Tess sat down on the riverbank just outside the cottage, pulled her boots off, and stuck her feet into the cool water.
“Ah,” she let out with a sigh as she flopped down onto her back.
The last couple days had been rough. Most of the entitled rich kids that came through broke really quickly to her more aggressive style, but some did have some backbone. She did not like these tactics really, but the reality of the Tutorial and whatever was beyond it was that you had to be prepared to fight. If you were not going to at least defend yourself, then you were dead.
Well, it seemed at least that her new apprentice, which was a generous title at the moment, did not have any interest in weapon-based skills. Perhaps if she calmed down, then Tess could teach her some sort of magic. It would require her to be present too, since she had a habit of running from Tess. Tracking made it easy to find her though. Reluctant as she was to resume training, Tess ended her brief relaxation and pulled her boots back on.
She followed the path alongside the river which led deeper into the forest, noting along the way the various herbal nodes which had been harvested. Herbs were, after all, good ingredients for cooking, alchemy, and other professions.
“At least she’s practicing something,” Tess commented.
Really it seemed that the girl was going to do some sort of business venture, based on what skills she had gravitated towards so far. That was fine for a long term plan, and quite a number of her predecessors had done something similar. Tess wondered just how many worlds had advanced technological generations in short periods because of those that passed through the Tutorial under her instruction.
The Tracking skill continued to point down the path which diverted from the riverside and off to the grassy knoll. Atop the knoll sat a wagon with crates arranged on the ground nearby. A colorful cloth was affixed to a few tall poles, completing the market stand setup. Tess approached with an indifferent expression as she loosened a pouch from her belt.
“Hello Adventurer!” called out a man from behind the crates.
“Hello Charles,” she reflexively replied.
Charles was perhaps the only person who could possibly understand Tess’s struggle, if he were actually real. Instead, Charles was what Tess would eventually come to know of as an NPC. The same programming that controlled the Tutorial controlled Charles. As such, he was limited in what phrases he might say and what he might do. He was present to be a sort of introduction to the System’s currency and to be a practice target for various things.
He was a human, with an average build and features. Short brown hair and a well maintained beard and mustache combo framed his smiling face and brown eyes. Due to the fact that he was not hostile, Charles was the only friend that Tess had during her long tenure.
“Sell,” she quipped, dumping far more items from the pouch than it should be able to store based on size.
“Of course. I’d be happy to buy things from you,” replied Charles in a tone that was far too cheery for the practical robbery that was going on.
Since Charles was controlled by the Tutorial, he had an infinite amount of money. Additionally, since he was designed to introduce the currency, he purchased everything that anyone wished to sell to him. Tess had exploited this loophole for a long time to amass an uncountable fortune, selling various bits of junk that she always collected specifically for this purpose. One apprentice had once called her a hoarder, but she had no trouble letting go of the things. Though her stores of useful things, which she did hold on to, were incredibly large too.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Charles swept a hand above the items, causing them to rapidly vanish and be replaced with stacks of coins.
“Buy,” she said.
“Certainly. I have a wide variety of goods to offer!”
“The Random Box. That’s all for today.”
Charles walked over to the back of the wagon and pulled from beneath a tarp what appeared to be an out-of-place box wrapped in brightly colored paper and tied with an oversized ribbon. He placed it on the counter next to the coin stacks, causing some of them to vanish.
“A pleasure doing business with you!”
“Yea,” Tess said, sweeping the rest of the coins into the pouch she had just emptied.
She grabbed the gift box and, tucking it under her arm, followed Tracking to resume her search. She was slightly surprised when the path sharply turned towards the deepest part of the forest, and picked up her pace slightly to ensure that she found her misfit apprentice before dark. The scene that she had stumbled onto though caused her to burst out laughing.
Somehow, the woman had gotten caught up in a massive spider web. It was clear that she had attempted to free herself, though to no avail. It had only resulted in her being further entangled as her flailing had caused more of the sticky threads to become attached. She had somehow even ended up upside down, which had her face bright red at the moment. That however was just her position.
Additionally, it seems that she had followed Tess’s direction and likewise purchased the Random Box. Frankly, Tess thought that the Random Box had been quite generous, as she had acquired a piece of gear that fit well with what Tess had in mind to teach her. It was called the Magical Girl Uniform. A form-fitting, one size too small unitard that had excessive patches of skin showing, giant poofy shoulders, and stockings that hugged every curve of her legs, with similar sleeves on her arms. A capstone giant blue ribbon drew extra attention to the cleavage window.
“You think this is funny?” she asked Tess.
“Very.”
“Get me out of this before the spiders come.”
“Oh, the moon spiders don’t come out until dark, so we have plenty of time.”
“Plenty of time? For what?”
“A game. I’ll cut one of these threads for every question you answer,” Tess said.
Tess really needed to get some additional information about this woman, otherwise she was going to have to keep blindly guessing. While this might seem like an interrogation, Tess hoped that it would actually build more trust than what the woman had for her so far.
“Fine,” she admitted reluctantly.
“Great! You still haven’t even told me your name. So what is it? I’d like to speak to you personally.”
She remained silent for a moment. Why this was apparently so hard to share was odd to Tess, and she was likely to receive an alias, but at least calling her something was better than ‘you’ or ‘girl.’ Everybody had their reasons for why they did things.
“Olivia,” she finally muttered.
Tess smiled, then sliced the first thread with magical wind.
“Olivia. It really is a pleasure. Now, continuing on…”
----------------------------------------
Elsewhere
----------------------------------------
The lesser deity finished typing up the patch for the Tutorial. It was a messy piece of work, but it should do the trick. At least as long as nothing else strange about this stuck hero candidate was brought to his attention. He activated the patch application onto the live Tutorial, causing a progress bar to appear. The bar gave an estimated completion time of ninety-three hours.
“What!?! It’s not that big!”
The MSI System was not built to lie though, so it really would take ninety-three hours. In resigned frustration, he smacked his head on the desk. He sat contemplating what the next steps would be.
This hero was a great danger to whichever world they were put into. He really needed to figure out the next two on the client list to receive heroes, as the second one would get this overpowered monstrosity. He began to think about who would give him access to that sort of privileged information, before smacking his head again. He was a lesser deity running the System Maintenance on an aging System, no one would give it to him.
Instead he would have to develop something on his own. Some sort of tracing element that he could track to the System that received the impossible hero. He got to work on just such an ethically ambiguous element.