Teresa Of All Trades (Book 1 Complete)

Teresa had never been in the military, so she wasn't exactly an expert on C4. As a matter of fact, she was only vaguely aware of what it looked like thanks to random videos she had seen online while doomscrolling before the System. She wasn't positive, but that sure looked like what Teresa vaguely remembered. The spike and black stick was probably a receiver and a remote detonator if she had to guess.

What the fuck?

Really, what the fuck? What was she going to use fucking C4 on? Could she even carry it with her? Why did the System just give her explosive ordinance? She should not be trusted with a literal bomb, she knew next to nothing about them. Did everyone get C4 in the second stage of their Tutorial? That wouldn't be very fair to people who already happened to have some with them, but what did the Tutorial know about fair?

Teresa was hesitant to even move. She had remained completely still since she realized it was C4. She was pretty sure C4 had some specific requirements to explode. Like, it could be set on fire or chucked at a wall and be totally fine, but the detonator did something that caused it to explode. Then again, Teresa was not about to risk dying from mishandling explosives.

It's not like she was positive it was C4. For all she knew, this was some common thing in the multiverse that just didn't exist on Earth. Hell, maybe it was something else that was really obvious, but nothing else came to mind. If she had <Appraise> she was sure she would be able to tell what the item was, but she decided to trust her gut.

That was totally C4.

Something was flowing through the plastic explosive, and Teresa realized it was Mana. Great, was the C4 enchanted? Magical C4? Now she would have to be even more careful. What if she refreshed her <Facilitated Restoration> on herself while out in the sun and accidentally caused an explosion? She also had just leveled up her class and had another skill selection available, what if she started experimenting with a new skill only to blow herself up?

Would that even make sense though? The System had given her this explosive as a reward for clearing a monster stronghold. Surely that reward wouldn't accidentally kill her, right? Maybe? Well she couldn't just look at it forever. She did the first thing anyone would do when faced with a container of C4.

She poked it.

Then in a horrifying, terrible, surprising turn of events - nothing happened. Huh. It's not like she expected anything to happen, honestly it was probably for the better that poking the C4 didn't cause a reaction. Because the only other thing that could have happened was an explosion. Duh.

Now the real question was what to do with this. She couldn't just leave it behind, the System was giving her C4 and she might as well use it. Who knew what the System was preparing her for by giving her explosive ordinance.

Then again, what was a safe way to transport it? It came in a small, tupperware container with no lid or identifying markings. Should she put the C4 in her backpack? What about the detonator? Surely putting an explosive and the very things that make it blow up in the same bag, especially when that bag was going to be worn by someone sprinting for miles.

A loud crash interrupted her train of thought, the two Clubbers outside of the stronghold were attempting to get inside of the camp. Shit. She had explicitly avoided them because she wasn't very confident she could take them on.

She gave her surroundings a quick glance, and came to a decision. She was going to fight them. It's not like she had much of a choice in that matter, but at least it wasn't a flat, open field of sand. There were no actual structures within the camp aside from a rampart that went along the walls and a couple of tents. There was even a campfire and a well, so Teresa would have been able to refill her water if needed.

On the one hand, this meant there was nowhere for Teresa to take cover. What a shame, she totally could have pulled off some guerilla warfare. On the other hand, the top of the walls were sharp. Each wooden beam had a pointed top, though Teresa wasn't sure exactly how sharp or durable these walls were.

Still, it was worth a shot.

Teresa darted for some wooden steps that led up to the ramparts as walls crashed down by the entrance. The Clubbers had slammed their heads into the beams' side facing away from the stronghold, causing them to either crack in half or knock them out of the ground. The stronghold was not very large, and the monsters immediately spotted Teresa running up the stairs three at a time.

They charged towards her, and she turned around to face them. Teresa created a ball of green fire in each hand, restoration Mana hovering above her palms. She manipulated the density of restoration Mana in the balls of fire, condensing it and creating a pattern that caused the light to intensify more and more.

She had spent a lot of time manipulating her restoration Mana while out in the desert, and one of the things she liked to do was turn her <Facilitated Restoration> into essentially a flare gun. If she thought of the ball of fire as an atom with the restoration Mana as the particles, then she needed to have as small of a nucleus as possible with a metric shit ton of electrons.

This caused the green fire to burn incredibly bright, and it required a lot of effort to keep the restoration Mana from splitting the spell apart as it repelled itself. She needed to construct tiny "pillars," of restoration Mana between the nucleus and the shell of the spell, largely to keep it attached and to prevent the nucleus from causing the shell to explode out in a burst of restoration Mana.

A week of messing around with her spells while hunting gave her a lot more control over her Mana, there was a reason her <Mana Control> was level 7 now. The light shining from her hands shot out as she released her <Facilitated Restoration> right at the Clubbers' faces a moment before collision.

Sure, her spell was going to heal the Clubbers, but in the moment it essentially acted like a flashbang. It didn't hurt their ears or anything, but a light that bright so close to a pair of eyes could cause some serious damage. This was the only time Teresa had ever been able to directly harm something with her skills, although admittedly the same skill would heal that damage right back.

It didn't matter though, as it got the reaction Teresa wanted. She dove to the side as the Clubbers suddenly hit the brakes, screaming in their creepy human voice. Really, that was all she wanted them to do so she could jump on top of one, but her plan didn't work out the way she expected. Before she could attempt to climb either of them, one of the beasts slammed its clubbed head right down onto the spiked wall.

The beam stabbed straight through the club, and the Clubber began to wail. It shook its club in a panic, slamming into the other Clubber that was still getting its bearings together.

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Teresa had hoped she could somehow use one of the sharp wooden beams as soon as she saw the pointed tops of the walls, but had generally discarded the idea working out. She had instead been planning on just climbing up the back of one, stabbing into it repeatedly and improvising from there against only one Clubber.

Still, this was much better. One Clubber slamming into another hadn't been enough to cause serious damage, but it still knocked the creature over. This exposed its vulnerable stomach to ground level, although unfortunately Teresa was still on the ramparts. She briefly considered if it was worth jumping off the ramparts that were probably around 10 feet or so tall. It wasn't a huge jump, but it was still a risky one.

Eh, if she broke something she could just heal it anyways.

Teresa leaped off of the ramparts, crashing down to the floor and immediately feeling a sharp pain in her ankle. She didn't even look at it as she used <Healing Touch>, fixing the issue in under a second. Running towards the Clubber she drew her sword, and put a long cut into its stomach.

The monster screamed as blood poured out from its gut, organs spilling through the grotesque wound. Teresa could visibly see the monster's skin healing as it received the passive buff from <Facilitated Restoration>, but it was nothing to write home about.

While her parlor trick with her spell sure made it really bright, it also made the actual effect of the skill incredibly shit. At least shit compared to what Teresa's healing could do now with her skills.

Teresa had also just leveled up her class not too long ago, maybe she could get another skill to mess around with-

A massive beam of wood crashed into Teresa, sending her tumbling through the sand. The vast majority of her ribs and several other bones crunched as she was hit with the force of a truck, suddenly reliving her experiences in the fourth wave.

Fuck, she had gotten distracted. It really had only been a second, a single stray thought that made her slow down, but that had been enough. Was she really about to get killed because of something as stupid as that?

She came to a halt in the sand, immediately using <Healing Touch> in both hands. Her left arm wasn't responding to her, but her right worked well enough for the job. A few seconds later her arm was healed, and she began working on the rest of her body.

The Clubber that had hit her struggled to approach her, seeming eager to finish Teresa off. It was unable to walk in a straight line, needing to correct its movement repeatedly as the wooden beam sticking out from its clubbed head was making it incredibly hard to balance.

Blood was no longer dripping from around the wound as <Facilitated Healing> had formed a seal around the Clubber's injuries, though it didn't remove the massive log of wood. If not for that, the Clubber likely would have already picked Teresa up and ate her.

Thankfully, she had just barely enough time to get her body into a moving condition. Bending her torso at all made her feel like she was pregnant with a bunch of knives, sure, but she was alive. Teresa was pretty sure some of her ribs were supposed to be higher than they were currently in her body, but they didn't seem attached to anything.

That was a problem. Teresa had fixed a lot of issues, sure, but she had never reattached anything with healing magic. Could she reattach that rib? Well, she would have to if she didn't want to die. Healing magic or not, she might die if she just left a random rib floating around inside of her body.

She hobbled away from the Clubber, <Healing Touch> still activated in both hands. The Clubber followed behind her, also struggling to move as its head had become too heavy to easily lift. The club trailed behind the beast like an anchor, and it seemed Teresa's crappy <Facilitated Restoration> had already lost its potency. Making the skill glow insanely bright really did make it incredibly inefficient.

Restoration Mana gathered at the severed stump that had once spouted a rib. To Teresa's dismay, it did not start growing another rib back in its place. On the other hand, her restoration Mana seemed to still be able to interact with her severed rib. Small cracks were healed despite not being attached to her skeleton anymore, making Teresa think it wasn't too late to reattach it.

She physically pushed her hand against her torso, screaming as she shifted the bone into place. The experience nearly made her pass out, but thankfully she was able to keep moving throughout the process. One foot in front of the other, stopping meant death.

A kill notification for the other Clubber appeared in her peripheral vision. It seemed suspiciously long for a single kill notification, but she really could not focus on it with everything going on. Distractions were death, she focused solely on her ribs and moving away.

The remaining Clubber screaming terrifyingly close behind her, the beast had caught up. Teresa channeled restoration Mana to her rib that was now in position and dove, feeling tendrils of bone rapidly sewing together in an uncanny manner. The Clubber lifted a leg to try and step on her, but she managed to narrowly avoid it with a quick step.

The jerky movement was agony, but the pain vanished after a moment as her body was restored to top condition. If not for that severed rib, she would have been able to heal herself far faster, probably in a couple seconds.

She started sprinting towards the dead Clubber, as she had let go of her sword somewhere in that direction. Thankfully she spotted the blade, and soon she was armed and dangerous once more. The only remaining Clubber's movements were incredibly awkward and slow thanks to its injury, and finishing it off would barely be a problem.

A minute of hit and run tactics later, the Clubber fell to the ground dead.

It was frustrating. A life or death battle had suddenly taken a turn and become incredibly easy. The injustice of it all didn't come from the battle suddenly becoming easy, but rather what it took to get there. The only real benefit of having the healer class in combat was being able to get up after taking a hit, but she still had to take the hit. At least the tank class came with armor and a shield, what the hell?

Teresa took a deep breath and steadied herself, trying to force herself to stop scowling. She was being ridiculous and she knew it. Being able to heal injuries the way she could was insane, she should be grateful. Still Teresa was getting sick and tired of it. If she leveled up her healer skills just a bit more, she would probably be able to save Sarah. Some more Intelligence helped the process as well, as it also seemed to have an effect on the efficacy of her spells.

Still, she was ready to be done with healing as soon as she helped Sarah. She wanted to take a break from using restoration Mana, maybe she would just focus on manipulating the regular Mana in her body for a while until she felt ready to go back to healing. Still, she was being presented with the same issue she had before the System.

She really, really, did not like being locked into one thing. She had never been able to choose a career path before, as the thought of doing the same kind of job for the rest of her life felt depressing. Ironically enough, not being able to choose a career had resulted in her life tumbling downhill, which had been equally depressing and eventually culminated in a suicide attempt.

Regardless, Teresa had her class and even had another skill to choose still. Additionally, she still had to figure out how to transport the C4. She had managed to keep the fighting away from the treasure chest out of fear a Clubber would cause an explosion, so it remained in its original position.

Teresa had too much going on to keep complaining about the same old issues she's always had. For now she would have to suck it up and find a solution to her class later. It was time to pick a skill, probably allocate a point into Agility since she was pretty sure she leveled up, and go back to Liberty Island.

Teresa opened her notification screen to look at what she missed.

You Have Slain {Skeletal Warrior (F) (lv 17)}

Experience Granted

Class Level Up!

You Have Slain {Skeletal Warrior (F) (lv 14)}

Experience Granted

You Have Slain {Yectin Clubber (F) (lv 14)}

Experience Granted

Level Up!

Class Change Available!

You Have Slain {Yectin Clubber (F) (lv 15)}

Experience Granted

What?