While I’d been ‘asleep’, the monster wave had already consumed two of the nearby vilges. From what I’d been told, the damage was so absolutely devastating that no one was expected to have made it out alive, unlike the incident with the blood beast that I had to deal with st time. I’m sure that the group of escorts that the main church sent out for me were decently strong, considering they were going to be guarding the oh-so-precious ‘saintess’ and all, and yet even they were mostly wiped out by this wave of monsters.

  Honestly, now that I have something that I want to continue living for, the idea of facing this thing while I’m only level 17 is very scary.

  If I didn’t keep telling myself that this could be a good opportunity for exp, I don’t know how I would have gone through with this.

  …Maybe I would have taken Kale and Chel and ran away from it all.

  I’m not the only one thinking like this by the way; I’ve already been told that a number of the more pessimistic townspeople here have fled somewhere else, most likely to some other more fortified pce. The adventurer’s guild did their best to rally every nearby adventurer and mercenary to their cause that they could, but even those numbers were only half as much as they could have been, since so many people had decided to leave instead of risking their lives.

  And the fact that this monster wave is only half as strong as the one that Seria, the previous saintess, had to fight off in her time, means that this isn’t even the worst thing that I’m going to have to fight through.

  Well, this and that are completely different situations, to be fair. Even though it gets rightfully hyped up, from what I’ve read about Seria, the monster wave she fought through with her knight-lover wasn’t stampeding towards her, and was actually being held off by the big thick-and-sturdy wall that surrounded the capital. With mages specializing in construction keeping the wall in the best shape that they could, and archers and sorcerers keeping the sky clear from anything that flew or scaled the walls, the monsters were stuck in pce for the most part, basically sitting ducks for her mega-buffed knight to shred through, all while she constantly pumped more buffs and heals into her. Sure, it would have still been a very dangerous and scary situation, but you can see why this current one is a good bit worse than hers in some ways, right?

  I feel like I have a plenty good enough reason to worry.

  After talking to the guild master, and me basically ft out confessing to him that I have barely any usefulness in combat outside of healing, he decided to keep me towards the back, as a medic station of sorts. Luckily, this ‘stampede’ of monsters wasn’t overly fast, so the hope would be that people could pull back and get whatever healing they would need from me before going back into the fray. Don’t get me wrong by the way, Chel and the Bishop were going to be there too to back me up on heals, but like… yeah, there’s no way they were gonna be able to keep up with everything for very long, you know? For the most part of the fight, it was probably going to be me taking care of this, and not them. And if anything wandered our way during the fight, then it was also going to be up to me to kill it off it seems, because as it turns out, Chel and the Bishop have absolutely 0 fighting skills or experience too!

  Oh, but Kale said he’d come along, so at least we have him to help protect us as well. From what I’ve seen, he seems pretty strong, right? I’m sure if I’m helping him then he can probably protect us just fine. Maybe in the future it’d be nice to get Kale an official position as my guard, just, you know, as an excuse for why I keep him around all the time.

  In fact, you know, this situation keeps making me wonder… If it was just Kale and I protecting the capital instead of Seria and her knight, would we have been able to pull it off like they did…?

  ...I hope that the chance to test that out never comes.

  ~~~

  Everyone went to bed extra early to prepare themselves for waking up tomorrow. I was anxious and wanted to go sleep in the same room as Kale, but I had to stop myself. I know what’s gonna happen if I go: I’ll just stay up too te bbbering to him and making him coddle me. If we both want the best chance at surviving through tomorrow, then we’re gonna need to be at our absolute bests.

  And I hate to say it, but if things go too far south and we have to abandon everything, then I need Kale in tip-top shape to fly us out of there.

  Also, there’s another reason I needed to be alone; If I was going to be headed into a battlefield tomorrow, then I needed to spend some time focusing on my skill situation. I still had 2 skill points left, and because I’d been so busy fighting those undead before the whole fiasco with the quiet priest, I didn’t get any time to check out the new skill options from the st two level ups. Maybe there would be something there that would massively help me, you know?

  Taking a quick look at the skill screen, my two options were:

  {[Mark of Truth]: None can lie in the face of the Goddess! Applies a mark to the target, forcing them to tell the truth for 5 minutes. (200 energy)}

  And-

  {[Divinity 1]: Doubles the Saintess’s passive energy regeneration.}

  …It’s obvious which one I’m gonna take, right? That divinity one seems wayyyy more useful to me right now than making someone tell me the truth, doesn’t it? Besides, I’m already a bit iffy about digging into people's pasts and forcing them to tell me things, which is why I don’t usually use my [Appraisal] on people, so why would I wanna force them into saying stuff? …Although, actually, now that all that stuff happened with the quiet priest, maybe I’m reconsidering that idea... But even then, I’d rather do it quietly by appraising them! I mean, wouldn’t the person I used the truth-telling skill on remember that I did it? Wouldn’t they know that I forced them to say things?

  Yeah no. The Divinity skill gets taken, and the truth telling one gets ignored, for sure.

  Which leaves me with one more skill point to spend. Honestly, it’s pretty lucky that that Divinity skill only costs one skill point, since I know for sure that stuff starts costing at least three skill points once I make it to level 20. I’m happy it doesn’t seem to be ramping up early, but that also means that it’s gonna be even more of a smack in the face ter on when I finally get there. I’m really gonna have to become extra selective with my skill choices from now on so I don’t screw myself over ter when something important appears. ...Well, part of me wants to just hoard all my points until something amazing comes along, but I also don’t want to be that idiot who dies with 100 health potions in the bank, you know? Actually, now that I said that, I wonder if there are really health potions in this world like they have in video games… It wouldn’t be so odd if they did, right? I’ll have to ask someone next time about-

  Ahhh, you don’t have time for this Arissa! Focus! Focus already and finish this so that you can go to sleep!

  Right, okay, so anyways, I don’t want to die just because I failed to notice a hidden gem that I once passed over, so I decided to look back through the skills that I didn’t end up choosing. Let’s see… There’s [Rejuvenate] which allows me to restore someone else’s energy, a blessing to speed, a blessing to damage, a blessing to defense… Honestly, that blessing to damage sounds nice for the fight. Putting it on a bunch of the stronger adventurers and mercenaries would totally be nice. But it only sts for an hour, and even if it’s 50 energy a pop, that’s still gonna whittle away a bunch of my valuable energy if I have to put it on a couple people and keep applying it. From what I was told, it’s probably gonna take a sizable amount of hours for us to fight back a stampede of this size, if we’re able to fight it back at all in the first pce… Do I want to ensure that we’re able to fight them off, or do I want to ensure that I can save everyone that comes to me for healing? Offense or defense? What’s the right choice? Is 20% really enough of a buff to justify me using it? How do number increases manifest in real life on normal people?

  Maybe… Maybe I’ll wait until tomorrow to make my decision. I don’t even know what the main force of adventurers is going to look like! If they’re mostly the type to use a lot of little attacks instead of one big one, then me getting this skill to help them would be a waste for the most part, wouldn’t it?

  I still don’t have any pns to get the speed or defense blessings by the way; The monsters we’re fighting are supposed to be retively slow, and why would I ever waste time buffing someone’s defense when I could just put a [Benediction] shield on them? But [Rejuvenate]... Restoring someone’s energy might be very useful in a drawn out scenario like this. But from what the skill is telling me, I’d basically be giving up my energy to make theirs, which doesn’t sound too overly appealing to me. Idunno, maybe I’m selfish and put too much stock into my ‘specialness’, but for some reason I keep thinking that it’s much more useful for me, a saintess, to have energy than for anyone else. It’s silly, considering there’s no way I could fight as well as some of these adventurers and mercenaries can, but… Well, I’m sure I could one shot something much better than them, couldn’t I?

  I don’t know. We’ll have to see how things go. I have this new Divinity Skill buffing my energy regen, and I’ll probably level up a bunch if I py my cards right, so maybe I’ll have enough energy left to consider getting it.

  ***

  {Arissa

  Age: 17

  Occupation: [Saintess](Lv17)

  XP: 40/1600

  Health: 170/170

  Energy: 2600/2600 (Divine)

  Status: None

  Skills: [One who redeems], [Heal], [Greater Heal], [Cure], [Appraisal], [Benediction], [Cleanse], [Judgment], [Lulby], [Soothing Bell], [Small Dimensional Space], [Regenerative Heal], [Pressure of the Divine], [Healing Augment: Ranged], [Divinity 1]}

  -{[Heal]: Heal basic wounds, such as cuts, bruises, sprains and fractures. (5 energy)} (gives 5xp)

  -{[Greater Heal]: Heal greater wounds and broken bones that the average healing could not. (30 energy)} (gives 10xp)

  -{[Cure]: Remove basic debuffs and lesser afflictions. (10 energy)} (gives 5xp)

  -{[Benediction]: Puts a blessing on the target, shielding them from damage for 1 hour. (50 energy)} (gives 20xp if it protects someone else from major damage, and 5 for a ‘blessing’.)

  -{[Cleanse]: Satisfactorily clean the target of any dirt or grime. (Cost based on area)} (gives 5xp for a person, 10 for a pce.) (costs 25 for a person) (xp for clothes, energy

  -{[Judgment]: Good or bad, let the Goddess sort them out! Gives out a judgment based on the opponent’s sins. (100 energy)

  Note: Attacks may vary wildly.

  Note: Committing crimes or hurting others for no reason will cause all current experience gained to drop to 0.} (gives 20xp per lesser monster sin)

  -{[Lulby]: The Saintess sings a lulby, putting the target to sleep for 1 hour. (80 energy)} (gives 30xp if used to help)

  -{[Soothing Bell]: The Saintess rings an ethereal bell, which pys a note so soothing that it pacifies all who listen for the duration of the skill. (150 energy on cast, 20 energy per minute after)}

  -{[Small Dimensional Space]: Opens a small dimensional hole for the Saintess to store things inside of. (10 energy per activation)}

  -{[Regenerative Heal]: Regenerates any missing pieces of the target’s body, including partial and full amputations, as well as organs. (100 energy)} (gives 40xp)

  -{[Pressure of the Divine]: All kneel before the divinity of the Saintess! Forces the surrounding targets to prostrate themselves on the ground, disabling both talking and skills. (350 energy per minute)

  (Toggled On/Off)

  Note: Passive skills of others may still work, depending on their attributes.}

  -{[Healing Augment: Ranged]: Allows for the Saintesses healing and curing to be used at a range, for double the cost.}

  -{[Divinity 1]: Doubles the Saintess’s passive energy regeneration.}

  _____

  AN: Oh my gosh I did it again QQ. I've been so busy for like the past two weeks, and I've been severely behind on my writing and posting! I'm sorry! I really really don't mean for there to be such big time gaps between these posts, honest!

  Also, I decided to put Arissa's character sheet here at the end. I feel like I should have been doing that more often throughout this series, so I'll start here!