Level Up Saintess

As I sat there brokenly on the floor trying to acclimate myself to the pain and aches in my body, I could finally hear all the groans that had been filling up the room. I raised my head, and instantly realized that everyone around me was still stuck in the uncomfortable positions that they’d been pulled down into. I could see that the kidnapper in front of me, in particular, was struggling against it with all his might, causing him to make quite the loud sounds of exertion. It almost looked like someone had glued his skin to the ground. Heck, even the parts of him that were covered in clothing also refused to budge even the smallest amount from the floor. And since he seemed so firmly stuck like that, I took a moment to slowly scoot my aching body a good distance from him and let my mind finally get a moment to think.

 

This guy really looked like he was in pain...

I’m sure it must have hurt a lot just trying to pull his limbs away from the floor as vehemently as he was.

…Can’t say I feel sorry for him, though.

 

I do however feel sorry for everyone else in the room. These poor kidnapped and injured people didn’t deserve to be forced down and held in place like the dirty rotten kidnapper-asshole was. They’ve clearly suffered enough; Is there any way that I could-?

 

As I thought that, suddenly the imprisoned people were all set free from my skill’s force.

They rose up and looked at their hands, as if they were confused about what had just happened.

Thankfully my skill was still in effect though, since the 'Commander' guy was still pinned to the floor.

 

I still glanced at my notification board just in case, double-checking that it was really working and that he wasn’t just faking it to catch me off guard. Pretty sure this skill is the channeling type, so it should be constantly eating at my energy ri- OH HOLY CRAP IT’S CHUGGING IT AWAY!

 

My energy that had started out at around 1700ish when we first came down here had already drained to 1200, and was counting down fast!

 

I shouldn’t have been surprised that such a powerful seeming skill could eat through my energy like that. I mean, it didn’t just stick everyone to the floor; Not a single person had talked or screamed for the entire duration, too. It could have just been from shock or whatever, but I’m sure the kidnapper would have totally tried to use a skill or something at me by now if he was allowed to, so it’s pretty convincing to me that that’s how it works.

 

Hmm… I want to turn the skill off and save my energy, but once I do, I’ll for sure be killed by this guy. What’s the best way to deal with this right now? Do I put him to sleep, turn off the skill, and make it to Ferr? No, maybe I should keep the skill on, actually, since I also need to deal with the spellcaster that’s still trying to drag her down here. If this kidnapper hears me singing then he’ll just attack me before I can successfully put him to sleep. Ah wait, since this skill is a channeled ability, if I use a different skill then it’ll cancel it, right? It’s a good thing my throat hurt too much for me to use that [Heal] earlier, or I might just be dead right now, huh… There’s no way I could start my lullaby against this guy and not have him get in one good attack at me before it works, right?

 

…But what if it was simpler? Something that was just one word that would remove him from the equation for good? It would be quick enough to do the job before he would be able to get at me, right?

 

I quickly looked at the people around the room who were pressed against the bars and looking this way at the man still stuck to the floor. ...Their eyes looked hopeful that the awful man would never be able to get up again. My eyes also scanned over the people who couldn’t have made it to the bars to look, whether because they were too injured to, or were no longer of this world. And the fact that I could see some people who were still lying in the same position as when I came in, without being moved even a little bit by my skill, meant that they were probably long gone already before I ever even stepped foot in here.

 

…It didn’t take me very long to make up my mind.

With all my strength, I croaked out a single word through my burning throat.

 

“[Judgment]!”

 

A beam of light came down from the sky, unimpeded by the ceiling above us, and covered over the 'Commander'. Only a second later, an ethereal but shiny blade dropped down from the heavens, and like a guillotine, it gave its punishment. The man’s head was sliced clean from his body, and a small dark red ‘+30xp’ floated up from his disembodied head. I’d never seen it come in that color before... It makes me feel less ‘happy’ than usual to see.

 

…Part of me really hoped it was just my still slightly blurry eyes playing tricks on me.

 

 The [Judgment] worked, so I guess the Goddess has made her decisions about him. It was my first time using [Judgment] against another person... I’d been dreading ever having to do it all this time, afraid to hurt another person who didn’t deserve it, or worried that the Goddess would punish me for it. I may have felt sick to my stomach seeing another person get decapitated, but there’s no way in hell that I regret my choice. And the fact that I’m not being punished for it means that the Goddess agrees with me. Hell, I was even awarded exp for doing it.

 

With him out of the way, I could finally take the time to croak out a [Heal] for myself and stop the constantly aching and throbbing pain I’d been suffering from for the past few minutes. Once the pain was gone and I could finally move freely again, I rose up and looked around once more at the awful place I’d found myself in. I wanted to go and set everyone I could see here free, as well as heal up all of their injuries. I wanted to save these poor unfortunate people. However, even though I searched the kidnapper’s corpse while trying to hold back the rising bile I was feeling over touching a dead body, I couldn’t find any kind of key on him. Seems he wasn’t just carrying it around on himself like an idiot, I guess. Bad luck.

 

There was the option of reaching through the bars to try and heal everybody up of course, don’t think I didn’t think about that, but my energy was already below 900, and I still needed to deal with the other kidnapper and rescue Ferr. There’s no way I’d have enough energy leftover after healing everyone up here to deal with that! And besides, they’d still be trapped behind bars afterwards too, so I think it’s a bit premature to try to deal with them right now, even though my heart bleeds for them. It especially puts a bad taste in my mouth not to deal with the extremely injured ones that I can see, but considering that they’re probably unable to reach the bars themselves to let me touch them, it’s a moot point anyways.

 

Yeah, I’m just gonna have to rescue Ferr, get to safety, and then find some people to help us. Looks like that’s my only option for now, anyways.

…Hopefully I’ll have enough energy recovered to help everyone by then.

 

I apologized to the captives and tried my best to tell them that I would go get help and free them soon, but most of them didn’t look like they believed me. Who knows how long they’ve been here, they could have already been thoroughly broken down like Kale and the other birds, and have no more hope left inside of them. …I sincerely plan to do my best to prove wrong whatever pessimistic thoughts these people are having right now. Is it odd that I feel like a real Saintess for having such feelings? Maybe it’s true that I’m slowly learning how to be a proper one, at least in the feelings department.

 

…I don’t think I dislike it if that’s true.

 

I gave the people one last reassurance that I was really-really going to send help, and then ran out of there with a purpose. I won’t lie, I felt a little bit hesitant using my new skill again when I was already sub-900 energy, but if I wanted to make things quick and safe, then it was really my best option. I tried to remind myself that it wouldn’t be able to chug too much energy so long as I managed to do things quickly, but I still felt a bit like I was blowing a bunch of resources on something that should have been able to be taken care of easily. Sure, I knew that it was really the only surefire thing right now, but still… Damn, you know?

 

Before I charged out like an idiot, I finally took a quick look at what this new skill said. I didn’t actually get a good look at what the skill was even called earlier, since I was on the verge of passing out at the time.

 

{[Pressure of the Divine]: All kneel before the divinity of the Saintess! Forces the surrounding targets to prostrate themselves on the ground, disabling both talking and skills. (350 energy per minute)

(Toggled Off)

 

Note: Passive skills of targets may still work, depending on their attributes.}

 

Oh wow. Okay, so it’s a toggle? Is that why I didn’t have to say anything to use it when I first got it? I just figured since everything else about that whole incident was a little bit baffling, that the Goddess had just somehow turned it on for me, you know? I’m gonna have to take a moment to think more deeply about what exactly happened there later for sure, but at least I solved one piece of the riddle already, I guess.

 

Alright, enough screwing around, I have a Ferr to save!

 

I ran outside and looked around, feeling a bit disoriented from everything and not really remembering too well which way we’d come from. The good news is, it had only been a handful of minutes, maybe only 10 at the most I think, and although Ferr was still writhing in pain from the spell she’d been captured in, she still had the stamina and wherewithal to keep making things hard for her captor. From what I could tell, it didn’t seem like the man had managed to move her very far at all.

 

It’s amazing that Ferr was so resilient, really. If it had been me that had been hit with that thing, like they’d intended, I probably wouldn’t have been able to put up as good of a fight as she had. Really, Ferr’s a trouper. I’m lucky I know someone like her, for sure.

 

I pictured a light switch labeled ‘Pressure’ in my mind, and started running down the alley towards the two of them. I pressed my mental finger against the switch, biting my lip in concentration, and when I finally got close enough that the kidnapper noticed the sound of my steps over the grunts of Ferr, I flipped on my Pressure. Suddenly the man dropped down, his hands, knees, and forehead bringing up clouds of dust as they smacked against the alley’s dirt floor. He hadn’t even had the chance to make more than a short yelp as he went down, before the skill completely shut him up.

 

Interestingly, as Pressure pulled him down, the bindings on Ferr disappeared too, and it began to also pull her into position too. However, when I realized it was forcefully moving her and told it to stop, it was like whatever invisible hand of force that had been moving her had immediately let go, and she slumped back down onto the floor, taking a moment to catch her breath with a winded and confused face.

 

“Ferr!”

 

I ran over and knelt down next to her, helping her up from her position. I wanted desperately to heal her up, since I knew she must have somehow sustained some amount of injuries from the way she’d been squirming and grunting in pain up ‘til now. But if I tried to use [Heal] on her then the pressure would break, and we might be sitting ducks for the man next to us again.

 

“Arissa…?”

 

“Ferr, wake up!”

 

I lightly smacked her cheeks and tugged a bit on her drooping tiger ears, hoping to annoy her into waking up faster.

 

“I can’t keep this up for much longer, maybe only another minute, so I need you to get up and finish that guy off! Please, Ferr!”

 

As time passed I started to grow anxious. I wanted with everything in me to just use a [Judgment] on the guy next to us and simply end this, but I was too worried that I would become useless from low energy afterward, or that he'd somehow be quicker to react than his 'Commander' was, and manage to get a good blow on us before the skill could finish its job. If I was going to gamble, then I had more faith in Ferr right now than I had in myself.

 

As I rocked her body repeatedly by shaking her arms, her eyes seemed to slowly get less and less hazy. She rose up with a moan, grabbing her head as if she had a headache, and looked back and forth between me and the prostrating man a few times. As if she was finally registering the frantic pleas I was making to her, her eyes opened a bit wider, showing off their cat-like irises, and with a flash so quick that I could barely make it out, she elongated the claws on her hands and took a swipe at the man’s neck, tearing out a chunk of it.

 

By the time she collapsed against the ground huffing and puffing from exerting herself like that, I had already flicked back off my Pressure, and was quietly tending to her wounds next to the freshly dead man.