2 days left in the tutorial
Tara was on one knee, about 40 feet in front of what used to be a defensive line, she was covered in cuts and wounds, dried blood covering every inch of skin. When the horde event started she was right where she is now, out in front of everything and everyone. She fought alone and killed every monster that even came close and when she ran out of magic over and over, she just kept swinging her axes. The weight behind the blade and her strength meant she didn't need any skill, just to swing and swing and swing. There were no more monsters around her but still many places where the fighting wasn't over, the monsters liquified and sank into the ground when they died but the people did not.
After she recovered enough to be useful again, Tara got up and walked back to the defensive line, the monsters were not around, mostly thanks to her, but there were many dead bodies. As she walked toward where the fighting was still going on, everyone that had less monsters to fight because of her followed. They picked up people as they went clearing the remaining monsters in their tutorial area, by the time everything was over she had a crowd following her. This is not something Tara wanted, at first she thought that they would disperse since the fighting was over, but they didn't. Wanting them to leave her alone she stopped and turned to them.
"The fighting is over, stop following me, there is one day left, rest and prepare. When we get back to the world, it will not be easier, it will be harder." Tara said gruffly with a dark tone in her voice.
"We would like to stay with you, miss," one of the older ladies said, stepping forward. "We could use a leader."
"I am no leader," Tara said while pinching the bridge of her nose. "Do not follow me, I cannot be responsible for you."
She ran ahead to get away from them, but as she got closer to the main part of camp, she stopped and her breath caught in her chest. The ground was red with blood and the bodies of the dead were in pieces, scattered for hundreds of feet. Tara couldn't move, she couldn't breath, something in her mind was unable to process what she was experiencing and she fell to her knees. Something broke in her heart at that moment and she sat there, in the blood soaked mud, with tears running down her dirty face. Hours must have passed while she didn't move, never in her life has she needed something as much as she needed Eli right now. This was too much, too much for anyone to handle, she needed to move. Suddenly she stood and ran towards the woods as fast as she could.
**********
Stevens was having a rough time, he fought the horde with a group of Canadians of all people. The problem was that he was good at magic, and not even on purpose. He had fire air, and earth nodes on top of his heart node and he knew enough science to combine the magic, which gave him two very strong skills. His fire node has the skill fire arrow, and the air node has the skill pressure wave. After he got the timing down, he was able to do massive damage with these two skills together, and both of them were low magic cost spells. This made the Canadians very enthusiastic about him sticking with them for the fight and now that it was over they invited him to join them after the tutorial.
The reason this was rough for him was because he did not want to be around them, he didn't respond well to being the center of attention and he certainly didn't want to lead anyone. He managed to slip away from them and from across a battlefield he saw Tara, on her knees in the mud, her eyes looking dead and there were tears running down her face. He wanted to go to her and be there for her but he knew how their friendship had been difficult since he had fallen for her, but she was in love with Konzak. Stevens knew that in her eyes he could never measure up to him, and if he was honest with himself, he wouldn't in his own eyes either.
Elias Konzak was not someone anyone could measure up to, he was a force of nature. Just being around him you could feel the pressure from his presence and every word out of his mouth felt like a command. It was uncanny and made most people feel uneasy, except Tara, she was drawn to him on an almost supernatural level. There was no question in his mind that she would kill a room full of people if Konzak needed her to, her career didn't matter, nothing mattered to her but him. With all that in mind, he let her sit there, broken at the carnage in front of her, alone and crying.
Deciding that he needed to move on he walked through the camp for hours, he had used a tree he had burned practicing his spells to make a walking stick. Stevens really wanted to lean into the spell user aesthetic so that people wouldn't expect him to fight up close, he just wished he had a pointy hat to go with it. He was thinking about all this to avoid the gruesome sight that the camp had become, while many people hid in the buildings, others didn't fit or chose to fight. One of the buildings was breached by some monsters and a thousand people died in an hour. Almost all of the people hiding were rather young or old or just too scared to adjust. If he had to guess, there were just shy of 40,000 people left in this tutorial. And if this is how the others went then half the planet's population was gone.
Suddenly a thought occurred to him about something that he hadn't even noticed, there were no kids. The youngest he had seen was 14, but no one was younger and he wasn't really sure what to think about that. Looking back at his time since the tutorial started, no one was walking around looking for their kids either, so maybe younger kids and their parents were in their own tutorial. If they got their own tutorial, like a kid one that was more like a school, then that would say something about the system. If the parents were with them that would be even better, but the real question would be if they are having to fight. He hoped they didn't have to, kids should be allowed to grow up safe. Some of the things that he has seen during deployments where warlords would use drug addicted and brainwashed kids as soldiers, always turned his stomach when he thought about them.
Shaking his head to try and get the images out, he kept walking toward the woods in the opposite direction that Tara had gone. He wanted to be alone to process everything that had happened, this is something he did often since it usually took him longer than others to process extreme situations. He sat on a rock just inside the tree line and just breathed out and in slowly. After a couple of hours someone approached him from the front slowly and made sure that his footsteps were loud enough to be heard.
"Hello good sir, I am Mathew," the man said with a little bow. "I wonder if you could speak with me for a few moments about a friend of yours."
"I don't have any friends," Stevens said, "I'm just a useless guy no one trusts."
"I don't need to trust you," said Mathew, "I would just like to have a conversation about a woman that I think you know."
"I wish I knew a woman, you would think the end of the world would be easier to find one, but no such luck," Stevens said jokingly while relaxing his posture and setting his walking stick down.
"Why would it be easier?" asked Mathew.
"Some people don't want to be alone when things are chaotic and scary."
"Wouldn't people shut down, isolate themselves emotionally?"
"I never thought of it that way, maybe I'm thinking of a movie."
"As fun as this conversation is, I'm going to be more forward, tell me about the girl."
"What girl?"
"The one who is in here with us, she is strong and very beautiful, you know her."
"Sorry, but I don't know who you are talking about, I've been working with these Canadians and the two women with them were a little too young for you."
"You do know, and I would like you to share."
"Ya know, you are very polite, I would assume that is because you are not the muscle here."
"Very astute, the young woman I am asking you about is also quite astute."
"I used to watch a lot of movies and this is about the part where the strong quiet guy shows up."
"You make us sound like a cheezy 80's cop show."
"Enough," Another man walked out from behind a tree, swaggering, smiling and speaking softly. "He is wasting our time."
"You guys approached me, so I think you are wasting my time," Stevens said.
"I am Armand, you will answer my questions, or you die."
"This is the part in the movies where the good guy, me," Stevens said while pointing to himself. "Tells you that I'm not going to talk, so you can screw off."
"Watch your tone when speaking to my…" Mathew was cut off when an axe suddenly appeared in his chest. Armand drew his daggers and a blur went past Stevens and it and Armand crashed through a tree and off into the distance. He got to his feet and picked up his walking stick and walked over to Mathew who was on the ground barely breathing with his eyes as wide as saucers.
"I am sorry Mathew, I didn't catch that last part," he said as he pulled the axe from his chest. "I think we can just let them figure it out." he tossed the axe in the direction that Armand went and sat back down. After about a minute, Tara walked out of the woods with both axes in hand.
"He got away, did this one say anything?" Tara asked with an axe pointed at Mathew.
"I think he was just about to," said Stevens.
"Look, no one is hurt, I think we can work this out." Said Mathew, trying to look innocent and harmless with his hands up.
"What is that guy's deal? Why does he keep coming after me?" Tara asked with a low tone and anger in her voice. She put an Axe to his neck for further emphasis.
"Armand thinks that we will be placed together when the tutorial ends and he wants to be the leader there. So he is putting down anyone he thinks would resist him."
"I don't care about him, I already serve someone and knowing him and my luck, ill have to run for a week to find him."
"I will relay that to Armand if you let me go." Mathew said with some hope creeping into his voice.
"You wanted to kill me, I don't think you should get off so easily," Stevens said as his hand caught fire and he started lowering it to Mathews face.
"Let him go," Tara said.
Stevens stopped channeling his fire magic and stood up. They started walking away from him and Stevens said, "Do you think he bought it? Was I a convincing revenge psycho?"