Level Up Saintess

It was obvious as soon as I attached their attention from killing that first zombie that these zombies were different. If course, the way they sprinted at me like freaks was very hard to miss. Well, really the first big difference I noticed was that the exp that this particular zombie kill gave me was 40, instead of the 30 I’d been getting from all the previous ones. Didn’t have much time to contemplate on that though, since, yeah, the zombies ran me down. I started to run back in a panic towards where Kale was watching me a short distance away, but those zombies basically moved as fast as olympic sprinters, or at least it felt that way to me, so there was really no escape to be had. They were even so fast that I saw a handful of them run right past me with Kale in their sights, and I couldn’t help but immediately hate myself when I realized that I led them right to him by stupidly running his way.

 

At least I can thank my lucky stars that we already had a shiny new [Benediction] shield from earlier protecting us.

 

I was flung straight down to the ground as the wave of zombies crashed into me. It was all I could do to turn to face them and try to push some of them out of the way enough so that I could designate a target and use my skills on any of them. If I couldn’t see them then my skills wouldn’t go, stupidly enough, so I needed a better view than the one I had.

 

My vision steadily filled with more and more cracks from my shield as I struggled against the blanket of zombies holding me down. I could hear their teeth gnashing, and their bony but sharp fingers made an odd dinging sound as they frantically clawed at my [Benediction]. I could also make out the sounds of Kale doing something in the distance, and the sounds of the zombies surrounding him thudding down to the ground one by one, amidst the wails of them dying.

 

In my panic, it took me a while to realize that I could have just activated my [Pressure of the Divine] and easily saved us from this predicament. Sure, it would chug at my energy and screw me over a bit for the long run, but that was no match for literally dying, so of course I was going to use it! Feeling a little bit of relief at the idea of finally getting free, I flipped the switch in my mind and activated the skill-

 

Only for it to immediately flip back off.

 

I tried again and again to activate it, but for some reason it just refused to go.

 

Really, this was absolutely the WORST time for one of my skills to malfunction! Why?! Why wouldn’t it freaking turn on?! I’ve seen it work plenty of times before… Ah, but that was only on humans, want it? Are you telling me it doesn’t freaking work on monsters then?! Come on! That’s completely awful! Why wouldn’t it work on them?! This better be some special ‘only with the undead’ thing, because I swear to god Goddess, if it’s not, I’m gonna-!

 

Suddenly a gust of air filled with feathers flowed over the zombies that were piled on me, pushing them backwards like a strong wave, and throwing them onto their backs. I could feel Kale’s hands urgently pick me up and place me onto my feet. With my mobility restored, the zombies held at bay, and Kale at my back, I felt like I could finally breathe, and the paralysis in my mind eased up.

 

Right, I don’t need that stupid divine pressure thing in the first place! If I rely on that stupid crutch as the only fix for things, then I’ll just end up in that exact same situation. Besides, if it won’t work on the undead, then I’m sure I have something that’ll work 10x better; After all, didn’t I just read dozens of descriptions saying these are all just angry souls?

 

As the knocked down zombies started to stagger back to their feet, I cupped my hands together and began channeling my skill.

 

“[Soothing Bell].”

 

The beautiful sparkling bell came into ghostly existence in my hands, and as the bell chimed with its gonging sound and its vibrations went forth, I could see the zombies one after another crumple down to the floor like marionettes with their strings cut off. The supernatural lights that had glowed in their corpse-like eyes faded away, and soon afterwards their bodies crumbled to dust and returned to the earth. Instead of their souls floating up, I saw a field of ‘+40xp!’ notifications pop up from them, which was a bit worrying to me, since I was concerned that they wouldn’t end up going off to heaven like it seemed that the spirits from earlier had.

 

Still, I was quite happy for all the exp.

 

I took down 14 zombies, all for the initial 150 energy cost of activating [Soothing Bell]. Honestly, I think that just earned it the mvp skill for the day, jeez... Almost seems kind of unfair for the zombies, really. Seems like the tropes aren’t wrong; Holy-types really are the best classes against the undead!

 

So, for the record I got 560 exp from the 14 zombies I took out, but after double checking the math, I apparently also got half the exp I should have on the other 4 zombies that Kale killed before he knocked everyone back, giving me another 80 exp on top of that! It’s good to learn that if Kale defeats monsters while he’s out with me, I also get a bit of the credit. Was it just because we were fighting the same things together, or was it due to me having a [Benediction] on him? Would I have gotten full credit if I’d directly helped him with those ones, maybe? This definitely calls for more testing, for sure. Definitely.

 

Kale made sure to check me over and see that I was alright, which put a smile on my face which was already looking pretty happy from all the exp I just got. Really, having someone else around to help you hunt was way better. If he didn’t have my back just now, I’m sure things would have ended up a total shit-show. I’m sure I could have made my way out of it eventually, but… Yeah. Who knows how poorly it would have ended up...

 

You know, it’s silly of me to not have thought of this before, but why don’t I just get Kale to be my guard for me? There’s plenty of records of Saintesses employing their lovers as their knights or assistants or something close like that, and from the way Kale fixed that situation just now and how he barely looks ruffled afterwards unlike me, he seems to know what he’s doing.

 

Well… Maybe the two of us aren’t lovers, though. Honestly, we never even really got to make it to that step in my last life either. But nothing says we can’t try to make that leap again in this life, right? We’ve been given a second chance, and I want to continue what we never got to start, you know?

 

Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Kale hasn’t even gotten his memory back.

…I’d just be a crummy power abusing Saintess if I tried to start anything with him now...

 

Screw it, I’ll just ask him about the knight thing later.

 

~~~

 

It took a few minutes of wandering, but it seemed that last horde of running zombies was the final step before we made it to the center of the undead mist or whatever it was. There was a very macabre looking pile of bones, skin, and limbs, pulsating in a dug open pit inside of a clearing in the trees. It seemed like it almost glowed with an odd light, and I could tell that the mist was emanating from it. Giving it a quick scan with [Appraisal] showed that the thing was called a ‘corpse pile’, which I found to be very fitting. Apparently it was what formed from all the improperly buried bodies being unceremoniously dumped into this mass grave. The will of the souls of all the wronged and tortured people, along with the mana left over in their bodies, all clumped together and made… that.

 

Honestly, the thing gave a massively unholy feeling. It basically made every hair on my body stand up just to look at it, and smelled just like how you’d expect it to. Kale couldn’t even follow me very closely inside, since the mist was too strong for his sensitive beastkin senses, so I had to leave him there and go on alone. I was kind of surprised that the shadow figure from my dreams didn’t talk to me again when I appraised it, you know? Felt like it should be the perfect time.

 

Of course, removing it wasn’t going to be easy. I don’t think it was ‘sentient’ per se, but it sure as heck knew that I was coming for it, and it did everything it could to stop me. At first it spit out a few spirits to attack me, but with my experiences fighting against those things earlier, it was basically a walk in the park to just cast a few long ranged [Heal]s at them and take ‘em down. I even had the thought of using this thing to farm some exp at some point, but after shooting 5 spirits at me it gave up on that attack pattern, so I guess that one wasn’t gonna pan out. Makes sense, since this isn’t actually a video game; There’s no way it just had infinite spirits chilling inside of it, realistically.

 

Eh, it’s not like I have infinite energy anyways either, so I guess it’s not such a big loss.

I’ll just have to take what I can get, I suppose.

 

Every step of the way the corpse pile tried to toss out something new at me. After the spirits failed, it tried to launch little clusters of bone at me like a shotgun, but sadly they were too weak to actually get through my newly cast [Benediction] shield. When I made it 2/3rds of the way to it, it let out a ghostly wail and concentrated its energy. Just when I was wondering what kind of undead it was going to summon against me now, it hit me with a surprise and showed me one I hadn’t gotten to see before.

 

It summoned up a banshee of all things!

 

For a moment I was a bit scared, and my panicking mind was falling back on the idea of appraising it to figure out how to beat it, but I got over it decently quickly now that I’d been doing this for a few hours straight. After all, they’re just undead, and I have the upper hand against them no matter what, so there’s nothing for me to be scared of here. I’m a Saintess, you know; I’m completely OP for this place.

 

Besides, how am I going to fail now and show Kale such a bad side of me again?

 

“[Judgment]!”

I wasn’t taking any chances here. I will be winning this!