Fuck fuck fuck oh shit oh fuck was what was running through Teresa's mind as she realized the reality of her situation. Along with the next stage of the Tutorial, another screen had appeared without being prompted.

Questline

Newcomer Tutorial (3/3)

Liberty's Lie

Even Liberty wears a crown. You may not leave the Tutorial during this stage of the questline.

Last Chance To Escape: 0 minutes, 59 seconds

Seize Your Crown

In one minute, Teresa would no longer be able to leave the Tutorial early. There were a lot of decisions to make and not a lot of time to make them. She speedran two monster strongholds in a day, surely she could make a couple decisions in a minute while a giant fucking statue was coming to life nearby.

Teresa used <Identify> to see what she was up against.

{Lady Liberty (F+) (lv 40)}

Alright, well that's a giant death robot if Teresa had ever seen one. She absolutely should leave the Tutorial now while she had the chance, the fuck was she going to do against the damn Statue of Liberty?

Teresa immediately realized a problem, one so ingrained in her Soul from TV shows and movies that it triggered a physical, visceral reaction within her. It was the feeling of disgust, targeted at herself. Not necessarily because of her indecision, but because of something else entirely.

No time to think. Teresa selected <Inventory> and immediately began grabbing stacks of C4. The knowledge of how to use the skill was imprinted in her mind by the System, and she quickly grabbed a couple C4 kits and shoved them into her Soul.

Putting items in her <Inventory> required her to physically grab the item, activate the skill, and make a movement like she was trying to put something in a locker. She did this with three kits of C4 before she ran out of the door, not wasting any time.

There was one thing Teresa always hated about movies, and it was that the main characters always let the villain transform into a stronger version. Lady Liberty was still breaking free of the pedestal she once stood on, this was the best chance Teresa would have.

She was going to attack her opponent before they were ready to fight.

Teresa activated <Dash> and sprinted to the pedestal from the information center, making it there in seconds. Lady Liberty had one foot on the ground, and she was looking right down at Teresa. Her torch began to flicker, the gold-covered copper moving exactly like a normal fire would.

Lady Liberty seemed to still be booting up, but Teresa doubted she had very long. She made a motion like pulling a coat out of a closet and suddenly she had a block of C4 in her hand. Another motion later she had the receiver, and she stabbed it into the C4 before throwing it at the foot.

Lady Liberty angled her torch down at Teresa, and the metal fire began to glow red hot. Massive tendrils of molten metal shot out from the fire, reaching towards Teresa at an absurd speed. She activated <Dash> and began running away, the tendrils following after her in an attempt to crush her into a liquified paste.

She pulled a detonator out of thin air and pulled the trigger, hoping it would do at least some damage to the-

KABOOM

A massive shockwave sent Teresa flying, one strong enough to kill a normal person. She hit the ground after multiple seconds of airtime and tumbled, renewing her <Facilitated Restoration> and <Magic Wellspring> as she tried to get her bearings.

Behind her, the C4 had completely obliterated Lady Liberty's foot, and she was now balancing on a stub that went where Teresa would imagine her ankle used to be. She had hoped to speedblitz the final boss, and she successfully landed the first strike of the battle. Not even a minute had passed yet, meaning Teresa could still leave the Tutorial if she needed to. Not that she would, if all she had to do was keep blasting it with C4 then surely she would be fine.

The pedestal that once held up the Statue of Liberty began to glow blue, orange, and green as she sensed more Mana that she had ever seen get absorbed by Lady Liberty. A loud mechanical sound came out from the statue, and the metal around the stub of her foot began to fucking grow back.

Teresa was never going to speak too soon again.

It wasn't too late to leave. There were still thirty seconds left on the clock to escape the Tutorial. She could go now, save Sarah and be done with it all. Really, she had already made it insanely far. It wouldn't be shameful to escape now while she could.

But of course she wasn't going to do that. At the start of the Tutorial, Teresa had been extremely suicidal. She felt like there was no point to life, and trying harder would just make her failures hurt worse. Teresa had believed her future was going to be bleak, that nothing she could do would let her live a life she was actually happy with. Existence was something she had tried out and decided she didn't like, so she was going to call it quits early.

She had been so wrong.

Not just because magic suddenly became real and now she was fighting the Statue of Liberty either. Yeah, that was friggin awesome and definitely added onto the appeal of staying alive, she wasn't going to lie. Had magic always been real, she probably would have been a lot less suicidal in the first place.

No, she had been wrong for another reason entirely. It probably wasn't a healthy reason either, but any reason to stay alive was a good reason.

Teresa did not want to lose. Not to depression, not to a shitty job market, and definitely not to the Goddamn Statue of motherfucking Liberty. The Tutorial was meant for a party of five? Well the Tutorial could go eat a dick, and the System too. She was gonna beat the last stage of the Tutorial alone or die trying.

Now, it was time to not be an idiot and attack the Statue while it was still healing.

C4 and receiver appeared in her hands as she ran towards Lady Liberty, ready to throw another bomb at it. Dead tendrils of gold-plated copper laid burrowed into the ground and scattered about as debris from the explosion had left the area devastated. Teresa crossed the gap between her and the Statue in no time, as Liberty Island became very small ever since she started running faster than a car.

Tendrils of molten metal shot out again from Lady Liberty's torch, six giant vine-like structures rapidly grew at a pace that was faster than Teresa's top speed. Teresa wanted to know why the torch could grow metal ridiculously fast to attack her but Lady Liberty's foot could only repair itself at a much slower speed, but there was no time for her to study it.

Teresa deactivated and reactivated <Dash> again and again, rapidly changing directions to avoid oncoming tendrils. The attacks came from all directions, and eventually Teresa was forced to try and jump over one of the tendrils that was as thick as a minivan. She did not have a lot of practice with jumping high with her stats, but she cleared the attack with plenty of space to spare.

Unfortunately, she was now midair and far easier to attack. Teresa already had experience being in a position where she couldn't move conventionally, so she put away the C4 and preemptively began building up Mana in both hands. Another tendril tried to take advantage of the situation and turn Teresa into pulp while she was falling, but two shotgun blasts of <Embers> redirected her trajectory midair and she avoided the attack that sped past her quicker than an arrow.

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She hit the ground and did her best attempt at a roll, and mentally noted she should try to pick up parkour sometime for better mobility. She got to her feet and pulled out her C4 again, now with a receiver already stuck within it.

Lady Liberty swung her maimed leg at Teresa, attempting to kick her. Teresa used <Dash> to get out of the way, and narrowly dodged yet another strike. There were a lot of things going on at once, and a lot of attacks to constantly pay attention to. Teresa was really using the most of everything she had to avoid dying, and she was pretty sure she was moving a lot faster than normal.

Oh shit, that's right! She beat the second stage of the Tutorial and probably got a title for it. She didn't have the time to check it out now, but the boost in stats was pretty noticeable. If she had to guess, it was another percentage buff. Whatever it was, it sure as shit gave her more than +1 all stats.

A massive shadow blocked out the sun, and a quick glance up showed that Lady Liberty was about to smash Teresa with the massive tablet in her left hand. Not wasting the opportunity, Teresa dropped her C4 and ran out of the way as quickly as she could. She pulled out another detonator getting ready to blow it up as the tablet crashed down behind her, shaking the ground and sending debris everywhere.

A chunk of concrete slammed into Teresa's ribs and back, bruising them horribly. If she didn't have her Fortitude, that probably would have torn her in half. Her Jack Of All Trades class was really coming in clutch with the versatile build.

Just a little over a second later, Teresa pulled the trigger and caused another massive explosion to shatter the tablet held by Lady Liberty. She was once again sent flying by the shockwave, but she had been expecting it this time and went into the air far more prepared.

Did C4 normally make a ridiculous shockwave like that? She was around 100 feet away from the C4 when it blew up, and it had been covered by the tablet. To be fair, it was magic C4, but Teresa still had a hard time thinking about magic C4 with a straight face.

A massive piece of the tablet had been sent flying, and Teresa realized in horror it was going to land on the cafe. Goodbye mimosas, you were possibly the greatest part of this Tutorial.

The debris crashed down onto the building, leveling it instantly. Shit, that reminded Teresa about the rest of her stash. All of her items that weren't currently on her were in the information center, and that included four more sets of C4. Teresa had been in a rush when the fight had started and didn't have time to grab all of her gear, and she wasn't even sure how much stuff <Inventory> could store.

She knew from memory that it stored items in her Soul, but she did not have any time at all to get acquainted with the skill before she was bombing the Statue of Liberty. Shit, she probably should never tell anyone about this, telling someone she bombed the Statue of Liberty definitely would not blow over well with a lot of people.

Teresa had no problems avoiding the torch tendrils as she ran back to the information center, as she was still faster than them. She darted inside to where she kept all of her loot, and began shoveling as much of it into her <Inventory> as she possibly could.

She was able to fit everything except for her bow, quiver, and sword. She already had all of that on her anyways, honestly she had been more worried about the C4. She was putting a lot of C4 in her Soul, surely that wouldn't cause any problems right? If the System made her Soul blow up she would be pissed.

A massive tendril broke through a wall and slammed into Teresa, knocking her into a concrete wall hard enough to crack it. Half of her body was burnt from the blow, but thankfully it only grazed her. Teresa grunted as she used <Healing Touch> in both hands and rapidly fixed her injuries, noting the tendril didn't seem to know her position.

That was important information. It meant Lady Liberty couldn't see with the tendrils. Teresa had sort of assumed until now that it could see out of any part of its body, as it was a magical robot after all. She wasn't exactly sure how magical robots worked, but if a car could have a bunch of cameras all over it then surely a giant death robot could too.

Through the hole in the wall, she saw the Statue of Liberty still trying to make its way off the pedestal. The part that Lady Liberty stood on was pretty high in the air, and it was a steep step to the lower parts of the pedestal even for the giant statue. Additionally, every step it took to make its way off the structure seemed slow, and massive currents of Mana arced between the roof and the bottom of its feet.

Fuck, it fixed its foot. On the bright side, Lady Liberty did not seem to be repairing her tablet. That was another piece of useful information. If the statue couldn't repair its weapons, then if Teresa could blow up the torch the fight would get a whole lot easier.

Alright, she had a plan. Run at the statue, climb up it, put C4 on the torch, kaboom. End of plan. Great plan. One of the greatest plans of all time, second only to "stab the goblin in the face."

Teresa ran towards the statue once more, hoping to get one more attack off before it got off the pedestal completely. Lady Liberty's main body was practically moving in slow motion at the moment. Weirdly enough, it seemed pretty content to stay on top of the pedestal and let her torch tendrils do all of the work from a distance. That made sense, it would make attacking the statue way harder. It had only ever taken one step off the pedestal before it got immediately bombed. Teresa wouldn't want to step off the pedestal either if she was Lady Liberty.

Oh well, she would just have to climb her way up to it. That's what her new gloves were for. She activated <Dash> and ran towards the statue once more, trying to run underneath a tendril to stay out of sight. She managed to get right next to the pedestal, and she jumped most of the way up the side. She slapped her palm against the side of the structure and infused her gloves with Mana. It stuck to the wall just fine, and she quickly climbed up the side of it.

As soon as she was on the roof, she immediately realized her mistake. Her Mana was rapidly being drained, being absorbed by the pedestal and sent directly towards Lady Liberty. She had kind of forgotten about that. The concrete rooftop behaved like a Mana vacuum, which she had discovered ages ago with her party. At the time, she had assumed it was to power the spacial magic that was affecting the lobby. Turns out she was wrong, it had been charging the final boss of the Tutorial the entire time.

There was no chance she was going to be able to climb Lady Liberty like this. She already had to deal with the molten tendrils that had spotted her once again, she couldn't avoid them and climb the statue all while having her Mana constantly drained.

Three tendrils all tried to attack Teresa at once, and she made the decision to retreat for a moment. She needed to think of what to do about the situation. She couldn't climb Lady Liberty while she was on the pedestal, and Lady Liberty refused to leave the pedestal.

Teresa jumped over the edge of the pedestal and hit the ground running, and an idea that should have been obvious came to her. Duh, just blow up the pedestal. She made her way over to the lobby entrance where her and her party had once fought multiple waves of monsters together. She hadn't been in the lobby since then, as it was filled with corpses that had been decaying for a month now.

Once inside, the tendrils seemed scared to follow her in. They stopped at the entryway, not entering the structure. Lady Liberty must not be able to see her inside of the lobby, and she probably wanted to avoid damaging the pedestal as much as possible. That was alright as far as Teresa was concerned, considering her plan.

She made her way to the back of the lobby, trying her best to block out the smell. The lobby had a balcony on both sides, though one of them was destroyed where Sarah had once stood. Teresa made her way up the stairs in the back of the lobby, standing before the door with a sign that read "To Pedestal & Crown" above it. The door had been locked when they first got to the Tutorial, and another attempt by Teresa revealed it was still locked.

Even with her increased Strength stat, Teresa was not able to even make the door budge. Whatever was behind this door, it was probably really important. Teresa placed another lump of C4 down, this being her third explosive out of seven. She placed the receiver in the explosive, and got ready to run out of the room. She should probably stick around in case the C4 didn't get the job done, but she would surely die if she tried to stay in the same room as the explosive while it detonated. High Fortitude or not, she wasn't invincible.

She took a deep breath to steady herself, then realized she should probably recover some of her resources before running out again. She was safe inside the pedestal at the moment, she might as well take advantage of the moment.

Additionally, she was able to look at what changed with her status. Looking through her screen, she saw her title <Tutorial: First Stage Completionist> had actually been replaced by a new title.

<Tutorial: Second Stage Completionist>

Complete the second stage of the Tutorial. +10% all stats.

That was 5% more than what the previous title gave her. Teresa looked over her stats and confirmed she did gain another 5% stat boost. She had kind of hoped it stacked with the previous title, even if it didn't show up anymore. Unfortunately, the replacement did not add onto the previous title, so she had exactly 10% more stats instead of 15%. She hadn't really expected it to work that way, but the System had been vague about stuff before, why not now?

Still, this was huge in the long run. Her percentage buff hadn't really been that useful early on in the Tutorial, but as her stats increased the title had proven more and more useful.

About half an hour passed where Teresa recovered using the Mana recharging staff before she was ready. She put the staff back into her Soul and mentally prepared for what was to come. As soon as her mind was settled, she used <Dash> and ran out the door as fast as she could. Tendrils chased behind her, but Teresa was faster. As soon as she was a decent distance away, she pulled the trigger on another detonator and tossed it aside.

The lobby where she had fought in during the start of the Tutorial exploded, a massive plume of fire and smoke shot out as part of the pedestal collapsed. Mana began to discharge from the rooftop, sending bolts of what looked like lightning into the sky.

Lady Liberty let out a mechanical scream as its home was destroyed. Mana stopped charging the statue, and the pedestal became useless to her. The Statue of Liberty wasn't exactly very expressive, but Teresa knew she was pissed.

Once the noise died down, Lady Liberty looked directly at Teresa with an expression as close to a glare that a statue could manage. Lady Liberty stepped off the pedestal completely this time, and began to sprint in Teresa's direction.

Oh shit.

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