Level Up Saintess

Just like I expected, I leveled up after the morning prayer daily quest finished. A short two note sound played for me when it happened, too, as well as a little ‘Lv 2!’ pop up with tiny fireworks next to it. This really makes the question that I’ve been wondering all along come up once again: Did the Goddess make everything video-game-like just for me because it would help me adjust to this the easiest, or has it been like this for every single one of the Saintesses just because the Goddess decided it was best? I’d really like to know, but I’m sure I never will. And you know what? I’m actually okay with that. Best not to get too involved.

 

While we went to the kitchen to get breakfast I checked my death timer, and lo and behold, it really did reset. I once again have an entire week to try and live, meaning it really is possible to make it to the higher levels that the previous Saintesses had gotten. And it means I don’t have to be worried that I took an entire day off to study, which, I can’t lie, was actually weighing on my heart a little bit.

 

Now I just have one question: What exact level was I supposed to be trying to reach?

 

Like, it says I have to keep leveling up in order to avoid dying and not be sent to hell, but uh… When does it all end? Do I just have to keep leveling and leveling until eventually the Goddess declares that I’m done? …I really don’t like the thought of that. It’s like an endless purgatory. Or well, an unbearably long purgatory. I was kind of hoping I could just do a quick in and out on this and be done, you know?

 

While I was lost in a hopeless haze I somehow completed all the morning chores for the day without realizing it, and now it was already free time. It seems that Chella had noticed me being lost and listless and had decided it was the right thing to do to drag me back to our room until I snapped out of it. I definitely had to thank her for this later, she’s a really diligent person to go this far for someone she clearly doesn’t like.

 

Well, since I was out of it I didn’t even check to see if I had any new skills to pick from or if anything else had changed upon my level up. Let’s see… As far as the skill tree goes, it seems I only had one new skill option: [Rejuvenate]. Apparently it’s a skill that restores someone’s drained energy. So maybe like a mana regen skill from video games? Or perhaps a coffee shot? Either way, apparently I wasn’t allowed to use it on myself, and it didn't really seem all that particularly urgent of a skill to get, but who knows? Maybe once I learn more about how this world works I’ll realize that it’s actually super amazing somehow or something. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just one of those throw away skills you get sometimes in games. I can’t imagine a situation where I would need it, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

 

Anyways, I’m putting the new skill point that I acquired into [Appraisal].

 

~~~

 

Finding out that I couldn’t use [Appraisal] on myself was a real bummer. I can’t say I’m proud of whatever expression it was that I made after I found that fact out. But, after giving myself some time to whine and pout about it, I did have the genius idea to go to the library and see if I could figure out exactly how the skill works on the stuff in there, so it turned out fine. Why didn’t I just try it on the things in my room, you ask? Of course it’s because I didn’t want to possibly find out something I didn’t know about the place that I sleep. Like what if I scanned my pillow and it told me some gruesome story about some previous person who slept on it? Or what if it told me about some gross disease it had?

 

…You know, on second thought I should totally try checking out my pillow sometime, just in case.

 

I first used [Appraisal] on the stack of books that had been left where I’d been reading them yesterday, and a small pop up screen appeared above them.

 

{A stack of books the Saintess had been reading. It contains the books ‘Saintesses, a history’, ‘The Goddess and her Saintesses’, ‘The history of the church of the light’, and ‘Proper church etiquette: A beginner priest’s guide’.}

 

It was pretty concise compared to what I thought it would be, but it turns out that that was just because I’d been appraising the whole stack. The explanation got quite a bit more detailed when I tried it on just a single book. For instance:

 

{A book, titled ‘Saintesses, a history’, written by a historian of the Church of the Light. It contains the stories, pictures, and achievements of many of the Saintesses throughout the history of the world.

 

-Reading progress: 35%}

 

It’s really neat that it tells me how much of the book I’ve actually read, although it’s interesting that it doesn’t actually tell me the name of the person who wrote it. Maybe it’s because it knows that I don’t actually care. If that’s the case, though, then I’m worried that these appraisals will just always omit things based on whether I care or not. I mean, that’s a neat feature and all, but I think I might miss something important just because my mind is too lazy to care. Hmm, concerning.

 

Also, if the book only contains many stories of the Saintesses, then does that mean that there’s a couple that it missed? I guess that’s not too crazy, though, since I’m sure there must have been some Saintesses that never really achieved anything. There had to be at least a few that people never believed were really Saintesses, like me. Maybe they just gave up and let their timers run out? How sad.

 

Oh, I also tried appraising the balding priest while he was reading, and that gave me much more of the results I’d been expecting from this darn [Appraisal] thing.

 

{Heinrik Veller

Age: 34

Occupation: [Priest]

Health: Healthy

Energy: 135/150 (Holy)

Status: None

 

Skills: [Heal], [Greater Heal], [Cure], [Catalog], [Transcribe]

 

A man infatuated with literature. He grew up as the heir to an upper-middle class book merchant, but left his family to pursue a life as a priest devoted to protecting the church’s books.}

 

It was a fairly similar list of results as my character sheet, but um… Wow were there some distinct differences. Like, for instance, I couldn’t see his health in numbers like I could mine, or the fact that he had holy energy while mine was listed as divine, or uh, the fact that I had wayyy more energy. Besides the health part, any of the other differences were easy to explain away, and honestly, although it made sense, woah is that a big-ass difference in numbers. It’s obviously because I’m a Saintess, but hot damn, that’s still a big leap. Or maybe it’s because my energy type is divine? Maybe divine energy is just naturally more, um… robust? Either way, I certainly seem to be at an advantage.

 

For the record, when I leveled up to level 2, I actually gained even more energy, so now I have 1,100 energy at my disposal. Doesn’t seem like the balding priest is going to be catching up with me anytime soon.

 

Okay, so truth be told, I probably shouldn’t be looking at the people I meet every day like this. I don’t want to start getting a swollen head about myself just because I happened to become a Saintess. This was supposed to be me working towards salvation from hell, not me being proud over my punishment. What if I get super proud of myself and then find out how hard this job actually is? I mean it’s a punishment for a reason; Best not to get myself too hyped up over it only to be shocked later.

 

And also… It just feels kind of rude to peep in on the people I live with. I mean what if that little blurb at the end of the appraisal results tells me some bit of their history they didn’t want me to know? I know I wouldn’t like it if one of them started reading into my backstory without my permission, so I won’t be doing that to them. Random people on the street I don’t trust though? Of course I will. …And maybe if someone seems really interesting, too.

 

Anyways, that’s enough wasting time in the library, I promised I’d actually get out there and gather up some exp today, so I better stop procrastinating and go.

 

~~~

 

I don’t know if it’s because this is a different world or I just happened to come in the right season, but the weather is particularly mild and pleasant here. The town stinks a little bit because we’re not too far away from the slums and a bunch of farms, but the place looks like a quaint little old world town, and I’m honestly really digging it. I always did like seeing pictures of movies that took place in places like this, and I always wanted to go to somewhere like that, even though I was sure they were all just made up set pieces. Kale would always promise me that we’d go somewhere far away and see stuff like that in person one day. He even used to… to…

Oh no…

 

Suddenly something thick and burly smacked into me and pushed me aside. I even noticed 2 health being knocked off of me on my character sheet out of the corner of my eye.

 

“Move out of the way girlie, you’re blocking the entrance!”

 

I guess I got in the way of some big thugs who were trying to get into a bar. I moved a few steps away as they laughed, and just in case, I cast a quick [Heal] where I was hit. I’m sure I was only bruised or something, but the missing 2 health on my page was really bugging me. Maybe it’s just OCD, but seeing the numbers not 100% full was getting to me. I felt physically and mentally much better once I was fully healed. Also, interesting to note, unlike when we’d been practicing in the bath, I could actually feel that I was somehow regaining a piece of myself. Weird.

 

One of the laughing thugs stopped once he saw the healing light from my hand. He grabbed a hold of his friend’s arm to get him to stop laughing, and pointed to me.

 

“Hold on, you… You ain’t a Priest, are you?”

 

“Oh, you’re right. Look at her clothes!”

 

I looked down and looked back up again, worried that I’d somehow done something wrong with my clothes, but no. Did they not know that this was just the apprentice attire? The actual priests had a lot more decoration to their clothes than this simple stuff. But now that I look around at the passing people… I guess only the people of the church dressed in this toga-like fashion, huh? Maybe these thugs just didn’t have a discerning enough eye to tell the difference between the tiers of priests' clothes.

 

“...I am from the church, yes.”

 

Who knows why, but apparently me agreeing like that was enough to make the thugs back away.

 

“W-we’re sorry miss, so please don’t bill us.”

 

“Yeah, we don’t got that kinda money on us right now. Please just look the other way.”

 

…Did they think I was going to bill them for hurting me? I mean they were assholes, but people bump into each other all the time. I can let losing 2 health go, you know? It's partially my fault for being so easily bruised and not watching where I was going, anyways.

 

“Um… That’s fine. Could you point me to the Adventurer’s Guild instead?”

 

The duo looked at each other wide eyed and then shouted as they turned and ran away.

 

“No!”

 

…So I guess that means they aren’t going to tell me. What, were they thinking I was going to go debt collecting from their boss or something? Seriously, how much must the church make people pay for healing? Or is it that adventuring doesn’t really pay much? …Who knows. Either way, I think that’s enough mingling with the adventurers for today. I hate to say it, but maybe I’d better try my luck with a more desperate crowd of people first; Ones that won't try to run away from me as easily.

 

Well then, to the slums it is.