Level Up Saintess

“Listen, okay? My name is Arissa. A-Riss-A. Remember it!”

 

“...Yes, Saintess.”

 

“No no no, not Saintess! Just call me Arissa!”

 

“...I cannot do that, Saintess.”

 

Ugh. I like listening to him talk, but I don’t like the words he’s saying. Why is this man so strict about sticking to the rules?! Like, I get it, this is a class based society and he’s totally a slave, but can’t he just humor me and say my damn name at least once?! Maybe if he says it a lot then he might remember something from our past, you know? He has to say it! He has to!

 

Also, like… I miss hearing Kale say my name, so…

Ahhh no! This isn’t what I came here for!

 

“Look, Kale. It might take a little bit, but sometime within the month, I’m going to set you free.”

 

I leaned in really close to whisper this information to him, since I didn’t want Chella or the quiet priest who were watching us nearby to hear and somehow foil my plans. This, of course, made Kale slightly crane his neck back from me, and his eyes did that weird constant scanning thing again. He didn’t even say anything in response, so I still don’t even know how he feels about the whole thing!

 

“...Didn’t you hear me? I said I’m going to free you soon! You won’t be a slave anymore!”

 

“...If that’s what the Saintess wants, then I am grateful.”

 

Ohhh that’s definitely the wrong answer! This man is going to make me pout, I swear!

 

“What, do you not believe me? ...Do you think I can’t do it?”

 

“Anything is possible for the Saintess.”

 

“Then why don’t you seem happy about it at all?!”

 

“I am happy for your concern, Saintess.”

 

“STOP SAYING SAINTESS, DAMMIT!”

 

Ah damn, I’m shaking him again. And it pisses me off that he just stays still and lets me do it again like last time, too! …Let’s just take a step back and calm down. Deeeeep breaths, Arissa. You didn’t come here to get angry. This is Kale, no matter how frustrating he’s being. He’s been abused and enslaved; Of course he’s going to reply brainlessly like this. Give him a chance to get to know you better before you start expecting unreasonable things. Phew…

 

Let’s just… ask him what I came here to ask.

 

“...After I free you, I want to take you with me. Would that be alright with you, Kale?”

 

At first Kale didn’t open his mouth and just kept scanning me all over with those falcon-like eyes. It was really starting to reignite my annoyance with him, too. But then, a few seconds later, his mouth slightly parted, and he spoke in a small, repressed voice.

 

“...Am I supposed to be this 'Kale'?”

 

Ooof. Damn, that really hurts... I completely wasn’t expecting him to ask me that question, even though it seems like something obvious to ask. Well it’s not like I can lie to him about it. He’s far too important to ever lie to, and I want to earn his trust.

 

I stared right into his eyes that had finally settled on mine.

 

“...I would like you to be.”

 

His eyes stayed glued to mine for a bit longer, and then they gently looked down, and relaxed into the eye-shape that I recognized to be oh-so exactly like the Kale I knew from before.

 

“Then in that case, I would like to be him as well.”

 

Oh. Oh oh, my heart! I can’t take it.

At least the crying didn’t hurt my eyes this time.

 

~~~

 

For the first time ever, I got to leave from the back yard on my own two feet. I hadn’t even collapsed or been dragged away like a lunatic! So yeah, I was feeling pretty accomplished, especially since it seemed that Kale was going to cooperate with me once he was freed.

 

“Hmph. Well at least you look happy. Good to know my hard work over these past few days wasn’t a total waste.”

 

Chella folded her arms and rolled her eyes away from me as we walked down the hallway towards our room together. Honestly, she’s been a real trooper this entire time. Of course she threw snarky comments at me every step of the way, but she always did her best for me through all of this and barely ever asked me any hard questions that would have made me uncomfortable, too. She even accompanied me on all three trips to the back yard, even though the slaves made her uncomfortable and ruined her friendship with Meria. Really, she’s the MVP of the past few days for sure.

 

“I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done for me Chella. Really, truly, I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve been giving you... You’re an amazing friend.”

 

I guess either she really liked my words or she liked the sincere look on my face, because Chella just crossed her arms even tighter and turned her head away. I could see her cheek twitching from the small bit of it that was still visible, like she was fighting against showing a smile. Such a cutie, really. Tsundere as much as you like, Chella; I’ll appreciate you all the same!

 

We walked for a bit longer, until it seemed Chella had successfully fought off the smile and was confident enough to talk again.

 

“So is he really the Kale you’ve been looking for?”

 

“...I’d like to believe he is.”

 

“Really? Even though he says he’s not?”

 

Ouch. Thank you, Chella. Ah, I guess she has every right to say this to me; It’s not like I expected that she wouldn’t, after all she’s seen and heard the past few days. I guess Chella deserves a bit of the truth. Or, well, at least, enough that it’s not going to hurt me or screw with the fabric of space and time again.

 

“...It’s possible that he might not be… But every single one of my senses is telling me that that must be Kale, so I’m just going to shut up and believe them. I might even get lucky and get him to remember who I am one day, right? I’ve got nothing left to lose that I haven’t already lost anyways, so why not?”

 

Chella sighed and tilted her head, dropping her arms down like she’d given up on holding them. I could just barely see out of the corner of my eyes how her hands were clenching up into fists.

 

“I really can’t understand where you’re coming from. Wouldn’t it be better not to get your hopes up and get hurt later? You’re acting like those clingy women who can’t get over a man who left them! It’s impossible that you can’t see that about yourself!”

 

“You may be right, but that possibly vain little hope is all that I have left to keep me going.”

 

Chella sputtered and turned to me, wide eyed.

 

“That’s complete bullshit! You have so much left; You’re a Saintess for Goddess’s sake!”

 

All I could do was laugh helplessly and not respond. It’s not like I was going to convince Chella why I felt like this. She didn’t know about my past life or the absolutely massive emotional weight I placed in Kale’s existence. She didn’t know that this whole ‘Saintess’ thing was just a punishment game that the Goddess placed me into unwillingly. To her, I must look like an idiot who can’t see the amazing opportunities in front of me because I’m blinded by a man. In a way, I’m sure she’s not very wrong. Kale certainly does have the ability to blind me. He always has...

 

~~~

 

Alright. It’s been almost 6 days since I did any real Saintess-ing work and earned any good exp, and it’s been way past time I got started rectifying that. I wanted to get to work yesterday, after my talk with Kale, but Chella totally forbade it. It hadn’t been that long since I had collapsed, been a zombie, and constantly cried my eyes out, so Chella forced me to spend the rest of the day in bed recuperating if I wanted any hope of going outside today. It’s not like she really could have stopped me, me being the Saintess and all, but she’s an important friend, so I’m not going to go out of my way to piss her off. Sure, I snuck a few horribly concerned looks over to my death timer before I did as she asked, and sure maybe I had a small panic attack constantly throughout the day worrying that today might be my last day to live. But then, after I got tired of stressing myself out, I gave it a good hard thinking through, and I decided it’s not like I can't earn the last bit of exp I need to reset it before the time runs out. I should hopefully be fine.

 

Okay, I'll stop bullshitting you, I'm still horrified out of my mind, but I'm trying to downplay it.

Apparently I only have a little over 15 hours to live.

It's especially bad seeming since I've never gotten this close to dying to my timer before.

...I hope I won't have to get used to this feeling.

 

Having gotten my free 30 exp from the daily prayer, I’m now sitting at 820/1200, so it shouldn’t take me too crazy long to level up at all. I could probably get all that by just making my rounds to the brothel and the adventurer’s guild, right? It’s been almost a week anyways, so it should totally be about time that I go check back in with them, right? Who cares if it might feel super awkward for me to see the whores whose party I stupidly left, or the friendly team that I felt majorly left out with last time. It’ll be fun, I’m sure. I’ll heal some people, we’ll laugh, I’ll level up, I won't die yet, and hopefully there won’t be any more sad times again. Yeah. Let’s just go with that. Yup.

...I'm scared.