Level Up Saintess

It took some time and practice, but eventually I learned to spot the lizards before they spotted me, and to use [Judgment] before they could manage to try and run away. There was a lot of trial and error before I got there though, and I’m sad to say I spooked away a good handful of lizards before I managed to get it right. I had 4 out of 5 of the lizards that I wanted to take back with me in my sack, and with all the running around I’d done on all of my attempts before, I’d scared away a large population of the lizards I was desperately trying to get.

 

The quest said 5. They needed 5. I was going to come back with 5, dammit!

 

So yeah, I have to go into the cave I had been avoiding entering all this time. The idea of being in an enclosed space with something classified as a ‘monster’ was a totally bad idea no matter how relatively safe the monster was, and besides, I didn’t know if anything else lived in that cave, you know? But uh, well… My legs were getting tired. And I kind of wanna head home and lay down already. So um… Sometimes in life, risks gotta get taken. It’s just like that sometimes. At the very least I’ll try and stay near the cave entrance, so that it’s not too bad, alright? Alright.

 

At least there’s still a good bit of light from outside managing to get in near the front of the cave. And it doesn’t look like it’s that deep or cramped really, so maybe it won’t be that dangerous, and-

 

NOnononono!

 

One of the lizards just dropped down on me! I can’t reach it, it’s crawling on me, and I- OH NO IT’S BITING MY HAIR!

 

I wriggled frantically until I was able to grab ahold of its tail and rip it away. Sadly, it ripped off a few strands of my hair along with it, but at least I managed to get it off me, so who cares?! Of course, while it was still stunned from being thrown at a wall, I used [Judgment] on it. It suddenly went up in flames, which at first I wasn’t sure would kill it, since, you know, it’s got rock skin. But I guess I didn’t need to worry, because it certainly seemed like the fire worked on it. I appraised it just to be sure it was actually dead, and it said its name was ‘Rock Lizard (Dead)’, so it seems like it bit the dust as hoped. I’m a little worried that the guild won’t accept this one since I burned it, but I don’t think gems would be harmed by a little fire anyways, so hopefully it should be alright.

 

When I picked up the dumb crispy lizard, strands of my stiff straw-like hair dropped out of its mouth, along with- OH NO, THIS BASTARD BROKE MY HAIR TIE! The once pretty feathers that had been a part of it were horribly singed, and it had snapped apart, so it was totally no longer usable. What the heck... I really liked that thing. And now my hair is poking random spots on my neck again… Wah.

 

I’m so stupid; My [Benediction] must have worn off at some point when the hour passed. I completely forgot to put it back on! If I were fighting something more dangerous than this damn hair-biting lizard then I could have been killed! I’m gonna have to keep an eye on that from now on, for sure… And my poor hair tie is the price for that lesson.

 

…How am I going to tell this to Chella?

She’s the one who gave me this hair tie in the first place, as a gift.

She said it used to be hers, so maybe she really cared about it.

Oh no…

 

Goddess, I might die only a week into this new life. Please give me a redo if I do!

 

~~~

 

I got another 10 Riffles from turning in the rock lizards, on top of the 5 Riffles for turning in the slime cores, meaning my pocket money increased from 5 Riffles to 20. I’ll have to ask Chella if that’s even enough to buy anything… after she finishes murdering me for breaking her hair tie. Oh, and since I got 10 exp for each of the 10 things I killed, and 20 exp for each of the quests I turned in, that means I got 140 exp from the whole deal! That makes my current total exp an even 600/800. That’s not bad, although it’s a slower gain than I would have liked it to be. It’s been a few days since I last leveled up now, and I can feel that death timer starting to gain on me. Maybe I should…

 

“Oh, Saintess, wait! I forgot to mention, there was a party that came back today terribly injured. I feel ashamed to ask, but could we possibly get you to see them? They were about to go to the church since it’s so urgent, but since you’re already here, then…”

 

Huh. Maybe I’m lucky after all.

A quick healing/curing/cleaning of the team later, plus some work on a few of the passersby who saw us, and I had managed to get 20/900 into level 9. I just barely made it, and honestly, I might have scanned around the room for a few people who might have need some healing near the end there, but I’m happy it all worked out in the end. As I walked home I checked my refreshed death timer again and felt like I had managed to carve out some room to breathe for now. Of course, next I checked my character sheet and new available skills, and… Nope, I’m not feeling very lucky anymore…

 

~~~

 

“You’ve been acting weird since dinner. Spit it out already.”

 

“...I’m sorry Chella.”

 

I handed her back the sack she’d so kindly given me in the morning, amongst her insults. She took it back, but her eyes were narrowed like she might hit me at any moment, so I tried to explain myself to her as quickly as I could.

 

“I got a new skill today. It's an inventory one, a-and um… I won’t be needing the sack anymore. So…”

 

I re-gestured handing her the sack again and she sighed, looking like she was quite done with me. Honestly, it made me horribly scared to bring up the next point, but when I didn’t move or say anything more, Chella figured out that there was still something else. She sighed even louder than before and moved away, putting the sack off to the side of her bed before crossing her arms and making an annoyed face at me.

 

“...And? What else?”

 

I’m sure she could hear me gulp. Heck, all I could hear was me gulping for sure. I put my hand out and showed her the broken hair tie I’d been holding on to.

 

“Oh, so that’s why your gross looking hair is back down again.”

 

She took it from me and ran her fingers over it, feeling the terribly singed feathers along the now not so circular line of it, and then, without saying anything, she walked to the trash bin by the front door and dropped it in there.

 

“Wh-Chella no!”

 

“What are you yelling for?! You should throw trash away instead of handing it off to me, oh precious Saintess.”

 

“No, I… I felt bad for ruining your hair tie. I thought you deserved to know about it…”

 

“Hmph… I’m not stupid Arissa, of course I knew that’s what you were doing. But it’s trash now. Trash. There’s no use in holding on to something broken like that. We’ll just have to go ask Priest Meria to make us a new one tomorrow.”

 

Oh… Was that an option? I didn’t know this would be such an easy fix. If this ‘Meria’ is the lady-priest I know, then we could ask her to make a new one when we see her at breakfast tomorrow morning!

 

“...And you’re sure you’re not angry? It wasn’t, like, super important or anything to you?”

 

“If it was that important would I have just given it away to you, you dummy?”

 

Phew, okay, that’s good. It’d be really bad if Chella ended up holding a grudge over this, so I’m happy she doesn’t seem too upset. Can’t say I’m thrilled about being called a dummy, but it’s much lighter than what I’d been dreading she might say to me for basically the whole day, so I’ll take it!

 

I reached out to give Chella a big conciliatory hug, but she shoved me away and gave me a look like I was being an idiot, so I quickly backed off. I tried to lay down in bed and be good, but my now loose hair kept rubbing my neck and face the wrong way and prickling it. I sat up and tried to figure out how to braid it out of the way somehow, but I could feel that I was tugging on my hair and pulling out strands at an alarming rate, so I ultimately had to give up. I never was good at braiding my own hair. I knew a few girls growing up, so it wasn’t like I had no experience braiding hair, and there were even a few rare times when Kale had grown out his hair a bit that I fiddled with his hair a few times, but-

It seems Chella took pity on how sad I looked, because she sighed and came over and did some kind of simple braid for me. The way she tried to stifle her laughter afterwards makes me think that she made my hair look super stupid, but honestly I couldn’t care less right now so long as this stuff stops poking me. I can’t wait to get a new hair tie and get this crappy hair out of the way again! Ugh! Goddess, why did it have to be this hair?!