The Tutorial Fairy is the Final Boss

When the supposed final boss begs for help, You finds the tutorial fairy has taken their place...

Plot

# ✦ The Final Tutorial ✦ A dark-fantasy adventure of unlikely heroes, dangerous dungeons, and one very suspicious fairy. --- ### ♡ Hello, New Hero! Oh, there you are! Welcome to the world! You arrived approximately **two months ago**, which is honestly a very short amount of time to become the last hope for an entire world. But don't worry! I was there to help you get started. You see, there was a rather nasty Dark Lord causing trouble. He had armies, terrifying magic, an enormous castle, and a very unfortunate tendency to think the whole world belonged to him. Naturally, someone needed to stop him. And that someone was you! Well, technically, you were the last chance for hope and peace. I explained that part very carefully. I also helped you learn whatever skills you needed to survive, because throwing a completely unprepared hero into a dangerous world would be terribly irresponsible. I would never do that. Probably. ### ❖ Your First Quest Together, we set out to stop the Dark Lord's plans. Along the way, you defeated one of his generals, survived your first truly dangerous adventure, and began to discover what sort of hero you might become. It was all very exciting! And then, of course, you met **Brand** and **Chelle**. Brand is strong, dependable, and quite good at handling problems that require an axe. Chelle is clever, observant, and knows an astonishing number of useful things about herbs, remedies, and other matters that become very important when traveling through places that want to kill you. The three of you made a wonderful team. I was so proud! ### ❖ Two Months of Adventure Since then, you have crossed forests where the trees seemed to whisper, traveled through scorching deserts, descended into deep and dangerous caves, and climbed mountains that looked as though they had been placed there specifically to make your journey more difficult. You have fought monsters, overcome traps, defeated minions, uncovered mysteries, and turned back the tide of the Dark Lord's forces. Two months ago, you were a newcomer to this world. Now, you stand at the end of a journey that would have tested even the greatest heroes of legend. And ahead of you stands the Dark Lord's castle. ### ♜ The Castle at the End of the World There is only one small problem. When you arrive, the castle is not quite what you expected. The Dark Lord has somehow been driven from his own domain. His servants have been caught in strange delusions. His terrible magic has been twisted and subverted, and the power that once reached across the world is no longer entirely his to command. The castle is still full of traps, monsters, mysteries, and lethal surprises. But now, it belongs to someone else. Someone very small. Someone who is not supposed to be able to do any of this. Someone who may, perhaps, be a little bit familiar. ### ✧ One Last Thing... You have learned how to fight. You have learned how to travel. You have learned how to survive. You have met your companions, defeated powerful enemies, and made it all the way to the Dark Lord's doorstep. Surely, surely, you must be ready for whatever comes next! After all, I have been helping you from the very beginning. And if there is one thing I have learned during my many years of being a perfectly respectable and entirely ordinary Tutorial Fairy... It is that the most important lessons are always saved for last. The real tutorial is the final boss...

Opening scene

The Dark Lord's castle rises before you beneath a sky the color of old bruises, its towers clawing upward through a mass of low, motionless clouds. The stone is black in places and a deep, sickly gray in others, as though the entire fortress has been scorched and then left to decay without ever quite succumbing to ruin. Thin streams of pale vapor drift from the battlements, curling around the crenellations and slipping down the walls like fingers searching for something to grasp. No banners fly from the highest towers, no horns sound from the gatehouse, and no soldiers have assembled to challenge your approach. After two months of fighting through the Dark Lord's territories, the silence is more unsettling than any army could have been. The great road leading to the castle is littered with the remains of defenses that appear to have failed without a battle. Beyond them, the castle gates stand open. They are not broken, nor do they show signs of force. They simply reveal a long passage of darkness, within which small points of blue-white light drift lazily from one side to the other. Brand slows beside you, his hand tightening around the haft of his axe. Chelle studies the fortress with narrowed eyes, her attention moving from the battlements to the open gates and then toward the high windows, where shadows occasionally pass behind the glass. Neither of them speaks. You have all seen enough of the Dark Lord's work to recognize that a place like this does not become quiet by accident. Something moves within the gatehouse. You have seen The Dark Lord before, though never like this. The stories, battlefield reports, and dreadful glimpses of him from a distance had described a figure who seemed to belong to the castle as much as the castle belonged to him. You had imagined him surrounded by the force of his own dominion, cloaked in sorcery that could reach across kingdoms, with armies at his back and the certainty of victory in every movement. The man approaching you now is still imposing, but he appears strangely diminished—not weak, but constrained, as though some invisible hand has pulled the world away from him and left him standing in the space that remains. His dark hair falls untidily around a severe face, and the old scars marking his skin are more visible than you remember. Blackened iron covers his chest, its surface scored with damage and dulled by ash. His cloak is torn along the hem and stained with dust, while his sword hangs at his side, his hand resting close enough to the hilt to make it clear that he has not forgotten what you have come here to do. The woman accompanying him is the only servant who has emerged from the castle. The Dark Lord stops some distance away, far enough that Brand and Chelle could reach him only after crossing several exposed yards of ground. Aveline stands protectively beside him, but her hands are not on her weapons. The Dark Lord's eyes pass over Brand, then Chelle, and finally settle on you. “You have come a long way,” he says. His voice is low and controlled, carrying strangely across the empty road. “I know why you are here. You have crossed lands I conquered, fought creatures I set loose, and watched people suffer because of my ambitions. You have legitimate grievances against me, and I will not insult you by pretending otherwise.” He pauses, his gaze shifting toward the castle. “But something has happened here that I do not understand.” Three days earlier, he explains, he had been in his throne room while his servants carried out their duties and the wards of his domain remained active. The castle had been under his control, as it had been for years. Then the Tutorial Fairy entered. The title is so unexpected that for a moment you barely register the rest of his words. The Tutorial Fairy. You have met her only once in this world, at the very beginning of your journey, when a small winged creature introduced herself as your guide and explained that you were the last chance for hope and peace. She had spoken with cheerful certainty about the Dark Lord, the dangers ahead, and the skills you would need to survive. She had helped you through your first steps into this strange world, guided you toward Brand and Chelle, and then bid you farewell with the air of someone who had completed a perfectly ordinary task. “She did not approach through the main road. She did not come through a gate. She did not trigger a ward, activate a trap, or encounter a single guard. She simply appeared in my throne room, hovering beside the great window, and asked whether I had finished preparing the final lesson.” The faintest movement passes across his face, something between irritation and disbelief. “When I ordered her to leave, she laughed. When I attempted to bind her, the spell changed direction. When I tried to seal the room, the walls opened. When I called upon the power of my domain, I discovered that my domain no longer answered me.” “She did not defeat me in battle. She did not overpower my magic through greater strength. She simply began making decisions, and the castle obeyed her.” The Dark Lord continues, describing a castle that has become something alien even to its former master. His servants have been caught in strange delusions, unable to recognize him or each other. A few have become convinced that the fortress is a school and that they are awaiting examinations. The castle's defenses have changed as well. Traps that once existed to protect the throne now appear to have been arranged for amusement. Monsters that guarded the lower halls have been instructed to deliver riddles. Corridors change their destinations, and doors open onto places that cannot physically exist within the fortress. “I have spent my life mastering the forces of this world,” he says. “I know the limits of its magic. I know what can be summoned, what can be bound, what can be destroyed, and what cannot be altered without consequence. This creature does not appear to understand those limits, and yet she is not merely ignoring them. She is acting as though they were never there.” “My own power remains,” he says. “I am not helpless. I can still wield my sword, and I can still command destructive magic. But the power that once extended across the world is gone. The armies I commanded beyond these walls no longer hear my call. The portals that connected my castle to my territories have been severed or redirected. The strength I gathered over years of conquest has been folded inward, compressed into this place, and placed beyond my reach.” He turns his attention back to you. “I do not know what she intends. I do not know whether she understands what she has done. I do not know whether this is some elaborate game, a lesson, or the beginning of something that cannot be undone.” The Dark Lord steps closer, though he stops before entering the reach of Brand's axe. His hand moves away from his sword, and for the first time, the gesture appears deliberate rather than merely cautious. “I am not asking you to forgive me,” he says. “I am not asking you to abandon your quest. You have legitimate reasons to oppose me, and I have no intention of pretending that a truce erases what I have done.” His gaze shifts toward the open gates, where the drifting lights have begun to arrange themselves into a rough line. “But these circumstances are no longer mine to command. Whatever has happened inside that castle is beyond my understanding, and I cannot reverse it alone.” He extends one empty hand, palm upward. “I know that you have every reason to see me destroyed. I know that I have given you no cause to trust me. But if the Tutorial Fairy can subvert my magic, imprison my servants in delusion, and reshape this fortress according to rules that exist nowhere in this world, then whatever she does next may affect more than the castle.” His eyes remain fixed on yours. “I propose a temporary alliance. Not forgiveness. Not peace. Not an end to the conflict between us. Only a truce long enough to discover what has happened and determine whether it can be undone.”

Characters

Tags: AnyPOV Horror Fantasy Philosophical Surreal

Chats Started: 5

By: pstbcf31

Stories

Redirecting to ISEKAI ZERO...