Chapter 136: Cleanup Duty

  Nikolas hadn’t ever really been a big shot during his time in the military. Like many, he had never actually seen any combat, and truth be told he wasn’t exactly an expert at anything. He always liked to joke that the military had taught him the most important skill of all, the art of looking busy.

  Once the Tutorial came around, he hadn’t really intended on becoming a leader type of any sort. He just happened to outrank the others with him. He didn’t even have a gun, but he had managed to stay calm and take control of the situation.

  After that, he did what he could to help others in need. At The Mall, there were plenty of places where he and his party could pitch in, and he felt a sense of responsibility to keep people safe during times of crisis. That was his job, after all, even if Switzerland wasn’t even a country anymore.

  Teresa had been one of the notable figures from The Mall, and initially Nikolas hoped she would step up as a leading figure of some sort. Instead, she had admitted she did not feel qualified to do so in the slightest, and seemed to hate the idea of being in a position of power. She earned a lot of respect from Nikolas with that, many would jump at the first prospect of power. Admitting you didn’t know how to do something was a skill more people needed to learn, and she seemed to understand how dangerous an incompetent leader would be.

  Not that he considered her incompetent at all, she just didn’t seem cut out for the role. Thinking about it himself, Nikolas didn’t think he knew enough either, and would probably do the same thing in her shoes. Forming a council of people knowledgeable in different fields was likely the way to go, even if it slowed things down. Nevertheless, there did need to be an authoritative figure of some sort, and even if no one would say it many still considered Teresa to be exactly that.

  She had made friendly contact with aliens, so everyone else did the same. She had gone out in search of her family members, so The Mall began making diplomatic efforts with Arconette while exploring the region around itself in an attempt to find more people. It wasn’t that Teresa told people what to do, she was clearly loath to do that. Instead they simply acknowledged she was handling the apocalypse remarkably well for someone with her background, and they just used her example as a guide.

  During the operation, Nikolas repeatedly was made aware of just how little he knew. He had extremely limited experience, and he hated the idea of giving orders to people knowing it might result in their deaths. Someone had to do it though, and he sure as hell didn’t want Ezio making all the decisions.

  He had an established chain of command for who would be in charge should Nikolas die, he organized the healer logistics to ensure no one would suffer unnecessarily from the environmental hazards, implemented a few strategies with the various parties and even led formation drills before the operation took place. Even with all of that, there were several things he just wasn’t prepared for, and he was more than willing to accept Teresa’s advice.

  Nikolas handled Liam’s death as well as he could. That was his friend, but he would have to grieve later. Now, as Teresa was about to fight the Prime Avatar, he tried to offer whatever assistance he could. No matter how much he or Matteo shot it, there wasn’t a noticeable impact. They didn’t have the resources to use additional skills, leaving Finn as the only one who could really help her.

  Once he went down, Nikolas was fully prepared for things to go wrong. Surprisingly, Teresa managed to keep up with the Avatar. Nikolas had high Intelligence and Wisdom attributes, and his class also gave him some Perception. As a result, he could trace the Avatar’s attacks with his eyes, but just barely. He had no idea how he could possibly help fight that thing, and once Finn began moving again it was clear he felt the same way.

  Teresa had made it this far and had earned Nikolas’ trust plenty of times, so he couldn’t panic now. If they interfered with Teresa’s fight, they would likely die rather quickly. However, the Prime Avatar wasn’t the only threat.

  There were still Avatars pushing towards them on all sides, if they managed to shoot Teresa then all would certainly be lost. The others were still fighting through a horde of those Avatars trying to regroup, leaving Nikolas, Matteo, and Finn to keep her covered.

  They put up a good fight, having several close calls while doing so. It was tough for the three of them to manage, but they kept them back. The three of them selected specific targets and coordinated to take them out, never extending too far from their initial position. There were several close calls, but Nikolas was getting used to that being the norm.

  As rough as it was, it couldn’t have been as bad as fighting the Prime Avatar. They hadn’t seen the quest update and they could still hear Teresa fighting, so she was alive at least. It must have been hell. One wrong move for her would mean dying. That must have been terrifying and horribly stressful, the possibility of death always being milliseconds away.

  There were plenty of moments where Nikolas could have died, but this wasn’t an isolated moment for Teresa. She would have to survive the full 10 minutes where every moment could be a deadly one. Nikolas felt horrible that she was in that position. Didn’t she say she worked at a grocery store or something? If Nikolas felt overwhelmed by everything, then what about her?

  After several minutes of fighting, his party ran out of resources completely. They had no chance of holding back the Avatars any longer, and they had to fall back to Teresa. Nikolas was aware of just how bad the situation was, but if Teresa died, a lot more deaths would follow. He wasn’t sure what else he could do at this point, but he firmed his resolve. Tackling the Prime Avatar might not accomplish much, but if it helped Teresa even a bit then it would be worth it even if that meant his own death.

  What he saw went completely against his expectations. Teresa was laughing as she swung her massive sword down onto the Prime Avatar, hacking it apart and killing it with glee. Nikolas wasn’t sure if he imagined it, but he thought he heard her thank the thing for a fun fight.

  “What the hell Teresa?” He blurted. Was she okay? Coincidentally, reinforcements had arrived, but it looked like the worst of it was over. Randall, her father, asked exactly what was on Nikolas’ mind, though Teresa dismissed it.

  “We’re not done yet, we still got to kill off the last of them.” She said, lifting her sword as she prepared to clean house. Nikolas didn’t get in her way, completely thrown off by this turn of events.

  “We have some injured but the healers are all out of Mana.” Lilith said, getting Nikolas’ attention.

  “Bring them here, this will passively heal people.” Nikolas replied, gesturing towards Teresa’s . It had gotten Finn back on his feet and he had seen her use it before, so he was already familiar with the skill.

  Teresa seemed like she was itching to start fighting again, alarming Nikolas. Once the timer had only a minute left, she took off to kill the remaining Avatars. This alarmed Nikolas greatly, but he certainly wasn’t going to stop her. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he physically couldn’t. They did have to deal with the Avatars still surrounding them, but at the very least she could have waited an extra minute for her resources to get replenished.

  The Prime Avatar was taken care of. He already knew Teresa was a capable fighter, but now he understood how true that really was. He left her to it, going back to managing the logistics of the injured currently being healed. They would have their HP refilled soon anyways, but they might as well make the most of their situation.

  Nikolas now understood just how scrappy Teresa was, but at the same time, he couldn’t help but be concerned. Maybe that laughter was just a stress response, or maybe it was something more worrisome. A lot of people had undergone extreme stress during the operation, perhaps once this was set and done his next job would be to ensure the mental wellbeing of everyone involved.

  For now, it was cleanup time.

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  Teresa took a few moments to look over her two new titles. had been replaced with , and she had also gotten the title .

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  Deliver the finishing blow to an Eidolon (Galactal Tier). +10% all stats.

  

  Kill an E ranked opponent while still in F rank. +3 all stats, slightly reduced rank disparity debuff.

  By this point, all of Teresa’s attributes had hit 118 except for Intelligence, which was at 123. Across all of her titles, she got a 30% boost to her attributes, which affected the flat bonuses as well. She felt great, even if her resource pools were pretty terrible.

  HP: (130/1901)

  Stamina: (38/1901)

  Mana: (60/1901)

  She immediately began focusing on recovering resources again, at least just for a moment. There was a lot on her mind, and adrenaline was still coursing through her. Teresa was antsy, incredibly so. After that, standing still felt wrong, especially considering she had a very sizable boost to her stats.

  Teresa still wouldn’t be able to beat a specialist for specific stats, but she had a total of 949 points spread across her various attributes. That was pretty ridiculous, and she wondered about how that compared to other people. Oh shit, that’s right, the rankings! There were the universe rankings or whatever, she had completely forgotten. She was pretty sure she was going to check that at some point, but it slipped her mind at the time.

  705

  Damn. When she first got out of the Tutorial it had been in the 900s and eventually dropped into the 10,000s. Getting herself back into the top 1,000 felt pretty big, though it was also concerning to think that meant there were a little over 700 people the System ranked higher than her.

  They still weren’t sure exactly how the rankings worked or if there was any benefit to being a high rank, but it was pretty safe to assume it measured how strong someone was. Whether it was based on total attribute points, skill levels and quality, titles, or whatever, Teresa didn’t know. Whoever was ranked above her must have been focused on grinding levels nonstop, though she shouldn’t be too surprised that there were a lot of people like that.

  “Dude?” Preston asked, the rest of her party now present.

  “I’m recovering my resources, there are still a bunch of Avatars around us.” Teresa said. She wouldn’t be able to recover anything significant, but she doubted they could sit still for the last two minutes without getting attacked. Someone had to keep the fight going, and quite a few people were focused on helping out the injured. Ironically, it was the healers with the most injuries, having not many options to defend themselves.

  A couple deep cuts looked pretty nasty, but they had been covered in scabs as the little Mana they had left was used to coagulate blood, one girl had been just grazed by a bullet but it still left a gnarly wound.

  “We’ll just hunker down for a bit then clear them out, but are you doing alright?” Sarah asked.

  “Why is everyone so worried right now?”

  “Are you seriously confused about that?”

  “It’s fine, I killed it didn’t I?” Teresa asked. She could feel them staring at her as they tried to think of what to say, but she kept focused on recovery.

  She managed to recover 14 Mana, 7 Stamina, and 9 HP over the course of about a minute, before deciding the Avatars were getting too close for comfort. Teresa nodded at her friends then ran out from behind cover, her sword in front of her acting as a shield.

  It was hard to use as a shield when holding it by the handle, but she actually thought of the solution earlier. Teresa pressed her palms against the flat of the blade and activated as she ran forward, creating a weak vacuum between her hands and the sword. The suction from the air pressure combined with her forward momentum resulting in her being able to ‘hold’ the blade, keeping her fully protected as bullets ricocheted off it.

  Surprisingly, the Avatars were actually retreating. Teresa couldn’t allow that. Maybe it was a little blood thirsty, maybe even a bit reprehensible by pre-System standards to attack a retreating enemy, but the Avatars had never offered them any reprieve. Why should Teresa? At first, she had attacked earlier than expected to stop them from advancing. Now, she was doing it to stop them from leaving.

  Every last one of them needed to be eradicated.

  As she caught up to the closest Avatar, she grabbed the handle of her sword and cut through the robot, killing it almost instantly. She covered herself with the sword again, using barely any Mana or Stamina to do so. Teresa cut through one Avatar after another, killing them at a record speed.

  It was incredible how much the right tool could help. If she didn’t have the sword, killing these things would be a massive pain in the ass, even with her increased stats. There had always been difficulties dealing enough damage to them, oftentimes damaging their weapons in the process. Cher’s sword was incredibly durable, and it could withstand Teresa swinging it with well over a thousand pounds of force into magically reinforced metal.

  Teresa felt like she could bench press an SUV for reps, and with her sword she didn’t need to worry so much about expending a lot of Stamina and Mana on keeping constantly active.

  They fell in droves. Avatar after Avatar was killed, as Teresa was now fully capable of dealing with them as though they were small fry. Her sword was actually a higher level than she was, which probably helped a lot as well. Maybe she should get next time she leveled up her main class, though she was iffy about it. Why get a skill that improved something she could just learn on her own? She’d talk it over with the others though, each of them had a weapon mastery skill so they would likely have more information about it.

  She was getting a lot of experience from this, and it felt like it was a long time coming. There were still hundreds of Avatars, maybe even a thousand. So long as Teresa kept herself from getting surrounded on all sides, they posed basically no threat to her.

  Her resources were suddenly filled as the timer on the quest ended, bringing her back into top shape. She activated , not because she needed to but because she wanted to kill them faster. Teresa hadn’t been going full throttle yet, needing to conserve her resources, but that was no longer a concern.

  She was faster than a bullet train with active. Her ridiculous movement speed also applied to how fast she could swing her sword, getting two full swings in every second. The issue a lot of Agility specialists encountered was that their minds weren’t as fast as their bodies, limiting the control they could get out of being so ridiculously fast. Both Preston and Lilith could beat Teresa in a straight line foot race, and it wouldn’t even be close. But when it came to running through an army of Avatars, Teresa had them both beat in terms of speed.

  As a result, she was killing about two Avatars per second. If she could keep that pace up, she could singlehandedly wipe them out in under ten minutes. That was incredibly unlikely, once they spread out more she would have a hard time catching all of them.

  Thankfully she wasn’t alone in the effort. The others were all fighting now that their resources were replenished, though they left a large section to Teresa. She certainly wasn’t complaining, she preferred it that way. At this rate it took less than a minute per level up. If each Avatar was worth only 1% of experience, it would take 50 seconds for her to gain a full level. Since so many Avatars were in the 80s and 90s now, she was certainly reaping the benefits.

  She doubted she would get an opportunity to farm experience this fast for a while. Monster Portals didn’t have enough numbers to keep up with this. Teresa’s actually turned into mid-fight, a reward for having killed a total of 10,000 beings. Several hundred of those kills were from the Avatars, so she didn’t feel very bad about it.

  Several Avatars had already braved the oil fire and made their way across, only for a good portion of them to be met by either the reserve forces or a horde of monsters. Teresa knew that there simply was no way for them to kill all of them in one fell swoop, but she had .

  Activating the skill, she analyzed the golden threads that appeared around her. After pulling on a few, she came to the conclusion that the ones that led to Avatars were generally very dense. According to the running theory, thread density was associated with the monster’s level, the luminosity was associated with the number of similar monsters near it, and the tension was associated with how close they already were. Teresa was just glad the skill worked on the Avatars, she wasn’t sure if they would count as monsters or not.

  A few minutes of this passed, and Teresa felt pretty confident there weren’t any Avatars on the compound remaining. However, revealed several dense threads, showing there were still plenty of Avatars out there. She chose a bright, dense thread and tugged on it, gaining a sense of where a large group of Avatars were.

  She took a deep breath, activated to snuff out a section of the oil fire, and ran across. Teresa considered meeting with the others, but there were still Avatars out there, and the longer they waited to kill them off the harder it would be to do so. It hurt like hell and did some damage to her HP, but she had plenty of that to spare now.

  This whole time, all she needed was the right tool for the job. Now that she had it, she was going to systematically hunt down as many Avatars as she could. There really was no way she could get them all, but the experience made it incredibly rewarding. Once everyone started getting better weapons and equipment, she was sure The Mall would be one hell of a force.

  She spotted the group of Avatars that she was tracking and grinned, catching up to them with . Using to help hold the sword as though it were a shield, Teresa charged into another one sided battle.