Level Up Saintess

I placed all the little slime cores I picked up into a pouch that Chella had offered me after I told her my plans this morning. She’s such a thoughtful person, really; It’s a shame that she hates being nice while she does such sweet things. What did she say to me this time? Something about having a stupidly small body that would never be able to lug all that extra weight around? She really stressed that ‘stupidly small body’ part, too. First she makes fun of my hair, and now she’s being mean to me about how short I am. It’s not like I chose this body! The Goddess only gave it to me a week ago! I wouldn’t have this stupid hard to manage straw on my head if she’d asked me about it, and I certainly wouldn’t have told her to make me so short and skinny! It’s like she pulled this new body of mine out of a gutter somewhere or something! Clearly it didn’t come from a well-off life.

Well, actually I don’t really care that I’m short. I don’t think I was terribly cute in my last life since I was more on the lanky side like my mother, so I would like it if I was allowed to be cute in this one. I doubt this body will grow too much more height-wise, so I’ll probably continue to be this short, although I should still have some room to flesh out and mature, looks-wise. Shortness is only a downside if you can’t reach things, you know. And since I’m a Saintess and all, I bet it’ll be rare for me not to have some kind of tall escort with me in the future. I’m still crossing my fingers on that whole accompanying knight thing, for sure. Maybe I’ll get one once the main church recognizes me. We’ll have to see how things go after I get to level 10 and the Head Priest decides to tell them about me being here.

Right, lizards. We should go and find the lizards.

The receptionist told me that the lizards lived in a cave in the opposite direction from the slime lake, about 15 minutes out from the path. I sure can’t say I felt safe wandering through an unfamiliar forest for the first time. Really, I think there ought to be some directional signs set up here, but I guess maybe the adventurer’s guild doesn’t have the authority to put up that kind of thing. It would at least be good to have markers that point to the lizard cave instead of me just fumbling through the trees and hoping, you know? At least I should be safe since this is supposed to be a relatively easy area. Also, I mean, I doubt my overpowered [Benediction] would fail me here anyway, so at least I have that going for me.

Taking the time strolling through the woods was making me feel a bit sentimental. I had a few of my rare good memories from my past life in a forest similar to this one. Sure, some of the trees here might be a bit more fantastical than the ones in my last life, but the overall ambience is definitely the same. I’m sure Kale would have loved to stroll through these trees with me. He loved nature; We both did. We never got to do it in the end, but we always promised that we’d go hiking together one day. We’d even planned out nature reserves near us that we wanted to go see in the future. He always promised me that we’d feel better once we got out into all that open nature and fresh air. He…

Y’know, there was a time when Kale and I ran away together when we were kids. We just couldn't take anymore of the abuse at home, you know? We were barely over 10 at the time, so we only brought 2 backpacks. Mine was stuffed with snacks and little chocolate milk cartons, and his was full of flashlights, and sheets to try and make a tent with. We hid out in a forest for a whole night, until we realized we'd run out of food the next morning and decided to sneak back home and get more. Of course, we ended up getting caught and getting into big trouble, but I'll always remember that one peaceful night together where neither of us had to walk on eggshells to try and not get hurt. It was a long time before either of us got to be that free again, but by the time we were, we were already too messed up to ever really recover from it. Being in a forest always makes me remember that night; Maybe that's why I always feel a bit calmer in them.

Alright, maybe ‘calmer’ isn’t the right word for what I’m feeling right now. It’s probably more appropriate to say I’m nostalgic in a sad way.

My forlorn thoughts were abruptly stopped by something skittering up a tree nearby me. I jerked to the side and put my hands up like I was going to defend myself, but the only thing I saw was a small lizard the length of my shin, staring back at me from the side of the tree. Its skin looked like it was made out of some kind of stone, and its eyes were almost marbles. Amongst the ridges on its back, it had a few bumps that looked especially shiny, like they might be hiding a jewel or two inside of them. I’m sure this thing must have been one of the rock lizards I was sent out here to get, right? But… It kinda looks more newt-like than lizard-like to me. Or maybe it’s closer to a skink? It’s kind of hard to tell with its rocky body.

Oh, but it seems like the little things are fast, despite what they look like.

The moment I moved out of my defensive position, the little guy climbed up and into the tree. I guess their speed must be one of the reasons that they’re ranked higher up in difficulty than the slimes were. Maybe it’s not much higher, since they aren’t supposed to be terribly dangerous, but it’s still higher nonetheless. I stared up at where the lizard disappeared to, but it didn’t seem dumb enough to come out of its hiding tree, so I decided to move on. I wasn’t all the way to the cave where I was supposed to see them yet, so I’m sure I’ll get plenty more chances to encounter them as I go.

I walked for two more minutes and lo and behold, I found another lizard skittering along through the grass. The good news is, the grass here isn’t too terribly high, so I could see it pretty well as it moved on its way. The bad news is, it could also still see me, too. So uh, yeah, it obviously ran. Luckily I managed to come to my senses and cast [Judgment] on it in time, but it didn’t successfully proc. I ended up running after the little skittering lizard, shouting [Judgment] at it about 4 more times until it finally took. At least once the skill successfully gets cast, it’s guaranteed to hit. I mean, it literally describes itself as ‘judgment from the Goddess’, so it damn well better not miss, you know? Anyways, the poor lizard was suddenly impaled by a spike that came up from the ground, and after some heartbreaking death-wiggles, it finally died.

Let me tell you: Getting it off of that spike was absolutely awful. I know this is training for not being so sensitive to hunting these things down, but the scene of what was left where the spike ran through it was… Well, let’s not speak of it any further. In the sack it goes. Out of sight, out of mind.

As I was busy trying to think of absolutely anything else, I realized that I was being dumb again. Didn’t I tell myself after the mishap with the slimes that I was going to always appraise something before I tried to fight it? Ugh, really, I could be so forgetful about the most basic things sometimes, I swear. Okay, the next lizard that I see, I’m going to use [Appraisal] on, for sure! Now let’s…

Oh, okay, there’s one!

…Alright, so just like with [Judgment], trying to use [Appraisal] didn’t really take on the first time I tried to use it. It’s not my fault the lizards are too fast for me to get a firm lock on, okay?! So yeah, of course I had to chase after it, just like the last one. I ran for a while, shouting [Appraisal] repeatedly, which I’m sure was scary as hell to the poor lizard. Seems I really just got lucky with that successful [Judgment] earlier, or maybe this lizard was faster than the previous one, because damn was my [Appraisal] just not taking on this thing. I even considered that maybe the things just couldn’t be appraised, but I immediately doubted that. I’m a broken character, so there’s no way some little lizard in the easy section of the forest couldn’t be read by me, right? Surely I was just missing too much.

I’m sad to say, it took about 30 tries before I succeeded in appraising that damn speedy lizard.

{Rock Lizard

Health: 26/30

Energy: 0/0

Status: Feared

Skills: [Sticky Feet], [Chomp], [Dig]

A Rock Lizard from a gem cave in the forest. Though its skin is textured like a rock, it is only as tough as shale, and can be broken with enough force. It consumes the nearby plant-life and the occasional bug, but sometimes as it burrows to make a place to sleep, it will eat a gem from the cave that they originate in, causing the gem to get stuck inside of their digestive tracts for a long while.

Note: This lizard has a gem inside of it.}

Wow, I’m amazed something can have skills but not have energy. I guess they’re just passive skills or something? They must be, if- HOLY CRAP this thing has a gem in it! My [Appraisal] is absolutely amazing! This is so lucky~! If I can just scan each of them and find out if they’re the right ones with the gem, then-!

Nah, while I was busy reading the [Appraisal] results that one got away anyways, so I guess I won’t be getting the special gem one this time.

Okay, if I’m thinking about this rationally, this isn’t really as big of a deal as I’m making it out to be. First of all, it took me an insane amount of tries just to even appraise one of these stupid little things, so it’s not like I’m gonna run around trying it on every single lizard I see. If anything, I’d just lose the damn lizard again trying to read its [Appraisal] results anyways! Besides… What, am I going to butcher the thing myself and take out its gem? Hell no, there’s absolutely no way! And if I take it to a butcher, they could just keep the gem and tell me they didn’t find one. What am I going to do, say my Saintess abilities told me there was a gem in there? I’m sure the church wouldn’t appreciate me acting so pettily to a common person, and I definitely don’t have the energy to go through any of that in the first place, so no thank you! I don't need the money that badly anyways.

Let’s just let that lizard be the one that got away and call it quitsies on any of those ‘get rich quick exploit’ fantasies right now. I'll just make my money fair and square the good old fashioned way with minimal cheating, thank you.