Tutorial 1.2

"Oh, you poor thing!" Camilla cried and pulled him into a hug, giving him a faceful of boobs in the process.

'So soft,' Masaru couldn't help but think as he also returned the hug for politeness sake.

He had just finished explaining his entire situation to Camilla. Suffice to say, it garnered a lot of sympathy from the Princess of Nohr and she found his need to say one last goodbye to his family 'really sweet'. Eventually, the two purplenette parted from their hug.

"Well, that's the end of my story, I suppose you will still be willing to help me out?"

"Of course, I will, dear." Huh, the fact that she referred to him as 'dear' reminded him that she was quite older than him. "I will help you however I can. You have certainly been through enough and you deserve this second chance."

"Come on now, Camilla-san. It's not like I have lived a bad life before dying," Masaru scratched his head awkwardly.

[I am now beginning to believe that you're too humble for your own good, though that could just be how people within your culture or subculture raised their children.] Ez spoke up. [In any event, we should start this match for good.]

"Right," the purplenette nodded. "Camilla-san, please be ready on your wyvern." The Princess nodded and walked over to her mount. "Alright, Ez unpaused."

[Game Resume.]

With that everything was back in motion again as the units' animations began to play.

[You should learn about how to get into the bird's-eye view. That's an essential component of RTS games. While this screen is capable of showing you that view, it's wise for you to learn how to do so on your own.] The Necromancer nodded. [First, close your eyes then concentrate. Imagining viewing the world from above, you don't need to imagine anything accurate, just thinking that you're a bird for all the System cares. Then you start feeling like you are being pulled toward something, let it pull you through. After that, you should be in the bird-eyes view.]

Masaru did as he was instructed and closed his eyes. He had learned a meditation technique from his mother, being a housewife gave her a lot of time to try out new things. It didn't take long before he could fully concentrate. Within a second of imagining himself looking down on the world from above, he felt the tugging Ez mentioned. The Necromancer simply let it pull him away.

When he no longer felt the pull, Masaru opened his eyes.

He was greeted by the view of the entire area from above. From here he could see everything, the mines, the treeline, his units, Camilla, and even himself. The rest of the map was covered in blackness, the fog-of-war as it was called in the RTS genre. He supposed he needed to use his scout to reveal the fog and some kind of sentry, like towers or units, to keep the view of that area in real time.

"Okay, so how do I control units?" He asked, despite being sure he didn't have a mouth.

[You merely have to imagine that you are playing the game. If you want to select a unit just think that you select a unit.]

"Sounds simple enough."

He selected one of the zombies. The red ring appeared beneath the creature to signal him that the unit had been selected.

"Master?" The zombie said. Again, it was just a voice line.

"Ez, can you display some kind of building menu? I can't just remember all of them off the top of my head."

[Of course.]

There was a short flash in his vision. When the light faded, his view was now composed of menus that one could find in a standard RTS game.

"Thanks, Ez."

[You can toggle the menus that come with your bird's-eye view on and off. I suggest you also practice this when you are not in a hurry. If I recall, some RTS games can get massive enough that you would need to close all the menus to get a good look at the battlefield.]

"Yes, one of the races I selected actually came from one of those massive battle games. Still, being able to do everything by just thinking should make this whole experience more smooth; the microing won't be as intensive."

In any event, he should return his focus to the game.

He opened up the zombie's building menu and assigned the first one to build Deathkeep, the Undead faction headquarter (HQ). The zombie walked to the assigned location before fading out of assistance as the foundation of his base appeared from the ground. In WB3, one worker could only build one building at a time, and, unfortunately, other buildings wouldn't be available until the HQ is finished.

So while they waited, he selected himself, and suddenly felt like someone had tickled him.

"Huh, so I can still feel what happened to my… avatar, was it?"

[Yes, that is just your avatar in the world. Your real consciousness is housed within the System as long as you remain in the bird's eye view, or if you're to perish then your consciousness will automatically be transferred here, though not before you experience the pain of death. The match isn't over until all of your buildings and builder units are destroyed.]

"...noted."

Masaru ordered his avatar to move closer to the mines and ordered him to capture it. Red circles appeared beneath two of four mines. The boy just sighed.

'Great, I forget how short the capture range of a level 1 hero is.' He fiddled with the position of his avatar a bit before finally getting him to capture at least 3 out of 4 buildings. That was good enough, he supposed. So while his hero was busy, he should start scouting the map. The bat was expendable, so he simply selected it before setting its stance to 'Scout'. The flying creature took off in a random direction, clearing the black fog-of-war as it went. It didn't take long before it discovered another mine.

Unfortunately, he was preoccupied. Fortunately, he had someone to help him out with this.

Masaru selected Camilla. "Kyaa!" The Princess yelped. "Masaru, was that you?" The purplenette asked, looking at his avatar.

The boy could hear her just fine, but he had a feeling that he couldn't speak to her through his avatar without transferring his conscious back, which he would rather not right now as he was familiarizing himself with the menus and other commands. "Can I still talk to her without getting out of this bird's eye view mode?"

[Simply concentrate and think.]

"Right." So he did exactly that. "Camilla-san, can you hear me?"

"Masaru? Why is your voice so different? And what are you doing waving your hands like that?" She was referring to his avatar waving his arms around as part of the capture animation.

"That's just my avatar, Camilla-san. The real me is in the System. Here, I can survey the whole battlefield and get a better picture. And yes, that was me who tickled you, I just 'selected' you to give you a command you see," the boy explained.

"Well, that was a… naughty way of giving out an order," Camilla teased. Even without a proper body, the boy could still feel his cheeks heating up. "In all seriousness though, you could have just told me what you want me to do, dear."

"I also want to know what happens if I give you an order. You're not a computer-programmed unit like the rest, you have a mind of your own. So let me test how that would turn out if you don't mind," Masaru replied.

"Oh, I see. You are not thinking of anything inappropriate, are you?"

[Please stop.] Ez interjected, having enough of Camilla's demeanor.

"Right, just let me try this." Masaru used his mind to order Camilla to fly over to the new mine his scout discovered, imagining himself right-clicking with a mouse to order her to move.

Immediately, the Princess of Nohr took off in the direction he pointed to.

"Camilla-san, I just gave you an order. How does that feel?" the System user asked.

"It's… weird. It's as if my brain just told me that I have to do something and I simply… did it," Camilla answered.

"Can you try to resist it?" Masaru requested.

There was a short silence, but Masaru noticed that Camilla began pulling on the rein of her mouth to decelerate before finally coming to a stop.

"It's possible," she answered him. "But it's… take a lot of willpower and concentration."

"Right, well, aside from most of the basic orders, I don't think I can command you in any great detail. So please consider them more of an instruction than a directive."

"Understood," Camilla acknowledged. "Now, where do you want to go again?"

"Just fly up ahead. There's a mine that I want you to capture to boost our economy."

"Oh, but don't we need better logistics before we could properly use the resource within the mine?"

"Eh, no, Camilla-san, this is part of the System. I should have elaborated that the System will make this battle act more like a game rather than proper warfare. Resources can be used without needing a blacksmith or a quartermaster, we have endless supplies of troops that can be produced right here on the battlefield, and certain things can be a little logic-breaking since it follows the System's logic rather than common sense, just to name a few."

"Oh. I see. Then I suppose I am going to need more lessons on how this 'System' of yours works."

"Sure!" the boy agreed. This would be a great chance to bond with Camilla.

[I will provide her with some lessons for now.] Ez cut in. [Masaru, you need to focus on building up a proper base. I will handle giving out information to Camilla.]

"Are you okay with that Camilla-san?"

"Hmm, yes, I believe Ez is corrected," Camilla interjected. "I would like to spend more time talking with you and let you explain more things to me in detail, but right now we have a battle to win, best focusing on that."

"Understood, good luck, Camilla-san." With that, Masaru shifted his focus back to other tasks.

[Please fly up ahead where the mine Masaru mentioned is located. I will teach you about how to capture buildings.]

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With Camilla being under Ez's care, Masaru turned his attention back to his task. The zombie had finished its construction of the Deathkeep and he was done with the task of converting the 3 mines. Masaru merely moved his avatar to convert the last mine, but at least the resources were trickling in, giving him enough to start building other buildings.

One of the zombies was assigned to build the Graveyard, the essential unit producing building, while the other zombie was assigned to build the Boneyard, which would enable him to do some research and use the most unique aspect of the WB3's Undead.

He clicked on his keep to check if he had enough resources to start researching. As it turned out, he did. He was also reminded that the resource type had been reduced to two; Energy and Mass. He presumed two of the four mine types produced Energy, while the other two produced Mass.

For convenience sake, he would refer to them as 'Energy mines' and 'Mass mines'.

In any event, he ordered his zombies to begin their prospective projects, while beginning the research on the zombie to make them a better builder and enable them to use 'Savage', an ability that gave the zombie the power to harvest small among of resources from the dead bodies of the enemies—not particularly much, but, hey, as they said, 'every bit count'.

He looked toward other parts of the map.

Camilla had already started on converting an unclaimed Energy mine, so there was nothing to worry about on that front.

The bat had discovered a few landmarks now, including more mines, a circular temple of marble and pillars which would serve as a quest giver on this map, and one of the neutral dwellings—a gnoll cave to be exact.

Good, gnolls could only attack ground units so he could send Camilla their way to let her gain EXP and intercepting them from attacking his base. Though, if he remembered the map set-up correctly, there would be two dwellings on the map, so he needed to find the other one as well.

Lastly, among the landmarks was a simple shop, probably in case he needed to buy potions or if he wanted to sell off unwanted loot early.

The bat continued to scout around the map until it finally gained the first intel of the enemy, their leader to be specific.

He saw a bull of a man with horns and a muscular body almost covered entirely in furs. No doubt this was a minotaur, his enemy faction. The flag the enemy hero was carrying made it pretty clear that this was indeed the hero unit.

The leader was converting a Mass mine, but, of course, in a typical skirmish A.I. fashion, as soon as it spotted his scouting bat, the minotaur began to chase after the flying creature and stopped its capturing process.

"Typical. Maybe I should have played this on easy or even normal instead of very easy," Masaru mumbled. "Ez, what class is that minotaur?"

[Identifying… that minotaur is a Bard class.]

"What? Seriously?" There was barely synergy between Minotaur as a faction and the Bard class, and being a minotaur Bard hero had so many downsides to it when it came to skills and stats. "Did A.I. screwed up again?"

[Very likely. They are not programmed to be smart, merely serving their purpose as your opposition,] Ez informed.

He watched as the minotaur Bard chased after his bat for a while. Once the bat was far enough, the enemy hero merely turned back and returned to converting the mine.

[This level of incompetence from a fellow machine is a sad sight to see.]

"They are an A.I. from an old game, Ez. Even with modders reprogramming them, they still wouldn't be mind-blowingly smart like you," Masaru commented. In any event, enough of the fog-of-war had been lifted that Masaru changed the bat stance back to defensive and regained direct control of the creature. He did manual scouting with the bat until most of the map had been revealed to him, and just in time as well.

There were enough resources to upgrade the keep to level 2, the zombies were almost done with their buildings, Camilla was moving to capture another mine (likely at Ez's instruction), and he was done with converting the last mine near their base.

So he executed his plan in an orderly sequence. First, he ordered the HQ to be upgraded; second, he commanded his avatar to move toward the quest giver at the temple to get a quest; third, once the Graveyard was done, he commenced the research that would unlock the Gravestone while also queuing up more zombies behind the research, he needed to start putting workers into the mine to increase his resources yield; lastly, he gave his zombies new build orders, composing of a Brood, which produced the flying units, and a Tower, which was your standard defend the building. He took a quick glance at Camilla, who was now converting another mine, so he would leave her to it.

He positioned his bat in the middle of the map to serve as a sentry while waiting for his avatar to reach the temple.

Once the Necromancer was at his destination, he touched the circular structure. A screen suddenly appeared in front of him.

[Quest: Mage need donation

Detail: A mage is in need of assistance. He is conducting an experiment but is lacking some resources to make his ritual work.

Bring him 400 Energy, and he will give you his old staff as a reward.

Objective: Collect 400 Energy and then return to the temple

Reward: One random magical staff.

Accept? Y/N]

"I accept," Masaru answered.

A quest timer appeared in one corner of the screen. It read '240 seconds' and continued counting down, so four minutes. Checking his resources, he was too low on Energy to spare 400 of them right now.

With everything that could be done for now finished, he believed it was time to check on Camilla. So he ordered his avatar to come back to the base for safety—one could never be too sure—before turning his attention toward the Princess of Nohr, who was nearly finished with converting another mine to his cause.

"How are you doing, Camilla-san?" he contacted her.

"Oh, Masaru. I am doing fine. Ez taught me a few things about your Systems. So it's a kind of a game that simulates warfare, like a game of chess, but more complex. My role on this board would be akin to either a Rook or a Knight."

"To be fair, you're more of a Queen to me." That was both a compliment to her capability and a little attempt at flirting.

"Oh, come now, you're just flattering me." Camilla's cheeks turned a little pink.

"No, really, you're one of the most capable commanders out of every choice available to me. There are so many others I could have asked for aid, but I choose you because I know you are exceptional."

"Oh, dear," Camilla cried. "Thank you, for having so much faith in me. I am simply… mind, I am at a loss for words."

[I do not possess the same optimism as you, Masaru.] Ez suddenly interrupted them. [Though her profile is excellent… her failure to prevent her adoptive brother from achieving his objective, protect her other siblings, and her emotional vulnerability leave enough room for doubts of her value as a general.]

Camilla immediately looked hurt at the mentioning of her siblings.

"Ez! You can't just bring up something like that, at least not that blunt!" Masaru realized now that the A.I. was going to have a problem with whoever he interacted with, whether that was him, Camilla, or any of his future companions.

Masaru focused, making sure the following conversation is only between him and the A.I.. "Ez, even if Camilla-san might not be as successful in the timeline she comes from as others, she is still Camilla. She has proven to be a capable fighter in other routes of the game and a great leader in an alternate timeline as shown in 'Fire Emblem Heroes;' so even in the one where she might not be as successful, she still hasn't lost her potential," the purplenette argued. "Besides, if you want a pragmatic reason on why you shouldn't call someone out like that then because it will put emotional stress on them and will decrease their performance. In addition to that, there are also other reasons why you shouldn't judge her because she couldn't stop her brother, Corrin (or Kamui), but we will be here all day if we get to that topic."

Mainly because Corrin possessed both the plot armor and having a human player help controlling his action instead of a brain-dead A.I. that controlled all the NPCs and enemies.

[As I have informed you, I wish to live and any potential problem that would lead to my demise will need to be corrected.] Masaru felt that, unlike him, the A.I. didn't keep this conversation private and have allowed Camilla to hear them now. [We may be fighting A.I. with a simple pattern right now, but once we begin our conflict with intelligent foes, things will be very different. Will she be able to lead as your commander then? Or would her emotional vulnerability get the best of her again?] Though Ez didn't have visible eyes, Masaru could feel that the A.I. was glaring at him. The purplenette, however, wouldn't back down and glared back. [While your point that a call-out can cause emotional stress is true, we are currently in a tutorial mission where mistakes, no matter how big, can be easily overlooked and fixed. The same cannot be said when we left this place. This issue must be solved before we leave.]

"Fine, I will solve it then," Masaru hissed back. He had been patient with the Ez since the A.I. only acted based on logic, but now it was crossing into the more malicious territory of that logical mindset.

[Actions speak louder than words.]

"Then do the same and be quiet." That seemed to have done the trick and the A.I. went silent. "Camilla-san, I am really sorry about Ez."

"No, it's… fine." She might say that, but some of the life and color seemed to have been drained from her face and eyes. "He's right, I… I… am not as capable as you thought I might be, Masaru. I am just…"

"No." Masaru cut in firmly. "You're not a failure or anything of the sort, heck, you had managed to put Corrin in a tight position at several points. So please don't be sad, you're just as great of a general as many others, if not more. Though, just me telling you that or telling Ez that he's wrong won't do anything. So instead, I am thinking tha-" The boy suddenly paused and went quiet for a short while. "Well, I will be."

Camilla, sensing a little bit of distress in his voice, decided to suppress her emotion for now and asked, "What is it?"

"The bat I placed as a sentry had just died. No doubt it's the enemy who did it, but I didn't get the chance to see what their current force is composed of," Masaru informed. "This is a little strange. The opposition A.I. should be fairly passive on this difficulty, but they are already moving in. Well, there's nothing we can do but respond. Camilla-san, please move in to intercept their force."

"Me?" The Princess of Nohr was quite surprised by the order. "Alone?"

"It's unlikely to be a large force, and even if their leader is with them you should be able to take care of them. Don't worry, I will be with you throughout the process, if things get really bad I will tell you to retreat. Now, just turn right and fly ahead, that's where I got the last visual."

Camilla nodded, though with some uncertainty in her heart. Would she really be able to do this? What if she faltered? What if Masaru was wrong that she could handle this? What if she failed? The purplenette took a deep breath. She wouldn't know unless she tried.

Camilla shook the reins and her wyvern took off. She followed Masaru's instructions regarding direction. It didn't take long before she met the minotaur bard, who distinguished himself by holding a flag, along with two of his underlings, also the minotaurs.

The hero unit immediately spotted the Princess and charged ahead while his two soldiers remained on the spot.

"Focus on the leader, the others can't reach you in the air; that's the rule of the System, they can only attack ground units," Masaru instructed. Camilla nodded.

When the minotaur bard reached her position, it leaped into the air and punched her mount in the head. Dazed by the blow her wyvern landed on the ground, but the bard was relentless.

With an axe in its hand, the Bullman swung its weapon at Camilla. The Princess, with her own axe, parried the blow before it could connect then countered the attack. She managed to land a solid slash on the minotaur's shoulder, intending on incapacitating it. However, with how the System logic worked, while the strike created quite a large wound it did little to deter the bard from continuing its assault.

Though Camilla remained firm and masterfully returning the blows to the Bullman, a few strikes slipped through her defense. Some penetrated through her armor, cutting open wounds that could be of concern, but aside from the pain when the attack landed that was simply it. She couldn't feel any of her injuries, at least not feeling any painful sensation, like her wounds were merely… fake; there was not even blood gushing out.

Finally, her wyvern recovered and quickly bit the minotaur in the legs, holding it in place. With this opportunity, Camilla landed several solid blows against the Bullman as it was busy trying to break free. In the end, it successfully made the large reptile let go of its leg. The bard tried to retreat, but Camilla wouldn't give it a chance.

She held her axe with both hands and pulled the weapon back behind her head. With the basic law of physics and momentum aiding her, she hauled her axe forward. The weapon soared through the air before its blade made full contact with the back of the minotaur's head.

[An enemy hero has been slain!] Ez's voice suddenly announced.

The body of the minotaur bard hit the ground before seemingly faded out of existence, leaving behind two bright orange chests.

Camilla took this chance to take a breather. She quickly checked on her injuries. Much to her amazement, they were already starting to heal by themselves.

"That was great, Camilla-san!" Masaru praised. "I know you can handle him, but I thought he would be able to get away, but you killed him!"

[I assume this assumption that the enemy hero will escape comes from your experience with the video game version of this System. I will inform you right now that several things have been modified to fit better, that includes applying the law of physics to otherwise logic-breaking features. That's not to say there are no logic-breaking things left in this System.]

"Well, in any event, with their leader gone, this match should be a breeze, which would leave a lot of room for me to test out functions of the RTS System and teach Camilla-san about the game. Thank you, Camilla-san!"

"Oh, it's my pleasure." There was some cheerfulness returning to Camilla's voice. There seemed to be sincere gratitude from the purplenette after his praise.

Masaru just smiled at that. He knew all she needed was a little confidence boost. He believed Ez would still be skeptical about her capability, but he just had to prove the A.I. wrong.

"Now then, let me brief you a little on the Undead units, shall we?" The Princess of Nohr could hear light footsteps and she turned to its source. She was greeted by a frightening sight, five reanimated skeletons arming with a chirped and rusty sword and a rotten wooden shield, marching toward her in perfect unison. "Let me introduce you to the Skeletons, the backbone of our army."

There was a short silence between everyone.

[That was a terrible pun.]

"Shut up."