Level Up Saintess

After I made sure everyone was safe, it was time for the [Cure] experiment to begin. I checked him to see what the status effect I was trying to get rid of was called, which turned out to simply be listed as ‘blood-beast infection’. That’s nice and to the point, and I guess I don’t know what else it could have been called besides something really technical, so I’ll accept it. Oh, and for the record, the infected man’s name was Jeff, not that I’m going to go out of my way to remember it.

It was hard finding a place on Jeff that wasn’t exceedingly gross to touch, but eventually I just squinted my eyes and planted a few fingertips onto his only slightly filthy back.

“[Cure].”

I could feel the skill activate, and the corresponding effect covered his body. I could also see that the blood dripping out of him was steadily losing its squirmy effect. When I appraised him again, I could see the status had gone away, but only 10 seconds later, his blood suddenly started to become squirmy again. Appraisal confirmed that somehow he’d become re-infected by the blood-beast, despite me having cured him of it. I asked the team if they knew why this was happening, but of course they had zero idea as to why. I tried [Cure] on him again, and the very same set of things happened once more.

It took a lot of testing, but it turns out I had to use [Cure] and [Cleanse] to get rid of the infection fully, which I guess makes sense in the end. Apparently there was some bacteria or leftover blood or something that was renewing the infection each time, which is why he needed a good cleaning before he would stay cured. It wasn’t that hard to get both of them off within 10 seconds of each other so long as I cast them both right away, so it was totally doable. Sadly, though, because I guess the Goddess doesn’t want to give me the option to cheese things like that, I only got exp for the first time I cured or cleaned him. It’s fair, I’ll accept it, I mean it’s not like I was going to use these poor infected people to grind out exp anyway. I’m not heartless, you know, so you don’t have to safeguard it like that, Goddess…

Anyways, it turns out Jeff was the woman’s father. She told us that he’d protected her from another infected person’s attack, and they’d fled and hid in a random house until he’d suddenly changed into an infected himself, an hour later. Guess if that’s how it works then it confirms those bodies we’d passed by earlier weren’t going to get up like zombies, although that does mean that they’re actually dead and not savable. Never thought the time would come that I wished this actually were a zombie situation. I hate that I won’t be able to do anything for them…

I cast [Benediction] on Jeff and recast it on his daughter, and while I was at it I recast it on the team as well, so that I wouldn’t forget. We had them hide in the house they’d come out of again and barricade the door, and promised them that we’d save the town from this terrible situation soon. Oh but before we left them, Tilly smartly asked if they knew where the blood-beast or some of the other infected might be. I totally would have forgotten to do that; I probably would have just kept mindlessly wandering like we’d been doing. Maybe it’s her instinct as a ranger? Or maybe she’s just more used to this kind of situation. …Or maybe she’s just much less absentminded than I am. Could be that last one for sure, but at least I have an excuse right now, so I won’t beat myself up too hard over it.

Right, so apparently Rebecca and Jeff gave us the clue that they’d been attacked in the east side of town, so it seems we’re headed over there to see what we can find.

~~~

They weren’t wrong. We headed 10 minutes towards the east, passing over bodies and noticing the occasional rustling or whispers coming from a few of the houses that we passed along the way, until finally it seemed that we made it to the start of our destination.

At first we encountered just one infected prowling around all on their own, but once we engaged them they did an odd yell/howl, and about two more showed up out of nearby buildings to help them. Things erupted into a full on brawl, where Hill, Frete, and Tilly all desperately tried to defend against the group of infected’s frantic swings and chomps, all while Dale and I did our best to quickly put them to sleep. The good news is, my [Benediction]s on everyone were putting in work, so even if the attacks they were trying to stop managed to break through, they still didn’t end up taking any damage, and they also didn’t end up becoming infected themselves by the bloody nails and teeth trying to penetrate them.

My sleep skill went off faster than Dale’s did again, not to brag. I’m a cheat character, and my skills work a bit differently than conventional skills, so I shouldn’t get a big head over it. I know all that, but in my heart of hearts I’m definitely a little bit smug about it. Oh well, I can’t help how I am I guess.

Once there were only two targets left, the three team members focused on the infected who Dale wasn’t going to be putting asleep, managing to pin him down under Hill’s shield. Tilly somehow wrapped a lasso of rope around his arms so that he wouldn’t be able to flail any longer, all while Frete kept the last infected distracted until Dale finally finished putting her to sleep. Hill sat on the wrangled infected instead of pressing him down forever once he was sufficiently roped up, since I needed better access for curing him. I came over and reached out after I found a nice mostly blood-free spot to touch the infected man on, but as soon as my hand came close, he started thrashing as best as he could and rabidly chomping in my direction, even if he couldn’t really reach me. In a word, it was freaky. I knew he wouldn’t be able to reach me, but damn if I didn’t have to gather up my nerves for a moment before I gained enough bravery to do what needed to be done.

At least after the [Cure] and [Cleanse] on that guy he settled down. The other two sleeping infected were a cakewalk compared to him; They weren't scary to me at all.

After the three of them, two women and a man, had been successfully cured, we woke up the two sleepers and informed them of what was going on. I cast [Heal] and [Benediction] on them all, and we sent them off towards the direction we’d come from, since it seemed relatively safe while we were trekking through it. Hopefully they would find a nice spot to camp out and hide over there.

Before we continued on, Dale, who also has to use a type of energy for his spells, asked me if I was alright constantly casting all these [Benediction]s on everyone. Seems he was worried since we’d be headed into the real fight soon, and wanted to know if we needed to take a breather for me. Honestly, if I was anyone but the Saintess I probably would have needed to take a break by now, since I’d already burned through hundreds of energy points in just the last hour alone. However, I was indeed the Saintess, so I didn’t need his pointless worrying! I answered him that I was fine to keep going, but deep down inside I was annoyed that he’d even asked me that completely fair and reasonable question. Maybe I just really don’t like mages after all. Or maybe it’s that I just don’t like feeling like I’m being doubted. It’s probably just that second one, though, I’m sure; I would never just irrationally hate someone! Never ever. Nope.

…If Kale were here, he would have pointed out how silly I’m being right now.

Thank everything that he isn't here to see this nightmarish town. He already saw enough bad things before while he was alive, he doesn’t deserve to have to see such awful things now, too. If ghosts exist, please don't be haunting me right now, Kale. Or at the very least, close your eyes for this part.

~~~

We kept finding more groups of possessed people the further east we went. Thankfully, none of the groups were ever bigger than 6, and somehow we managed to fend them off with the occasional [Bulwark] skill from Hill, although he didn’t seem to have enough energy to use it too terribly often. There were even some cases where we stumbled upon some of the infected trying to be clever and act like stuck people calling for help, or randomly screaming to attract attention. They were never successful, though, since we already knew that this area was infected central, and sometimes we just flat out ignored them if they were out of our way enough. I mean, what’s the point in going over to fight them if we can just go for the big boss and save them for free, right? The only argument for it would be more exp grinding for me at the cost of energy, which honestly wasn’t all that bad for me since I actually ended up leveling amongst all the various infected fights, but I’m sure the others wouldn’t have been too keen on wasting their own energy and stamina towards it. Just because I get an energy refresh on leveling doesn’t mean they have anything of the sort, after all. Regular people don’t even have levels, it seems.

I ended up refreshing the [Benediction] on everyone very often throughout all the fighting, since I wasn’t exactly sure how much they would be able to take before they would break. It’s definitely worth checking into one day so I don’t waste too much of my energy unnecessarily in the future. At least I’m sure it’s been doing a good job, since I rarely ever had to heal my team. It’s also been trickling in some sweet sweet exp for me, giving me at least 20 exp per person per fight, so long as they took enough damage during the fight for my [Benediction] to count it. Yeah, my [Benediction] skill was definitely contending for MVP of the day, for multiple reasons.

It took four hours, but eventually we stumbled upon what we all agreed must have been our goal. There was a relatively large building with about 20 infected all standing out in front of it, looking like they’d been set there to be guards. There was even a small group of about four of them dragging a frantically resisting chubby man, who didn’t seem to be infected like them, towards the building. No one had to say anything, but I’m sure we could all guess what was going to happen to him. Blood-beasts get hungry too, you know.

Seeing this of course meant that we had to act fast, if we wanted to save the man’s life.

“I have something that I’d like to try, but we’ll need to come up with a backup plan in case it fails.”

The team looked at me eagerly, ready to hear what my plan might have been. I looked back at all of them, worried that they might put too much trust in my status as a Saintess and not come up with a proper plan B. I guess if worse comes to worse, we might have to end up killing some of the people out there... But I really don’t want it to come to that if I can help it, though. Maybe since I’m finally level 10 and can spec into [Regenerative Heal] we could get away with simply cutting off their limbs and making them harmless until all of this is done, although I know killing them would probably be the much safer alternative. Trying to do the right thing is very hard it seems.

I wish this had all happened when I was a higher level so I’d have better skills to choose from. For now I’ll just have to hope that what I have ends up being the right fit to save the day.