Madeline and Teresa made eye contact, the last two people left in the party. They would have to finish off the Wyvern-Fish miniboss together. It was already incredibly injured, and by this point it no longer had any wings. The burns from Madeline’s
Fighting the vast wave of Wyvern-Fish, Teresa had managed to easily land mostly headshots as the monsters had been scaling up a wall just below her. The miniboss, however, was much more nimble. She had no chance at landing a headshot while it was on the rooftop with them, and would have to rely on body shots.
Teresa reached for another arrow and frowned as her hands closed around nothing. She was out of ammo. There was no point to using the bow anymore, so she drew her goblin sword from her belt and charged.
The miniboss looked in her direction and shot a stream of fire, forcing Teresa to dodge to the side. Madeline continued peppering the creature with her sparks, which stole the creature’s attention once again. Before Teresa could reach the monster, it began to sprint after Madeline far faster than Teresa could run.
Madeline tossed the staff to the side, raising both hands to fire two continuous streams of
Teresa recalled a thought she had in the previous waves. She had considered that if one person in the party was forced to leave the Tutorial, then several people would be forced to leave. Losing a member of the party would have a cascading effect, where a critical part of the team was made absent.
When Sarah had left, the party had just barely managed to get by due to Teresa taking on the extra role. They had beaten the fourth wave anyways, though Teresa had nearly died in the process.
Now that Preston was gone, their main source of damage and interceptor had disappeared. Then Jake was forced to leave, as the monster had been able to temporarily ignore Teresa and Madeline’s lower damage output in favor of getting rid of their tank.
Now that it was just Teresa and Madeline, the Wyvern-Fish had a clear choice. It could either attack Teresa, who had previously demonstrated some capability in close quarters combat, or it could attack Madeline, who had avoided getting too close for the entire fight.
It wasn’t Madeline’s fault that she couldn’t fight up close, it just wasn’t her role in the party. She was just an everyday person before the Tutorial, a high school track and field coach. All she had to fight with was her
Which was why it made sense that she left the Tutorial before the smoke claws could kill her.
Teresa was the last human from her party to be left in the Tutorial.
She didn’t stop her charge after Madeline vanished, being just a few steps behind the miniboss as she left. The creature began to turn in her direction, only to be caught by an overhead swing of Teresa’s blade. The sword bit down into the miniboss’ shoulder, effectively disabling one of its arms.
The monster let out another soundwave, blasting the noise at Teresa point blank. Blood poured out of her eardrums for the millionth time this fight, though the agony was much worse being so close to the source. Her eyes vibrated from the frequency, the brunt of the blast nearly making her pass out.
Teresa held onto consciousness, and tried to pull her sword out of the monster. It began to slide out, but the monster gripped her sword by the blade with its spare hand to keep it in place. Before she could react, the creature opened its mouth once again to reveal rows of what Teresa guessed were shark teeth, only to bite down on Teresa’s shoulder in return,
She screamed as the teeth ripped into her flesh, though she couldn’t hear her own voice. She just knew she was screaming from the feeling in her throat, as her ears were still out of commission. Teresa panicked for a moment, fumbling to grab anything to fight back with. She was out of arrows, her sword was stuck in the creature, and the only remaining weapon she had was her bow.
Instinct took over. Having no weapon to attack with, Teresa removed the healing rag covering her face, opened her mouth and bit the Wyvern-Fish’s eye, sinking her own teeth into the miniboss. The taste made her nearly vomit, and she knew she was not going to go near sushi for a long time after this.
The miniboss was caught off guard, releasing its own bite and flailing wildly. It quickly formed a smoke claw and stabbed it into Teresa’s gut, making dark red blood seep out and cover the creature’s claw.
Teresa was in so much pain she couldn’t even scream anymore. Still, she knew the only way to survive at this point would be to kill the beast or leave the Tutorial. She activated
She managed to make just enough contact with herself to begin healing the wound, rapidly forming a scab around the Wyvern-Fish’s claw. If she couldn’t retrieve her sword from the Wyvern-Fish’s shoulder, she would make sure it couldn’t retrieve its claw from her stomach.
She used
The miniboss tried its best to flail, failing to pull its claw out of Teresa’s stomach. The claw was slicing her intestines to pieces, she had to attack back. Teresa headbutt the creature, and tackled it to the floor. It landed on its back with Teresa on top, both covered in blood. Teresa leaned back in time to narrowly avoid another bite from the miniboss, giving her an opening.
She bit down on the creature’s only remaining eye, completely blinding it. The creature jerked its head back and let out another screech, but it didn’t matter. Teresa’s ears had not been healed yet, and had already taken so much damage that one more sound attack wouldn’t make a difference.
Both individuals in this fight were close to death, though Teresa didn’t bother checking her status to see her HP. There was no time, as the fight had now become a race. Teresa bit down on the monster’s throat, sinking her teeth in as it released its screech. She felt a vibration in the creature’s throat from its scream, and she clamped her jaw down on it.
She made a ripping motion and tore the creature’s throat out, canceling its sound attack. Now, neither of them could bring themselves to scream. Teresa bit again and again into the monster’s throat, tearing more bits of flesh out. The Wyvern-Fish tried to bite her back, and continued trying to free its only working arm from her stomach, but Teresa was relentless. She kept the back of her head pressed against the bottom of the creature’s jaw as she chewed its throat, preventing it from biting her.
The wound on her stomach continued to bleed, heal, then bleed more in a hellish cycle. She wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer, but by the looks of it neither would the Wyvern-Fish. Teresa had taken control of the situation, determined to win the race of who kills who.
Let’s see who dies first asshole, Teresa thought, feeling the monster’s movements slow down more and more. She tore as much flesh from the creature’s throat as she could, her face was completely covered in its blood.
Her mind went blank as her body went on autopilot, using pure savagery against savagery. Her
The process of organ repair was slow, though Teresa fell into a rhythmic pattern of guiding her restoration Mana and biting the miniboss. This continued for quite a few seconds, before Teresa’s mind regained some sense of clarity.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The monster was completely still, and checking her notifications revealed it had been dead for a minute now.
You Have Slain {Flawed Wyvern-Fish (F) [Attuned: Smoke] (lv 14)}
Experience Granted
Level Up!
Teresa slowly sat up, still on top of the dead Wyvern-Fish. She was on the verge of death once again, though by now this had become weirdly routine. A wave of calm washed over her, despite the fact she might not be able to heal herself from this.
No, she would be fine. She would live. She had to. If she could heal herself from her wounds now, that would be a great sign for Sarah’s recovery. Teresa continued using her healing skills to target the areas in her body that were most life threatening. She was still completely deaf, but most of her shoulder had been repaired. The area around her stomach had healed quite well too, though she still had one issue.
The Wyvern-Fish’s claw had begun to slowly dissipate, dissolving into nothing while still planted in Teresa’s stomach. Blood began to hemorrhage out, coating her messy hands in even more red. Teresa fell backwards, continuing to do what she could.
She knit together her intestines, growing flesh using her restoration Mana and feeling her condition slowly stabilize. Teresa would survive. Her situation was comparable to when she had been hurt by the Clubber miniboss, albeit she was probably in worse condition now. She had less broken bones, but far more damage to her organs.
Teresa had plenty of experience with healing skin, flesh, and bone. Those were the most common things to get hurt, after all. The majority of her experience with healing organs had come from the fight against the goblins, when she had healed Jake and Madeline’s lungs as they fought the Shaman. That had been rather minimal compared to this, as many organs in her lower torso had received damage.
She felt disgustingly underqualified for this. She had a general idea of which organ was which. The liver was the big one, the large and small intestines were obvious, and she knew her kidneys were okay now. But as she channeled restoration Mana into another organ, she realized she didn’t even know what she was healing.
Was this her gallbladder? Her pancreas? Her appendix maybe? Or perhaps it was her spleen. She better not be healing her appendix right now, that would be a waste of restoration Mana that could go to more useful organs. Teresa vowed to familiarize herself with anatomy much more once she got out of the Tutorial.
Minutes passed. Teresa healed herself nonstop, and got a notification for her
Her healing had improved yet again, another step towards saving Sarah. Teresa continued healing, the process taking quite a while. A glance at her status screen showed her HP had reached the single digits, which was becoming too common of an occurrence.
Eventually, her condition stabilized. Her HP was no longer dropping, and it was just a matter of time before she was back in top shape. Speaking of time, Teresa looked at her quest screen to see if there was going to be a timer for another monster attack.
Questline
Newcomer Tutorial (1/3)
Establish Liberty
Waves of monsters are seeking escape from the perennial desert. You and your party inhabit the only piece of green land for miles. Defend your territory from the waves. Waves will invade 15 minutes after the defeat of the previous wave.
Waves defeated: 5/5
Quest Complete
Reward Available
Teresa read through the quest to look for any changes. The only thing that changed was the quest said it was complete and there was a reward. Focusing on the message caused another screen to appear, showing her the reward for completing the first part of the quest.
Free Skill Selection Granted!
Selected Skill Will Match Highest Skill Level {lv 3}
Three skills and their descriptions appeared on the screen, all of which were already available to her at level 3. Based on the reward message, she was able to pick one of these.
Type: General
Peer at the stats of a target, allowing you to view the level and race of any being capable of possessing a level so long as the task is within your capabilities.
The first skill available already seemed incredibly useful. Being able to view the level of a monster without needing to kill it first had a lot of potential. Teresa was sure there would come a time where she would have the option of picking a fight, and being able to gauge the opponent’s level before making a decision would be invaluable.
She continued onto the next skill in the list.
Type: General
Peer at the stats of an object, allowing you to view a description of any inanimate object. This skill will reveal quality and enchantments so long as the object’s quality does not surpass that of the user’s skill.
Once again, another absolute banger of a skill was available to her. It seemed like another version of
Teresa was still on the roof of the information center, and she was in no condition to climb down. Thankfully, the fires from the Wyvern-Fish had not spread to any of the buildings.
As a matter of fact, it seemed the fire did not spread anywhere at all. There were scorch marks along the ground where fire had previously been, but it had always seemed to die out after a few moments. It probably had something to do with fire created from Mana, but that was a deep dive Teresa could think about later.
For now, there was another skill to look at.
Type: General
Gain the ability to store physical objects within your soul. Capacity is determined by skill level. Items can be forcefully removed from your soul by a sufficiently powerful enemy.
Holy shit, Teresa thought, looking at the last option. All of these skills are insane!
If Teresa understood the descriptions correctly, any one of them could be completely life changing.
Teresa didn’t know which one to pick. There didn’t seem to be a rush to select a reward, so she decided to hold off until she got her bearings together. Teresa looked back at her quest screen, and saw the second stage of the Tutorial questline.
Questline
Newcomer Tutorial (2/3)
Seize Destiny
You have successfully defended your land, laying claim to it as your own. Monsters will no longer attempt to trespass in this territory without significant motivation. Now that your land is secure, it is time to conquer. Seek out the monster strongholds within the desert and gather the artifacts needed for the upcoming war. Monster strongholds can be located using the
You have one month to gather these artifacts. The next stage of this questline will not wait for the completion of the current stage.
Time until next stage: 21 days, 8 hours, 14 minutes, 54 seconds
Teresa had to read the new quest a few times to make sure she understood it. What the hell was the
Then it hit her. Shit. There were only supposed to be 15 minutes between waves if you did the Tutorial the intended way. That meant the Tutorial expected you to complete the waves by the end of day one, which would leave you with a month for the second stage of the quest.
Instead, Teresa and the party had managed to drag out the first stage to a total of eight days and a few hours as change. This had cost her time that could have been spent in stage two, as now she only had 21 days to complete her quest.
Well, she actually might have more time than that. The quest just said the third stage would begin once the timer reaches 0, not that the current quest would end. She wasn’t sure if that was how it worked, but why would the Tutorial word it like that if it wasn’t how it worked?
Regardless, one thing was for certain.
Teresa was going to have to adventure into the desert.