NOVEL NEXT Chapter 24: Freezing Nights
You Have Slain {Vampiric Cordyceps Deer (F) (lv 16)}
Experience Granted
You Have Slain {Vampiric Cordyceps Deer (F) (lv 13)}
Experience Granted
You Have Slain {Vampiric Cordyceps Deer (F) (lv 15)}
Experience Granted
You Have Slain {Vampiric Cordyceps Deer (F) (lv 17)}
Experience Granted
Teresa finished off the remaining deer with some difficulty. Even unconscious, the deer had been so tough it took a few swings to really get the job done. It was disgusting and the entire process had felt horrible, but it worked and that's what mattered.
The fight hadn't been enough to level her up again, but she was close.
Status:
Name: Teresa
Race: Human (Earth)
Level: 9 (F) (92%)
Class: Healer lv 1 (F) (88%)
HP: (95/98)
Stamina: (40/98)
Mana: (19/344)
Strength: 9
Fortitude: 7
Endurance: 8
Vitality: 8
Agility: 11
Intelligence: 29
Wisdom: 25
Perception: 16
Unallocated Points: 0
<Skills> {
<Translate: lv 0 (1.3%)>
<Mana Control: lv 4 (89%)>
<Healing Touch: lv 3 (65%)>
<Facilitated Restoration: lv 3 (72%)
<Identify: lv 3 (55%)>
}
<Titles> {
<System Newcomer>
<Tutorial: Power Hungry>
<Tutorial: First Stage Completionist>
<Tutorial: Level Pioneer>
}
She was only 8% shy of level 10. This meant after she got her first or second kill in her next battle, she would probably level up. Additionally, something caught her eye. Her <Facilitated Restoration> skill had actually surpassed <Healing Touch>, as they were the same level but <Facilitated Restoration> was closer to level 4.
It felt a little weird, as she had gotten <Healing Touch> first, but it made sense. She used <Facilitated Restoration> far more often than <Healing Touch>, and used it on herself repeatedly due to its long lasting nature. Teresa had been out in the sun all day, and didn't have any sunburn at all thanks to the passive healing she received.
She was going to have the opposite problem soon. The sun was setting, and it would be night soon. While deserts are hot during the day, they are also freezing cold at night. Teresa had a plan for this, but it was admittedly a terrible one.
Initially, she had considered starting a fire to stay warm. There was an issue with this, as Teresa did not have a way to start a fire. She could maybe get some Wyvern-Fish to shoot fire at her, but the flames from those monsters typically vanished after a few seconds.
Option two was to bring a buttload of sweatshirts and extra clothes, then wear multiple layers. Teresa actually did this, but it wasn't the only option she was following through on. She could only bring so many pairs of clothes, and most of them weren't insulated for freezing temperatures.
This led to option three, which was both a great and terrible idea. If her healing skills could heal the damage she received from the heat and the sun, then maybe it could also heal the damage she received from freezing. In other words, she would be freezing while also healing faster than she received damage. It banked on <Facilitated Restoration> being fast enough, but with the extra layers she might be alright.
Either way, it would be great practice for her healing skills.
Besides, Teresa preferred sleeping with her room cold. Surely this would be comparable to that, right?
Wrong. So very, very wrong. Teresa kept traveling for an hour longer without running into any monsters, and the temperature had dropped dramatically. It had been chilly at night close to the Statue of Liberty, but not like this. Teresa frequently stopped to take out a sweater or a hoodie, and soon she had so many layers on she was sure it would look comical to any passerby.
Every time she added a layer of clothing, it seemed to highlight how cold something else was. Put on a few sweaters, and suddenly her legs are freezing. Use a few pairs of hoodies as incredibly awkward pants, and suddenly her nose was freezing. Fix that issue, then her feet are cold, then her ears, and then her hands were cold, and on and on.
Teresa had once heard someone say they preferred the cold because they could always put more layers on, but they couldn't always take more layers off if it was too hot. That was total bullshit, there were only so many layers she could put on before her arms weren't able to fit into any more sweaters. Plus, she had already ripped a few pairs trying to wear them as pants.
Admittedly, this was partially her own fault. Okay, okay, maybe this was entirely her own fault, she should have prepared better for the night before running off to go on a monster murder spree. Still, it's not like there was any arctic gear at the Statue of Liberty otherwise Teresa would have noticed it.
Teresa laid down in the sand and closed her eyes. Shit, what if a monster pack found her while she was asleep? What would she do then, just die? If she went from freezing to death in the middle of the night to burning to death from a Wyvern-Fish she would be pissed.
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Really she should have thought more about that before leaving as well. Damn, she was really underprepared for this. Maybe she should start heading back to Liberty Island to come up with a better plan, but what better plan was there?
She needed some way to prevent monsters from attacking her while she slept, that was problem numero uno. Being cold sucked and she certainly wouldn't be able to sleep in these conditions, but she would survive. She could travel at night while healing herself and occasionally taking out a monster pack, and sleep during the day. The main problem she couldn't solve was sleeping without being attacked.
With more people they could have taken shifts, but obviously that wasn't an option. There wasn't a way to start a fire, and even if she burned her spare clothes it would only last for so long. Maybe if she used monster bodies as fuel that would help with the cold, but that wouldn't help with the monsters. If anything, that would just be a bright beacon saying "Hey come over here, there's a human to eat!"
Shit, that made Teresa realize she had taken a huge chance earlier. What if the monsters didn't eat each other? She knew they weren't on good terms now that the Wyvern-Fish had finished off that Shaman, but what if they had been on the same team? If they had been allies, that Shaman may have been able to guide those Wyvern-Fish to her to exact revenge and eat some tasty prey.
Did all of the monsters even eat humans? Sure, the Yectin Clubber had tried to eat Sarah, but could the same be said for all of the monsters? Maybe the goblins just really, really hated humans the same way humans hate mosquitos.
She was getting side tracked. Monsters, sleeping, what should she do? Maybe she could walk around in a grid to systematically kill any monsters nearby, but that wouldn't prevent wandering packs of monsters from stumbling across her. Maybe she could just avoid sleeping, maybe restoration Mana could heal sleep deprivation?
Teresa immediately began to work on this idea. She already had <Facilitated Restoration> active on herself, so she activated <Healing Touch>. Okay, now to heal her tiredness.
Okay wait, where the hell was she supposed to heal?
Was tiredness stored in the brain? She pressed her palms to her temples, but didn't really feel any different. Some restoration Mana eventually began to pour into her skull, but she was pretty sure it was just because she was giving herself a headache trying to think about this.
Okay, maybe healing magic couldn't get rid of her need to sleep. That had been kind of dumb, and for a moment Teresa was thankful she was alone in a desert so that way nobody would have seen her just try to heal away the need for sleep.
It had been worth a shot though. Hell, maybe she just wasn't doing it right, but she had no idea where to start. She didn't know enough about sleep to pinpoint exactly why she needed to sleep in the first place. Why did anyone need to sleep? What did sleep even do on a precise, scientific level? With healing wounds she could at least visualise the cells multiplying and blood coagulating to fix the injury, but curing exhaustion? Now that she thought about it, if she could do that she could probably find a way to indirectly convert Mana to Stamina by using healing magic, but that was way out of her league.
Alright, new plan. She had briefly thought about traps before, but what could she use as a trap? She could head back, find some soda cans or something and tie them to spears in an area around her as an early detection system. If she put four spears into the ground in a large square around her, tied a string between each, then attached something noisy it might wake Teresa up if a monster walked through it.
At first, this seemed like a great plan. Problem solved, all she has to do is go back, get some cans, and head out into the desert again. She had 20 days remaining, there might be time for that.
Except she had already seen why this plan wouldn't work. If those high leveled Wyvern-Fish or something else at a ridiculously high level tripped the alarm and woke her up, she would be dead anyways. Damnit, she had gotten her hopes up for a moment.
Okay, new new plan, super duper new plan. Shit, nothing was coming to mind. This was almost frustrating, though strangely enough Teresa was actually kind of having fun with this. Sure, she was freezing and the only things keeping her alive at the moment was her healing magic and a disastrous choice of wardrobe. Still, knowing this was life or death kind of made it… fun?
It made her feel like her decisions were important. If she chose wrong, she could die, but that wasn't too big of a bother to her. If she lived, great! If she died, then it wasn't her problem anymore.
Except then Sarah would die too.
Fuck. Nevermind, she needed to stay alive for now. She also probably needed therapy, but that was irrelevant. She needed to figure out how to get past this problem. She had considered traps, alarms, and even getting rid of the need to sleep altogether. How else was she supposed to not get slaughtered in the middle of the night? What, was she supposed to just get stronger until she could sprint all the way to a monster stronghold in a day before she got tired?
Wait, that might be it. As stupid as it sounded, it was plausible. The waves had been meant to be beaten in a day, but Teresa and her party had managed to stretch it out to over a week. What if this time, she did that backwards? This quest seemed to be designed for a party to slowly travel across the desert from one stronghold to the next across the course of a month, taking their time.
What if she got strong enough to clear a monster stronghold and make it back home in time for dinner?
If Teresa could run out into the desert at the break of dawn, accomplish this task, and make it back to Liberty Island to head to sleep, then maybe she could actually complete this quest.
Alright, she had a plan. Run out into the desert like a madwoman and kill everything in sight, then go back to Liberty Island and sleep. Rinse and repeat until she could eventually do the same with an entire monster stronghold. It's not like she even needed to beat this quest, the only real reason she was still in the Tutorial was because she wanted to get strong enough to save Sarah. This plan would align perfectly with her goals.
Teresa stood up and took a few layers of hoodies off so that she could begin her trek back to Liberty Island. She could still see it in the distance, as the moon lit up enough of the world for her to see surprisingly clearly. Maybe it was just her 16 Perception talking, but her visibility wasn't as limited as she expected it to be.
She made her way back towards Liberty Island, her entire body racked with pain from the cold. She was pretty sure that her Fortitude had helped save her life here along with all of her other measures, and was a little relieved she had put a total of 2 points into the stat so far.
She hadn't considered that stat would help with resisting natural temperatures, but she was certainly handling the freezing weather better than she would have before the System. Hell, maybe someone with a high enough Fortitude like Jake would be able to ignore the cold altogether.
Teresa continued walking, deciding she would ignore any monsters while in this state. Maybe if her Fortitude got high enough she could hunt at night, but there wasn't much point in that. The only benefit of being out at night was leveling her healing skills, which actually were seeing some progress. As a matter of fact, she might even level up both her class and her <Facilitated Restoration> before she made it back to Liberty Island.
Speaking of her healing skills, she began to use <Healing Touch> on her face to begin another experiment as she walked. She wasn't going to be doing much other than walking and healing for quite a few hours, so why not take the chance to be productive and experiment with Mana a little?
Her face was incredibly dry from the cold. Even the wimpiest gust of wind shot knives into her skin, and she felt her lips chap. When she was younger her mother had taught her some basic skincare. Benzoyl peroxide was good for acne, salicylic acid was good for blackheads, moisturizer kept her skin healthy and young while dealing with the dryness from other chemicals, and so on.
Now the question was if Teresa could replicate that with healing magic. She wasn't exactly positive on how all those products were supposed to be good for her skin, but she knew the general feeling of healthy skin versus damaged skin. If it worked, maybe she could even heal her hair's split ends. What counted as healing? Could someone give themselves plastic surgery or completely alter their appearance with healing magic?
Teresa wasn't going to go that far, she had just thought of a potential application for healing magic and wanted to test it out. Restoration Mana flowed through her skin from both of her skills, and she tried her best to guide the Mana into her pores. Initially, nothing happened. The Mana sat uselessly in her skin, completely idle.
She focused on making the Mana moisturize her skin, thinking of it like a burn. Teresa could heal burn wounds, so why wouldn't she be able to heal dry skin? Hell, if anything her healing magic should function as the most effective skincare routine on the planet.
As she was thinking this, her dry skin began to heal. Once it got started, it was very quick. Healing dry skin was nothing compared to broken bones and flesh wounds after all. She continued focusing on healing her skin past the bare minimum, trying to find any imperfections no matter how minor.
There probably wouldn't be any drastic changes to her appearance, she was just inventing the world's greatest skincare routine is all. She already had healthy skin before the System, so really it wasn't that big of a deal-
Teresa got a notification showing her <Mana Control> had reached level 5, and a quick glance at her skills showed both of her healing skills were incredibly close to a level up.
The Mana experiments continued as she walked. If testing out healing magic on any random thing Teresa could think of would improve her skills, then she would absolutely take full advantage of that.
At least it would distract her from the cold.