From his vantage point in the branches a hundred feet above the encampment, Veil watched as Matt slaughtered his way through an entire contingent of Walkers with a wry smile on his face.
The people of this era were so weak it was almost funny to watch them wander around boasting about how strong they were, but among them Matt stood out.
The Queen of Time has issued a quest.
Test The Eversoul and push him to his limits.
Reward: Location of your Lady Iris.
The Queen of Time looks at you with a mocking expression.
Veil prided himself on staying calm under pressure, having pushed through terrifying times despite starting out weaker than most of his fellow followers, but this System threatened to annoy even him.
While he never bought into all the religious aspects of following Lady Iris, she'd saved him when he was a child, a weak and easy target under the best circumstances. He might never utter a prayer in her name, but Iris had earned his respect and loyalty, so seeing her safety held hostage was upsetting, to say the least.
Veil knew Iris was in trouble of some kind, if for no other reason than that it seemed to follow her wherever she went. She'd claimed a plot of land for her followers and the Matriarchs had taken that personally for some reason; they should have been honored that a goddess was enthralled with the land they'd cared for, not angry she'd taken what was rightfully hers.
"Where is my home, System," he asked aloud, certain that he'd get a response.
One came, but not from the System.
"Both of our homes are being kept under lock and key by the Temple of the Gods, Veil."
Tanya had snuck up on him, somehow and, despite her fourth decapitation by this point, continued to pester him.
He casually gestured at her neck, disrupting the space around it in another attempt to put her in the ground, but this time she moved to the side with little effort or even visible concern.
"You know, you can keep trying to kill me, which I feel I've proven is a waste of both our times…or you can help me get into the temple and free our goddesses," she said with a mildly annoyed edge to her voice.
Leaning back and resting on a patch of space he'd hardened with his mana, he asked, "And why would I help you, when I can get there on my own?"
"Do you know where it is?"
Looking at the System screen with the quest on it, he said, "I think I can find my way there."
Tanya walked and sat on the ground in front of him, her green eyes glowing gently beneath her now filthy blonde hair and dirty face and said, "You got the quest too, huh."
His eyes narrowed as he observed the little nuisance, unsure of what to do.
Clearly this "Queen of Time" placed a higher priority on Matt than she did either his or Tanya's goddesses, but it wasn't entirely clear why that might be. That didn't overly surprise him, considering the massive tangled mess of a soul the kid was carting around, but still, was it really comparable to the safety of not one, but two goddesses?
The ability to peer into souls was impressively rare, even when the Twin Goddesses were ruling openly and had massive populations to their names. That Veil had the affinity for souls and spatial magic was a miracle he was sure was unprecedented, but the universe is large after all.
Where Matt's soul was shockingly massive and seemed to be stretched in a billion different directions, Tanya's soul was disappointingly small and dim, clear indications that she'd been cut off from the Reincarnation Cycle all living beings were bound to.
Magic flickered at his fingertips for a brief moment while he considered trying to kill the little peaceling again, but decided against it as he said, "Ok, so we're supposed to stress test him, right?"
She nodded and asked, "Any idea on how to do that? My best one was to lead him to where you were, and look how that turned out."
Veil closed his eyes in thought before he said, "Ok, so first things first, we need to avoid anyone else who follows Iris since I'm not on the best of terms with them at the moment."
She rolled her eyes and made an "obviously" gesture.
Tapping away at her System screen, she motioned for a screen to be visible for him and said, "Looks like there are a number of Walker camps just like this one, think that's a good enough test?"
Veil shook his head and said, "I don't think that'll count. He handled these guys a little too easily to justify any more of them to be any kind of actual threat."
In the time the three of them had traveled together, Matt had kept things pretty close to the vest, clearly not trusting them with anything important.
Another thing about Matt that Veil actually respected.
Its natural for people to congregate around the powerful, but despite being as strong as he was, Matt didn't have any interest in ingratiating himself with either of them.
In all honesty, Veil really did like Matt, both for who he was and for his clear taste for justice and the betterment of his fellow man. That was one of the few true facts about himself that he had shared, that he'd become a Walker and struggled to do so because he genuinely wanted to make things better.
All of this, coupled with the recent change to his ability to level up, unfortunately coincided with the temporary exile of mundane citizens to the Tutorial Towers, which left him somewhat adrift for the moment. The pursuit of strength can only be taken so far with no clear challenges, and right now there were very few Gates at risk of crashing and even fewer actually innocent people left in the world.
The Bureau was big on its most powerful members being given freedom, and while Veil doubted that Matt met that criteria to any meaningful degree, he was obviously special and thus received special treatment.
While Matt had been tight lipped about his own secrets, he'd held no such compunction about the state of the world.
Corrupt Guilds, new Guilds, the Crimson Affliction, True Gates, the System update, hell the list seemed to go on forever, though the Crimson Affliction did manage to catch Veil's attention.
There was almost no information about the illness, but it triggered a vague memory in his mind, something that felt important but just wouldn't come out clear enough to do anything with.
He did remember Lady Iris telling stories about red eyed monsters that couldn't be stopped, but it rang hollow in the moment.
Certainly with time the information would return, but for now he'd have to settle for just keeping it in the back of his mind.
Before he could pick his conversation with Tanya back up, he heard the most peculiar sound rapidly approaching, like a pebble dropping into a puddle of water.
Within seconds, Matt flew up from the edge of the branch platform the two of them had been sitting on and landed totally silently next to them with fury in his eyes.
Oh right.
Veil had warned the men about his imminent attack.
For fun.
Veil had been quite bored with wandering through the woods and when a chance for some excitement cropped up, he took it and did not regret it.
"Veil. What the hell was that?"
He shrugged and said, "It all worked out didn't it? Don't sweat it man."
Maybe he could have said more about the situation, but considering that he was going to have find ways to make things even worse for his new friend, he didn't want to lay it on too thick.
Several hours later, Matt was grumbling to himself while he walked, with Tanya and Veil in tow, further into the woods.
Tanya had spent the better part of forty minutes babbling about a quest while Veil was trying to avoid looking at her which was in and of itself a sign of his immense willpower. Whatever the two of them were planning, it was surely going to be irritating to deal with and Matt's patience was molecule thin by this point.
The only thing stopping him from just abandoning them or attacking them was the simple fact that even if he could beat Tanya, a tough consideration on its own, he was positive that Veil wouldn't even need to breathe too hard to kill him.
Trying his hardest to ignore the pair, Matt used his new skill to leap from tree to tree as high as he could get before the branches got too tightly intertwined to pass through.
His new class, Stream Skipper, had provided him with a couple of skills and a solid reminder of why so many Walkers went out of their ways to acquire a class.
Classes were fairly well understood by this point, as well as their strengths and weaknesses.
The mechanism itself wasn't clear, but upon achieving specific criteria anyone would receive a class based on those criteria.
Kill a thousand things? Warrior.
Learn a dozen spells? Mage.
The list went on and on and by now the only thing that wasn't documented was the sheer amount of classes, as it seemed that almost any form of class one could imagine was possible, including some that nobody did, like the painter who'd gained the ability to imbue his paintbrush and supplies with mana to create attacks and cast spells.
Resting on a branch he found stable enough, he heard his unwanted companions land on a branch nearby as he flicked open his System to check his class skills.
Stream Skipper [Passive]
A single additional step may be taken.
Stream Cutter [Passive]
The stream will part for your blade.
The two skills were simultaneously informative and surprisingly vague, but Matt felt like he could intuitively understand what they did. It was a touch frustrating that he didn't have any active skills or spells, especially considering that the mana cost of Concussive Force had tripled, presumably since the skill went against the tenets of his class.
That was his guess at least, since the description and skills seemed to emphasize precise motion and accuracy. Generally most classes gave a fair amount of natural understanding once you received one, which was useful since the general consensus was that even if two people had the same class, it would function in ways that were catered to the person who had it.
There were even class evolutions that pushed them past the normal boundaries they usually had and further emphasized the traits of the Walker, but most Guilds worked hard to keep those to a minimum. Evolved classes generally tended to be fairly powerful and the Walker usually became powerful enough to assert themselves, and most Guilds had their general population's wellbeing far from the forefront of their minds.
Honestly, the vast majority of Guilds seemingly viewed everyone outside of their elite teams and leadership as trash, or pawns at best. It was well beyond Matt's generation to know when the change happened, but it probably hadn't been long after the System's integration since the strongest Guilds had been long established before his parents were old enough to have him.
Congratulations to the first person to survive the Tutorial.
Challenge towers have been erected around the world.
The permanent opening of True Gates will be accelerated.
Prepare yourselves and prove your ability to survive.
The System message came as a complete surprise and Matt wasn't sure how to react. Challenge towers seemed interesting, but it being paired with more World Gates couldn't be a good thing since apparently the universe ran rampant with powerful empires interested in expanding as much as possible.
Deciding to look into everything later, Matt looked back and saw that the two following him were thoroughly distracted by some argument and he, as silently as possible, held onto the branch and let go so he was hanging upside down. Double checking to make sure they were still distracted, he dropped down and activated Stream Skipper as he fell, kicking silently off a leaf and to a branch some distance away.
The space around the leaf rippled like he'd dropped a pebble in a pond as he made contact with it, creating a water droplet sound barely loud enough to register against the ambient noise.
He began to leap from tree to tree, using leaves, branches, and even a puddle of dew to create as much distance as possible, periodically checking to make sure he wasn't followed.
After twenty minutes, and over a hundred miles traveled, he reached the edge of the forest and found himself at a town that looked to have been recently built.
It didn't surprise him that it was new since it was a pretty decent assumption that the expansion of the world hadn't just created new landmass, but the abrupt and rapidly intensifying evolution of the wildlife would destroy plenty of cities.
Given the System's revitalized emphasis on growth and power, it even made sense to see settlements built around Gates or areas with high monster density. Walkers may generally be a…less than pleasant group overall, but if there was one thing many of them focused on, it was their own growth.
Considering the overall low level of most of them, it was easy to overlook but most Walkers were just too weak to progress. Improvement was the realm of the truly dedicated and, usually, few blessed with good families or connections who were able to focus entirely on leveling and growing.
In his long time unable to do so, Matt had spent an inordinate amount of time learning about Walker society and tendencies, and in his musings had come across a series of disconnected articles by non-Walker researchers trying to piece together an explanation for some of the strange happenings that surrounded them.
One such thing that caught his eye was that despite the efforts of the Guilds, there was a surprisingly high percentage of people who simply couldn't be constrained and became Walkers against all odds. Many of these people started out trying to help their families or fighting for one grand cause or another, something he could identify with himself.
The point of the various studies that he'd found was that there seemed to be a point where those intentions abruptly ended and the general negative Walker tendencies started manifesting.
Fixations on power, consolidating it and hoarding it among themselves while they ignored their mundane counterparts were just the beginning of these habits, and frequently the precursor to far worse behavior.
The situation in the encampment wasn't exactly common, but regular enough that it hadn't entirely surprised him to find how bad it was. The expansion of the world had created vast swathes of land for Walkers inclined to indulge those kinds of desires and ill intent to hide.
Now that it was issuing quests and missions, the System ignoring something like that was disappointing, but it had never emphasized any kind of predilection toward morality, only the continued focus on power and growth.
He dropped from the trees of the forest and began walking along a grassy hill that overlooked the town he'd saw, wanting to observe its state before entering.
A Gate pulsed in the center of the town, which had been constructed in an expanding circle or rings around it, with defensive structures at the innermost ring and housing further out.
A few hundred people seemed to be wandering the town, going about their lives mostly normal, but signs of Walker society still showed through.
Shops focused on gear and weapons alongside alchemy and enchanting services vibrantly advertised kept his expectations within reason.
As far as what he'd find there beyond the normal hustle and bustle of a Walker run area, he wasn't sure but at least there didn't seem to be any slaves or obviously noticeable classism going on.
The sun was slowly dipping down below the horizon before he made his choice and began walking, intent on finding some place to sleep before it got too late.
His expedition to get stronger had been somewhat waylaid by the encampment fiasco, but his focus hadn't wavered. The Gate was clearly pulsing with power, and strong enough that the Walkers had built themselves around it with the intent to generate wealth and possibly even try to level themselves.
Matt wasn't exactly flush with credits, but he was positive he could come to some sort of agreement to access it since new Walkers seemed to generate more wealth inside Gates.
It was a strange thing that hadn't really been questioned since the general assumption for a long time was that the System generated Gates and controlled the conditions within, but that theory didn't hold much water now that it kept happening when the Gates led to real worlds.
After several hours of travel, apparently Matt's eyesight was keener than he'd thought, he arrived at the front gate and paid for entry and got directed to an inn.
An inn.
He wasn't sure he'd heard the guards correctly, but apparently the era of motels and hotels was coming to an end, though he didn't know if the trend would continue when billions of people came flooding back to Earth, many looking for places to stay in the wake of their homes being destroyed.
The gravity of humanity's situation struck him especially hard as he paid the innkeeper for a room and settled down for the night.
What would that return look like?
Humanity had always adapted quickly, but what kind of trials had the Tutorial put them through? Would they emerge as powerful warriors capable of pushing the growing tide of monsters and would-be conquerors, or remain weak in the face of a world that had changed so substantially it could barely be considered their original home?
The lights in his room flickered gently as it got darker and he slowly drifted off to sleep, the weight of the world weighing him down more than he'd thought it would.
Ultimately, he was one person who could only do one person's worth of work, even if the meaning of that had changed in scale. Every person he saved, every Gate he explored, every level he gained pushed himself and humanity forward, even if only a tiny percentage.
The System had made it abundantly clear that the time for individual growth was coming to an end.
It would be up to humanity as a whole to save themselves from all of their evolving trials and tribulations.
Matt fell asleep proud to know that he was doing his part, small as it was.
Four thick and bushy silver tails flowed languidly behind the woman in front of Phoebe, moonlight shining off of her mask.
Sighing in annoyance, she looked back at the rubble of her family's home with frustration bubbling in her chest. Had they really needed to come and try to collect before she'd even properly arrived?
The Mercenary Guild had, apparently, been owed a significant debt by her parents before they died in the Tutorial and they considered her to have inherited it in their absence.
Twenty years had passed for Phoebe, even though it had only been a few months for the world outside. How this had happened, Phoebe didn't know and didn't care since it had given her the proper opportunity to grow more than she'd been told would normally be possible otherwise.
She'd been five when the teleportation happened, and more than half of her group had died within the first year.
Monsters, trials, quests, each other.
The myriad methods employed by the System had created a veritable horde of elites, and Phoebe was proud to say she shined brightly among them. There would be more making the transition back to Earth soon, but she'd been sent ahead to lay the groundwork for what was to come.
The Walkers and the Guilds they'd founded had much to pay for, and she figured it wasn't a problem for her to…wipe her debt clean before starting in earnest.
Within the confines of the Tutorial, the System had granted the vast numbers of humanity access to information that could only be speculated about among Walker society. It was an attempt to even the playing field, some said, but general information didn't really matter in the face of so much struggle.
Her boss's plan, however, was built on this kind of information and it was through the efforts of leveraging it that he'd managed to build the foundations of his organization.
Despite the loss of his family, Hector had held kindness in his heart for those who followed him, and perhaps because of that same loss, he held ruthless fury for those who stood against him.
There had been calls for democracy, demands for the hallmarks of civilized society that had clearly been shaken to its core by the abrupt change in a world they'd never realized was so far out of their control.
That changed with the emergence of the first warlords who conquered swathes of land, ruling with an iron fist now that they'd had a taste of real power.
Surprisingly, there was Guild presence even there, working to keep people weak within their spheres of influence, but they soon found themselves dead or in hiding as the no longer mundane populations grew stronger.
Inari, as she called herself, had tracked Phoebe down with a speed that almost made her paranoid, but recollection of capabilities of the Kitsune clans kept her from attacking the taciturn woman.
"Are you sure about this, Phoebe," she asked, her soft and airy voice ringing loudly in the relative silence.
"Even if I wasn't, they came to me. I can't do my job if I have to worry about random attacks every time I make a move, and you know as well as I do that it won't be this peaceful for long."
Phoebe's voice, much like herself, was high and energetic despite the iron determination that colored it.
Four corpses littered the rubble, sentries who'd stayed behind in case she came home, as she had.
It was the first thing she'd done, with the second being to remove these men from the premises permanently.
Their bodies had been pulverized, burned, frozen, and dimly glowed in the increasing darkness.
Inari stepped forward and moved them to her inventory with the intent to discuss their Guild's actions with her employer. It was something the two of them had discussed, but stuff like this didn't really happen in the Tutorial, where bodies were scattered into dust after several minutes.
Disappearing corpses had caused absolute mayhem when spies and low level wars broke out among the population, but it served the purpose of creating adequate distrust among different groups. After all, how can you trust the person beside you if your friend disappeared the day before and nobody was around to explain how?
Inari had explained the expansion of Earth and offered transport to both the Mercenary Guild and then to New York City, which was supposedly being renamed by the Guilds, in exchange for the bodies.
The travel would take weeks, if not months, without some form of expeditious locomotion and Phoebe simply didn't have that kind of time right now.
Releasing a final sigh and touching her fingers to her lips as she blew a kiss to the home she barely remembered, she dispelled the giant mallet she used as a weapon and spell focus. It dissipated into motes of pastel pink and blue light alongside the highly frilled dress she wore in combat, transferring into her soul as she turned and nodded to Inari.
The time to mourn what had been lost and what could have been had come and, in a single second, passed.
The time to excise the rot of the old world was coming, and it was her job to set the scene.
Walking to the car that Inari had parked on the street nearby, Phoebe steeled her heart for what was to come.
The integration of the System had birthed Gate Walkers, incredibly powerful people drowning in wealth that eclipsed anything of the old world, and they had fancied themselves gods.
A sentiment that made her blood boil as she remembered the history lessons she'd attended in the Tutorial.
It was high time the old powers were given a stark reminder of the truth.
There were no gods.