Level Up Saintess

I stood there dazed for a while, staring at the odd [Appraisal] results and desperately trying to understand them. It was obvious that the shadow from last night was trying to talk to me, but I couldn’t figure out why it was happening here, now, while I was awake. I mean sure, the Goddess talked to me once while I was awake too, and I suppose the shadow hijacked my dreams just like she could as well, but it could even communicate to me through the system the Goddess gave me too?! I was under the impression that this whole system deal was purely a ‘Goddess to Saintess’ kind of set up, right? Was this shadowy figure so strong that it was able to slip past the Goddess’s defenses? Or was my theory that that thing might be the Goddess trying to trick me more likely than I thought? But was the Goddess really the type to say this kind of stuff about herself? I was under the impression-

 

“Saintess? Are you alright? ...Would you like me to kill that one instead?”

 

Huh? Oh, right. We’re out hunting right now... Wow, that could have really been dangerous. Good thing Kale’s here, or maybe I could have had another moment like I had with those slimes…

 

“No, I’m fine, really. I just…”

 

How would I even explain this to Kale right now? ‘Sorry Kale, I was just busy looking at a possible demon talking to me’? Like that could ever fly... Besides, if that isn’t the Goddess testing me and is really actually someone else, then it’s likely that the Goddess doesn’t know about it, since she seemingly hasn’t done anything to stop it. What happens if I mention it out loud and she suddenly notices...? What if she deems me ‘defective’ somehow and just arbitrarily kills me because of it? I can’t take the risk; I just found a reason to want to live again! But then what if that demon really is some kind of defect, like a virus or something, and I’m dooming myself by not telling her about it?

 

Ah, Kale’s looking really worried about me right now. Yeah, and that spirit or whatever is getting a little closer, too. I guess I better get my shit together.

 

“I’m sorry Kale, just… Give me a minute please.”

 

Look, if this is really some kind of glitch, then the weirdness will replicate itself again, right? So then let’s test it and get some more evidence before I start freaking out over it.

 

I closed my eyes tightly to gather myself for a moment, cleared the [Appraisal] mentally, and then cast it again to see if I would get the same results.

 

“[Appraisal].”

 

{Forgotten Spirit

Health: 36/36

Energy: - / -

Status: Intangible

 

Skills: None

 

The spirit of a poor being, tortured and disfigured in death, who has come back to haunt its surroundings. It spends its time angrily searching for those who wronged it, but will attack anyone it sees, unable to tell the living apart. Grows stronger with the more undead that are spawned near its place of death.}

 

Third time’s the charm, I guess. I don’t see any weird shadow figure glitches here, so I guess I fixed it? Or maybe whatever the thing is that’s trying to reach me just isn’t that crazy powerful, and can’t talk to me for very long. Could be that invading the system like that is just really hard, too. Either way, until I find out some other hints about it or it gets to be a problem, I guess I just have to ignore it for now.

 

~~~

 

We kept going, wandering through the mist as I killed off whatever undead came my way. So far I’d managed to kill 4 more spirits including the one that glitched, and 3 skeletons. I appraised every single one of them before fighting them if I could, just in case I found yet another glitchy message where the shadowy figure tried to talk to me again. Luckily everything was normal though, and I didn’t find another one of those messages, but damn if I wasn’t slightly paranoid about another one showing up. Besides, it wasn’t all bad, since it made sure I was learning about the undead that I was fighting. For instance, even though none of the monsters I’ve come across have levels, they do have health points just like me, and it seems the only way I can distinguish if one undead is stronger than the other is purely through their HP, or any of their other stats. The descriptions had kept telling me that the undead would grow stronger the more of their buddies were near where it came from, right? Yeah, well apparently that’s true, and each successive undead I’ve found has only been stronger and stronger. It’s not just the spirits, either; It’s also the skeletons that I've been finding, too.

 

Well, not like I would really know if they’re stronger since I didn’t let myself get hurt by them, but the ones with higher HP certainly seemed faster and more aware than the others!

 

The Skeletons had been a little bit tougher to fight than the spirits, since all 3 of the ones I came across were roaming together in a pack. They even had these odd ghostly blades they were carrying, and when they missed they didn’t have to spend time wobbling around and correcting themselves like the wispy little spirits had to, but instead just started swinging at me again. I basically had no time to think while fighting them, especially since there were multiple to pay attention to. I’m sure if I’d discovered the spirits in a pack I would have had wayyy harder of a time dodging all of them as well. But yeah, even just fighting one of these skeletons would have been a little bit challenging if I wasn’t able to get a [Judgment] off right away. I’m sad to say I totally had to rely on my [Benediction] a bit during that fight.

 

Oddly enough, even though I’m pretty sure I took about 3 good hits to my [Benediction]’s shield, it still didn’t give me that cracking effect that I’d gotten when the kidnappers had hit me. Did that mean that the skeletons were just really weak even though they should have been buffed at the moment, or did it mean that that kidnapper was inordinately strong...? Or maybe it’s just all skills making up the difference, since none of the undead that I’ve found so far have had any? Yeah, that last one could certainly be it.

 

You know… Comparing them made me think about the kidnappers again. Could it be that they were the ‘shady organization’ that I was told dumped all these bodies here and caused these undead to appear...? I hate the fact that that’s probably the case... They were definitely strong enough that I don’t think they’d be bothered by these weak undead, so I doubt it would have deterred them from dumping more bodies here. I don’t like it, but I can’t help but agree with what that shadowy figure said to me. Truly, why is the Goddess allowing all of this…?

 

Ah, no, let’s focus on something different. Did I mention I leveled up? Those 4 spirits I sent off to the Goddess gave me 80 exp overall, and the skeletons were worth 25 exp a pop, so that was another 75, so now I’m 20/1600 into level 16! I didn’t take the time to look at my skills yet though since this place isn’t particularly safe. Sure, I could have left things to Kale and taken a little break, but considering we’re here to get me more combat experience, I’d feel lazy leaving some of it to him.

 

Right now I had only stopped because I’d found yet another type of undead, the very kind that everyone thinks of when they hear that word in anything.

 

{Zombie

Health: 120/120

Energy: - / -

Status: Decaying

 

Skills: None

 

A rotting carcass, given the ability to move by the sheer agony of its death and its anger towards those who caused it. It craves human flesh of any kind, and will continue rotting should it not receive enough within a day, eventually becoming their weaker counterparts, skeletons. Decays even faster in the sunlight. Grows stronger with the more undead that are spawned near its place of death.}

 

Yup, that thing’s got a lot more health than the average 70 that the skeletons had. I’m sure it’ll still only take one [Judgment] to bring it down though, since it still one shot that 200 health devil in the church just fine. There’s a group of about 8 of them in front of me right now, but from what I could see while I was busy appraising all of them in a paranoid fashion, they seem to be crazy slow, so I should have plenty of time to deal with them.

 

You know, it’s really interesting to see zombies in real life like this. I thought I would be more scared, but maybe because I’ve already seen plenty of scary things in this life, the impact was a bit lessened from what it should have been. I know I used to be more scared of zombies back in the day… Kale and I would curl up on a couch when he’d come over during halloween, and we’d watch a bunch of spooky movies together, including zombie ones. In fact, I think he really liked showing the zombies and ghosts to me especially…

 

Oh woops, I was zoning out and staring at Kale too long while I reminisced. He’s going to ask me if something’s wrong again if I keep this up!

 

Okay okay Arissa, please just focus and get started already, jeez!

Kale’s gonna think I’m so weird…

 

~~~

 

Alright, so maybe I’m an idiot, or maybe I’m just unlucky. I want to believe the unlucky part, but considering the circumstances… Yeah, maybe I’m just an idiot.

 

I managed to get myself surrounded.

 

I’d actually managed to kill those first 8 zombies just fine, you know? I even got cocky and tried to practice dodging around them. They attacked much quicker than they walked, and I figured I could really learn a thing or two by practicing with them. And honestly? It was going great. This body is much faster and better at dodging than my old one, and I was feeling pretty proud of myself. I killed all 8 of those zombies with ease, and each of them gave me a cool 30 exp for it, so I was getting really happy about everything. This trip was totally paying off in dividends.

 

I was completely pleased with myself, but I wasn’t happy with how quickly I was running through my energy. I had a max of 2500 energy now, which is a ton, and I’ve leveled up only a little while ago which had completely refilled it. But considering it cost 50 energy to renew my [Benediction] after fighting those skeletons, and I’d killed 8 zombies at 100 energy a pop using [Judgment], I didn’t much care for how quickly I’d gotten down to 1650 energy. Sure, that was still a lot, but really there were only about 16 more kills left in me at this pace before I would basically pass out, and considering that I could see another 18ish zombies in front of me and I hadn’t made it to the heart of this undead fog I’d been wading through yet… Yeah, I had to rethink my means of attack.

 

So I ended up giving attacking with a ranged heal a try, instead.

 

In most games you find with the undead in them, healing spells actually kill the undead, right? So I figured since I could now use my healing skills ranged, why not give it a shot! And you know what? I found a group to try it out on, and it worked perfectly. The zombie I healed dropped absolutely dead, and then just crumbled right into the ground, same as all the others. Woohoo yay for video game tropes, I guess.

 

But you know what I forgot to do?

I was so happy and pleased with myself that I stopped caring about the shadow message from before, and completely forgot the real reason you should always appraise before you attack.

 

And now I was pinned beneath a horde of fast running zombies.