Level Up Saintess

Okay, don’t judge a book by its cover. The giants were actually quite nice, and once we escaped the somber atmosphere of the guild building and started down the road, everyone quickly loosened up. The ranger bunny-girl silently handed me a piece of jerky to chew on while we walked. The warrior woman roughly ran her hand through her own bobbed hair as if she had given up, and asked if the ranger, who apparently is named Tilly, had any for the rest of them. And when all the jerky had finished being passed around, I got to learn everyone else’s names too. The tanned warrior woman was Frete, the slender mage man was Dale, and the boulder of a man that looked to be a bruiser was appropriately called Hill.

 

Yeah, it’s definitely important to remember the names of the people who are gonna help you stay alive, so I did my best to try to memorize them.

 

Apparently the next town over was only a little over an hour away, on the other side of the forest that I’d been doing quests in for the past few days. They told me something called ‘blood-beasts’ had attacked the town just last night, and that there still might be more survivors that need rescuing, hidden inside of their homes. But the mage in the back also spoke up and mentioned that what we think might be a survivor could instead turn out to be a blood-beast in disguise.

 

Of course I asked what these spooky sounding blood-beasts were, and the warrior woman laughed and apologized at the same time.

 

“Oh, our bad, of course you probably wouldn’t know of them; They’re quite the rare beasts. Think of them as… Well, I suppose they’d be closest to vampires, or maybe an illness? One gets attacked and infected by a blood-beast, and then they become possessed by the blood-beast. It can control anything that it manages to mix its blood with, whether it be animal or human, and I’ve heard tales that almost half a town has been infected by one before.”

 

Wow, so it’s some kind of sentient virus, then? That sounds pretty spooky, not to mention hard to get rid of.

 

“...Then what are we supposed to do? Do we have to kill off everyone who’s infected? Or is it possible for me to use [Cure] to get rid of it?”

 

“Getting rid of it is actually quite simple, we just have to kill the main host body, the blood-beast itself. They’re called ‘blood-beasts’ for a reason, since they actually do have the bodies of a beast. And once we kill the main beast who’s controlling all the others, everyone should be cut loose from the blood virus. Now, the hard part will be actually making it to the main beast, since it’ll be hiding somewhere in the town. Blood-beasts are always big and look a bit like mutated werewolves covered in blood and wounds, so it’s not like it’ll be hard to spot per se... But making it past all the infected villagers and beasts it’s protecting itself with without harming them will be quite hard. And that’s where you come in, Saintess! We need you to keep us healed up, sure, but we also need your help healing and hopefully curing any of the villagers that get in our way.”

 

“Oh, does [Cure] work on a blood beast infection?”

 

“Honestly, I have no clue. Ordinarily I’d say no, but with you being the Saintess, who knows?”

 

Okay, so they’re just banking on the fact that I’m a magical mystical cheat existence then, huh? Fine, that plan doesn’t seem all that unreasonable, and if the [Cure] bit doesn’t work then at least I can still make sure that no more villagers have to die than necessary. It doesn’t seem like I’ll really be expected to fight much at all, so that’s nice too. Oh, but even if I’m not going to be fighting, I still have to do my best as a backline supporter! And I can’t forget the things I learned during my time hunting the slimes and the lizards, either!

 

This is really important! Lives are at stake! Stay sharp, Arissa!

 

~~~

 

First of all, I made sure to cast [Benediction] on all of us as soon as we got close to the town. The team seemed impressed with it, and I even got a whistle out of the big Hill guy, which made me feel a little bit proud of myself. I was told to stick to the back, near the ranger and the mage, so I did my best to nestle myself in between them as we slowly made our way in. For the most part the place seemed eerily quiet, except for the sound of the occasional fire working its way through a hopefully abandoned house, or a few distressed livestock attempting to run away from something. Can’t say I blamed the people who decided to set their houses on fire, if indeed it was an intentional decision; If I was being attacked by a nightmarish beast, I’d sure as hell try using fire against them too.

 

Sometimes a fleeing goat or pig would rush past us, noisily making their way away from the danger, and we would head towards where they came from, literally looking for the danger they were fleeing from. A few of the streets we passed over were covered in overturned stalls, fallen objects, or even bundles of laundry that people had tossed aside to either distract their attackers and gain time, or just to lighten their loads as they ran away. …And of course, sometimes, more often than I would like, we would find bodies, broken beyond repair, that had been left rotting in the streets overnight. I did my best not to look at them. Can't say how effective it was, though.

 

I really hope this isn’t like a zombie movie, where the bodies end up rising up behind us.

 

Suddenly, around when we made it about a third of the way through the town, the loud noise of a scuffle broke out in one of the nearby houses. A woman screamed, and the door of a home two buildings down slammed open. The woman, who I expected to be the one who was screaming, bolted out of the house, but when she saw us she panicked and froze in place. I guess she must have been trying to figure out whether or not we were enemies or allies, but eventually after scanning us over she decided to come to us and beg.

 

“Please please please please say you’ll help me!”

 

As she made her way over to us, I squinted at her hard, trying my best at the exact same thing that I think she had been trying to guess about us just before; Was this woman one of the people the blood-beast had taken over? I tried to check her over for any signs of blood on her anywhere, but soon I realized I was being dumb and just quietly used my [Appraisal] skill on her. She may have been missing a bit of health, but it didn’t mention anywhere about her being 'possessed' or anything, so that’s good. Just to be safe, I gave her a quick [Heal] and a [Benediction] to top her off. Had to be stealthy about reaching out to touch her and do it, though, since the woman was quite jumpy at the moment.

 

Of course, while I was doing all that, her attacker managed to lumber out of the building.

 

“C-come b-baaack Rebbeccc… Rebbecaaa... Come…”

 

Yeah, okay. This one is definitely possessed, right? He was slow, his words were weird, but more importantly, the man was covered with little rips and wounds all over his forearms, with dripping blood that almost looked like it was somehow squirming. Now I feel silly for thinking the lady hiding behind us could have been infected like him, although I guess it always pays to be sure.

 

Everyone readied themselves for a fight, and the warrior quickly peeked back to look at me.

 

“Think you can try using [Cure] on him, Saintess?”

 

“...I’d have to touch him to do it.”

 

“Alright then, guess we’ll have to make him safe for you first. Dale?”

 

“I’ll try. Oh spirits of darkness, oh fairies of sleep, come before me now to-”

 

I guess the mage guy, Dale I mean, I guess Dale’s chant was gonna take a really long time, and meanwhile, the slow infected guy was actually managing to pick up a good bit of speed, now that it had locked eyes on all of us. I hate to say it, but I was definitely wrong about calling him slow before. Maybe he was just catching his breath? The big bruiser guy, Hill, tried to buy Dale some time by using the circular shield that he pulled from his back, but I guess the infected guy was smarter than to just crash against it. Instead, with freak-like reflexes, the infected man half-stumbled over to Hill’s open side and lunged around, headed right for the chanting Dale. If Frete and Tilly didn’t leap in to block him, then the infected guy’s claw-like hands would have definitely made it to dig into Dale.

 

Oh right, I think I heard somewhere that mages can’t move while they cast spells, huh?

Yeah no, I’d definitely hate that, for sure.

 

Tilly and Frete struggled with the squirming man for a moment, trying their best not to overtly hurt him while they used the blunt sides of their swords and daggers to try and fend him off. Tilly wasn’t as strong as Frete though, and with a sudden movement, she was knocked aside, getting flung hard into the bulky armor of Hill who had turned to try to help, and leaving Frete alone to contend with the infected man. He added threatening chomps into his frantic flailing attacks, adding a third attack for Frete to try and protect against, putting her dangerously on the back foot of the fight.

 

My heart was racing so fast that I couldn’t tell that it hadn’t even been a minute yet. All I could think of was how agonizingly slow the stupid mage’s sleep spell was to cast. I wanted to use [Judgment] and get the infected man off of Frete right this instant, but I was afraid that it would kill him, this innocent infected man, and I was even more afraid of the consequences of the punishment I would receive from the Goddess for it.

 

In my frustration and panic, I ended up doing what I felt like I should have done as soon as I heard the mage chanting in the first place.

 

“[Lullaby]!”

 

I began desperately singing. I couldn’t even tell if I was singing the right notes or the right words, since I rushed through the song as fast as I could. My eyes stung from how hard I’d been staring at the infected man, but I was afraid to close them and possibly lose the target for the spell. But I could tell that the skill was working its magic by the way the infected man was steadily slowing down his attacks, and since it was doing its job and letting Frete regain her momentum, there’s no way I could give up now.

 

Just as I could see the infected man’s eyes fluttering, I heard Dale finally finish his chant.

 

“[Dark Dreamland]!”

 

The infected man immediately dropped to the ground, no longer moving, and snoring very loudly. …I won’t lie, I’m pretty sure I had him, but having the backup sleep spell probably isn’t a bad thing. Dale’s skill certainly has a stupid name, though. You know, I'm starting to think I don’t like mages. Thank you, Goddess, for not making me one.

I ran over to check on Frete, but she waved me off and asked me to check on Tilly instead as she pulled out some rope to restrain the sleeping man. Luckily Tilly wasn’t hurt at all even though she went flying, which she attributed to my [Benediction]'s shield. Frete mentioned that she’d been struck a few times by the flailing arms, but she also had been shielded from any damage. It feels nice to know that I have such an effective shield in my arsenal, really. Even if the man had broken through and managed to make it to Dale, I think my [Benediction] would have kept him safe from harm. Although he still might have gone sailing like Tilly did, which would have definitely broken his chanting. …Not that it would have mattered.