Teresa released her arrow, and it flew straight towards the goblin shaman's head. By all means, it should have been a good shot. Instead of striking the target through the skull, the arrow did something Teresa had honestly kind of forgotten about.

Wind magic.

The arrow was redirected before hitting the goblin, making it go wide by several feet. Damn, that had been Teresa's best shot so far. She had been staying out of range of the goblin's poison attack, constantly running back, pausing, firing an arrow, then repeating the process. Was it a super riveting fighting strategy? Not even a little bit. But hey, Teresa did not want to get affected by that poison again.

It hurt like hell. Yeah, Teresa's pain tolerance had seen a significant amount of growth in the Tutorial, but that didn't mean she was just okay with having her body rot from the inside out. She was already hesitant to use her shotgun <Embers> due to it causing breaks in her arm, the poisonous gas was so much worse than that.

On another note, she had managed to get the hang of using her spell like a shotgun to the point where she was taking less and less damage each time she used it, but it was still nerve racking to deliberately do something knowing it was going to break your arm. Healing magic or not, she still had to go through having her bones broken before she could heal it.

It wasn't going to be of much use to her right now. The shaman's poison magic was significantly stronger than her own, she was actually pretty sure the goblin had more Intelligence or Wisdom than her. Kinda insulting to think that, but it was the truth. Teresa was outclassed in regards to magic. The shaman could mass produce poison and direct it right at Teresa using its wind magic, but thankfully there seemed to be a limited range to the goblin's abilities.

That meant Teresa needed to shoot her bow from a solid distance of somewhere between 100 and 200 meters, and landing a good shot from that distance was damn hard. The wind magic made it even harder, since the goblin could just redirect all of Teresa's attacks.

The bow probably wasn't going to work. Maybe if she had some bow related skill she could manage something, but the vast majority of Teresa's skill set involved magic. She noted she should probably take something that wasn't related to magic whenever she got the chance to get a new skill, but it's not like she had been given many non-magical choices.

But if the bow wasn't going to work, what else could she really do? She couldn't get close, and she couldn't land a ranged attack. Run around and waste the goblin's Mana maybe? Who knew how long that would take. Teresa could use her <Embers> for about 4-5 minutes now constantly, so surely the goblin wouldn't have that much Mana. Maybe 10 minutes of nonstop poison gas, tops. That shouldn't be too bad, right?

Teresa slung her bow behind her back again and maintained a light jog. Her "light jog," was faster than any human pre-System, but considering her top speed was able to break a few speed limits it was still pretty relaxed. How fast could she run? It's not like she had a speedometer or something, but she was sure she could run with cars on most roads. Definitely not highway speeds, but she was still pretty damn fast.

She skirted along the edges of the poisonous gas, careful not to let any of it touch her. It could somehow be absorbed through the skin, so caution was key. How many times had Teresa been offered <Purify> now? Maybe she should have grabbed it somewhere along the way, considering she knew one of the enemies in the Tutorial specifically worked with poison. There had just been better choices every time, but maybe she should suck it up and choose the skill during a class level up.

A few minutes passed, then a few more. Damn, how much Mana did this monster have? It had to be at least 1,000, probably more. It took around fifteen minutes until the gas started to disappear, letting Teresa know this was her chance.

She grabbed her bow and took a few steps back, drawing an arrow and aiming at her target. <Intuitive Aim> would be really nice right about now, but there were a lot of skills that would probably be beneficial in a wide variety of situations.

Teresa's fingers released the bowstring, and the arrow went flying towards her target. It went wide, there was no need for wind magic to redirect the attack at all. She fired again, and once more the arrow missed.

Damnit, archery was hard. She was pretty far away, and she was shooting at a small target. What range did Olympic Archers shoot at? Teresa had her enhanced stats and all, but a ridiculous Perception could only compensate for Teresa's skill with the bow so much. She was positive she was pointing it right at the monster, but something was causing her shots to miss and it wasn't magic.

Teresa needed archery lessons is what it was. That and sword fighting lessons. She could punch and kick alright, but everything relating to weapons she had been trying to learn on her own in the Tutorial. She got a lot of practice, but she probably formed some bad habits due to the lack of a coach. What was she doing wrong? Was it the way she held the bowstring? Was it how far she was pulling the arrow back? The bow was supposed to be drawn until the arrowhead was flush with the shaft, right?

She also hadn't shot her bow in a little bit. It had only been a day, but she had gotten a lot of stats in that time that made her need to recalibrate again. Actually, now that she thought about it, the bowstring was always about the same difficulty to pull back regardless of her stats. Was there some magic chicanery going on there?

The poisonous cloud continued receding, allowing Teresa to get closer. Shooting the goblin would be a lot easier if she wasn't over a hundred friggin meters away. It was strange, she could probably cross that distance in 5 or 6 seconds, but she was forced to keep her distance. Even if the shaman was running out of Mana, there was no chance in hell Teresa wanted to risk being poisoned.

She fired again and again, and finally she managed to land a shot in the goblin's stomach. It wasn't as clean as a headshot, but she would take it. The shaman keeled over, and it began to choke on its own poison. Huh, Teresa thought they were immune to their own poison somehow, but it seemed this one was totally vulnerable to its own attacks. She supposed it made sense, being able to use <Embers> didn't make Teresa invulnerable to fire.

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The goblin had run out of Mana and could no longer control the poisonous cloud around it, which had ultimately come back to bite the goblin in the ass. The poison was slowly vanishing, notably in a similar manner to Teresa's fire-based Elemental Mana did, but it only took a few seconds of exposure for the goblin to completely succumb to its injuries.

You Have Slain {Goblin Horde Shaman (F) (lv 28)}

Experience Granted

That was… kind of unsatisfying? The goblin wound up accidentally killing itself? How lame. It gave her a good chunk of experience in both her personal level and her class, but Teresa was weirdly disappointed. It was weird to say, but she was hoping for a harder fight. She didn't want to have to go and tank that poison or anything, but the goblin could have had at least something up its sleeve.

It presented a clear issue with the Tutorial. All of the monsters were, dare she say it, really dumb. Like, they didn't behave the way she would expect a living being to. Surely a level 28 goblin would have been in enough fights to know how to watch its Mana consumption, right? The goblin had to get to level 28 somehow, it wasn't just born that way.

Or maybe it was born at level 28, what did Teresa know about monster births? Still, a lot of the monsters here had lacked critical thinking skills entirely. Even a wild animal should be able to assess what to do in a fight other than charge in a straight line, right? Something was off, and she wasn't sure what.

Did Mana mess with their minds or something? Maybe a lot of the monsters here were new to the System as well. The Vampire Deer were clearly just weird variations of deer from Earth, so maybe the monsters were just animals that went through their own weird process that changed them on a fundamental level. Plus there were mosquitoes, which were definitely Earth creatures. Sure, they were really big mosquitoes, but they were still mosquitoes nonetheless.

Maybe the sudden surge in power went to the creatures' heads and made them act irrationally? Eh, it still didn't sit right. Something was off with the monsters here. What if they were all fake, like just simulated monsters and Teresa was in some computer?

No, that was just being plain paranoid. Besides, they showed emotion from time to time and some of them were clearly more competent than the others. It would be nice to think the monsters were all fake, but that was probably just Teresa trying to justify her kill count. That would be too morally convenient for them to all be fake, that's not how life works.

If the monsters weren't right in the head, did that make killing them even more immoral? Maybe the System interfered with their thoughts somehow, and that was why this nightmare scenario was considered a "Tutorial." That would make sense, the System didn't seem to have a high regard for life considering the first thing it did upon meeting people on Earth was make them fight for their lives.

She had once seen a video about a disease that infected rats, and it made them actively seek out cats so they could get eaten. There was also cordyceps, which was a fungus that could control insects. As a matter of fact, the Vampire Deer literally had the word "Cordyceps," in their name, Teresa just rarely used the word in her head since it was quite a mouthful to say "Acidic-Vampiric Cordyceps Deer." Didn't really roll off the tongue well, that one.

Their acid also hadn't really been much of a problem for Teresa, as they generally tried to eat her. Really, it was just another example of a monster that didn't utilize its full capabilities nearly as well as it should. The last time anything had been burnt by their acid was during the second wave when Jake and Preston got injured, but since then Teresa had been able to avoid their antlers easily enough.

Was the System deliberately nerfing the monsters in the Tutorial? Making them dumber before putting them up against humans? That was pretty messed up if that was the case, she really didn't like the idea of a System that had demonstrated extreme, nigh-omnipotent power if it was willing to mess with a creature's mind to further its own goals.

No matter how much Teresa thought about it, she probably wasn't going to know the answer. She couldn't just see into a monster's mind and figure out exactly what was going on. Even if she could, what would she be looking for? There was a severe lack of information on the subject, and anything Teresa could come up with would be a wild guess.

It was getting late, and Teresa was deep in the desert. She was also getting hungry, which reminded her of something she wanted to try. Most of the expirable food in the cafe was either eaten or, well, expired now. As a result, Teresa was going to need to bring the frozen food out into the desert now.

She had cooked a few burgers so they weren't raw, then shoved them into a baggie to eat later. Those were her rations for the day, but she didn't really want to eat cold beef. Soon she would be needing to rely entirely on the frozen food section, which was what led to her current experiment.

Teresa took out a baggie containing a smashed up burger. It hadn't survived very well in her backpack, but at least it was all still in the bag. Teresa opened it up and almost reached in, but realized how filthy her hands were. Shoot, another instance where <Purify> might come into use.

Teresa opened a bottle of water and poured two capfuls onto her hands and wiped them down on her robes. Her robes could be cleaned with Mana in the same way they could be repaired, so it wasn't a big deal. Her robes were probably the cleanest thing around for miles.

It wasn't super hygienic or sanitary, but her hands were at least less filthy than they had been. She reached into the baggie of burger and grabbed a handful of it. Here came the hard part.

Teresa deliberately slowed down her Mana as much as she could, and activated <Embers>. It was a conscious effort to use such a tiny amount of Mana, but surprisingly it kind of worked.

A few wimpy sparks shot out of her hand, right into the beef she was holding. It left a few small burn marks, but the meat began to heat up. Nice! She could heat up food on the go now, that was a huge improvement to her quality of life.

She began to eat as she walked, occasionally grabbing another handful of beef to heat up. She was going to relax for a little bit once she got back, probably sleep in for an extra hour or two. The cafe at Liberty Island had orange juice and champagne, so she could probably make mimosas. The orange juice was a little sketchy, as it had passed its expiration date, but it wasn't too bad.

If she counted the days out on a calendar and compared it to the expiration date it was just a few days old, that was fine. She'd sniff test it. Yep. Peak luxury living at Liberty Island, bottomless mimosas and frozen food. Shit, was her Fortitude going to make her immune to alcohol? She sure hoped not, that would suck.

The sand kicked up behind her as she picked up the pace, air whistling past her ears and blowing her hair back behind her. Ignoring all of the combat benefits, having a high Agility was just really nice. She wondered what life was going to be like after the Tutorial. Surely not everyone was going to be down with hunting monsters, so what did that mean? What was a chef going to do, or a housekeeper? What about doctors? They were probably going crazy in the Tutorial with healing magic, and physicists were probably having their minds blown by the new state of matter that was Mana.

She would find out for sure what was going on in the world once the Tutorial was done, and she looked forward to it. This place was starting to creep her out now that she noticed something was wrong with the monsters, she didn't particularly want to have her mind wiped only to get thrown into someone else's Tutorial as a monster with minimal self preservation.

Tomorrow, she would take out the next stronghold again. Tonight, she was going to have something to drink. Mimosas are fucking fire.

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