The Master of the Tutorial is Overpowered in a New World

The line of pain stood off in the distance, yet he saw it in perfect clarity. He stood beyond what those who inflicted pain could see, looking for the point that caused the least pain. When he attacked those points, it inflicted the greatest of pains.

Those who caused pain stood on barriers of stone, walls he had once heard them called. It was easier to see with his own eyes why the line of pain remained in place. His monsters would charge at the line, only to be pelted by little sticks thrown by the line. They rained down and inflicted much pain before his monsters even reached the walls. Those that made it to the walls met all sorts of other obstacles. Long pointy sticks would reach out and jab at his monsters. Hot substances would be poured over the walls and burn his monsters. Through all these other obstacles was the barrage of magics that caused pain in so many ways. He would make it stop.

He stepped forward into the open fields that stretched between where he had been and the walls. As he moved forward, he ordered his monsters back. They must not be subjected to the pain if he was to focus. With each step, he drew closer. In the distance he could hear them shouting.

“That one looks tough. Prepare the spears and ready another pot of pitch! Archers ready! Mages ready! Fire”

A wave of the little sticks and magic came for him. For him! He cocked his head as they all came closer and closer. The sticks bounced harmlessly off him. He had grown so strong after all. The magics impacted and caused some pain, but it went away just as fast.

“That’s impossible! Fire again!”

It happened again. This time he grabbed one of the magics. He examined it from every direction, twisting it around in his hands. It was a curious thing, something he could do. Dropping it, he proceeded to cast that magic a hundred times before releasing them all at the walls.

“Goddess help us.”

The walls exploded with fire, sending those that caused pain flying in all directions. Others who survived the initial impacts were running around in vain, panicked attempts to extinguish the flames that engulfed them. Huge chunks of the walls had been blown away, scattering their debris for considerable distances and leaving more of those either dead or in pain. Their screams of pain excited him.

He continued forwards, stepping through one of the holes in the wall he had created with the magic. Inside the walls, the screams were even more succulent. Many would suffer great pain here, and it would feed his mind in a way that the pain of his monsters never could. Yes, it would be a feast.

He spotted one of those who caused pain staggering away from him. It was being quite rude. He stepped forward with such speed that he appeared to teleport, now standing before that rude one. With a single hand he lifted the rude one up by its throat. How did ‘words’ go again? Ah, yes.

“You fear me,” he rasped.

He could see in the eyes of the rude one that the pain he inflicted was great.

“Yes. I see it. It is good. I give you words. You tell them to others. Yes?”

It was unlike him to release one who caused pain. The idea had just come to him though that he could cause more pain when those who caused pain knew that he was coming, and that they could do nothing to stop it.

“I am Demon Lord. I come to cause pain.”

Tess was once again on the move. She had departed shortly after setting Hannah up with a hefty amount of coin to survive off of for several years while caring for Favi and Gwen. It had been hard to leave, but she had to head for the front line against the demon lord and his monsters. She was accompanying this caravan for that reason, as it was carrying supplies to the front.

She had taken the time to ask those she was traveling with about the front. Shortly after the demon lord was first spotted, construction had begun on a great series of interconnected walls. They stretched across half the continent, though the fighting had so far been focused in only a handful of sections. The wall was a marvel of engineering due to how fast it had gone up. Tess suspected that earth mages played a bigger role than they seemed to get credit for in the stories about the wall’s construction.

Upon first seeing the wall, she understood why it had not been breached. In total, it was over ninety meters tall. There were six levels of defenses, each approximately every fifteen meters up the wall. The five lower layers were roughly the same, consisting of arrow slits and spear slits to shoot and stab through. The top of the wall also boasted ballista emplacements and sites to prepare enormous cauldrons of water or pitch with heat to burn away the flesh of the monsters. Every kilometer there was a massive tower, which rose at least another twenty or more meters above the rest of the wall. These towers served as command posts and supply stashes for the sections to either side of them.

It was in the settlement at one of these towers where Tess parted from the caravan. For the moment, she desired to keep her head low so as not to draw attention to herself. This was a military base, essentially, and being a wanted person in the empire things would likely not go well for her if people found out about her here. Not that they would be a threat to her at this point, but she did not want to harm those protecting the entire world.

“Excuse me? Which way is the nearest section with active fighting?” she asked a random passerby.

The boy was likely some sort of runner here. He looked at Tess, sizing her up by her gear.

“You an adventurer, lady?”

“Yes. I was hoping to join the effort right away, but I’ve never come to the wall before.”

“It’s that way,” the boy said, pointing off to the distant left, “They’re always fighting out on the plains. You can take the wall road, it’s only a silver.”

“The wall road?”

“It runs through the middle of the wall. Connects one end to the other.”

“I didn’t know about it.”

“Most don’t. Gotta go lady.”

The boy sprinted off, clearly running behind whatever task he was on. It seemed the next leg of her journey was through the wall. Fortunately, it was easy to find. She even slipped a full gold coin in for the toll.

The journey was long, but Tess opted to use the speed she had at her disposal. The wall road was a bland tunnel anyway, so she missed nothing by speeding through. The first tower stop that had no guards present was enough of a warning to her that something was wrong. The second and third showed no signs of life either. The following tower, she found scores of wounded soldiers and adventurers being treated as best as possible by emergency teams of civilians.

“What happened?” she asked to nobody in particular.

“There was a huge attack. The biggest we’ve seen in a long time,” coughed out a soldier.

Tess knelt next to him and began channeling healing magic into him. It worked fast as she saw the pain leave his expression.

“We got rotated out quickly once we started getting hit. We were the lucky ones only lightly wounded.”

Tess glanced at the array of other people. If these were those that had only been ‘lightly wounded,’ she shuddered at the prospect of what awaited her closer to the fight.

“Then there was the rumbling sound. I’ve never heard anything like it. It even shook the walls here.”

Tess’s attention snapped back to the soldier.

“What?”

“There was a rumbling sound and the walls shook?”

“And you’ve never heard anything like that? Experienced anything like that?”

“No. Can’t say I have.”

Tess stood, and spreading her mana throughout the tower cast her next spell.

“Healing Rain.”

Golden light materialized from the mana, before condensing and falling like rain. The droplets fell on everyone inside the tower, healing any and all injuries. Once complete, Tess turned back to the soldier.

“You need to rally yourselves. I believe that rumbling was the wall being breached. If it was, we need to stop whatever flow of monsters that may get through the breach immediately.”

The soldier, awed by what he had just witnessed, could only nod in agreement. Tess took it for what it was and set off again. She passed through two more towers full of wounded, repeating the process again and rallying the defenders. The return of empty towers as she continued only concerned and spurred her on.

She lost count eventually, and it was not until she saw the lone, stumbling figure of a soldier that she slowed. He was a dog-like beastkin, but he had suffered severe wounds. Tess caught him as he stumbled again. A terrified look crossed through his one remaining eye before he seemed to realize that Tess was not whatever he feared.

“Run…,” he whimpered.

“What happened?” Tess asked.

“D..Demon… Lord. Broke… wall… Hurts.”

Tess cast a healing spell, but it did not seem to take effect. She tried again, and again. It was not clear why, but his wounds would not heal. Realizing this, Tess remained by his side. He unfortunately did not have the strength to carry on much longer, and a few minutes later passed in her arms. For all her power, she was still weak.

Unable to aid the soldier, Tess pressed on. It was not much further before she discovered the breach. An entire nearly three kilometer section of the wall was little more than rubble. Bodies of the once valiant defenders whose efforts now seemed pointless littered the area. And all around, Tess saw a horde of monsters pouring through the breach. In no time, the wall’s effect would be pointless.

As she scanned the horde, she saw a single, massive figure standing amidst the rubble of where the next tower would have been. From a distance, he appeared human, though she could see that his skin was gray. A wild, untamed mane of white hair sat atop his head and fell down his back. When he turned her way, she saw the glowing red eyes and the fierce snarl. Every muscle seemed to be both defined and heavily scarred.

“You must be the Demon Lord.”

Olivia felt something change. She could not define what it was, and so continued about her current activity: drinking yet another bottle of the finest wine in the country.

The distant pain that lay far beyond the now broken line of pain disappeared. He was confused. Where did it suddenly go? He heard a piece of the wall crumble and turned. There stood a single individual, halfway up the wall in one of the holes that was inside the wall. She did not appear to be in pain, but he would make sure she experienced it.

Elsewhere over Iriea

“I’ve got it free!” the lesser deity called out.

“Give it to her now! She’s facing down the Demon Lord!” Oena shouted

“Adding it to her profile.”