Tess felt very uneasy as she tried to enter a meditative trance. It had been a couple days since she had come into Chariel’s divine space and it all felt… wrong. She could not quite explain how or why, but she knew that she did not want to be here much longer.

“Is this really necessary?” she murmured to herself yet again.

“Think of it as a meal,” Chariel replied, “It will give you a boost for a short while so you can extract Charles.”

Tess sighed as she tried again. Chariel had advised her that, until she gained the power of whatever training he had in mind, she should absorb some of his own latent divinity that infused the space. The theory was that it would be enough to at least match Viktor should they inevitably clash during the rescue operation. Of course, she had asked why she could not simply maintain this boost in addition to her upcoming training. That had left Chariel giving a long winded history lesson on people and places she would probably never see. The take away she got though from the lesson was that she was not a deity.

Chariel had not been idle during this time. She had seen him mashing a series of screens, much like that nameless deity did. He claimed to be removing Tess’s profile from the overarching System files and into his personal copy of the System, entirely separate from the infested MSI network. She would still be able to utilize the System, but be protected from the infection.

“It’s back again,” Chariel commented.

The infection, and the intelligence behind it, were insistent on targeting Tess’s profile apparently. Chariel spent a moment fighting the invisible adversary before laughing in triumph.

“Do you have any updated information on where Charles is?” Tess asked.

She had thought that the process would be simple. Charles was supposed to be at his little market set up in the grove. Even if he died, it was where he had always respawned. Yet Chariel had told her that it was not the case at the moment.

“See, he’s a general copy of myself, without a lot of the power I possess of course. I initially used manual operation to do things with him, but then I realized that I should just let him do things on his own. He did so much in that time, you could call him the first hero of the System. I couldn’t just get rid of him, but he was too independent. So I limited him in stages until he became… well, let’s just say what he is now. I took off the restrictions which will allow him to move more freely now. However, these intruders used that to take him hostage. I have not released him from his limited phrases yet because of that.”

Tess heard Chariel speak of the hostage situation just now, but was focused on that other thing he had just said too.

“Wait a minute. You placed chains on him? Limited his choices? His freedom?”

Chariel paused.

“Are you going to do the same to me? You probably won’t wait until you consider me a threat like you must have with him.”

She watched as he slowly turned to stare at her. For a fraction of a second, aided only by her enhanced perception, she saw something dark flit across the deity’s face. She wished that Oena had stuck around a little longer before returning to her own divine space to check on things. Whatever that darkness was, it was replaced by a fake smile.

“Of course not.”

It did not take a genius to see that it was a lie, which left Tess concerned about what it was that Chariel really wanted. If Charles had been his hero, only to be sidelined later on, it was likely that her own fate might be similar. Or was Chariel hoping that she and Charles might fight, settling who was to be Chariel’s hero going forward? Her limited trust evaporated at the thought.

“Where is he being held?”

Chariel visibly relaxed at the question. She doubted he would forget anything about what they just said, but changing the topic was enough to diffuse some of the tension. There was no way that she would manage to meditate now.

“They move him a lot. Maybe staying in any one location for an hour at most.”

He opened a map of the Tutorial, showing it to Tess. At the center was the obelisk, with everything in a circle around it. She spotted the little clearing that she had built the cottage in by the side of the river, which made her frustrated to know that it was being used as a base by someone with such despicable motives.

“You’ll arrive here, of course,” Chariel said, pointing at the obelisk site, “I’ll give you his location just before you get there, but from then on you’ll be on your own.”

Tess nodded. She had expected as much, given how Oena had been unable to directly intervene. Though that nameless deity had made assistance more accessible, it seemed that those edits only applied when she was on Iriea. She intended to return there someday, at least briefly.

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“Once you get him, get back to the obelisk and I’ll extract you both. It will be a straight trip to the training area, so don’t get separated.”

“Got it. When do I go?”

“I’ll have your profile separated by tomorrow.”

—

Tess stood in full gear with the Witchblade loosely gripped in one hand. She was staring at the map, with an overhead view on the side of the obelisk area so she could view the current guard. She would have to move quickly to eliminate them, giving her the head start on her mission before the rest caught onto what was happening, which was inevitable. Every mercenary she killed was one she did not have to worry about again, at least until the respawn time. It gave her about a twelve hour window of time to get in and get out before she was likely to get caught.

“Ready?” Chariel asked.

“As much as I can be.”

“Let’s do this then!”

Tess felt that Chariel hit the activate button with a little too much enthusiasm. There was an odd feeling as power swirled around her.

“They actually have him at your cabin right now!” she heard over the increasing volume of wind whipping around.

There was a flash as Tess disappeared from the divine space. Chariel took a moment as the swirling winds died down.

“Let’s see how my two puppets play together.”

—

The Tutorial

—

Six men stood guard over the obelisk right now. It was the most boring of details one could get so far and made little sense since, as far as they understood, they controlled the mechanisms which the obelisk used. Since the captain had died during the mission to get the boss’s daughter, the robot Origin had taken over command directly within the Tutorial. The issue was that Origin was not open about reasons they were doing things. Despite the lax atmosphere of this duty, they were instantly attentive when the obelisk unexpectedly began to glow.

“Are we expecting people?” one asked.

“It goes yellow for us, so no. This is red,” said another.

“Call it in.”

The glow faded just as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by a blur of motion that drew everyone’s attention. Two clutched at their necks, already slashed open as the blur solidified into a girl who stood in front of them. The others barely had time to process what it was they were seeing before she jabbed her weapon into each’s head in rapid succession.

—

Tess had been quick on the draw after arrival. In seconds she had dispatched the guards, leaving her arrival allegedly still unknown. She took a moment to swipe the guard’s gear and hurriedly bury the bodies with earth magic. Then she took off on a roundabout route towards the cottage.

Using Timekeeper, she gave herself a twelve hour timer. This meant that she would avoid the respawn time by a wide margin, avoiding an all hands battle at the obelisk upon her return. However, she also had less than an hour to find Charles and start figuring out how to deal with whoever was escorting him.

Despite not taking the shortest path back to the cottage, Tess did choose the quickest elements of her path. The times she had spent speedrunning the Tutorial, believing that just maybe that held the key to escaping, were coming back to help as she cut through the forest.

In little time she had looped around to the small clearing where on a small hill sat Charles’ cart. The stall sat untouched, likely having been reset during the last respawn time and simply not yet having been trashed again today. It was unsettling how off it felt for no greeting to reach her ear as she approached. Granted, she was doing so stealthily at the moment, but if she were not there still would have been no greeting as Charles was not there.

There was a pain of sadness that welled up from within as Tess looked around the meager stall. Many times she had come here aside from her daily shopping run to simply speak to someone that, she had felt, truly knew her helplessness. Reflecting on those one sided conversations, she wondered how much he actually desired to converse with her. The shackles that had kept him at this spot, speaking only certain phrases, were being loosened. Soon he would be able to react to her in a more dynamic manner, which was both thrilling and nerve racking.

Tess withdrew a single coin from her inventory and set it on the makeshift counter of the stall. A little window popped up in her view, telling her that the merchant was unavailable and purchases could not be made. She smiled as she considered that soon that message would be seen by a lot of people who came here. Time was ticking though, so Tess was forced to stop her lamenting and press on. She moved up the river towards the cottage, keeping to the shadows as she did so.

As it came into view, she was content at the sight of her home. Sure it was being defiled right now, but it was still her home. Maybe one day she could return here, raising little Favi and Gwen, and assist the next group of countless summoned people. The view, however, was marred by the second structure close by.

A series of white interconnected cubes was arranged next to the cottage, looking very much out of place. She wondered how they brought these cubes here and what they could possibly be for. Lurking was not the answer, she needed information. The two dozen guards were likely to cause an issue though, so she started by coming up with a pattern to clear them out. It was as she was about to spring into action that movement stopped her.

The door to one of the white cubes opened and three people emerged. The first was Viktor, the sight of which caused Tess to be thankful that she had not yet moved. The second was a large, yet sleek, being that appeared to be made of the same material as the cubes. The third was her target, Charles, who looked like he had seen better days. His visible skin was bruised and had cuts. His gait was uncoordinated as he seemed weakened.

“Take him to Dungeon 09,” said the strange being as it handed Charles over to two guards.

“Yes sir.”

With that, Tess saw Viktor and the strange being enter the cottage, leaving Charles behind. The two guards set off with Charles in tow to whichever dungeon had been designated number nine by these people. This was actually going to be the perfect opportunity to snatch Charles away from them with no one the wiser. That fact brought a smirk to Tess’s face.