Level Up Saintess

When we finally made it back to the church, Chella said she had something to do and split off from me. She basically left me right outside the door of our room, so I went in and sat down on the bed to admire my notification screen. I was now level 4! It hadn’t even been a week, but I’d already made so much progress. I’m sure I was only able to level up this quickly because of my trips to the brothel and the adventurer’s guild. Were there any other big untapped goldmines I could go to in this town? Perhaps I could go to the merchant guild? I don’t suppose merchants would need too terribly much healing, but maybe their bodyguards would? But it’s likely that those bodyguards would already be part of the adventurer’s guild that I’d hit today… Well, maybe the merchants would like some curing? I suppose it’d be worth a shot. I’m sure they’d pull out all the stops once I mentioned the word ‘free’.

 

No no no, I’m getting distracted; What I should be doing now is looking at my skill tree. What cool new skill do I have access to now? Let’s see… Oh, it’s [Cleanse]!

 

{[Cleanse]: Satisfactorily clean the target of any dirt or grime. (Cost based on area)}

 

I remember looking this up before and wondering what the heck ‘satisfactorily clean’ meant. Guess it’s finally time I find that out, huh? I scanned the room for something I could test it out on. The first thing I thought of was my pillow, but then I immediately reconsidered it. I’d want to be able to scan the item with [Appraisal] and see if it says it’s clean, you know? And like I said last time, there’s no way I’m scanning the thing I put my face on every night and possibly traumatizing myself.

 

Hmmm, what can I…

Oh right, I could scan my shoes.

 

I took off my crappy pauper shoes that were basically no better than flats. The bottoms had plenty of dust and little bits of dried mud that I’d managed to get stuck there. ...Or at least I hope it’s mud and not something else even more gross, but I’m not gonna look too closely and gross myself out right now. I poked a finger to a relatively non-dirty part of my shoe and said the skill.

 

“[Cleanse].”

 

A white shimmer covered the shoe, and all the dirt, mud, and grime simply faded away in less than a second, almost like it had never been there in the first place. I picked it up and turned it over, looking at it from every angle. I sniffed it, but it didn’t smell. I scratched it, but nothing came off onto my nails. I smacked it against the wall a few times, but no puffs of dirt came off of it.

 

Yeah, I’d definitely say it looked clean.

Let’s see what [Appraisal] has to say about it now.

 

{A shoe belonging to the Saintess. Well worn, like most peasant’s clothing, and not terribly well made. It has been cleaned by the Saintess’s [Cleanse] ability, making it perfectly clean.}

 

I see, so it looked like it worked pretty well then. And now the other shoe, just for comparison-

 

{A shoe belonging to the Saintess. Well worn, like most peasants clothing, and not terribly well made. It is covered in various debris from the places the Saintess has walked, and could be considered quite dirty.}

 

Yeah, these appraisals really do feel like they’re specified for exactly what I’m looking for, huh?

 

Seems like that one shoe only cost me about 5 energy. I did the other one to match, and of course that one was also only 5 energy. The skill said it was based off of the area being cleaned, so maybe I try something bigger next? I won’t have to scan it after, since I know the cleaning works, so… Let’s go for the pillow? Or maybe the entire bed?

 

~~~

 

So long story short I basically ended up cleaning the whole room with magic. It turns out that something the size of my pillow cost me 10 energy. My bed cost me 40 energy, which, yeah, I can’t complain about. I tried cleaning my clothing, and that was also a 10, but then when I took the risk I was worried about and cleaned myself, that was 25. I felt way too clean, cleaner than I’d ever felt since I’d come here, like I had run a sugar scrub over my entire body, or maybe even some kind of futuristic laser bath. Regular baths aren’t going to cut it anymore for sure. It’s a shame that the cleaning didn’t help out my horribly brittle feeling straw-like hair at all. It’s quite a disappointment, really. I can’t find anything that would work as a hair tie without ripping out my hair by accident, and it refuses to let me try to fold it into braids. I really don’t know what to do to make this awful stuff quit poking and touching me. Maybe I’ll have to just cut it all off and go bald or something. Well, hopefully it doesn’t come to that; I'm not sure I have the right head shape for it.

 

Anyways, right, the cleaning.

 

Since I cleaned myself and I felt oh so very clean, the rest of the room being dirty was really kind of bothering me. So, of course, I went and did all of Chella’s stuff, like a nice and decent person would. I had just done the floor, which sucked away 100 of my energy I’ll have you know, when Chella finally made it back to the room.

 

“What-?”

 

She glanced around our room immediately, as if she could instinctively feel the change in the area she knew so well, and then she marched over and grabbed ahold of her pillow.

 

“...Have you been cleaning in here or something?”

 

“Yeah, I learned a new skill after we came back, [Cleanse], so I was just testing it out.”

 

“Huh…? You just… learned it just now, after we got back? Just all of a sudden, out of nowhere?”

 

“Yeah? ...Why?”

 

Chella sighed and sat down on her bed, running her hand over her newly cleaned sheets. She looked like she was dealing with someone who didn’t have any common sense, which, yeah, that was about right I suppose.

 

“You know that’s not how it works, right? You have to be taught about the skill, see it happen to get a good picture of it, practice it over and over again until you finally successfully pull it off, and even then it would take longer and cost more energy than someone who had actually mastered casting it. It’s a process that should at the very least take weeks, maybe days if someone is a genius, but…”

 

She covered her face and tilted her head up to the ceiling for a moment, but then after she let out another sigh and removed her hands she looked fine, as if she had gotten over whatever was bugging her. Well, 'fine' is relative, since her expression was still hard, but it was pretty standard for her anyways.

 

“But yeah, right, you’re the Saintess, aren’t you? It’s obvious just from the crazy amount of energy you must have. Right. Yes...”

 

She shook her head slowly when I apologetically nodded at her words, like she would just never understand my strangeness.

 

“Well, thanks for cleaning my stuff for me I guess.”

 

Hey, when she thanked me, a small ‘+10xp!’ floated up from above her head! I guess cleaning counts as doing a good deed, huh? Nice.

 

“Of course. You’ve done a lot for me today, so it’s only right I pay you back a little somehow. Besides, aren’t we friends?”

 

Her eyes narrowed a bit at my words before she got up and pushed me back onto my bed, grabbing my pillow and softly whacking it onto my face.

 

“Just lay down and take a nap already. Haven’t you done enough?!”

 

I did my best not to laugh at her flustered voice.

I think Chella might just be a very cute person.

 

~~~

 

It seems that even when I just lazily target my whole body, my [Cleanse] skill also cleans my mouth along with the outside of me. It makes sense, thinking about it, but it was still a pleasant surprise. For the first time since I’d come here, my teeth felt truly clean, as if they’d been professionally cleaned by a dentist. I still tried to put on a front of cleaning my teeth with the little stick Chella gave me so as not to worry her, but I was secretly overjoyed that I didn’t have to bother with the hassle-filled thing anymore.

 

The rest of the morning went along pretty normally. We gathered for the morning prayer, and I got my daily quest done and received that sweet sweet +30 exp, putting me up to 160/400 experience thanks to that extra +10 I’d gotten after cleaning Chella’s stuff yesterday. We ate, and Chella and I did our usual cleaning routine, although I attempted to use [Cleanse] to do it, which made Chella mad. Apparently it shows real sincerity to the Goddess if we personally clean the stuff ourselves, instead of just using easy magic to do it. Boo, but I suppose I get what she means. I guess I’m thankful that I got to meet such nice people like Chella and Ferr before my life finally ended, so I should do what she said and show my sincerity. Plus, if it means I’m getting brownie points towards not going to hell, then I’m all for it in the long run.

 

So here’s where my day took a turn: The Head Priest came to see me.

 

“Chella told me what she saw yesterday; Is it true you healed almost 70 adventurers straight? And with [Greater Heal] on some of them?”

 

His tone made my teeth clench. I’d felt sheepish asking him about the books last time, but he’d been sitting down and passively reading then. This time, with him standing in front of me looking all big and authoritative… It was turning into something similar to the Guild Master situation.

 

“Yes… Y-yes, I did. …Was that bad?”

 

“Hmm? No. I’m just really considering the possibility that you truly might be a Saintess. To have that great an amount of energy, and to already be able to perform such a taxing skill like [Greater Heal] at this age…”

 

“She also had enough energy left over afterwards to use [Cleanse] on our entire room too, Sir.”

 

Chella, who was still here while we were talking, chimed in from behind me, and wow. I’d never heard her speak so respectfully to anyone before. She’d even been rude to that scary Guild Master yesterday. I felt a teensy bit betrayed that she’d been talking about me to the Head Priest without saying anything to me about it, but… Yeah, I couldn’t hold it against her when I heard her talk like this to him.

 

“Did she really now? Amazing. I’m sure you didn’t know [Cleanse] when you first came in, right, Arissa?”

 

The Head Priest rubbed his chin with the back of his finger, looking like he was pondering over something as I nodded. I’m pretty surprised he remembered my name, actually; I only told it to him once. Chella’s barely ever said my name. Sometimes I doubt if she even really remembers it most of the time.

 

The more I saw the Head Priest thinking my situation over, the more I felt like I needed to say something, so I mentioned what I had been thinking about most in regards to my skills.

 

“I can’t say for sure when, but I think i-if I get enough practice in… Maybe in a month I can use [Regenerative Heal]. I felt bad for everyone that I couldn’t use it yet, and I kept promising them, and I’m getting a lot of experience with all the healing I’ve been doing, so maybe if I really try-”

 

“Astounding. [Regenerative Heal], you say? That’s no small feat; Few others but Saintesses are able to use such a skill. Are you sure?”

 

“Yes, well I… I am a Saintess, so…”

 

It was a bit frustrating that they’d seen and heard all of this and still seemed reluctant to admit that I was what I am. It’s not like I had a big ego about being the Saintess or whatever, but having people repeatedly doubt my words was oh so annoying. My annoyance and my tension for being in this situation was making me start to tear up, but I lowered my eyes, so hopefully it was hidden.

 

“That’s amazing, astonishing even. If you can truly pull it off, we’ll have no choice but to announce you as a Saintess to the main church. You say all you need is a month’s more practice in healing? Well then, come with me for the morning and night time masses. That should give you a good number of people to heal, although I can’t guarantee how many of them will need it.”

 

I perked up hearing that, as I’m sure you'd expect. It’s basically like the Head Priest told me he was going to order delicious food to be delivered to our house; I didn’t even have to go anywhere! And if people knew that they could just come here if they wanted any healing at all from me, it’d basically be free exp! Oh, but…

 

“Wait, but… Would that be okay? Wouldn’t I be taking away the only thing that makes this church money?”

 

The Head Priest laughed away my concern and patted my shoulder, which, ahhh I’m not so okay with. In a way he’s one of the closest things I have to a parental figure here, but I also didn’t like them touching me, either. Plenty of bad memories there.

 

“You don’t need to worry. History shows that when a Saintess heals for free, many people donate their rainy day funds or what they’ve been saving to get healed. It’s possible we’d make even more in donations after this than we’d make with just plain healing anyways, especially if you end up healing something that we couldn’t. Besides, it’s what the Goddess wants, and that’s what should always come first.”

 

Yeah, this Head Priest seems to be a good guy. I should have known that when he took me in right away even though I said crazy stuff like ‘I’m the Saintess!’ right out of the gate. …Maybe during the masses later, I’ll pray for him to the Goddess in thanks. That’s gotta mean something coming from a Saintess, right?

 

So yeah, that’s the plan. Let’s set up a nice juicy delivery service.