it. The last one. The final obstacle. The final battle.

After everything..the centipedes, the brain monster, the King Slime The jungle, the gorilla king, the demoness, the Skyblader. The insanity known as Muscle Bob. Everything had led to this.

Nobody slowly looked at Ren. "...Doesn’t that mean..."

Ren nodded. "...Yep."

Nobody finished. "The humanoid enemy."

Ren nodded again.

"The one wearing the same shirt."

"Yep." Ren said.

Nobody became silent because something about that opponent bothered him. The others had been monsters. Creatures, bosses, abominations. But a humanoid enemy? One that apparently dressed similarly to him? Something felt different. More personal and more dangerous.

Ren noticed the change. "Scared?"

Nobody immediately answered. "No." A pause. "...Maybe a little."

Ren laughed. "There he is. The normal Nobody."

Nobody crossed his arms. "Look. This sounds important."

"It is very important."

"It is so..."Nobody suddenly pointed toward the hallway leading to his room. "...Good night."

Ren blinked. "What?"

"We’ll meet tomorrow." Then Nobody started walking away very fast.

Ren immediately realized what was happening. "Get back here."

Nobody increased speed. "Nope."

"Nobody," Ren called him.

"Nope."

"NOBODY," Ren called even louder.

The NPC immediately broke into a run. "I AM GOING TO SLEEP!"

Ren sighed. Then casually grabbed the back of Nobody’s shirt. The loose black monster-face shirt stretched.

Nobody stopped moving instantly like a cat being carried. His arms and legs dangled helplessly. "Nooooo..."

Ren held him up effortlessly. "Nice try."

Nobody started whining. "Just lemme go."

"No."

"I wanna go away...Come again another day."

"No."

"I need sleep."

"No."

"I need therapy."

"No."

Blossom pointed. "Atta."

"NOT YOU TOO!"

Ren ignored the complaints. Then looked toward the system. "System."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[YES?]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Start Stage Eight preparations."

Nobody immediately screamed. "NOOOOOOOOO!"

The system obeyed. Purple energy began gathering. The chamber lights flickered. The air started vibrating.

Nobody looked horrified. "REN!"

"What?"

"I WANNA SLEEP A LITTLE!"

"No."

"THIRTY MINUTES!"

"No."

"TEN MINUTES!"

"No."

"FIVE?!"

"No."

"ONE?!"

"No."

Nobody looked toward Blossom. "Help me."

The bunny immediately hid behind Ren.

"Traitor."

Purple particles surrounded Nobody. The stage-loading sequence had already begun.

There was no escape and no delay. No negotiation. Only suffering.

The system displayed one final notification.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[FINAL STAGE PREPARING]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ren folded his arms. Then smiled. "Shut up. Get ready for Stage Eight."

Nobody pointed dramatically at the ceiling. "This tutorial violates NPC rights!"

The system ignored him. The purple light intensified.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[STAGE 8 LOADING...]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

𝙻𝙾𝙰𝙳𝙸𝙽𝙶...

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░░░░░ 55%

Nobody was still hanging from the back of his shirt in Ren’s grip.

His legs kicked helplessly. "Just let me gooooo!"

The system instantly replied.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Nuh uh]

(¬ᴗ ´¬ )

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody gasped. "Since when do you talk like that?!"

The system refused to elaborate.

Ren sighed. "Will you stop whining?"

"No."

"Be a brave man." Ren advised him.

Nobody immediately pointed at him. "You can’t talk."

Ren blinked. "What?"

"You can’t be a brave man."

"Why?"

"Because you’re a rabbit." The chamber became silent.

Blossom covered its eyes. "Atta..."

Ren slowly raised one eyebrow.

Nobody immediately realized his mistake. "...Dang."

Ren smiled. The scary smile. "You know what?"

"What?"

"You do deserve to get your as* kicked by the Stage 8 opponent."

Nobody pointed dramatically. "I WAS JOKING!"

"Too late."

The system suddenly flashed brightly.

𝙻𝙾𝙰𝙳𝙸𝙽𝙶...

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 100%

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[STAGE 8 LOADING COMPLETE]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Purple particles immediately surrounded Nobody. "Oh no." His body began dissolving into pixels. "REN!"

"No." Ren said.

"SYSTEM!"

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[system window]

Nuh uh (¬ᴗ ´¬ )

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"BLOSSOM!"

The bunny waved. "Atta!"

FLASH!

Nobody vanished completely. Leaving behind only glowing particles.

Ren folded his arms. Then looked toward the space where Nobody had disappeared. A small smile appeared. "Good luck, Bowlcut."

And somewhere beyond the tutorial space....The final opponent was already waiting.