"Why the hell does Mathew have a skill?" Thomas asked angrily after a very prolonged silence. The drones had been gone for around twenty minutes now, this being the first someone had spoken in a while. Even refreshing <Facilitated Restoration> again had been done in silence, though the party was not prepared to move by any means yet.

"In case something happened it was better that he wasn't level 0." Sarah explained, spreading her arms out to refer to their current situation. "Taking him out in the wild without any actual experience is just asking for something to go wrong."

"So you go behind my back and take my kid out to kill monsters?"

"Yeah, exactly. I'm sorry, I'm not going to beat around the bush but you can see how it paid off."

"You put his life at risk every damn time you took him out! He's 14! What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking the world is full of monsters that would gladly kill him if given the chance, he should be prepared!"

"Dad, really, it's not that-" Mathew started, but Thomas cut him off.

"He's a child! How can you not see that!" He yelled, frustrated. Thomas looked around the cave, furious. "How am I the ridiculous one here? Do you even understand the serious implications of this? You are effectively making him a weapon, he'll be a teenager that's always considered armed! You might as well give a kid a gun and let him keep it for life!"

"With what's going on, he could use a gun! We all could!"

"This is going to impact the rest of his life, and there's no taking it back! Talking to other people, making friends, that's all been fundamentally changed!"

"I don't see what the problem with that is, if one of my childhood friends got superpowers I'd think that it's cool." Sarah countered.

"Maybe at first, but what about once people start seeing what a skill can really do? What about when someone realises 'huh, this kid is a little too strong' and decides they don't want my son around other people his age in case he accidentally hurts them? I don't want people to be scared of my son, I want him to grow up able to make friends his own age without scaring the shit out of their parents. Think long term, would you want an unpowered child in the same classroom as a kid who can effectively summon grenades from thin air? Think about the friendships he does get the chance to make, there will always be a power dynamic that otherwise wouldn't exist!"

"With how society is going, I doubt that Mathew will be the only kid to have fought monsters." Sarah retorted. "His social life will be fine, and we were always careful with hunting."

"How could you be careful, Teresa is the one with <Identify>! Every fight you took was a gamble with my son's life that I am not going to ignore!"

"I'd watch the monsters myself for a while, see how they behave. I'd even take most of them out so Mathew wouldn't get swarmed. On top of all of that, all of his skills require a crossbow in the first place so he's not going to be some constant threat to society or something. If you're so concerned for his safety then you could have left him at The Mall where he probably wouldn't need to level up at all!"

"If I left him there then he'd be on his own, I want to make sure he's safe myself!"

"And how exactly are you doing that, you won't fight! Your kid is a higher level than you!"

"Hey now, maybe we should take it a step back." Jake said, trying to defuse the situation. Thomas shook his head, scowling.

"I need to think about things." He said, turning his back and sitting down. Teresa herself remained silent, she was too conflicted about this. Yes, Mathew and Thomas really needed to gain some levels if they wanted to actually be safe, but the way it all went down didn't sit right either. Anything involving adults and kids was a sore spot for Teresa, she had known someone in high school who had a situation with a teacher and there wasn't exactly a happy ending to it.

If Teresa said anything to either side of the argument, it certainly wouldn't be nice. Instead, she decided to shut up before she said something she'd regret. It's not like it was her own trauma anyways, sure she lost a friend but Teresa wasn't the victim in that story so really she shouldn't make it about her. Plus that was all way after she started struggling with her mental health, so it didn't really count.

The cave fell into an awkward silence again, if anyone were to speak everybody would hear it. Teresa noted that her Restoration Magic was indeed more effective against the radiation, and she herself didn't even really need to keep her healing spell active on herself to completely resist the toxic environment. That would probably change as they got deeper into the territory, but for the most part everything seemed okay.

Time ticked by as everyone replenished their resources. Teresa had never felt her <Totem Of Life> get destroyed, and a glance outside of the cave revealed it was still standing not too far in the distance.

"Is it just me or is the radiation getting worse?" Mathew asked out of the blue.

"It definitely is, I can feel it." Sarah answered. "I can also hear something nearby, we should go quiet again."

On cue, Teresa began to hear the same sounds. It was pretty easy to assume the sounds belonged to various robots, likely a few drones and possibly even a few land based robots. She peeked outside once again to see what was going on.

A small crew of about 9 robots were now surrounding Teresa's <Totem Of Life>. 6 of them were armed, while 3 of them seemed to be equipped with various sensors and instruments that didn't look useful in combat. A quick <Identify> revealed the armed robots were in the low 70s while the unarmed were each level 20.

2 of the unarmed and 4 of the weaponized robots were land based, sporting tank tracks over strange wheels. Some of them were rubber, some were metal, some were materials Teresa couldn't figure out. She had never tried using <Appraise> on something like this before, but attempting to do so yielded no results.

This wasn't a fight they would win. Teresa was pretty close to recovered by now, but even then the robots were better armed and higher leveled. Fighting them would be pointless and suicidal-

The cave lit up for a moment as a blindingly bright light illuminated everything nearby. A scorching ocean of flames shot out across the landscape at a speed Teresa could never manage towards the robots. Immediately they were all engulfed, and <Totem Of Life> was subsequently destroyed.

A soundwave shot out over the cave, originating on the surface from wherever those flames came from. To Teresa's absolute horror, some of the armed robots began to make their way out of the fire still functional. 3 of the 4 land based combat robots had survived with minimal damage, despite having taken the mother of all fire spells head on. Were they resistant to fire or something? <Embers> would have a hard time generating that sort of heat at all, either the robots had a specific resistance or an insane Fortitude stat.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Teresa heard a gunshot, and a robot's eye camera was obliterated from what Teresa thought was a sniper round. Hang on, shouldn't she have heard the gunshot after the bullet landed, or had the speed of sound changed? Also, this meant something other than the robots had guns as well.

The robots began to return fire, shooting several rounds per second at a target Teresa could not see. The ground began to rumble, and she got to see what they were shooting at.

A large man was charging towards the robots with a shield in front of him, a translucent wall branching out from either side of his shield. His shield and skill blocked all of the gunfire, freeing up an opportunity for a woman following closely behind him.

The woman carried a mace with her, and as soon as she was within reach she slammed the mace down on a robot from behind the shield. It seemed attacks were able to go through the shield in only one direction, as it did nothing to stop the woman's mace from crushing the frame of a robot into a pancake. A shockwave echoed out from the sheer force of the weapon striking a metal opponent, which was followed by more gunshots targeted at the robots.

The shooter was a marksman, taking out multiple sensors on the metal foes causing them to fight blind. The lady with the mace and the burly shield-bearer finished off the remaining two robots together, but the fight wasn't over. Teresa could hear more robots approaching already, despite the fight having just begun seconds ago.

Electricity crackled as approaching drones were shot out of the sky by the unknown marksman, and a second wave of flames soon covered another area in endless fire. Robots were being destroyed left and right, though Teresa could audibly hear some swearing as robots shot at someone nearby.

Footsteps rapidly approached their position, and soon two men and a woman entered the cave to take cover. They were all decked out in various pieces of gear, so much gear that Teresa almost immediately considered attacking. The multiversal intruders didn't have Tutorial gear either, but she spotted healer robes on the woman underneath a layer of hide armor.

It was easy to spot that this was the party's ranger, healer, and mage. The ranger had a scoped rifle in his hands, the mage had more rings on his hands than fingers, and the healer had a staff in hand that was way too fancy to be the Mana recharging staff granted in the Tutorial.

"I've got one more of those in me, but I'd prefer not-" The mage started, but the man with the rifle interrupted him.

"Get behind me! There's people in here!" He yelled, running forward with his rifle raised to position himself between his two companions and Teresa's party.

"Yo hey hey hey, we come in peace dude!" Preston stammered, raising his hands.

"Holy shit, one of them looks pretty young, what the hell are you people doing here?" The ranger asked, keeping his rifle raised. Teresa saw in the background that their tank and light warrior were retreating to the same cave, soon there would be a lot of company.

"What the hell are you guys doing? Those robots are all higher than level 70!" Teresa exclaimed, trying to place herself between the rifle and the rest of her party members. Jake followed suit, if anyone could survive a gunshot it would be one of them.

"Put the gun down, you're gonna freak them out." The healer said, shaking her head. "They're probably just civilians, look at them."

"I don't know, this one here is a little strong for a civilian don't you think?" The ranger asked, nodding towards Teresa. "Level 49 isn't something to scoff at."

Huh, so the ranger had <Identify>. That's not too surprising, considering how strong they were it would make sense that they would get past at least the first stage of the Tutorial.

"You're right, but some of them haven't even hit level 10 yet." The healer countered. "This is a civilian group if I've ever seen one."

"Enough." The mage said, placing his hand on the ranger's shoulder. He turned to look at Teresa, locking eye contact. "More are on their way, this was too good of an opportunity to pass up. If we don't trim their numbers now, they'll get out of control. We're going to take this group out, then we're gonna run for it. We can go our separate ways then, but if you head south you'll find the city of Arconette. I recommend you head there."

"What the hell is going on in here?" A female voice asked as two more people entered the cave. It was starting to get crowded. "Why are there people in the middle of the Contaminated Zone?"

"Who are you people?" Teresa asked, activating <Identify> to get a better feel for the people she was suddenly sharing a cave with. Her voice caught in her throat as the skill revealed their levels.

Not a single one of them was below level 70.

That much should have been obvious from the way they were handling the robots, but to see that all of them were stronger than any human Teresa had seen yet was honestly kind of terrifying.

"We'll ask the questions." The ranger responded, still suspicious. "What are you doing here?"

Teresa hesitated, unsure if she should answer the question. If she told them about Thomas' <Familial Duty>, would that accidentally reveal any vital information? It might reveal they have family nearby, that could possibly be used against them-

"We're looking for my son Gabriel, he's 16. You said a city is south of here? How far? That's the same direction as my son." Thomas answered.

"I take it you have <Familial Duty> too?" The mage asked, revealing some information of his own. He heavily implied that he also had <Familial Duty>, though Teresa wasn't sure if that information would be useful to her.

"Yeah, that's why we're here. We came from-"

"We found each other after the Tutorial and figured if someone leveled the skill enough they might be able to find other people's families, so that's all we've been focused on." Teresa interrupted, trying to stop Thomas from giving too much information to the mysterious strangers. While they had no reason to assume there were hostile intentions, it couldn't hurt to be safe.

"How old are you, kid?" The ranger asked, nodding to Mathew.

"I'm…" Mathew hesitated, glancing at Teresa. "16."

Thomas gave his son a confused look, but Teresa was internally relieved that Mathew had caught on. Anyone under the age of 16 was sent to a settlement, so if he told them he was actually 14 then these people would know they came from another settlement.

"Bullshit, you don't look 16."

"Relax Mordecai, kids these days are always looking younger, kind of freaks me out." The mage said dismissively. He looked back to Teresa again. "My name is Ezio, I run Arconette. I'm sure you know more than you're letting on, but you're in the middle of an active warzone. You should not be here, as soon as it's clear you need to run for it. Elaina, you should give them some buffs to make sure they don't die from the radiation."

"Got it. I'm going to give you guys something called <Facilitated Restoration>, it'll keep you alive so don't freak out on me." Elaina, their healer explained. Teresa was hesitant to tell her that they already had buffs active but figured this was a good opportunity to get a taste of what their healer was capable of.

A green ball of flame shot out into everyone in the party while their tank and light warrior stood by the entrance of the cave, ready for battle. As soon as Elaina hit her with <Facilitated Restoration> Teresa began to compare their spells. Elaina's spell was scrubbing radiation far faster than what Teresa was capable of, but it seemed rather lacking in other aspects. Teresa bit the inside of her cheek just enough to create a tiny wound, and found that the actual healing aspect of Elaina's spell was rather lackluster.

"Get ready Elaina, those buffs are gonna come in handy real soon." The light warrior with the mace said as the robots drew closer to the cave. Elaina nodded, holding her staff up while standing in the backlines.

"You mind if I fight alongside you?" Teresa asked. "An opportunity to get experience like this doesn't come very often."

Their tank snorted, and Mordecai, their ranger, frowned.

"Sure, but don't get in our way." Ezio replied. "We won't go out of our way to save you if you're putting yourself in danger. We don't really need the heals, but if you have any other buffs that won't override Elaina's then feel free to use them."

Teresa looked down at her healer robes, immediately understanding their initial assumptions. She smirked as a battle plan began forming in her mind.

"Don't worry, I won't mess with her healing one bit."

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