Timekeeper made sure that Tess woke up early once again, just as she intended. Despite the less than ideal location of merely leaning against a tree, she was feeling good. A satisfying stretch had her back pop a few times.
“Oh, that’s good.”
She glanced over at her prisoners, still bound by her spell to their own tree. None had woken, which did surprise her that not even one was keeping a watch. Tess was admittedly odd for not keeping watch herself, but she was a group of one and needed to rest at some point. Granted, the monsters she had been pursuing the last few days did try to flee from her at first which made her wonder if she put out some sort of dangerous aura. If she did, it was not a skill and sentients, like these Purples, did not detect it.
There was a small, nagging sensation at the corner of her consciousness. It was something that she had not felt before, which concerned her. Tess tried mentally asking that corner what it was. To her surprise, her menus opened. She was confused at first, before noticing a red dot in the corner of the Skills submenu label. Following the apparent trail, she opened the Skills menu, bringing forth her list of skills again. She scrolled through before finding the red dot again on one skill.
[Counter - Inhibits Skill use against the user, reflecting the targeting Skill back. Also can be used to counteract Skills applied to the user or other selected targets.]
The red dot, and the sensation, left once Tess read the skill. The change was clearly meant to reinforce the less dramatic line of thinking she had yesterday. Tess found it strange that now the goddess seemed to be communicative. She was interested to have a conversation with her once again.
“We clearly need to talk.”
Tess rose from her position and made her way over to the tied up party. The archer woke up as she approached, so she chose him to be the first target. He seemed agitated as he glared at her, though the restraint also obstructed his ability to say anything at the moment. Not entirely sure what to expect, Tess activated Counter on the archer.
The archer’s eyes turned glassy as he went rigid. He then slumped forward, remaining in such a position. Tess cautiously pulled his head up, noticing a trickle of blood from his nose. She quickly gave a dose of healing magic, just to be safe, then tentatively removed the gag element of her spell on him.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“You pack a punch lady.”
“I mean do you remember what happened?”
“At the party? Yeah. You tried to warn the prince… hell, everyone… that the Champion would try some mind shit. Looks like it got me.”
“And what about your mission? No offense, but I think you were sent to kill me right?”
“Yeah, you’re wanted dead exclusively now. Champion heard you were at the wall, so sent a bunch of us here to get you.”
“How did she learn I was here? The wall is so far from the capital. It took me days to get here.”
The archer looked confused.
“You didn’t take the teleports?”
Tess stared at him.
“You mean the wall is connected to the major cities?”
“Not exactly. The wall is a serious military project, so they control exclusive teleports to it from a lot of the garrisons.”
“And how do you know this?”
“Was a bowman here on the wall for a year.”
Tess sat down as she processed everything. She could have gotten here so much faster, without so many casualties too. The weight of what could have been started crashing onto her.
“Hey? Can you fix them up too?”
Tess’s head shot up to look at the archer. He was still restrained, which Tess dismissed. She then turned to the other four members of the party here. They had since woken up and each seemed angry to some extent. She applied Counter to each in turn, before removing their gags. The warrior, mage and rogue all came to the same realizations as the archer. The martial artist, however, still seemed to have one hang up.
“You still attacked the Champion of the Goddess! The one chosen by the goddess to save this world!”
“Well, she’s not the one chosen anymore,” Tess replied.
“What?”
“I now have the goddess’s blessing. Plus it was me who beat the demon lord.”
The martial artist seemed to falter. Tess even showed him her title, which shattered whatever remaining loyalty to Olivia he had built up inside.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Oh, chosen of the goddess! Please forgive this soul’s arrogance! I pledge my life unto you in atonement for the sins I have committed!”
Tess was quite unnerved.
“Sorry about him,” the archer whispered, “He takes his belief to the extreme.”
“Clearly.”
Tess returned to thinking about what could have been, only to be immediately interrupted by her new fanatic follower.
“Lady Champion! Chosen of the Goddess! You have done more than any person. Please let not the worries you have trouble you. Without the knowledge of the goddess, one cannot foresee the things that will happen in front of us…”
“There is a Foresight skill,” Tess murmured, “It’s not very good.”
“...so we can only move forward on the path we can see. When one looks back, they challenge the choices they make only because they can now know of other potentials. You cannot regret what you did not know.”
As odd as he phrased it, Tess found herself thinking about how he was correct. While she could have made different choices, when she had little to no information about them it was hard to choose those. She strangely felt a little better.
“We need to stop the Ch… uh, former Champion?” the archer said.
Tess looked at this group, who seemed to be looking to her for direction.
“I can deal with Olivia,” Tess stated, “But I don’t want to have to fight against everyone to get to her.”
“We can help you there,” chimed in the warrior.
“Thanks. I need to meet up with Shadow first. Let’s get back to the capital. Please, show me these teleports.”
Tess allowed the party to work their own skills, since she wanted to understand their capabilities as they would be assisting in some form. So while the trek back to an intact wall settlement was quick, she would have been faster alone. Tess went with a disguise as she accompanied the group through the little town to the wall.
The mage handled the talking, in short order gaining them access to the teleporter by citing that they were on a mission for the Champion. It was true, in a manner of speaking, though perhaps not for the Champion that the guards had been thinking of. As Tess stepped out into the evening air of the capital city, her gaze was drawn back to the distant palace.
“Soon we should be having our last talk.”
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Elsewhere
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“What is going on?” the supervising deity of the System 2.0 project demanded.
“We have multiple breaches throughout our development. The infections are ripping apart our work and searching through the data,” a lesser deity gave as a status report.
“It’s hopped to the Version 1.0 worlds!” someone called out.
The supervisor was not sure how, but he was certain that this was the fault of that one lesser who had been on the Version 1.0 maintenance team. There was nobody who could root through MSI systems so easily, and nobody with an agenda other than that one.
“It’s not destroying the Version 1’s.”
That was odd. The supervisor went over to the lesser that had just spoken.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
The lesser deity pulled open a window to view the code. The myriad of languages that formulated the code of a Version 1.0 System created a beautiful tapestry of order amidst the chaos of a world. The lesser tapped a few more keys to color code the on screen view. The advanced spider web-like design of the Version 1.0 was a deep green, while the invading viruses formed yellow, worm-like visuals that worked their way along the countless threads.
“What is it looking for?”
“We aren’t sure.”
They stood, watching the vile worms comb through the code. A bunch suddenly sped up, converging on a specific area.
“Where are they going?” the supervisor asked.
“They are headed for… the Tutorial?”
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The Tutorial
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The obelisk stood silently in the dark of night. The surrounding archways lay dormant as it was not yet time to find the next candidate. With a tick of the clock, the respawn timer reset everything within the Tutorial. The obelisk and archways powered on, their magical runes began to glow as the archways began to flick through images of distant places.
Suddenly, the magical runes changed color. Whereas before they were a vibrant light blue, they now had a sickly yellow color to them. Energy began to crackle through the air as the runes seemed to malfunction, sending bolts of electricity between each other. A rift appeared next to the obelisk, slowly widening into a portal.
Once large enough, a team of ten heavily armed men stormed through the portal. They moved in pairs, securing the immediate area in silence as they issued hand signals. Despite their appearance within the Tutorial, the runes continued to glow their sickly yellow and the portal remained.
“Area secured,” one of the armed men said, relaxing the grip on his rifle.
Through the portal, one could see a large chamber with various machines and mechanisms all thrumming with power. A small crowd stood nearby, most wearing lab coats and holding electronic tablets that they were furiously writing something on.
A man in a suit, in his mid-fifties by all appearances, then stepped through the portal to emerge within the Tutorial. Another group of armed men came through immediately after, four of them carrying a large device.
Once they were all through, the machines on the other side let out whirring sounds and the portal began closing. Yet, none of the persons on this side seemed concerned. Once the portal closed, the runes went dark once more.
“Conduct a sweep through the greater area. Find anything unusual,” the apparent captain of this squad ordered.
Pairs of the armed soldiers split off and slipped into the night, leaving only six soldiers and the man in the suit at the obelisk site. The man in the suit seemed occupied by something, so the captain approached him.
“Sir? What is it?”
The man turned to look at the captain.
“Do you have a series of menus you can open? That show your name and things like a level?”
The captain looked concerned.
“Sir?”
“Focus with your mind. Is there an unusual sensation that you can’t explain?” the man in the suit asked.
The captain tried to calmly look inwards. He was nervous about this entire operation, and his focus reflected that. For a moment, he set his concerns aside and tried to look inward. He did notice there was a… something… that he focused on. Within his field of view, some sort of semi-transparent screen appeared.
“I do have such a thing, sir.”
The man in the suit grinned.
“It seems that we should figure out what this means while we are here.”