Running around with a backpack full of fancy rocks would normally be pretty friggin heavy, but it was totally fine. Instead, there was a different issue. It was noisy. So unbelievably noisy. Teresa wasn't particularly worried about drawing attention to herself, but it was really annoying to hear a bunch of magic crystals clattering against each other right behind her.

Whatever, eventually her <Inventory> would level up and she'd be able to fit more stuff in there. Besides, these Mana Crystals might be worth something. The forest had a lot more life to it, though everything seemed in a hurry to get out of her way when they heard her coming.

There was no sign of random toddlers laying around anywhere, but Teresa was getting stressed out. Not much time had passed, but seconds counted. She kind of regretted looting that ogre camp, even if the whole ordeal hadn't taken much time. There was a baby somewhere in a forest of monsters, how long could a baby even be left alone in a perfectly safe house?

To calm her nerves, she was messing around with <Purify>, having never used it before. The spell was another touch based spell, making her hand glow a bright white light.

<Purify: lv 0>

Type: Restoration Magic

Channel Mana to your touch and convert it into a healing energy. Use this energy to slowly destroy toxins at a similar level or weaker.

Now, Teresa wasn't poisoned, but she figured she could use it for cleaning. Germs could be considered toxins if you thought about it wrong enough, bacteria too. It was a bit of a stretch, but Teresa did not smell particularly great after running through a desert or melting a camp of ogres.

On the bright side, her hair had been growing back. She had lost a good portion of it to a Wyvern-Fish, including an eyebrow. Her hair was still ridiculously uneven, but she could get a short haircut and grow it out again. <Facilitated Restoration> kept her skin healthy, and lots of effort into growing hair had resulted in Teresa's hair follicles being in great condition as well.

Teresa used <Purify> on herself, holding it to her face as she ran. She tried making the Restoration Mana it produced target germs and bacteria, but she didn't have enough experience with the spell. As a matter of fact, she had no experience with the spell.

A while ago in the Tutorial she had considered how <Healing Touch> and <Facilitated Restoration> both produced Restoration Mana, but it behaved differently between spells. She had considered them to be like states of matter. Ice was just frozen water, but at the end of the day it was all H20. It behaved differently depending on what state it was in, just like the Restoration Mana from two different spells.

<Purify> also produced Restoration Mana, though in a different state than what Teresa was familiar with. It was closer to <Healing Touch> than <Facilitated Restoration>, but it didn't heal in the conventional way. Teresa was able to adapt her spells somewhat as needed to do something outside the description, which oftentimes actually led to the description changing.

In this situation, Teresa didn't really understand the base state of <Purify>'s Restoration Mana enough. She had never actually seen or felt it target a toxin before, so she had no way of really knowing how to make it target something outside the norm like germs or bacteria.

She had half a mind to grab her poison staff and get some hands on experience, but that would be ridiculously stupid and self serving at the moment. Finding Madeline's baby held a way higher priority than an experiment that could absolutely take place later.

A scream caught her attention. There was yelling and shouting ahead, both male and female. Teresa didn't really want to get distracted again, but those voices sure didn't sound like they were happy screams. Someone was being attacked by monsters.

She made a line straight towards the source of the sound, finding a group of 4 people trying to run away from a large boar creature.

{Charger Boar (F) (lv 6)}

For a moment, Teresa considered that they might be working some plan to lead the monster into a trap. That would be smart, not a bad move. However, considering a middle aged man in the group threw his sword at the monster in desperation, it was clear they had absolutely no idea what they were doing.

Teresa summoned her kitchen knife and activated <Dash>, running straight at the boar. Using <Embers> so close to a crowd of people was unsafe, so she would just stab the thing in the face. Stabbing stuff in the face had a tendency to result in stuff dying, so it was a good plan. A great plan even.

She leapt through the air, jumping directly over the group of people with her knife in front of her. She crashed into the boar at a ridiculous speed, plunging the weapon directly into its skull. The creature didn't even have time to make a noise before it dropped dead, giving Teresa a little bit of experience.

A small shock ran up Teresa's arm, enough to make a normal person jump. Was the boar electrically charged? Really? Did the System make a pun with the animal's name? The boar that was charging a group of people was electrically charged. That opened so many questions. Was that on purpose by the System or just a pure coincidence? It had to be a coincidence, right?

No time for monster naming scheme questions, she had some people to interrogate.

"Hey, you guys see a baby anywhere by any chance? Just like, yah know, a regular old baby? Few months old, goes by Mackenzie, well I mean I doubt she would introduce herself to you considering she's a baby but you get the gist. Any babies nearby maybe?" Teresa asked, quickly using <Identify> on the people in front of her.

{Human (F) (lv 0)}

{Human (F) (lv 0)}

{Human (F) (lv 0)}

{Human (F) (lv 0)}

Oh, they must have left the Tutorial immediately. There were only four of them, which left an obvious implication that someone must have died just recently in their party. That, or someone chose not to stick around with them. She shouldn't assume one way or the other, but she had more important things at hand.

The group looked at her, eyes wide and mouths open. Well, they must not really be on board with what was going on, especially if they left the Tutorial immediately. From their perspectives, they were just living their ordinary lives around an hour or two ago then boom! Monsters and magic.

"I'm in a hurry and I'm not going to ask a third time. Have you guys seen or heard a baby anywhere nearby?" Teresa asked, putting a sharper edge to her tone. Really, they needed to get their shit together and stop panicking, that would get them killed in no time. An older woman in the group began speaking, and Teresa quickly realized a massive problem.

They didn't speak English. Shit.

"Wait wait wait, slow down. Slow. Very slow." Teresa said carefully, trying to make use of <Translate> for once. She had been able to understand single, simple words from the Albino Gorillas, maybe that was the trick. She sounded like a stereotypical American tourist that thought speaking slower would make someone else suddenly understand English, but in this case there was actual magic involved. "You. See. Baby. Yes? No?"

The woman looked puzzled, her previously shocked expression now seeming even more surprised. She spoke back, saying a single word.

"No."

Teresa understood it, even if it wasn't English. Obviously if it was Spanish or something then it would be pretty easy considering a lot of western languages had a similar sounding word for "no." Whatever language this was, it was much more eastern and Teresa had no experience with it. If she had to guess based on the lady's ethnicity, it was Mandarin, but that was a totally wild guess. Chinese people didn't just live in China after all, she could be from Vietnam or Thailand or somewhere else. Teresa wasn't sure.

"Thanks." Teresa replied, turning around and taking off. The party began calling after her, giving Teresa the vibe they wanted help, but Teresa had already helped them. Someone else needed her more right now. They were grown adults, they could figure something out.

The exploration continued, with Teresa searching several miles of forest. Every minute started to feel more anxiety inducing than the last. A group of armed adults had nearly been taken out by a single monster that wasn't even high leveled. Based on their equipment, they had been missing a tank yet Teresa had seen a grand total of zero attacks going back at the creature. She guessed that when some people felt fight or flight, they chose flight.

She shouldn't be judging. Her perspective was just heavily distorted by the Tutorial is all. Why should a group of total randoms be prepared to fight for their lives against a friggin monster? Sure, it was just a glorified slightly electric pig the size of a shipping container, but that would probably catch Teresa off guard pre-System as well.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Okay, it would totally catch her off guard. Shit, was the human race fucked? There had to be enough people who could survive this, right? Yeah, surely. If Teresa could make it through the Tutorial, then a lot of people probably could. Military, athletes, LARPers maybe? Okay, that might be reaching but they at least had some practice with this kind of thing, even if that was just recreational. Teresa had seen enough videos of people with ridiculous talent using medieval weaponry online, they totally had to be doing fine right?

Teresa needed to find this damn baby.

The terrain suddenly dropped off in the distance, and there didn't seem to be any forest beyond that dropoff. Thanks to Teresa's Perception, she could see through the large difference in light levels that land continued to stretch out beyond. There was something else that caught her eye though.

She reached the edge of the forest, looking down at the grassy valley below. Now, what she would expect to see in a massive valley was probably some animals, maybe another Monster Spawner considering everything would be out in the open, hell maybe even a couple parties.

What Teresa didn't expect was thousands upon thousands of tents. No decorations, just plain white tents with slight blue accents. They were arranged in a massive circle, and Teresa could sense a weird dome of Mana around the entire encampment.

Running in between tents all over were young children, causing chaos as surprisingly agile elderly people tried to look after them. Teresa tried to use <Identify>, but found that she couldn't use the skill on anyone within the Mana dome. She even tried to use <Appraise> on a tent, but nothing happened.

This had to be where Mackenzie was. This encampment was in the direction that Madeline's <Familial Duty> pointed in, and there were lots of young all over the place. Was this what happened to the people who weren't physically capable of fighting in the Tutorial? No one in the camp seemed to be even slightly capable of combat, unless you gave them guns or something. Teresa was from the US, so she knew damn well that giving a kid a gun was a terrible idea, so it was probably for the better that these children remained unarmed.

She spotted a few others along the edge of the valley, people like herself who looked down at the camp in shock. Teresa reacted first, running down towards the camp at top speed with <Dash>. Mackenzie had to be in here somewhere.

She passed through the Mana dome with no issues, and she began searching around desperately for babies. Shit, what was she looking for? All babies kind of looked the same. How would she know which one was Mackenzie?

Teresa's breathing stopped for a moment as she felt something in her Soul. That wasn't a figure of speech either, she literally felt her Soul react to something. The desire to go straight to the center of the camp became very overwhelming, but Teresa could still resist it if need be. What was this? A trap? No, maybe it was something like Madeline's <Familial Duty>. Maybe the camp had some sort of magic to it that helped people find who they were looking for.

That, or it was a trap and every single child here was a goblin in disguise wearing human skin just waiting to jump her. She tried using <Identify> on a child and found with delight that it worked.

{Human (F-) (lv 0)}

Huh, so the kids had an F- instead of just an F? Well, at least she knew they were actually human. It was a paranoid thought, but she wouldn't put it past the System to make a trap like that. She hadn't really encountered many traps from the System, if any at all, but that was totally all a ruse to get her guard down. It was playing the long game, but Teresa wouldn't fall for it.

Still, if this was a trap she might be able to handle it. Unless another level 40 Lady Liberty just sprouted out of the ground, she would be fine. Teresa made her way to the center of the camp, trusting the literally spiritual instinct to go there. She ignored the looks she got from the children and elders, as they were not who she was looking for. Once she arrived, she found a tall, black monolithic structure with hieroglyphic writing all over it.

Teresa placed her hand on it, feeling compelled to by the spiritual instinct that was totally not a trap. She cast <Magic Wellspring> on herself just in case, wanting to be ready for battle at a moment's notice.

A screen appeared in front of her as the hieroglyphs glowed in a golden light.

Royalty Detected

Qualified Candidate

You have now entered the race to lead [UNNAMED]. You have been given priority status as a result of your Royalty.

Candidates In Race: 1

Qualified Candidates: 1

Along with this came another screen.

Questline

Ruler Of Civilization (1/1)

Leader Of [UNNAMED]

You have laid claim to [UNNAMED], maintain your position as a candidate until the timer expires, then participate in the tournament. One may only withdraw from the tournament through surrender or death.

As a qualified candidate, you have the right to choose which candidate to battle in each round.

Time Until Tournament: 6 Days, 21 hours, 16 minutes, 42 seconds

What the fuck was this shit? Hang on, Teresa didn't sign up for any of this. Leader? Ruler? Yeah right, hell no. Teresa wasn't fucking qualified to lead a civilization, or whatever the hell this questline was implying. She put her hand on the monolith thinking it would be like some sort of database for finding people. It was a trap after all, she fucking knew it!

"Well I haven't seen it do that before." An old man said, walking towards her. Teresa turned to look at him, mentally trying to calm herself before she accidentally got mad at the man for something the System did. She needed to direct her anger at the right places. Fuck you System.

"I'm just trying to find someone. Her name is Mackenzie, she should be a few months old." Teresa said, taking her hand off the stupid monolith of dumbness. She hated that monolith already. Trying to make her the leader of a civilization, who was it kidding? What did Teresa know about that? She didn't know shit, that's what. Being totally honest with herself, she would probably drive the economy into the ground, if they even made it far enough to have an economy. Teresa had absolutely zero qualifications for what that questline implied, she was pretty high level compared to the people she had seen so far but that was about it. Might doesn't make right.

"Well, there is a bit of an organizational structure here, though it's hard to follow. I'll help yah out. What's her last name?" The man asked.

Shit.

"Uh, I'm just now realizing I don't know." Teresa said, concerned about how this made her look. "Listen, I swear I'm not trying to steal a kid or anything, my party member got a skill that's supposed to help with finding her family and I'm just scouting ahead."

The old man laughed, giving a toothy grin.

"Well shit, I get that. I'd recommend getting your friend here then. Yah know, I wasn't expecting the first person to come from outside of here to be Scottish too, but I ain't complaining. What's your name, hun?" He said.

"Teresa, and what do you mean? I'm not Scottish?" Teresa responded, confused. The man gave a confused look back.

"You're not? Well your accent is perfect, you sure fooled me. What are you doing running around talking with a Scottish accent if you're not Scottish?" He asked.

"I'm pretty sure I have an American accent, I don't sound even a bit Scottish." Teresa told him. Then it hit her. Was <Translate> really translating accents? That's ridiculous. "Wait, I think it's my skill, <Translate>. It's probably doing some weird magic stuff."

"Oh shoot, I got that one too!" The old man exclaimed. "I was wondering why so many of these English speaking kiddos were Scottish when there's such a diversity. Hell, my name's William. It's a pleasure to meet you Teresa. Now, I think you should go get your friend, once she's here we can figure out if there's a Mackenzie at this camp, or at the very least her Mackenzie."

"That's not a bad idea, I'll go do that. I'll be right back. Thank you, William. We'll have to talk more about what's going on later, this kind of takes priority."

"Best get going then. See yah around!"

"Nice meeting you!" Teresa replied, beginning to speed walk out of the camp. She could totally use <Dash> to go faster, but the wind from her running would probably knock a few tents over. Plus, she didn't want a kid to step out in front of her while hauling ass. It would be incredibly unfortunate if she accidentally punted a child into the stratosphere.

She sure hoped Mackenzie was here.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Wait! Come back!" Saylee called out as the scary woman ran away. The woman showed no signs of stopping, and disappeared from her sight.

"Why did you have to tell her no? If we said we saw a baby somewhere, maybe she could have stuck around to help us!" Mali yelled, angry. "You saw what she did to that thing! Where did she even come from? Without her, we're dead!"

"That woman was clearly looking for someone very important to her. What if she's looking for her child? As much as I would like for her to protect us, I wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing we're getting in the way of her child's safety." Saylee responded. "Besides, she didn't speak Thai. I wish I still knew some English, but I haven't spoken it since I was a kid. Maybe then we could have gotten some more information out of her."

"You know what? Maybe it's good she ran off. Did you see what she was wearing? Metal boots, weird leather pants with chains, robes, you know what I think? I think she killed her party and took their stuff." Mali said accusingly. Saylee snorted.

"Then why didn't she take our stuff?" Saylee asked, looking at the other woman in the party. Mali opened her mouth to respond, but closed it again as she didn't have anything to say back to that. "That woman saved our lives, and all she wanted was information that we didn't even have. We owe her some respect."

"We should follow after her." Michael said. "Where she goes, I doubt anything threatening remains."

"Good idea." Saylee said, beginning to walk in the general direction that woman had gone. "You know Michael, you have such an English name. Why don't you speak any English?"

"I do speak English, just not very well." He replied.

"Then why didn't you say anything?"

"I just saw her take that thing down out of nowhere with a tiny knife. I was nervous. She was also very informal, and her words were weird. I felt their meaning as I struggled to understand them. I know you felt it too."

"I can't believe you." Saylee said, shaking her head. She smiled. "Well, at least we've got a chance now."

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