The Master of the Tutorial is Overpowered in a New World

Norma had been gifted when it came to biology, and her fascination with it led her into genetics research after completing her medical degree. She had worked hard for a small company that ended up developing a new, innovative treatment for neuro-muscular diseases using gene therapy. It was the crowning achievement of her still young career, and that the company had done it without the conglomerate that was OES being involved satisfied her even more.

It did not remain that way. OES moved in shortly after their product went to market, offering a sum of money to buy out the tiny company that she could not blame the ownership for taking. Principled as she believed she was, she had been about to walk away and find somewhere else to work. Then she saw the package that OES offered her. It was almost too good to be true, but upon accepting her own quality of life shot up dramatically. She did not even care when some called her a sell out.

Norma had been working on her latest idea when the CEO himself, Viktor Orethurta, came into her lab. He had come with a proposal and wanted her on the team that made it a reality. Honored to be recognized directly by the most powerful man in the world, Norma accepted again without much thought. That was how she had found herself assisting in the creation of a designer baby. It was a step down from the work she usually did, however, splicing together hundreds of different DNAs into one stable strand in order to come up with a perfect being. It was stimulated and implanted in an artificial womb to grow into a full person, but this is where she first heard the rumors.

Some had said the womb was less artificial than it seemed, instead taken directly from another woman, though the consent of the donation varied based on who was whispering the story. Norma was not one to question the official documents, and had seen that the organ was stated to be artificially created and maintained. She could not shake the feeling that it was still strange how perfect, or rather imperfect, it seemed to be when she had laid her own eyes on it. Instead though, she focused on the project developing within. Nearly a year later, the child was removed and began its education. Though her work had long been complete, Norma was kept on the project to monitor for any instabilities that might arise.

It was fortunate that she did remain, as she noted a few minor errors that irritated her sense of professionalism. Then the project went sideways as the child, somehow, ended up committing suicide. When Viktor had arrived at the lab, Norma had never seen him so furious and hoped that she never would again. The head of the project team was never seen again after Viktor’s visit, spawning the first feelings of dread at who she worked for. Another eight iterations of the project were conducted, with the final one resulting in the first deemed a success, Olivia. All the while, Norma had made certain to never become the project lead.

When Olivia had disappeared without a trace, Norma once again had pulled up the data in preparation to start the next round of the project. Strangely, the start order never came, and after several years many resources were diverted to a new project. She had honestly been relieved when the new secret project took over, since it removed the cloud she felt had been looming over her for several decades. That was until her new project was created.

That she was once again important enough to be targeted to join the new project was an honor. As she had spent so much time invested in what had become Olivia, Norma was ready for a change. As such, she had eagerly agreed without reading the finite details, and found herself in the new iteration of the gene project. Before realizing it, Norma was carried off to a place referred to as the Tutorial, and though warned that there may be certain elements that differed from home, she felt no different than before. Several others mentioned getting visions of computer screens that were glitching out and showing garbled information in unknown languages. She brushed those concerns aside as she took up her work in the new lab.

At first it was much the same. New individuals brought into the project were filled in on what Norma and the other veterans had done previously and work began. Due to the restrictions, the team could not use the previously developed DNA that had resulted in Olivia, but had to construct a new sample from the elements provided to the lab. What was additionally strange was that these new samples were given ranks. The higher the rank, the more important it was that it be included in the final product.

With her vast experience, Norma noticed that there were a lot of samples that were clearly not human. When she had brought these concerns to the head of the project, her concern was brushed aside and she was informed that here the splicing would be possible and to get it done. Despite her concerns, she did find that these non-human samples did facilitate an easier integration into the DNA sequence than she had expected. It made the project interesting once again, and Norma threw herself fervently into the task.

Were Norma religious, she might have considered the ease of binding all of these new sequences together to be a miracle, as if they desired to be connected as such. However, she merely attributed the ease and precision to her own skill with splicing, having worked for many years doing just that. Progress occurred at a rapid pace initially, but quickly it became apparent that there were more high value samples than could fit into a single DNA sequence. As she presented the new problem to the team and what they should do, the authority to create multiple sequences was granted, so long as those sequences could afterwards be combined with stability. The various sequences would be so different that Norma refused to consider any of them related to each other, even if they shared trace amounts of the same origin.

Once completed and stabilized into viable embryos, it was time. Norma had brought one of the first into the maturing room, expecting to find multiple artificial wombs ready to receive their creations. Instead she found a room of heavily sedated young women stripped nude and bound to tables with a myriad of sensors and probes affixed. Some of the women were not human, as she saw pointed ears, short statures, or animal-like features.

The chief doctor took Norma’s sample and loaded it into a large syringe device above one of the women. Norma watched in silent horror as multiple other syringes containing unknown fluids were jabbed into the unconscious women, their contents vacated, then time passed. Finally, the syringe containing the sample was positioned and pushed through the woman’s naval and into her awaiting uterus. The sample was injected and after several moments one of the other doctors commented on a successful implantation.

Norma stumbled back to her station after that, shutting off the lights and crumbling to the floor. The urge to vomit came and she expelled her last meal into a nearby waste bin. Even after that, she continued to retch although nothing came up. Tears streamed from her eyes, though she failed to understand why that was. Her work was a success, and Viktor would praise her in time. Why then did she feel so dirty, as though something had violated her? Sleep overcame her at some point, though she failed to remember when.

Upon waking, Norma continued to work. Whenever she delivered a sample to the maturing room, she would not remember the journey there or back afterwards. Her mind refused to let her remember what occurred in that room. A few weeks later, with the process continuing, there was a commotion in the main hallway of the lab.

She peeked her head out to see a woman clad in scaled armor with an oversized floppy witch hat and a sword in one hand.

“Hey! Who are you? Where is your clearance?” one of her coworkers asked.

Norma was fairly certain his name was Grag, in charge of some other aspect of the project. The invading woman grabbed him and lifted him with one hand.

“What is going on in this building?” she growled.

Despite the low tone, Norma heard every word. It sent chills down her spine and rooted her in place. Terror filled her mind as she gazed at the woman, begging her to flee from the predatory force that stood just down the hall.

“You there!” the woman called out, snapping Norma back to some of her senses.

It took a moment to realize that the predator was staring right at her, singling her out. Norma focused on that force of nature standing there.

“Will you answer my questions?”

“Y-yes!” Norma managed to answer.

“Time’s up.”

Norma watched the woman throw Grag down the hall. She ducked back briefly into her office as he flew past before looking back out. Grag was an unrecognizable mess. It looked like he had exploded with the splatter all over the impact site and stretching back towards the entrance.

“Now tell me what is going on here,” the woman said.

Norma slowly turned her head to find the woman directly behind her. Terror gripped her heart again as she opened her mouth to speak, only to find no sound emerging. The woman looked angry at Norma’s lack of response, then shoved her back into her office.

“What happened here?” the woman demanded again.

Norma had no idea she could speak as fast as she did. Words detailing everything poured from her mouth like water, leaving no detail out. She even became confused as she found herself describing things she could not, or rather would not, consciously remember.

“Please don’t kill me…,” Norma begged at the end.

Tess did not understand a lot about what the woman said, but understood enough from what she did and the context that had been provided. Fury built up with her as the details continued. While she laid the entirety of this project at Viktor’s feet, as this was his company and it was under his direction that this was occurring, these doctors were the ones doing his bidding and were just as culpable.

“Please don’t kill me…,” the woman begged.

“Do you even realize what you’ve done here?” Tess demanded.

“I was just…”

“Following orders? Yeah, that’s the excuse all the underlings give. Think for yourself. You helped rape those girls. As a woman, you should know. Yet I don’t think you are one anymore, as I see a vile excuse for a human crawling before me.”

“I can help fix this.”

“How? How exactly do you plan to do that? You fiddle with the gene things of people and mash them together. Those children won’t know their parents because you made them of a bunch and then just stuck them in a random mother. Those women will always have to know what happened to them. Stop talking like you can help. You’ve done enough damage already.”

The woman was sobbing on the ground, yet Tess felt no empathy for her. But too much time had been wasted here now. She would bring down this facility and rescue the victims. Those that were in her way would die, and those who were not would have their one chance to escape. That would be the extent of her mercy for these vile people.