Level Up Saintess

I wasn’t actually touching it, so I was kind of confused if it would even work, you know? But I guess touching it with my [Benediction] shield still counted enough for me to be able to use [Cleanse] on the slime. I saw it glow like the skill was trying to work, and I saw my energy go down out of the corner of my eye like it was working too. But uh… Watching the dirt and miscellaneous random crap floating around inside of it get purged out through its body like it was all drilling out looked really… painful. In fact, it seemed like all the junk was piercing through the slime’s thin nucleus wall or whatever that was holding all of its liquids in, because it suddenly started leaking too, until it was just a weird deflated looking bubble. And then, when it had spilled out a majority of its insides and looked all disgusting and shriveled, it made a light ‘pop’ like a bubble, and went away, leaving its core behind.

 

Oh gosh, I feel bad about doing that. I’d rather have just one-shot it with a quick [Judgment] than done that to it! Why would it even happen?! I mean, they shot stuff at me from inside of them all the time, so why would cleaning them kill them?! I just don’t get it!

 

I stumbled over closer to the lake and found a bubbly spot nearby where I could just barely make out the shape of another slime through the murky water.

 

“[Appraisal].”

 

{Dirty Slime

Health: 20/20

Energy: 8/10

Status: Dirty

 

Skills: [Split], [Spit], [Acidic Skin], [Assimilate]

 

A dirty slime living in a murky lake in the forest. It spends its time with its kin splitting and eating random debris that comes too close or falls into the water. Grows stronger the dirtier it becomes, but is relatively weak due to the overall cleanliness of the lake.}

 

…I’m a fool for not trying to appraise them earlier. Maybe I should make that a new rule altogether. So I killed it because the ‘Dirty Slime’ was no longer ‘dirty’? Why wouldn’t it just turn into a regular slime then?! What, was dirtiness just that important to its identity or something?! Or I guess it’s because I just made it so weak that it couldn’t survive anymore. I didn’t get penalized for doing it since it’s a monster, but… Well, my conscience feels like I should definitely get punished for this.

 

I picked up the cores I’d won with relative silence.

 

Another slime came up to attack me while I was busy, but before it could even make it out of the water, I destroyed it with a [Judgment]. Its core fell into the lake, and I didn’t even bother trying to get it; I already had the 5 cores that I needed. And so I left to go and turn in my successful mission, and it was a very quiet and somber walk home the entire way.

 

~~~

 

When I brought the cores to the front desk and handed them over, the receptionist pulled out the little paper scrap that listed the mission and stamped it with a seal, adding it to my personal file and proving that I’d successfully finished the quest. A shiny little ‘+20xp!’ floated up from her as she did it, so it seems like I even get exp from turning in the quests, on top of the exp I got from killing all those slimes. Oh, and for the record, since they were 10 exp a pop and I killed 6 of em, I got a neat little 60 exp on top of that bonus 20, bringing me up to 80 exp from the whole excursion. It wasn’t the most I’d ever gotten out of working for an hour and a half by far, but I’m sure if I got better at it and hunted bigger game, it would definitely be worth it. Besides, at least it was better than nothing, and it was practice for the future when the church shipped me out to fight waves of much much worse things…

 

Oh and of course she handed me the 5 Riffles I was supposed to get in exchange for the cores, so that’s nice. Too bad it seems like absolute chump change, or maybe I’d go and buy something to wear under my toga. Ah well, too bad for now I guess. One day I’ll get enough money to not feel so risky. One day.

 

Scene 2, half an hour later, finds me right back at the church, collapsed face first onto my bed. That was all way too much stress and guilt for me. Screw the exp I could be farming from killing more things right now; I was the kind of person who didn’t even like using mouse traps, and now I have to watch as I personally killed things?

 

That’s not something I’m going to get over and accept in just a day.

 

I’m not stupid; I know this is necessary for my survival until I can finally be free from the looming threat of hell. And I’m really lucky that those slimes don’t look like some kind of animal or anything either, because I’d be absolutely horrified to hurt something like that. Heck, I already feel awful just for killing off some feelingless amorphous blobs, so how am I ever going to manage something with a face? Not even getting a guard or knight or whatever would make it better, since I’d still feel like they were killing them on my orders. It’s the mouse trap guilt all over again, you know?

 

This is really a dilemma for me.

 

I guess… This is just going to be something I’ll have to spend the time getting over. Just like all the rest of the bad things I’ve had to deal with throughout my life, it’s not something that I can just shut my ears and ignore until it goes away. Better I spend the time slowly tackling it day by day and building up an immunity, instead of horrifying myself with it all at once in the future. …But still it sucks. At least there’s some consolation exp in it for me. I’d thank the Goddess for it, if she wasn’t the reason that I’m in this mess in the first place.

 

Oh well, whatever. Let’s stop thinking about this and get some rest. And then maybe, with the rest of my day, I’ll… Idunno, I guess I should practice my writing. Truth be told, it’s still kind of bothering me how much Chella and the receptionist thought it looked dumb. I’m sure there’ll be lots more chances for me to have to write stuff in the future, so better to tackle that little problem sooner rather than later, too.

 

Saintesses really have a lot of different stuff going on all the time, don’t they?

 

~~~

 

Chella woke me up an hour later and I told her about how my excursion went. It was nice seeing her check me over for any wounds, but I guess when she remembered that I was a Saintess, she got embarrassed and returned to her usual prickly self. She told me I was being dumb about the whole slime thing, and honestly I couldn’t tell her that I wasn’t. I’m sure in a medieval or whatever this is supposed to be time period like this, useless sympathy like that would just get you killed. There’s countless dangerous things out there that are trying to kill you, so feeling bad for having to kill them first is just a waste of time. I get it, I do. …Idunno, maybe I can pass off this reluctance of mine as some kind of ‘Benevolence of the Saintess’ or something stupid like that. Who knows? It could work.

 

When I told Chella I was going to the library, she came along with me. She almost never stuck around in the library, so you can understand why this really stood out to me, right? But even though she acted like she just came along because she had something to do, I could tell from her occasional glances at me and the way she struggled to choose a book once we got there that she had actually just come along with me to make sure I was okay.

 

Yup, Chella’s cute as always. Gotta love her, prickles and all.

 

I asked the balding priest for some paper and he gladly handed over a few sheets and a quill. Coming from modern times and a town lacking in very much culture, I never really got to try out a quill before, you know? Honestly, I was pretty scared that I was gonna break it. And you know what, my thoughts were completely founded, because I completely crushed the nib as soon as I tried to write. The priest looked like I’d smashed his fine china or something, and Chella, who had been acting like she wasn’t paying attention this whole time, immediately spewed with laughter.

 

Yeah, alright. I’m sorry I’m such an idiot. I guess I always was the type to press a bit too hard whenever I used a pen in my past life. Please teach me how to not break the nice looking quill. Yes yes, I’m a complete bumpkin. Mhmm, maybe I should just start out with the simple pencils instead. Oh, you’re alright with trying to teach me once I get a little bit better at writing? Yes, how kind of you. So forgiving, balding priest. I’ll make sure to remember this favor for later. Chella, you can shut up with the laughter already, it was funny but it wasn’t that funny. Geez…

 

Everyone looks like a fool the first time they do something, right? …Right?

 

~~~

 

Alright, day number two of learning to fight off monsters!

 

Apparently the slime core quest is just an omnipresent thing, I guess. I wonder what it is that they’re using all those cores for? If they somehow wanted some of the slime’s slime then I’d say it was for cosmetics or potions or something, but… Wait, would it even be possible to get a slime’s slime? Certainly, if it is possible, then they wouldn’t want the slime from a dirty slime, right? Oh well, I guess it doesn’t matter what they’re using them for, I’m just the supplier. Yup, it’s just like working retail; The customer is always right, no matter how odd or possibly stupid what they want may sound.

 

I also took another quest in order to push myself! I’ll do the slimes to warm up, and then I’ll make some kind of attempt at hunting some lizards near a cave! Apparently they’re rock lizards, so they’re a little bit tough, but they sometimes have rare gems inside, so people request them just to gamble or something I guess. In a way it’s a bit of a lottery system? Or maybe just a get rich quick scheme. Either way, it’s perfect as a quest to start working my way up the monster slaying ranks. And I even made sure that if I chicken out and fail, I won’t get penalized or anything, so it should be all good!

 

The slime fighting went a bit better than yesterday, since, you know, I learned not to underestimate the little things. And also because I learned that my [Benediction] is actually pretty badass! Go Saintess powers, woo! Funnily enough, I tanked 5 slimes out in the open all at once while I slowly [Judgment]'d them to death one by one, but my [Benediction] shield didn’t even seem to care. I highly doubt it’s supposed to be that strong, right? I mean, I’m only level 8. Do my abilities not scale depending on my level? Judging by my healing and Chella’s overall reaction to how my skills work, it doesn’t seem like it does. I guess once I have the skill, I just have the highest possible version of it that I can get? Makes sense, considering none of them have levels or upgrades attached to them or anything, but it kind of feels like cheating somehow. Well… I guess that’s just the perks of being the cheat character known as the Saintess, but it kind of feels bad that I can’t seem to do anything to make my skills better later. No, that’s not really true, since I get to buy all the next tiers of the skills eventually. It’s not that different, really. Really, I mean it. I’m not sad. Promise.

 

Maybe one of these days I should watch one of the priests or Chella heal someone else so I can see just how big of a cheat I really am; It’ll probably teach me to appreciate how broken I am. Don’t know when I’d ever get a chance to though, since it seems like I’ve already healed anyone who’d be willing to come to the church and ask for it. My efficiency is both a blessing and a curse, I suppose.

 

That’s enough of getting a big head though. It’s lizard killin’ time.