Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia spent some time flying a bit further to be absolutely sure she wasn’t about to endanger anyone with her testing.

First experiment: Book skeleton Vs. Erredian Rot.

The skeleton rat sat on a large stone before getting showered in holy light. The rot didn’t touch the skeleton, it appeared only on the rock below it and started doing its usual thing for a bit until it ran out of mana.

It can consume bones but it doesn’t touch the bone skeletons? Alright, come back out, Pareth. Deactivate everything, even the halo.

With some more testing, Sofia discovered a number of things, all of her skeletons, Pareth, and herself, along with whatever they were wearing was completely unaffected by the rot. Other living creatures, such as the living squirrel Sofia used for her experiment, were extremely not unaffected. There was nothing left of the squeaking test subject after just a few seconds except for a pile of dark gray dust.

When Sofia identified the powder, the result only said : [Carbon]

Isn’t that the thing the pirate crew used for their muskets? I wasn’t really listening when Alith was asking them about it but I think they mentioned something like that…

The rot had consumed a much higher volume of rock than the size of the squirrel, but most of the carbon powder was from the squirrel. Did the rest just disappear? I guess the rot will eat anything that’s not this powder? Or does it transform stuff into it?

I will leave those questions for Alith, I am no alchemist.

“Since I’m safe from it… Isn’t it time for wide scale testing?”

Sofia ordered for Pareth to activate his halo, while she activated [Erredian Rot].

The rot started spreading all around Pareth. The longer she kept the skill running, the more black veins appeared on the thin black film covering everything in Pareth’s surroundings. It was spreading much faster and farther than Sofia had anticipated so she hurriedly deactivated the skill. She could see trees more than a hundred meters away being consumed by the rot already.

Holy shit. This is a weapon of widespread destruction. It’s still spreading after I’ve stopped casting… Do I need to stop it?

No, it’s running out already, mere grass and trees aren’t enough of a mana supply for the rot to sustain itself.

About ten seconds later, there was not a single trace of the black rot left anywhere, but the forest clearing Sofia had been standing in had become a barren stretch of scarred land covered in Carbon dust already getting sweeped by the wind.

Imagine if I do this inside of a city… This is a disaster waiting to happen. I need to be very careful about how I use this.

“I still need to try a few more things. Let’s see… A ball of bone should do the trick.”

With [Bone dominus], Sofia shaped a bone ball and quickly filled it with mana. The mana inside was leaking but it would last for maybe ten minutes to be empty again. A quick ray of [Heal undead] and the ball in her hand was covered in a black film pulsating with black veins.

It’s a bit warm and sticky. The mana is getting consumed quite fast, but the bone ball is unharmed for now, the rot isn’t weakening though. Can I remove it with a bolt’s heat?

Sofia started channeling an Angel’s bolt, holding the forming magic near the rotting ball, not only did the rot not burn, it was pulsating faster, absorbing some of the mana gathered by the magic.

How do you even get rid of it once it’s on you? Amputation? Maybe non-magical fire could work? Anyway, I get why it’s so expensive to cast… I turned this stretch of forest into a wasteland in less time than it would take me to channel a bolt.

Now that I think about it; would this not be the perfect weapon to get rid of the Ebb? I’ll need to try it out. Speaking of which, is it about time I go back to the city?

She searched for the sun in the sky, it was still not even close to noon. I probably have like three or four more hours? I should keep some time to go buy and sell some stuff, but that won’t take too long.

Sofia walked out of the zone of desolation she had created and laid down in the grass. For a while, she lost herself gazing at the fluffy white clouds above.

Is everything that’s happened to me real?

I could wake up tomorrow on the orphanage’s bed, all of this just a weirdly detailed dream. A long illusion.

It has been what, two years? So much happened in so little time, I’m not even sure I remember it all. The days of being a captive at the Church feel so far away…

How old is Saria now? Should be twenty-four. She’s been gone for longer than I’ve been with her. Will she even remotely be the same person now that she used to be back then? Will she even remember me? Does she think I’m dead like I thought she was? Is she searching for me? How did she become so strong? I have so many questions.

I don’t even know what I should say if I find her.

‘Hey Big Sis, I became a necromancer and kind of hoped that maybe there was a chance I could revive you somehow because I thought you died on a flying island more than a decade ago but it turns out you’re not even dead, also I’ve been tasked to kill a god, haha.’

That’ll make for a great family reunion…

I need to stop being so weak.

Come on Sofia.

Do what needs to be done.

Sofia forced herself to smile. Saria was alive, nothing else really mattered.

Alright. This isn’t like me. No point wasting more time…

Sofia was about to stand up when a massive figure loomed over her, eclipsing the sun above. She grabbed Pareth’s extended hand.

“You’re helping me stand up now? I’m not that weak, you know. But thank you, Pareth.”

 

Standing against a wall in an empty alleyway of the capital, Alith looked at Sofia skeptically, “What were you doing exactly? I thought you were going to sell things.”

“I needed to summon Pareth too, I just kind of started fiddling with my new skills after that…”

“By rolling yourself in the grass? You still have some in your hair.”

“Stuff happened…”

“You’re really terrible at hiding your thoughts, Sofia. I’m almost sad for you.” Alith shook her head and helped Sofia get rid of the green invaders by pointing out where they were while she kept talking, “good that I have our money situation figured out.”

“Uh, you do?”

“Well, we spent a while in the trial… The payment for the first auction of the stat candies has arrived.”

“Already? You said you get fifty percent, right?”

“No, no. WE get fifty percent,” Alith corrected.

“Sure… I’ve been the one hoarding all of the money we’ve earned together until now though…”

“And who has done all the leveling from level 120 to 200? That’s right, you. Let me be useful to the group too, here, you get half of the fifty percent,” Alith said as she casually took a wooden chest out of her storage ring. Sofia stored the chest immediately.

What the fuck.

“This… This is a quarter of the profits?”

“What can I say? The nobles really went all-out trying to get these, both for themselves and their children, according to my contact. Not bad, right? I have to admit, I kind of impressed myself this time. Just wait until I can make the next tier!”

Still… Twenty thousand gold? They sold for eighty thousand total? Didn’t Alith say they would only auction ‘small quantities?

“Oh, that’s right. Alith, you haven’t opened your gachapon boxes either! Should we do that now? There’s still some time before we regroup with the snakeman.”

“Hmm, why not, if we can find a place to sit. We just need to hope that I get the stat pills. Should be easy with my new skill.”

“How will a skill help with that?”

Alith showed a smug smile, “Well, my new race is very good, and one of the nice things about it is that it freed a classless slot by getting rid of the locked skill ‘[Human form]’. So I had a free slot to take something better. Something that I fully intend to keep from now on.”

[Hero’s luck] : Are Heroes lucky? Some would say they were incredibly unlucky to end up where they are. Others will tell you that the blessings they get is more than sufficient to make up for any trouble their status as a Hero leads them to. Either way, now you are a bit luckier.

Restrictions : Only one Hero exclusive classless skill may be learned. Once forgotten, this skill will become permanently unavailable.

 

“Honestly Alith… This skill feels a bit fishy.”