“So, who is Natalia Frey? What do you want out of life?” Karolina asked Natalia as they walked. They had just passed the forward barracks, and were heading toward the supply depot.

As she waited for Natalia to respond, she watched Ada and Thomas talking and joking around ahead of them. She was glad that they were getting along again.

“That’s kind of a deep question. Why do you ask?” Natalia asked after a few seconds.

“Well, if we’re going to be working together, I feel like I should get to know you better,” Karolina said. Plus, she wanted to make sure that Natalia wasn’t another Selena. She was almost certain that the redhead wasn’t that duplicitous, but she needed to be sure.

“That’s a really hard question to answer, especially with everything that’s going on. Why don’t you answer it first? What do you want out of life?” Natalia said.

“Fair point,” Karolina said. It was a difficult question to answer. “Well, I used to be a corporate mediator, but that’s almost irrelevant now. I guess I’m someone who wants to make the world a better place, as cliché as that sounds. I know that if I work hard enough, the System gives me the opportunity to make a difference, and I’m not going to waste it,” she said fervently.

She noticed that Thomas and Ada had fallen back a little and stopped talking, and both of them were staring at her. Natalia was also staring at her, obviously surprised. Karolina felt her cheeks heat up. “What?” she asked, embarrassed.

“You’re more altruistic than me, that’s for sure,” Ada said dryly.

Thomas chuckled. “Understatement of the year,” he said.

“Hey,” Ada said, swatting Thomas on the arm. Karolina could make out Thomas complaining about the assault, and then the two of them moved farther away again. Karolina was glad that they were done staring at her.

“Well, you have a clearer idea of what you want than I do. The only reason I chose to be a healer was because I was a med student, and being a healer seemed like the closest option. I did really like going out into the forest before I was locked up, though, so that’s something. The only thing I know for sure is that I won’t be locked up again,” Natalia said seriously.

“That’s a good start. And don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” Karolina said.

“Thank you,” Natalia said. “I hope one day I don’t need your protection,” Natalia fell silent for a moment, clearly thinking about something. After a moment, she started talking again. “I think the worst part was how they pretended that being locked up was ‘for my own good’, somehow. Like confining me in my cabin and treating me like a healing dispenser was good for me, and that I was the one who was wrong for wanting to leave,” Natalia said.

“I can’t even imagine,” Karolina said. She couldn’t. What would it be like, to be locked up in a cabin, only let out when others needed her for something. She needed to be able to make her own choices, and couldn’t imagine how terrible it would feel to have all of hers stripped away.

“Yeah,” Natalia sighed. “At least talking about it has helped a little,” Natalia said. After she didn’t say anything else, Karolina figured that the conversation was over. They had been talking for a long time by now. Karolina had explained everything that had happened in their camp to the other woman, including what the forward barracks was and who Buckley had been.

After another few minutes, they neared the location of the supply depot. Karolina could barely see the clearing through the trees. Ada left to scout it out, and Thomas awkwardly reintroduced himself to Natalia. Apparently, they hadn’t actually had the opportunity to talk given the rush to get ready for the assault on her former camp. As they chatted, Karolina looked at the area around them.

The trees around her were closer together than the trees near the camp. It wasn’t getting hard to see through them yet, but the difference was definitely noticeable. She could also hear less birdsong. The forest was getting less welcoming the further she went into it.

They were several hours away from camp at this point, which meant they couldn’t spend much time at the supply depot before they had to head back. Hopefully they would win whatever battle they had to face quickly and wouldn’t encounter any problems. She took a second to recognize the absurdity of what she had just thought. No problems? Who was she kidding?

Ada returned after only a minute or two, looking serious. “Good news: there’s only six monsters. Bad news: those monsters are two kobolds and four of a new type of monster. They look like gross gelatinous blobs, and they’re called slimes,” Ada said.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Ada, you and I are the fastest people here so we’ll rush the kobolds and try to kill them fast. Thomas, we’ll wait to go until you’ve gotten off your first attack. Natalia, stay back with Thomas, the kobold we faced before knew a strong ranged spell and I don’t want you to get hurt. I’m counting on all of you,” Karolina said.

She waited until they all nodded, and then started walking towards the clearing with Ada and Thomas. After only a few seconds, the clearing came into view.

The first thing that caught her attention was the monsters. Ada was right, the slimes did look disgusting. They seemed to be made out of snot or some other gross green ooze. She was glad that they only reached up to her waist, as she couldn’t imagine how much worse bigger slimes would be.

The kobolds, standing just behind the slimes and in front of the supply depot door, looked great in comparison. She would much prefer to punch a red lizard than a sentient blob of snot.

Behind all of the monsters was the supply depot. It was only a little bigger than the forward barracks, but the structure was totally different. The building actually looked well-constructed, and was completely square with no windows. Hopefully that meant that there were no monsters on the inside, but she was going to be careful regardless.

Now that the monsters were in sight, she smiled at Thomas. “It’s your time to shine, Thomas. Hit them as hard as you can,” she said.

“Okay. You know, I’ve actually been working on a new type of mana, water mana, and I wanted to test how effective a mana bolt using water mana would be…” Thomas said. As she watched, a mana bolt formed in his hands, except it was a deeper blue and seemed more like a liquid than usual.

After a few seconds, he released the mana bolt towards the monsters. Karolina watched it with anticipation, remembering how effective Thomas’s fire bolt had been. The water bolt hurtled forward, then splatted into the front slime to absolutely no effect. The slime wobbled backwards a little bit, but seemed otherwise unharmed.

“The answer is not at all effective, apparently. Nice one,” Ada snarked.

“Hey, they can’t all be winners!” Thomas complained, but Karolina and Ada charged forward before Ada had a chance to retort.

She activated her mana armor as she ran alongside Ada, considering how automatic using the protective skill had become. She couldn’t believe that she used to fight without it. If she didn’t have it, she would have been dead several times over by now. She was shaken out of her thoughts by Ada blurring ahead of her.

Karolina thought she was getting pretty fast, but Ada using her movement skill blew her out of the water. Before Karolina was halfway to the monsters, Ada had already slammed, dagger first, into one of the kobolds. They fell to the ground, wrestling, but Karolina was pretty sure that Ada was going to win the fight. She didn’t have a sharp piece of metal sticking out of her, after all.

"I wish I had a skill that made me faster," Karolina grumbled, finally reaching the slimes. She easily dodged around the slow-moving creatures, and got past them just as the kobold was about to cast a spell.

She instantly dropped to the ground, barely avoiding the red beam of mana. She ignored the sound of the spell slamming into a tree as she slowly got up. The kobold didn't have time to cast another spell. She had it.

The kobold barely had time to realize how bad its situation was before she reached it. She grabbed the kobold's head with both hands, then sharply twisted it to the side. Its neck snapped instantly. Ada was still fighting with her kobold, so Karolina went over to the fight and kicked the kobold off of her friend.

Before the kobold had a chance to get up, she kicked it again, in the head this time. It died instantly. She could get used to her fights being this easy.

"I was going to win," Ada grumbled good-naturedly as she accepted Karolina’s hand.

“I know, but there was no reason for me not to help,” Karolina said as she helped the other woman up. She turned to look at the four slimes. In the few seconds since they had arrived, the slimes hadn’t moved very much. They still had a few seconds before the monsters were able to reach them.

This close, she was able to clearly see that they had souls, which surprised her a little. She wasn’t sure how something that seemed to be made of ooze was alive enough to merit having a soul.

As she watched the slimes move towards them, she realized that she had been a bit hasty to call the monsters slow. They were moving much slower than she could, but they still seemed to travel at a normal human walking pace. Her improvements still managed to catch her off guard, sometimes.

She stared at the front slime, still disgusted with its very existence. She couldn’t believe that she had to actually touch it. Karolina used Strong Blow on her right arm, using the maximum amount of stamina she could. Just as the slime was about to reach her, she stepped forwards and punched the slime as hard as she could.

Her fist sank deep into the slime with a sickening squelch, and she felt her mana armor begin to take damage. She tried to pull out her hand, but it took what felt like forever before her hand came free with a popping sound.

Her mana armor hadn’t popped, but the arm of it looked heavily damaged. If she had left her hand in any longer, whatever acid the slime was made of would have broken through. She didn’t want to think about what that would have done to her. The slime, on the other hand, still looked completely unharmed. She hadn’t hurt it at all.

She backed up toward the supply depot, afraid. For the first time since she had arrived in the tutorial, she had found something she couldn’t hurt. What could she do? Ada seemed to be as ineffective as she was, stabbing furiously into a different slime to no effect.

She looked around, searching for some way to win, when she saw Thomas standing with Natalia near the tree line. If neither of them could hurt it, hopefully Thomas could. The magician was forming a fire bolt in his hands. Hopefully it would be more effective on slimes than his water bolt.

Natalia was standing next to him, safely out of the way. She wished that the healer was farther away from the fight, but she couldn’t worry about that now. At least the kobolds were dead now, and she was pretty far away from the slimes.

Even if Karolina couldn’t hurt the slimes, she could still distract them until Thomas could. She sidestepped the slimes, carefully leading them towards Thomas. Ada, seeing what she was doing, backed away from the slimes and let them all follow Karolina.

Just as Thomas finished the fire bolt, she stepped to the side, giving him a clear shot at the now much closer slimes. He released the spell, and this time she wasn’t disappointed in the outcome.

The slime he hit was instantly covered in fire. The slime was apparently very flammable, because the fire didn’t look at all like it was burning out. The slime could do nothing as it quickly fell apart in the flames. Karolina kept distracting the remaining three slimes, and after a few seconds Thomas killed another one of them.

Playing keep-away with the remaining slimes wasn’t difficult, exactly, but it was still dangerous. She couldn’t imagine how painful it would be if she was actually caught by one of the acidic creatures. That’s why she didn’t appreciate Natalia’s interruption.

“Can you get me a sample?” Natalia asked. The woman was standing right behind Karolina, which was far too close to the slimes for the monk’s comfort. When had she got there?

“A what?” Karolina asked distractedly. She moved away from the healer, and luckily the slimes chose to keep following her instead of going after the vulnerable healer.

“A sample! Don’t you know how impossible these creatures are, biologically? I want to have a sample to study,” Natalia said, still too close to the slimes for comfort. Just after the woman finished speaking, Thomas hit his third slime with a fire bolt. There was now only one left.

Karolina thought for a moment. She did have an empty glass bottle, from the healing potion she’d drunk earlier today. However, getting a sample would require sticking her hand back into the slime. Besides how disgusting the monsters were, they also seemed to be made entirely of acid, so that would definitely hurt.

She didn’t want to do it. But Natalia seemed really excited about it, and she liked Natalia enough to do this as a favor for her. Plus, Natalia was a healer. Any pain or injury would only be around for a very short amount of time.

“Fine, just stay back,” Karolina sighed. “Thomas, don’t kill the last one yet!”

Karolina backed away from the slime slightly and pulled out the empty bottle. She eyed the monster with irritation. She couldn’t believe she was going to do this again.

She hurriedly took off the cap of the empty container, then stuck the bottle inside of the slime. The acid began to eat away at her armor, and she hissed in pain when the acid finally broke through her abused skill. When she finally managed to pull the bottle out it was filled with the goopy substance that made up the slime. She recapped the bottle, noting with satisfaction that the acid didn't seem to be corroding the bottle at all.

“Happy now?” she asked, handing the bottle off to Natalia and then shooing the woman away from the slime.

“Very. Thanks so much!” Natalia said brightly.

“Okay Thomas! You can finish it off!” Karolina called out to the magician. Within a few seconds, Thomas had cast another fire bolt and killed the last slime. With that, the battle was over.

You have slain [Kobold] - Level 19, [Kobold] - Level 19, [Slime] - Level 17, [Slime] - Level 17, [Slime] - Level 17, and [Slime] - Level 17.

Experience has been awarded.

You have leveled up. You are now a level 19 [Human (F) / Monk].

You have leveled up. You are now a level 20 [Human (F) / Monk].

You have the opportunity to learn a skill. Say or think “Skill Selection” to begin the selection process.

Karolina smiled, pleased. She had finally reached level 20, and so she’d unlocked her next skill. She wondered what the 3 skills she could get were. She could choose her skills while they were here, as they’d hopefully killed all of the nearby monsters. But before that… she clenched her right hand and winced. She needed Natalia to heal her.

“Natalia! Need a little help here,” she called, holding up her acid-burned hand. Natalia looked up from her new slime bottle and blushed in embarrassment.

“Of course! Sorry,” Natalia said. The healer quickly rushed over and healed her hand, the soothing white glow taking away her pain instantly. Karolina let out a sigh of relief, glad that she had brought Natalia along. She was still annoyed with the other woman, however.

“Why didn’t you stay back like I told you to? You could have been hurt,” Karolina said.

“I think I’m done with being kept away from danger for ‘my own good’,” Natalia said firmly.

Karolina sighed. “I was trying to keep you safe, but not like that. You know that,” Karolina replied.

“Look, I’m going to make my own choices, now that I’m able to. You’re just going to have to deal with that. I wasn’t stupid about it, either! I stayed back when the kobolds were still alive, but the slimes weren’t anywhere near as dangerous. And they’re so interesting!” Natalia said.

“You still could have been hurt. If the slimes had—is that tree on fire?” Karolina asked rhetorically. Natalia turned to face the tree that was, indeed, on fire. The spell that Karolina had dodged must have hit it.

“Thomas! You said that spell earlier was a water bolt, right?” Karolina asked.

“Ooh, are we making fun of Thomas’s useless spell again?” Ada asked, getting closer to Karolina now that the slimes were all dead.

“It’s not useless! The theory is sound—” Thomas started.

“I know it’s not useless, Thomas. The slimes were just a bad target, right?” Karolina said. After Thomas nodded, Karolina turned to Ada. “Remember that we couldn’t hurt them either.”

Ada sighed but didn’t argue.

“Anyway, Thomas, I was wondering if you could use that spell to put that tree out. We don’t want a forest fire.”

“Oh, of course,” Thomas said, pleased. He cast water bolt a few times on the tree, the magical projectiles exploding into water and putting out the fire wherever they hit. Eventually, Thomas put the fire out. Karolina and Natalia both clapped politely.

“If killing monsters doesn’t work out, you have a bright future as a firefighter,” Natalia said with a smile.

Thomas gave an elaborate bow, looking exceedingly pleased with himself.

“Yeah, don’t give up on that spell. I’m sure it’ll be useful in lots of ways,” Karolina said. “Now that we’ve saved the forest, I guess all that’s left is to loot the place. Hopefully we’ll find some good stuff,” Karolina said.

“Before that, check out the tutorial status. We made it move up a percentage point again,” Thomas said brightly.

Tutorial Status:

Aspirants Remaining: 1097/2000

Time Remaining: 86 Days | 17 Hours | 2 Minutes

Percentage Conquered: 14%

Karolina was pleased with what she saw. If they had just moved it up a single percentage point, then two other camps had finally started contributing. She hoped that, when she next visited another camp, that camp was one of those two. She would much prefer that to another camp being run by a murderous dictator. She tried very hard not to look at the aspirants remaining section.

“That’s great,” Karolina said. “Now let’s get to looting.”

They all started walking towards the supply depot, eager to see what treasures it held.

“Actually, you all go on ahead,” Karolina said, remembering an important fact. “I want to pick my next skill as soon as possible.” The nearby trees seemed empty of monsters for the moment, so it should be safe. She wondered what skill options she would get to pick from. She couldn’t wait to find out.