Tess was mentally exhausted. She had spent days now at the palace treating those afflicted by the disease that had been Olivia’s influence. Every day, there was always one more found that somehow escaped notice so far. That did not even account for those who Olivia had affected but were not at the palace now. It seemed that those people were mostly Purple ranks out hunting for Tess, so upon hearing that Tess was back at the palace, they would probably come in of their own accord.

Tess made her way to the prince’s bedchamber. The guards outside swiftly opened the way for her, and upon stepping inside a servant came to her side.

“How is he today?” Tess asked.

“His Highness is… much the same,” the servant replied hesitantly.

Tess nodded and walked to the bedside. The prince turned to face her, but she still saw that there was little of the light inside through his eyes. When Tess had used Counter on him she had expected it to be bad, but the reaction he had was worse than expected. He had gone into seizures as blood gushed from both nostrils. Had she not been able to use healing magic, Tess suspected he would have died right there. That said, he had remained in a coma for two days before waking again. Once he did, it quickly became clear that Olivia’s consistent meddling with the prince’s mind had been so deep that it was going to take time to heal.

Tess felt at least partially responsible for his state. She questioned if there was a way she could have more gently peeled away the layers of influence. She had learned over the last several days that Olivia had to speak about whatever memory she was creating to overwrite the original. Olivia had spent a lot of time with the prince, so there was surely a lot that had been said to him. Tess had probably just ripped at least half his mind away. He had so much suddenly lost that he, unwillingly, believed that his mind’s only course of action to heal was to shut down almost completely.

“Hello again, Your Highness. How are you today?” Tess asked him directly.

A smile crossed his face, but just as quickly lost all expression.

“I see. Let’s cast another heal over you today.”

She did so, then proceeded to remain by his side for a while. She had been telling him about her adventures to pass the time when she visited, such as her hunt of the hydra or the white dragon. He would just stare the entire time, perhaps enchanted by her voice.

“... and that is why the angel gifted me their cincture, which I wove into my hat. It’s a powerful boost and, with the gryphon feathers, makes the flight enchantment on my hat more stable.”

Another temporary smile crossed his face. Tess leaned back in her chair, thinking about what to discuss next.

“She’s not going to hurt anyone anymore, if I have anything to say about it. Your father, the emperor, wants her executed immediately. I’ve stayed the execution because I think there is more to this. She is deluded in what she believes is going to happen at this point, ranting about the goddess’s wrath. She won’t accept me even showing her the title I now hold. I think we need to have a chat with your goddess, but she doesn’t seem to be urgent about getting in touch.”

At that moment, a screen came into Tess’s view despite her not accessing her menus.

“Local patch? Something is getting fixed?” Tess asked, confused.

The little bar on the screen began rapidly filling from left to right. Once complete, the bar changed to read ‘Applying Patch.’ A few seconds later, the screen disappeared and Tess felt a pull in the subconscious direction of the menus. Curious, she opened it and noticed the red dot. A new tab labeled [Quests] was present. Following the dot, she opened the new tab.

[New Quest: Come to the Cathedral of Oena. Bring your captive. We have much to discuss.]

“You had to patch in a communication method? Seems stupid to not have it already. Fine, I’ll be there shortly,” Tess said aloud.

As she stood to leave, the prince suddenly grabbed her hand. Tess was surprised that he was somewhat functional.

“You… you save… you Champion,” the prince rasped out, “Thank you.”

“You are welcome, Your Highness. I’m going to end the biggest trouble you could have right now.”

The prince nodded and released her hand, the blank stare returning to his expression. Perhaps in time he would recover after all. Tess gave a report to the servant, who seemed enthralled that the prince could speak even a few words again. She left him to tending the prince and left the room.

In the dungeon beneath one of the palace wings, an entire section had been cleared out so that there was no chance any of the few imprisoned within could possibly hear the voice of the former Champion. Guards stood well out of earshot as well, with thick pieces of cloth tied around their heads so as to assist in blocking out the potential speech. Tess walked by all of them, unobstructed because of her status. Winding through the corridor, she stopped at the one unofficial guard in place here.

“It’s time,” Tess said.

“She only just went quiet,” Shadow replied, “Can’t we wait until morning?”

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“You want me to tell the goddess no?”

Shadow shrugged. Tess shook her head and rounded the corner to the last cell. Inside, Olivia was laying on the poor excuse for a cot with an equally poor excuse of a blanket on. Gone was her equipment, but she had used Appearance to transform the simplistic blouse and skirt into a sexy black dress, reminiscent of what she had originally been wearing when she had first appeared in the Tutorial.

“Get up,” ordered Tess.

Olivia ignored her, but Tess had honestly expected such a thing to occur. She stood silently as she waited to see if Olivia would give in.

“What do you want now?” Olivia finally asked in irritation, still not facing Tess.

“We’re going on a trip.”

Olivia flipped over.

“There’s no way I’m going anywhere with you.”

“Well. You are. The goddess wants to see us.”

Tess watched closely as Olivia’s eyes glimmered for the briefest of moments. Whatever Olivia was planning, Tess was going to stop it this time. Clearly it now involved messing with the goddess.

“How do we get there?” Olivia asked.

“The cathedral.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?”

Tess suddenly had a bad feeling about this meeting.

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The Tutorial

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The middle aged man had never felt so spry as he dashed through the forest. Following the instructions left in the book by that ‘Tess,’ he had spent so much time increasing his stats and level while obtaining the variety of skills that even the captain of the mercenaries could no longer keep up with him. In a private sparring session, the man had even defeated the captain despite the vast difference in their combat knowledge. The man did not necessarily enjoy combat, but he was not adverse to getting his hands dirty when necessary. He had really been that way as long as he could remember.

The communicator on his wrist beeped, so he paused in the middle of his daily routine since arriving here. He was right in the middle of a cluster of moon spider webs, but since they would not attack until night, it was fine. He took a deep breath as his mind settled for the moment. Finally ready, he tapped the communicator.

“What is it, Origin?” he asked.

“Sir. We have found the next destination,” came the reply in a somewhat robotic sounding voice.

“About time. The implant has finally paid off again.”

“Indeed, Sir. How would you like to proceed?”

The man leaned against a tree as he thought.

“I want more men here training. See if we can get the idiot merchant to tell us anything good.”

“The merchant Charles seems to be incapable of normalized speech patterns. My analysis has concluded that he is limited by a series of encoded neural pathways. He is not intended to provide information in the manner that you are trying to extract,” Origin stated.

“So he’s only good to buy and sell shit?”

“When it comes to speaking, yes.”

“He does make a good target for skill practice,” the man said.

“I cannot confirm that.”

“We should have you control a platform here. We’ll see if you gain access to the System.”

“I shall prepare one of my platforms for transit to the Tutorial.”

“Good. Send the data to my device. At the next link up we will bring new personnel over, then travel to the next world.”

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The man was back at the cabin by the river. He was once again browsing the shelves of books that appeared to be biographies of hundreds of people. Most of the biographies were of children or young adults, which only irritated the man more. After all, that was the age range of when… he tried not to think about it. Soon it would be corrected.

He walked over to the machine that the soldiers had brought through the portal. They had placed it inside the cabin to shelter it from the elements, not that they had experienced any severe weather conditions since arriving. He gently patted the device as he checked it over. He had poured years of his life into its design and function, and the mission now depended on it working perfectly. The test runs had shown no instabilities, but to say that this entire operation was beyond the scope of any lab testing that could be done was an understatement. He was still admiring his work when the group of soldiers who would be carrying the thing came inside.

“Sir, we are ready,” said one of them.

“Good. Get this thing to the obelisk.”

“Yes Sir!”

The four men gathered around the device and hoisted it up. The man followed along as the other soldiers joined in behind as the entire group traveled to the obelisk. Upon arriving, they set the device down as per the man’s instructions.

“I shall complete the setup now. Just ensure that none of the wild beasts around here come visiting.”

The soldiers took up positions around the obelisk site, with only the captain remaining close to the man and device. The man first clamped down the legs of the device, driving them deep into the ground before using some of the earth magic he had picked up to secure them in place by transmuting the dirt into stone. He then elevated the large central cylinder to stand upright, locking it in place. Pressing a button, a pair of electrical transformers popped out from near the back, pointing at an angle away from the now central spire. Another button caused two antenna-like protrusions to pop out in a V formation. The panel on one side of the device flickered to life as the device began to power up.

The runes on the obelisk and archways began to glow in the strange, sickly yellow color again before a portal appeared next to the obelisk. Once it stabilized, emerging from the portal was a new group of fifty soldiers, ten scientists, and a sleek looking robot. The captain walked over and began to address the soldiers as the robot led the scientists towards the device.

“Any issues operating a platform here?” the man asked.

“There are no issues, Sir,” the robot replied, “Though once the portal closes it may cut off my connection.”

“I think if you can speak through my communicator, then you’ll be fine, Origin.”

The robot inclined its head.

“Are you lot ready? I want lots of detailed reports when we get back. This will be a fantastic day indeed,” the man said.

The captain had returned, bringing the other nineteen original soldiers with him.

“Where are we headed now, Sir?” the captain asked.

The man smiled as he hit the Activate button on the device’s touch panel. The device began to whir as it generated energy from within to power itself. Electricity arced between the two antennas as it picked up signals from beyond the open portal, in the chamber full of its own similar machinery. The large, central pillar began to light up as it honed in on the target destination. Once the pillar of the relay device was completely illuminated, a second rift began to rip open next to the obelisk.

“It’s called Iriea.”