Level Up Saintess

After patching up the team, they helped gather together the now uninfected townspeople for me to heal them up. At first I said I wanted to turn the building the boss had been in into some kind of temporary hospital since it seemed to be the largest building in the town, but everyone in the team quickly dissuaded me from that thought. Apparently the blood-beast had had quite a fun time in there, and there were enough partially eaten corpses, blood splatter, and random organs around the place that they were sure nobody would want to wake up in there. I could also tell that they didn’t want my ‘young and pure’ eyes to have to witness any of that icky-ness, so I took them up on their offer. Instead, we decided to use a nearby vacant lot that had plenty of soft grass in it to lay the people who needed treatment on.

 

One by one the team ran out and brought me back people to treat. I was already sitting at a little under half of my now 1900 energy, so I tried to be conservative with it, and hope that I got a level up soon to maybe refresh it. I say that, but I totally still cleaned up each of the people I healed, since I was worried about them getting infected again somehow. I’m sure that’s not how it works, since they all got un-infected once the blood-beast died, but it always pays to be careful, you know? Besides, if these people don’t have to feel weird and gross, then maybe they can get back to fixing up everything quicker. I swear I’m doing it for the good of the town. Really.

 

So yeah, I ended up getting 48 [Heal]s off, about 23 [Cure]s off due to random non-blood-beast related infections people maintained and any random sickness or debuffs they already had before all of this began, 58 [Cleanse]s since that seemed to be the entirety of the previously-infected population roaming around that boss’s place, and 10 [Regenerative Heal]s, since apparently it did [Heal]’s job while it also did its whole limb fixing deal. Not a single [Greater Heal] was needed, either. I guess anyone who was that gravely injured either must have died or become food. How sad.

 

Let me tell you, I started pretty small with my first try of [Regenerative Heal]; I chose the guy I’d seen earlier who was missing just a finger, and I focused on that. The first time I tried it I just stared at the lack of a finger and cast it like I would [Heal], which apparently isn’t the way to do things, because the skill didn’t take. I thought about it a few more seconds and tried imagining the man’s finger being right back in place while I cast it, and this time it totally worked. It was a little slow, slower than my other two healing abilities for sure, but in the end the man’s finger was perfectly back in place, and working exactly as it should have, so it was definitely a success. After trying it out on a few more people, it seems that [Regenerative Heal] takes at least 5 minutes to finish no matter what body part it’s regenerating, so that’s nice to know, although I find it a little bit odd.

 

There’s no way I would have had enough energy for all this post-infection healing if I hadn’t leveled up relatively quickly along the way. I was only 300 exp off from leveling before all this started up, and I didn’t really have to do very energy intensive healing overall, except for the few [Regenerative Heal]s that I came upon. Those cost me 100 energy a pop, meaning if I had only done all 10 of them that I needed in a row and hadn’t leveled, then just that alone would have bankrupted me of all of my energy! But since it turns out that they gave 40 exp a pop, they were oh-so-very worth it for the cost in the end, netting me 400 exp just off of the 10 of them that I did alone. So yeah, overall this nabbed me a juicy 1045 exp, and now I’m level 11, and 745/1100 of the way towards level 12!

 

Turns out this whole ‘going off on a major quest to save a town and kill a boss’ thing was pretty lucrative. Who woulda thought?

 

While the people I had healed ran around trying to locate their friends, family, and neighbors, as well as digging graves for any dead that were steadily being rounded up, I checked out what my next available skill would be.

 

{[Blessing of the Brave]: Bless the target with strength, giving them a 20% damage boost to all their attacks for 1 hour. (50 energy)}

 

Oh, well that’s pretty neat. I like it more than I like that fleet-footed one, although I’m sure they’re both equally handy in their own way. I’d love to have that buff once I get a full-time escort, but for now I think I’m going to hold off on it. It’s not like I need it for my own attacks, since [Judgment] seems incredibly strong already, and rightfully so. So yeah, I'll put it on the backburner for now.

 

“Saintess, it seems things will be fine here. We should head back home and tell the refugees they can do the same.”

 

Frete was right, it was time to leave. I wasn’t cut out for this environment anyways, and if I stayed here for much longer listening to people desperately looking for their loved ones and crying over bodies, it would become impossible to keep ignoring. We may have rescued the town, but there was only so much rescuing to do. I mean, Midliff might be quite the small town with a population of only a little more than 200, but overall I only healed 86 infected here, and 35 refugees back at the church, and that only made up 121 people. I’d seen plenty of dead bodies on the streets on our way through the town, so how much of the remainder of people could actually still be safe and hiding? I’m sure it’s not as many as I’d like.

 

Amazing how you can save people and still have it not be enough to feel like you actually saved them.

 

~~~

 

We were all quite tired by the time we’d made it back to the adventurer’s guild, so our goodbyes weren’t very long. We all promised to stay friends, and I promised to say hi again if I ever saw them, and then I left to go back to the church. I feel like our separation was too abrupt. Sure, maybe we only knew each other for about 16 hours, but it felt like we’d been together for a week. Ugh, I’m just not good enough at social interactions. Should we have said more? Should I have made plans for some kind of after-party with them tomorrow? Or maybe this is just what partying up is like, and they’re used to such abrupt goodbyes. It could very well be that that’s the case, I suppose.

 

Whatever, I’m too tired to care about it anymore. I’ll worry about it tomorrow instead. I have to take a quick trip over to the guild to get my reward after my plans with Chella tomorrow anyways, so if I run into the team while I’m there then I’ll take it as a sign.

 

It was already way past midnight by the time I made it back, so I softly opened the door to the church and quietly snuck inside. It wouldn’t be good to wake everyone up so late when we always woke up so early. Except... Why in the heck are Chella and the Head Priest sitting on the steps and watching the front door like hawks?

 

Chella was dozing off, but the Head Priest suddenly standing up when he noticed me quickly woke her up, too. The two of them hurried over to me and checked me over, asking me a million questions about whether I’d been hurt or if the town was saved. I told them vaguely about how things went and that the refugees had already been sent back to their homes, and their sigh of relief was almost deafening. And you know what? Chella even gave me a super tight hug and called me an idiot, which I guess made all of this worth it in the end, no matter how tired I was. The Head Priest also gave me a few head pats, which I felt a bit mixed over. Maybe I only felt that way because I wasn’t used to older men touching me with any intent but violence. It was a good pat, I should have liked it. I should probably try working on myself and getting over all that, although I’m sure it’ll be hard. We’ll see.

 

I let out a super huge yawn and Chella immediately started dragging me away to bed. The Head Priest called after us and said we could sleep in past the morning prayer if we needed, but there was no way I was going to miss my free daily exp, so I asked him to please at least wake me up for it, which earned me some kind of pleased ‘priestly’ look from him, like he was deciding I was really and truly devout. Whatever works I guess; I'll let him keep thinking that.

 

“Oh, and by the way, Head Priest.”

 

I shot him a small smile that probably looked way too smug, in contrast to whatever devout thoughts he’d been thinking about me.

 

“I’ll have you know I can finally use [Regenerative Heal]!”

 

Leaving him with a surprised look on his face, I let the impatient and sleepy Chella drag me away.

 

~~~

 

Sleepy though I was, the morning prayer came and went, along with my daily allotment of 30 free exp. Chella had forced herself to get up and come along too, although her face was obviously crabby the whole way. The priests kept asking me questions all throughout breakfast, even though Chella kept glaring at them like they were being far too noisy, which was quite a feat considering how respectful she usually was towards them. At least her glare managed to work on the balding priest a bit, so my question-load was lessened. Thank you, Chella.

 

Oh, and the Head Priest was especially quiet and pensive. I wonder if it’s because of what I said last night? Is he still thinking about what outfit to give me? Hopefully it’s that, and not some other more serious thing that I’m not going to like.

 

“So you’re off with Chella today?”

 

“Yup! We’re going to get a bit more rest and then go see her family. Ferr’s going to come pick us up, right?”

 

When I mentioned Ferr’s name, Chella suddenly averted her glare and stared down into her bowl of stew. It was an adorable reaction, and I could hear the suppressed giggle leaking from behind Meria’s hand. Chella could too, apparently, if her deepening pout meant anything, so Meria quickly brought up a different topic.

 

“Well if that’s the case, then maybe if you’re free tomorrow we can go pick out the feathers? I’ll be the one in charge of the birds that day, so how about the two of you come with me after we have breakfast?”

 

Chella’s head rose with a confused look, as if she completely forgot all of her previous embarrassment.

 

“The two of us? I thought you were just taking her.”

 

“Ohhh, don’t call the Saintess ‘her’, Chella! Honestly! And yes, I was planning to take the both of you along. You may have given that hair tie away, but it was originally yours. I know your hair might still be short, but I’m sure you’ll miss having a hair tie if you ever grow it out again. So why not take advantage of the offer while I’m still making it?”

 

She raised a good point, and it was hard to beat Meria’s big sister-like presence. I wonder if that’s how she and Chella had previously gotten along before, since Ferr gave off quite a similar big sister vibe? It also makes me wonder why I never really caught the two of them hanging out since I arrived, though. Maybe I’ll get a chance to ask her about that at the brothel later.

 

Ahhh, I’m so excited that I get to see Ferr again! I miss the big sexy tigress, and seeing a bunch of Chella being bashful around her is also bound to be cute. And besides, I made a promise. I can use [Regenerative Heal] now. It’s time to start my tour of lost limbs, with plenty of eye candy and cute Chellas along the way.