Weapons of Mass Destruction

The small body of the best doggo hits my chest, making me let out a quiet groan of pain. Yet, I still hug the corgi and keep him close to my chest while carefully petting him with my now slightly healed arm.

(Asshole! Asshole! Asshole! Asshole!)

Yes, yes, I missed you too.

Also, we will have to put some parental control on your access to the community; you are learning bad words from those guys there.

“Master wanted me to buy this creature from Henry as well.”

Oh no. Do I want to know?

“He did cost 10 gold,” she says anyways.

“How much did you pay for real?”

“Two gold? Henry wanted 4 but I blackmailed him, knowing that he sold you to Emeric to die.”

“You must be super rich, why don´t you invite me for dinner?”

“Maybe if you grow your hair a bit and dress up nicely,” she giggles and comes closer to also pet Biscuit and he lets her, just like that.

Huh?

Seeing something on my face, Ruby says, “I fed him a bit from my dinner and he immediately became super friendly.”

Biscuit! Stranger danger!

“So how did you find me?”

“Master left a Resonance Imprint on you and gave me your mana signature and I just tracked it.”

The heck? That sounds so cool!

“Can you teach it to me?”

“That's what interests you? You are not complaining that we are tracking you or asking why I went to take you back?”

“I expected something like tracking and you either went after me because you wanted something annoying or master told you to do so. It also could be because you felt my state and didn´t go to check on me.”

But it doesn´t matter.

“Please teach me.”

“Maybe in the future, I will use it as my bargaining chip,” she smirks and lets go of Biscuit who sends a message to her.

(Asshole!)

Good boy! Go and get her!

“Your dog… creature is kinda rude, you know that?”

Hey! He can hear you! Do not listen to her, Biscuit; you are perfect the way you are.

“He keeps saying that, I almost threw him out of the window when he said “Food, Asshole!” but never mind that. We will be leaving Stonehaven.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“Yes, it's because of the war. Frontlines will move here soon enough and Master doesn´t want to get caught in all of that. Simple as that.”

I continue to pet the corgi, who is slowly closing his eyes and his breathing is calming as I continue to hold him.

“I heard a few things here and there, but can you tell me who is fighting against who? I would rather have accurate information.”

She thinks for a second and then just nods.

“We are currently what is known as the Mana-Infused kingdom and we are at war with the Solaris Empire and to be honest this kingdom is kinda screwed.”

Yeah, I heard that much. I wait for her to continue.

“The only reason why they didn´t attack us properly is because of our Champions.”

“Keiron and Tristan?”

“Yes, the two of them and we also have a few more in their capital.”

I sit up carefully to not wake up Biscuit and ask “They are there in secret or do they know about them?”

“They know about them, but they are hidden. In case the war starts they will mess up their Empire as much as they can. Two Champions should be able to destroy the entire capital in a few minutes if they stop caring about their lives. Millions of people would die instantly.”

She looks at me.

“The problem is that they have something similar. Unlike us, they call them Paragons, but they are the same thing: living weapons capable of destroying entire nations in a moment.”

The floor quest is slowly starting to make more sense.

Floor quest: Witness the end of the world.

“The moment the war starts properly, everyone will lose.” she doesn't smile this time.

“Is it true that the emperor is a mind mage?”

“Yup, the most powerful one that ever lived, most likely. The man is under 40 and controlling their Paragons with his mind. Paragons! And the problem is that he can singlehandedly send them to die, making them not care about that, so that's it.” She moves closer to the fireplace in the corner of the room and sits nearby, still looking at me.

“Your world sucks.”

Surprise appears on her face and then a tiny, almost invisible smile follows it.

“Yes, it does, doesn´t it.”

“People are terrible, drifters are too expensive, and the food costs a farmer's monthly wage.”

Her tiny smile becomes a bit bigger, “Higher-ups are assholes, masters are a pain in the ass, and it's full of people ready to scam you out of a few golds!” she adds.

A few golds? More like 92 golds. But I nod.

“Overall, I would give it a terrible rating and recommend future visitors to avoid it as much as they can.”

In the end, a soft smile gently appears on her lips.

A bit later, Ruby uses her skill again and we appear somewhere high in the mountains. The air here feels a bit thinner, but the moment I exit the room and step onto the small terrace, I fall in love with the view.

I've seen some videos of people having breakfast in the Swiss Alps with an amazing view of mountain tops.

Yeah, they can suck it.

The view is much more beautiful, even the mountains seem to be so much bigger. Vibrant green grass, trees, and the tips of the mountains as if dyed in white snow.

For a few minutes, I just stand there and stare, feeling a sense of calm wash over me.

“Pretty, isn't it?” Ruby joins me.

“Yes,” for the first time in a long while, I feel the corners of my lips lift slightly.

I tried to warn others, but the forum censored most of my messages. I spent the entire daily limit trying to circumvent it, but in the end, I was only able to warn them about the danger and recommend moving away from the borders and the capital city.

After a long time, I also checked the numbers.

Easy difficulty 1638/2000

Normal difficulty 702/1000

Hard Difficulty 293/500

Hell difficulty 53/250

Noticeably, every difficulty seems to have lost some people. Around 100 in easy. Thirty in normal, 30 or so in hard, and 3 people in Hell.

Once again, it makes me curious how many floors the tutorial has. It's hard to guess now, but after the end of the second floor, we should have a better idea.

Now I only have to find out how to survive this war.

From how it looks now, it seems that the Champions and Paragons will go wild and mess up as much as they can while the mad emperor, Sophie lookalike, will mess with the remaining few.

But, can you call that the end of the world?

Just humans will disappear and after a few years, life will continue as the planet will still be here.

I bet the system did cook up something really spicy.

It fills me with curiosity and worries at the same time. The end of this floor will probably be the most dangerous, just like the end of the first floor.

Well, at least I have some time and the option to get stronger.

Lvl 39

Strength: 14

Dexterity: 15

Constitution: 46

Mana: 100

My stats are nice to look at, but I need to level up a bit more to get those spicy side quest rewards.

Floor quest:

Witness the end of the world.

Rewards:

Skill upgrade token

20 stat points

Increased daily limit of community usage

Tutorial Difficulty change token

Side quest: Reach level 50

Reward: Trait strengthening token

I still haven't received another side quest instead of the one I got my skill upgrade from, but as always, I can only wait and train.

Even now, I continue to practice moving my mana. With upgraded [Mana Manipulation] it has become much better and I can somewhat ignore the missing mana circuit part in my missing arm.

It's still a mess but it's much better now and my flow has improved.

Somehow, I also think that dealing with all these troubles with the missing part of the mana circuit is helping me level up [Mana Manipulation] a bit more. Still, I want my arm back.

So, Lily, you'd better put some effort into it so I can freeload on your amazing skill.

I also found out a bit more about healers and it looks like they are totally like nobles among gifted people. Most of the time, powerful nobles snatch them up, the king also keeps one or two, and the rest are taken away by the temple that uses them to prolong the lives of people that are rich enough to pay.

Yup, it seems like healers can get to such a level that they are able to prolong lives. If Lily gets back to Earth, she will either become insanely rich or they will try to kidnap her or use her.

But for that, they will have to go through me.

Now, seeing how useful healers can be, I am even more decided to keep her close to myself and risk a bit more to keep her alive. At least I will try. I am not that good at dealing with people.

But hey, she can use me to stay alive and I will use her for healing. It's a win-win situation.

I just need to hope that she will see it that way as well, and for that, I need to become more powerful. Strong enough that she will feel safe next to me so I can keep her by my side without letting anyone lay hands on her or take her away.

So, that's that. I know what I want, and I'm sticking to the plan. One step at a time, let's see where this crazy tutorial takes us.