Level Up Saintess

The man who’d suddenly appeared clearly must have used his speed to do it, because before I even made it half an arm’s length away from Ferr, he’d already forcefully grabbed ahold of my neck and pointed a blade at it. I wasn’t too worried yet about the blade cutting me, because although it was on its last legs, I still had my last desperate [Benediction] on me from the first fight with the kidnappers. However, for some reason the crushing force from his vicious grip on my neck was so intense that, even though it couldn’t actually damage me, it was certainly exuding harsh pressure on my neck through the shield, slightly choking me. It seems once again the fact that the shield didn't block out any amount of force or pressure was screwing me over for the first time in a while.

It was too hard to breathe!

Even when I gasped for air, I couldn’t force out a skill’s name legibly enough to use it.

My hands came up to claw and pull at the man’s hand, but they didn’t even budge it an atom’s worth of space, like he had some kind of iron grip on me. Even as I was being dragged back towards the spot in the alley that Ferr and I had been walking away from, there was still no sign of his hands loosening.

“I’ve got this one secured. Take the beast along, Charl; She’s seen too much of us. Either she becomes merchandise too or we kill her, but it’ll have to happen behind closed doors.”

“Yes, Commander!”

…Huh?

The guy whose voice I totally recognized, even through the awful pounding in my ears from my circulation being cut off, ran over and wrestled with the writhing Ferr to try and get a good hold on her. I couldn’t see him very well from the way my neck was being held, but I knew from the voice that it had to be the man who’d ran away from Ferr earlier. Seems I really should have cared more about him suspiciously running off, and now it was coming back to bite me in the ass.

At least he seemed to be more suited to spellcasting instead of doing the heavy lifting, since he was having such a hard time getting Ferr to come along. Or at least I think he’s the one who cast the binding or whatever spell is on her, and not this rogue-ish looking guy that was strangling me. Either way, him fumbling and taking his time meant the odds were a little more in Ferr’s favor for finding a way to escape, so I was definitely praying for that, since I highly doubted that I would be able to pry this guy’s hand and knife away from my neck anytime soon with this tiny and weak body the Goddess gave me.

A poor craftsman blames her tools, but damn was I lamenting how small the body that I was given is.

In fact, I was lamenting a lot of things while I was being dragged away by this ‘commander’ guy. Maybe it was because of the pain, how hard it was to breathe, or just the fact that I was immediately dragged back into a helpless situation right when I was feeling a tiny bit better about myself after the last one we’d just gotten out of, but I was feeling weak, downtrodden, and terribly terribly stupid. My mind wouldn’t work for anything but cursing all my stupidity and poor decisions that had brought me here. I even performed the mental gymnastics to somehow blame Ferr and Chella for it all, even knowing deep down that absolutely none of this was anyone’s fault but mine.

At least I didn’t go overboard and start blaming Kale, too.

Kale…

As my desperate and lightheaded thoughts started to turn towards my beacon of hope and biggest regret, the Commander finally opened the hidden door and led me into the prison below, making my thoughts of Kale feel like I’d jinxed my own situation. How could I not think like that, when I could see handfuls of dirty people in chains every direction that my red and blurry eyes could manage to reach? There were children, adults, teens… Some were just fine, some looked starved, some were covered in wounds, some were bloody, and some… were lying on the ground, not moving, as if they’d already died from their abuse.

It looked like some of the nightmares I’d had since I first saw Kale come out of the church cellar.

I’d been too scared to see the room where he’d been living for the past few years, afraid that it would look a bit too much like this.

…But maybe my dreams were a bit more tame compared to what I was seeing right now.

I’d already been leaking tears from the pain and sorrow, but I couldn’t tell anymore whether the fact that I was close to passing out was from the lack of oxygen, shock, or just heartbreak. It was a stupid thing to wonder, but often in my past life, while I was hurting from various emotional or physical wounds, I would often wonder which, of all of them, was hurting me the most. Idunno, maybe it was my way of setting my priorities for what to try to deal with first, although I could rarely if ever do anything to fix any of them for the longest time.

It really hurts a lot that Ferr, who was only trying to help, got caught up in all of this too, because of my stupidity.

But, if I’m being honest, that’s not what hurts the most.

I think, right now, what hurts the most are my thoughts of Kale.

They said they wanted to take me alive and sell me, but what if I died in this dungeon right now? This 'Commander' guy doesn’t seem to care very much if he chokes me to death, and I can count at least 8 of their hostages that look like they might just be dead in there… I don’t trust them not to make a mistake with their ‘merchandise’, like they warned that guy who beat me up about. And if they killed me and I finally went to hell… I would never get a chance to see Kale ever again.

The thoughts of Kale never getting freed and living another miserable life was somehow even worse for me than any thoughts of what kind of torture I would suffer in hell. And even if I didn’t get killed in here and they just sold me off… If I was held captive as some sicko’s emergency med-pack in their basement or whatever, then it’d be the same as if I died and never got to rescue Kale anyways. Actually, I would probably die after a week anyway, since I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my death-timer’s leveling requirements anymore.

I… I really think this is the end.

I wasn’t actually that scared of dying when I did it in my first life; After all, there was nothing left for me there anymore. And even after the Goddess brought me back, I was only worried about dying because I didn’t want to go to hell… But it was just a worry, not a fear. It would have just been a big ‘Dammit! This isn’t what I wanted!’ moment. But now I have things to live for, reasons to be here- I needed to survive past this! Everything would be a horribly, terribly big waste if I were to die here!

‘Need’ is always what makes things the scariest. I knew that 100 times over. It was true in my last life, and it would be true in this one, too.

As my already blurred vision grew hazier, and I could feel that I was about to pass out and lose everything, I begged desperately in my mind one last time.

Please, anyone, anywhere… Please don’t let this happen. Please save me from this so that I can make things right. Please…

{Pitiful daughter… Do you need help?}

The sudden bright screen that appeared right in front of my face was hard to read properly at first, both from how foggy my declining consciousness was, but also just because it was so close to my eyes. I deliriously tried to say yes to the message once I understood it, but only a faint and creepy gurgling sound came out. The screen immediately changed, flashing to my skill tree and scrolling all by itself to the skill at level 14. The skill’s name was flashing brightly, as if to catch my attention, and as my eyes shakily passed over it, the blinking light around it suddenly solidified and the skill’s name became bolder, as if I had taken the skill.

The moment the skill was taken, everything changed.

Everyone in the area suddenly dropped to their hands and knees, and placed their foreheads firmly against the ground, as if they were prostrating themselves before their god.

Of course, this included the man who was holding my neck, and luckily his hand let go long before he slammed down onto the ground. I gasped desperately for breath, also falling to my hands and knees for a minute or two as I sucked back in all the oxygen that I possibly could, to replace all of it that I’d missed out on for the past few minutes. My lungs burned and my throat burned and my eyes burned, and even muscles that hadn’t been messed with in any way felt like they’d been pummeled, just due to how they’d been tensed up tightly from all the pain. It took me a little while of just frantically taking in air before I realized I could simply use [Heal] on myself and fix the wretched state that I was in.

It even hurt just to say the word ‘Heal’. It almost felt like my crushed throat wouldn’t let me say it. And sadly, it was the truth, because whatever it was that made it out of my mouth wasn’t ‘heal’-like enough to trigger the skill.