Teresa was in a white room. The room was a perfect cube, each corner a sharp 90 degrees. It was completely identical to the white room she had initially entered just prior to the Tutorial, completely featureless aside from a floating holographic System screen in front of her.

Questline

Ruler Of Civilization (1/1)

Leader Of [UNNAMED]

You have laid claim to [UNNAMED], maintain your position as a candidate until the timer expires, then participate in the tournament. One may only withdraw from the tournament through surrender or death.

As a qualified candidate, you have the right to choose which candidate to battle in each round.

Time Until Tournament: NOW!

Tournament Rules

Each round will place two participants within an environment meant to appeal to the strengths of both candidates. To defeat an opponent, you may do so through combat or negotiations. Any terms agreed to during negotiations are binding, so long as they remain possible upon completion of the tournament.

Once a ruler is selected, they will remain in power until they find a replacement or are usurped. Should a ruler be killed, the position will automatically go to the individual responsible for the kill, unless acting under contract binding them to relinquish power to another individual. Upon leaving the tournament, all participants will be returned to the same moment they entered the tournament. They may choose to arrive next to the City Monolith, or they may arrive in the same location from which they left.

Positions Available In [UNNAMED] lv 0:

Ruler (i) (0/1)

Ambassador (i) (0/1)

General (i) (0/1)

Lead Developer (i) (0/1)

Note: More positions shall become available as [UNNAMED] levels up.

Teresa read through the screens, her eyes raising at the number of positions available. The System seemed to recognize more than just the ruler of the city, which would make having a council significantly easier. Each position had an (i) next to it, and upon thinking about it intently it opened up a description for each position.

Ruler:

The Ruler shall have absolute authority over a civilization. Other positions are obligated to either follow their orders or to relinquish their position to a replacement. The Ruler's obligations are whatever they want them to be, and they have ultimate say in all governmental structure. The Ruler may adjust the privileges of positions at will, allowing them to appoint members on the Ruler's behalf or make autonomous decisions regarding the civilization.

That did not look great, as a matter of fact that was exactly what Teresa was worried about. The Ruler was essentially a dictator empowered by the System with control over their subordinates that would make a revolt significantly more difficult. She kept reading through the remainder of the positions, as there didn't seem to be a countdown anywhere for the start and she could read through it pretty quickly with her high mental stats.

Ambassador:

The Ambassador is responsible for foreign relations and developing teleporter connections. All positions are able to add another city to their own city's list of possible destinations, which can be accessed through the City Monolith. It is primarily the responsibility of the Ambassador to seek other cities and add them to the Portal Network, either through negotiations or espionage.

The Ambassador was one that she was not expecting, what did it mean Portal Network? Was it going to be possible to teleport to other cities? How? That was huge! If teleportation was an option then trade, travel, tourism, finding lost loved ones, everything would get a whole lot easier. There definitely seemed to be caveats to it and from what the System was saying it sounded like anyone with a position could theoretically add a city to their Portal Network, so it was unlikely they would have the option to go anywhere right away. Still, in the long term this would change a lot about how the world worked.

General:

The General is responsible for commanding the military, and has the highest authority over a city's forces that is second only to the Ruler. Training regiments, battle plans, exercises, and operations all fall under the discretion of the General, who has the responsibility to enact the Ruler's authority.

Alright, that one felt pretty self explanatory, no surprises there.

Lead Developer:

The Lead Developer is responsible for developing infrastructure and managing a government-regulated workforce. Contracting, district management, System plots, manufacturing, and construction are included within the Lead Developer's responsibilities.

What was a System plot? It would be nice if more stuff had that (i) next to it so she could actually understand what it was talking about, but unfortunately that was not an option. No amount of fiddling around with the System screens would show her any extra details, though she did find another screen after some experimenting.

Enter Tournament?

Yes

No

There was no timer anywhere, just the option to enter whenever ready. Teresa took the chance to mentally brace herself, thinking about what her strategy would be. The best move would be to speedblitz, right? It's been working well enough to far, just run in and beat the shit out of her opponent until they surrender. Teresa would prefer to enter negotiations with someone, but she couldn't count on that. Mijo had not been seen at all in the settlement, she couldn't afford to give him a chance.

She applied <Magic Wellspring> to herself, then used <Healing Touch> and <Facilitated Restoration> to give herself the largest boost to her healing as possible. Fighting people was completely different from fighting a monster, she needed to be in the right headspace and perfectly ready to take this guy on. She even charged her boomerang with <Embers> so all of her tools would be ready to go at a moment's notice.

Teresa took three deep breaths, each inhale longer than the last. Her heart was beating hard, but she was ready. She selected "Yes" on the screen, and instantly she was teleported.

FWOOMP

Her environment changed to resemble the interior of an abandoned mall, though its interior proportions were all wrong. There was a lot more floor space, giving Teresa the option to use her mobility to her advantage. She activated <Dash>, sprinting immediately towards her opponent before her.

Hang on.

Teresa paused, stopping dead in her tracks. She had just about blasted her opponent with <Embers> and followed up with close quarters combat using her <Sturdy Outer Shell> depending on how her opponent reacted, but in front of her was a surprise she had not been expecting to see.

Her opponent was a dog.

"Dude, I am not hitting a dog." Teresa said to no one in particular. The dog, who she now recognized as Maxwell, began to sniff around and pant happily looking around at their environment. Okay, if a dog attacked her first she would totally punch it, she would feel bad about it considering she loved dogs but Maxwell did not seem even remotely hostile. He was a dog, maybe she didn't understand his body language or something? His tail was wagging, his tongue was out and he seemed happy, was she missing something?

Just before the tournament started, someone had run over in a panic saying they couldn't <Identify> Maxwell, making him suspect he was an alien invader. Teresa quickly used her own <Identify> to see if it would work.

{Dog (F+) (lv 35)}

Holy shit he was level 35, Maxwell- no, Mijo was the second highest level in the entire settlement with Matteo in third. <Identify> said he was an F+ dog, what did that even mean? She was pretty sure the rating from <Identify> was meant to be paired with someone's race, not their class, so why would a dog be F+? Teresa herself wasn't even an F+ human, though she had run into them before. There had been the interdimensional invaders, and then one of the bandits attacking George's party had been F+. Should she be concerned?

Mijo walked over to her and began sniffing her hand, then sat down and placed his paw on her leg as though he was asking to be pet. Of course, Teresa did what any sane person would do and began scratching Mijo behind the ear. The dog smiled wider, clearly happy with this arrangement.

"Huh, so you're Mijo then?" Teresa asked, petting the adorable animal. "Here I thought you were going to be some random asshole, but you're just a good boy aren't you? Aw, yeshuare-"

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The dog barked in response, his voice echoing throughout the entire building.

YES!

Did… did the dog just talk? Teresa froze, taking a moment to process this. Mijo picked up on the hesitation, and began to nuzzle her hand with his head. She was pretty sure she heard his voice in her head, not even with her ears. It was almost like talking to the Albino Gorillas who communicated with ASL, except this was a very audible voice that had been projected directly into her head.

If Mijo was royalty, then it would explain why whatshisface couldn't use <Identify> on him. Teresa couldn't be scanned with the skill, at least not to her knowledge. It was a dead giveaway that someone had something going on, but it kept anyone from knowing her level without her explicitly sharing her screen.

"Hey buddy…" Teresa said, trying to be as soothing as possible. "Do you know what's going on here?"

Walk! The dog responded, not even barking this time. The Mall!

The dog knew this was a mall? That was pretty impressive that he knew the word for it, but he didn't seem to have an understanding of his circumstances at all. Teresa looked around, seeing no signs of any danger nearby. Eh, fuck it. She could take the dog on a walk, why not? She had a lot to think about now anyways.

"Alright Mijo, come on!" She said, beginning to walk in a random direction. Mijo barked, not actually saying anything in particular. He ran ahead, sniffing around and exploring the area.

What was she going to do now? This was not at all what she had been expecting, but really she was at a loss for what the next move was. She started thinking over her options, trying to consider what was best.

The Ruler was an absolute position, relinquishing your power was totally an option but it also meant someone else would have that power instead. Additionally, it seemed the Ruler did not have any actual obligations themselves aside from deciding the direction of the settlement. From the sound of it, the Ruler could do absolutely nothing if they wanted, but it didn't change the fact they were an absolute authority, a dictator.

The responsible thing to do here was to make Mijo "surrender," and take the Ruler position only to never use it. That made a lot of sense, but it still posed the problem of turning Teresa into a dictator. She could confidently say she didn't want the position now, sure, but would that always be the case? Give it a few months, what if she finds out another civilization played a part in killing someone she knew? What if she was forced to act under coercion, what if she had something to gain from taking advantage of her people, there were a billion what ifs that ran through her head.

At the moment, Teresa couldn't think of anything she would do that would scream evil dictator, but this was a permanent position. Who knew how Teresa's mentality would change over forty, fifty years? If anyone should be aware of their own mental stability, it should be Teresa. She had tried to kill herself a month ago, and she hadn't exactly been doing great lately at being benevolent. It was undeniable Teresa had been getting maybe just a little bit more violent, okay scratch that. It was starting to become her first response to a threat.

Teresa had never been in an actual, physical fight before the Tutorial outside of sparring, but that had changed with the System. It had only taken one fight against humans for her to start changing into a far more violent person. She had killed those bandits without hesitation, and she had immediately been ready to throw hands with people in a panicked crowd. Honestly, her first response to that situation had been to physically beat anyone attacking another civilian until the threats were all taken care of, but obviously that wasn't a great solution. Could she have done it? Absolutely, but there were better ways to go about it.

It had only been a week back in the real world and Teresa had already begun changing into a person she wasn't sure she liked. How long before she started becoming the kind of leader she didn't like either? Even if she did nothing and left immediately, the knowledge that she has an entire city's resources at her disposal would influence her over time. It would take a lot for her to ever try and take advantage of that, but honestly it was still possible.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, Jonathan had called that a silly pre-System notion but Teresa still believed it was true. Hell, she could be totally wrong and taking the position just might be the best thing for the settlement, but she felt she had already demonstrated her extremely mediocre leading style. The council had begun sending Apisit to interact with the gorillas, as he knew TSL and a little bit of ASL. It helped a lot with using <Translate> and made the entire communication process a lot smoother.

After some back and forth, the council had developed a formal relationship with the gorillas. They had expressed gratitude towards Teresa for making it possible in the first place, but from what Teresa had overheard several people thought she definitely could have done a better job in that regard. Allegedly her conversations with the other species had always been very short and to the point, which was admittedly true. She had also not discussed a number of things that should have been talked about sooner, like territory, borders, migration, identifiers, and even asking for more details about their own Tutorials.

Apparently, the gorillas didn't even have a Tutorial of their own, but went through something different altogether. This was all information Teresa could have fully gotten on her own, but she had gotten tunnel vision trying to keep as many people alive as possible. It was something she would need to improve on, and she planned on it for the future.

Teresa had done good, just not great at a lot of stuff. Honestly, she was okay with that. A month ago that would have been enough to give her a mental breakdown, but now she was pretty content with it. The only reason she had made it this far was by using a little bit of everything, and she could always improve. All things considered, she did pretty damn well for someone with absolutely zero experience in foreign affairs.

The issue was, the leadership positions should be given to someone who was great or specialized in the relative field. All of the positions aside from Ruler should go to someone who actually understood what they were doing on a much deeper level.

As for the Ruler? Teresa didn't trust herself with that position. She didn't trust anybody with that position. For someone to make a good dictator, they would have to never abuse their power and only use it for the betterment of others. Were there ever any good dictators in history? Maybe Alexander the Great, but she didn't know enough about history to be sure about that. He probably did some sort of heinous act that she just didn't know about. There had to be a few that didn't abuse their power, right?

It was time to stop complaining about how bad dictators were, it was getting old and was doing absolutely nothing to help her situation. It didn't matter if dictators were bad, what mattered was that someone had to be one and she got to choose.

Wait, did someone have to be the Ruler? Scratch that, someone definitely had to be the Ruler, but did they have to be a dictator? The description mentioned the Ruler could adjust the privileges of positions, could they adjust the privileges of their own as well?

A plan started to form in Teresa's head, and the more she thought about it the more ridiculous it got. In the US, there were things called "checks and balances," meant to keep the president from ever seizing too much power. Were they perfect? Probably not, but now there was a System that could enforce these rules for her. Could she rearrange the permissions of each position so that the Ruler wasn't actually able to do anything that screamed dictator? Just remove the whole absolute authority stuff, tweak in some stuff about voting for certain positions, and it just might work.

"Hey, Mijo, come over here." Teresa called out, getting the dog's attention. He immediately began running over, happy as could be. First things first, she needed to confirm a few things. "Are you able to show me your status screen?"

Mijo looked confused for a moment, but a holographic panel appeared that seemed to shock the dog.

Status:

Name: Mijo

Race: Dog (Earth)

Level: 35 (F+) (54%)

Class: Man's Best Friend lv 3 (F+) (79%)

HP: (211/211)

Stamina: (98/98)

Mana: (1742/1742)

Strength: 13

Fortitude: 13

Endurance: 13

Vitality: 21

Agility: 28

Intelligence: 133

Wisdom: 115

Perception: 33

Unallocated Points: 0

<Skills> {

<Translate: lv 15 (8%)>

<Mana Control: lv 3 (67%)>

<Supersonic Bark: lv 17 (2%)>

<Familial Duty: lv 9 (78%)>

<Moonlit Howl: lv 4 (6%)>

<Soothing Presence: lv 8 (24%)>

<Telepathy: lv 2 (37%)>

<Empath: lv 6 (38%)>

}

<Titles> {

<System Newcomer>

<Tutorial: Power Hungry>

<Tutorial: Full Completionist>

<Tutorial: Level Pioneer>

<Tutorial: Class Specialist>

<Slayer 1>

<Tutorial: Boss Killer>

}

His status screen definitely said Earth on it, so that was a good sign. He also had most of the same titles as Teresa, with the addition of <Tutorial: Class Specialist>. However, one thing above the rest caught Teresa's eye.

"How the fuck do you have <Familial Duty>?" Teresa asked, bewildered. The dog didn't just have <Familial Duty>, but it was higher level than any other <Familial Duty> Teresa had ever seen! Even Madeline's was only level 4, not level friggin 9. Mijo's ears perked up, and he became very serious for a moment.

Family? Charlie? He asked, and he began to look around at his surroundings on high alert. Teresa knew that name, Charlie had been one of Mijo's favorite kids to stay around, even though he was only a toddler barely able to walk. Was Mijo Charlie's pet? If so, that had crazy implications for the requirements for <Familial Duty>.

"Charlie's okay kiddo, don't worry." Teresa said, softly petting the dog. Teresa sensed a strange movement of Mana as Mijo relaxed, likely having felt she was correct by using his <Familial Duty>. Interestingly enough, that's not all that happened.

Teresa went pale and collapsed to the floor, struggling to breathe as a killer headache rocked her mind. Her body felt like it was made of jelly as the strange Mana had made its way through her, and from the way Mijo had suddenly collapsed she could tell he felt the same way.

She activated <Healing Touch> and <Facilitated Restoration>, casting the enhanced spell on Mijo and began doing her best to heal him in their randomly delirious states. Their bodies had both been completely drained of Stamina, and the vast majority of their Mana had both vanished as well. It was all Teresa could do to keep her spells active for a few seconds before her <Healing Touch> stopped entirely, making both her and Mijo rely entirely on <Facilitated Restoration> to fix whatever was going on.

Teresa couldn't identify what had injured both of them, but it felt like it originated in her Soul. There were no physical injuries for her healing magic to properly work on, but it was undeniable they had both felt it. A few minutes passed before either of them felt okay again, and they shakily got to their feet.

"Hey, hey, it's okay, you did good." Teresa whispered, running her hands through Mijo's fur. A tear rolled down her eyes as she felt the happiest she had been in a while. The puzzle pieces had just fallen into place. She had a plan for the whole dictator issue, and now Mijo had shown her something amazing when his Karmic Mana had momentarily moved through her body. "You just helped me more than you'll ever know Mijo."

Teresa didn't know where he was or how he was doing, but she knew one thing was for certain.

Her father was alive.

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