I woke up in the gas station's convenience store again. I sighed, bringing a hand to my forehead, and shaking it...
Time to do the tutorial again...
-----
By now the tutorial was becoming mind-numbingly easy. I still couldn't fight the Abnormalities in the "Infinite Store", especially not barehanded, but with the addition of the newfound calmness my meditation started bringing me, hiding was no trouble.
I knew their patterns, how they'd search around the store, what hiding spots worked...it was just a matter of deciding how I wanted to go about dealing with the tutorial, at this point.
This was the true power of the combination of my regression ability, alongside the perfect memory I held, and the fact that I seemingly kept every bit of training progress I had once I came back.
Still, I was seriously getting tired of this. How many times would I wake up in this store and have to do the Tutorial?
I packed up my stuff and left. I decided that I'd try the 'Alyssa' path again. It felt weird referring to it as that, but I was stacking up so many past lives now that just referring to them as different paths felt easier.
While walking down the road opposite of the city, on my way to see if the forest would appear again, I organized my thoughts.
The beast of the never-ending winter - Polaris. That was the Abnormality waiting for me in the North. It was probably the most powerful Abnormality that I had ever seen - other than the apocalyptic - level Flood Dragon, that is.
I had no idea how I would come close to defeating it. Then again, that was what I had thought about the Tutorial when I first tackled it in my original life. That I had barely survived it, and that fighting against any sort of Abnormality would be insanity.
I took a deep breath.
It was time to go bear hunting.
-----
Viola - more accurately, the Lost Forest didn't appear during this regression, either. So I turned back around and met Alyssa in the gas station, scavenging around just like last time.
I was practically yawning while I stopped her this time. And again, I started off by not beating her up out of sheer surprise.
Sure, she had lots of potential thanks to the 'Divine' ability that would slowly blossom and raise her power over the next few weeks...but at the beginning, she was just a little stronger than your average person. A slightly stronger person who I knew the exact moves, fighting style, and tendencies of.
"Shit...what are you, some kind of fighter or something?" She grumbled in annoyance at how easily I swatted all of her desperate attacks aside.
"No, I'm just the store's 'Manager'. And you're a seriously troublesome customer, aren't you?"
"Oh, screw off..." She folded her arms. She wasn't buying my act one bit, but she didn't really have any other choice but to listen to me, anyways.
At least she didn't pull out her guns, which would've really turned things sour. Instead, after looking into my eyes, she calmed down surprisingly fast.
She didn't want to tell me why, but I had learned that Alyssa put a lot of stock in her own evaluation of others.
I hoped that she saw something good in my eyes, this time.
So, we left the store, after I grabbed all of the packs of cigarettes for Alyssa's future needs, of course.
-----
It was actually rare for ability users to grow strong. Liliana, Viola, Alyssa, Nozomi - they were exceptions.
Because, by nature, nobody thought of fighting Abnormalities. They were terrifying, incomprehensible things that made every nightmare seem like pleasant dreams. Most were impossible to confront in conventional ways.
Not to mention, every one of us bore scars from the Tutorial. That was why Alyssa was so special. Her past, still unknown to me, seemingly drove her to get stronger...to want to fight more and more.
In a world that had ended, that seemingly had no meaning beyond surviving, that was a rare attitude.
That said...her growth alone wouldn't be enough to confront Polaris. Even if it meant offsetting things to take a little more time...we'd need to make a detour on our way to the North.
-----
A few days later...
"-! Hup! Ha!"
Alyssa and I were busy training inside of an abandoned boxing gym.
The sounds of a gun firing filled the space, bright flashes lighting up the darkness.
Alyssa was using her guns on me without hesitation. But I managed to dodge and duck under each and every shot - a while back, it would've been impossible. But I was a different person by now.
I had perfectly overcome the Tutorial, trained alongside Liliana for the first fight against the Flood Dragon, gone through Viola's hellish training, fought multiple Abnormalities, and managed to defeat a dungeon on my own.
I was slowly beginning to rival even the feats of ridiculous Ability users like Alyssa.
"Shit! I knew you were good at fighting, but this is insane!! How are you dodging bullets?!"
Alyssa was making distance from me every time I bobbed and weaved under the flash of one of her pistols. She wasn't slow on the trigger, either - for someone that should've been a total newbie at using a firearm, she had some sort of instinct for everything about them.
"You're just too easy to read, 'lyssa!"
I replied with a grin. With my suit's coat-tails, I blocked her vision for a moment, only to disappear from her vision as I ducked out of her blindspot and dashed towards her.
She looked around, but it was too late by the time she saw me - or more accurately, sensed me. My fist was already under her chin, thrown up in a vicious uppercut.
"Damn it-!"
In an impressive split-second reaction, Alyssa tilted her head back just enough for the punch to miss, pressing the barrel of her gun up against my skull.
We were stuck in an awkward position, but it was hard to call it a draw. Alyssa had just barely managed to squeeze out a win in this training session, with the cold muzzle of her gun pressed against my forehead.
"Ha...ha...ha...hahaha...I WIN! Serves you right, damn Manager!"
She collapsed against the ropes of the training ring that we were using, sweating and panting like she had just run a marathon.
"God...that was too close...shit..." Alyssa shook her head, instinctually bringing out a cigarette to weakly light it and press to her lips.
I just stepped away, sighing and looking down at my fist in dissatisfaction.
We had had many such sparring sessions over the past few days...but I was still having trouble truly contending with Alyssa, a natural talent when it came to combat.
I had many ways to keep up with her. Already used to the timing of her gun, I could tell exactly when she was about to shoot, and move pre-emptively. I could use my suit to mess with her view and get out of her vision to surprise her.
I was pretty damn fast and strong myself, but Alyssa just...at moments like those, when she was caught completely off guard, unable to see me or my attack at all...she still somehow managed to barely dodge and return a battle-ending counterattack.
To put it simply: the Saintess has impossible, devilish fighting instincts.
"I need more..." I muttered to myself, stepping back and sighing.
More weapons. More training. More power...I was always lacking too much.
I already had plans for all of those. But what - or more accurately - who I needed to make those things come true wasn't here just yet.
It should be around the right time now, though...
"So..." Alyssa looked up at me, finally catching her breath. "I've been wondering, why have we just been wasting time hanging around here? Not that I'm complaining to all the fighting I get to do, but I'm kinda getting bored, honestly."
I met her gaze, smiling to her question.
"Well...I was waiting for a 'fan' of yours to show up." I admitted, to which Alyssa just gave me a blank-eyed, questioning gaze.
"A 'fan'? What the hell are you talking about now...I didn't accidentally pull the trigger and scramble your brains, right?"
I chuckled, turning my gaze to the right. Just out of view, barely visible, a single centimeter of black hair was peeking out from within the abandoned office room of the gym.
"No...I don't think we have to wait too long at all to see them, in fact."