Saintess Summons Skeletons

“I thank you for your answers,” Sofia said, actually giving a slight bow to show her appreciation.

There was an instant of uncomfortable silence.

“No need to thank me. You paid for them. Now show me your murder history and we will be done for today.”

“My murder history? That’s a thing? Why should I show you?”

This caused a very ugly frown to show up on Valeure’s face. Her sharp canines were visible.

“Sofia. Out of all things that do not amuse me…”

Ugh. Fine. Whatever. How do I do this? I have nothing to be ashamed of.

[Murder history privacy setting is now public]

[Murder history : Sophia **********]

[Armand Anzan Ovohen - Magisterium lv. 164] [Akramaiazerfen - Son of Dread lv. 99] [Jarvaud - Sailor lv. 42]; [Alester - Carpenter lv. 38]; [Eskan - Cannoneer lv. 65] ;[Veyan - Sailor lv. 52] [Zhǎng Lú - Flamebringer lv. 182] [Adrien - Butcher lv. 53]; [Marie - Illusionist lv. 87]; [Blaize - Swordsman lv. 99]; [Pascal - Thief lv. 82]

Involuntary : 4/11

Valeure merely glanced through it, talking before Sofia could read the first line. She relaxed as if her previous expression had never happened, “Quite the amusing list. Alright, you’re good to go.”

Either that's a very high level [Fast reading] or she didn’t actually look. Interesting that it let me hide the name. Don't want to bring any more attention on myself for now.

The fox woman summoned a small golden thing in her hand that she threw for Sofia to catch, “Wear this at all times from now on, that’ll save you some troubles. I’ll send you back now. Do come back another time if you have a cursed item to sell or something. I’m not always here so you can leave messages at the temple… Farewell, it was amusing meeting you, Sofia.”

Barely managing to catch the small golden trinket, a mana rich gust of wind picked up Sofia and flew her out of the coliseum. It then brought her back to the ground at a moderate pace.

Above the clouds, Sofia took an instant to take in the majesty of the sky once again.

Still though, this was quite the abrupt end…

But I guess she did say she had matters to attend to.

Oh well. This was beneficial. Went better than I ever hoped. Now what’s this?

[Halo brooch] : A gold and mithril brooch in the shape of a dual spiked divine halo, proof of belonging to the Saint Alliance.

Item level : 0. Grade : Legendary.

Restriction : Class must be Saint. Soulbound once worn.

Sure but seriously though, what is the Saint Alliance?

I’m a bit wary about the ‘soulbound’ part. Well. I’m still in Valeure’s spell. She can probably see me. I’ll wear it for now, but I’ll need to look up this alliance. Yet another thing on the pile of mysteries. One step forward, two steps back…

Hey, thinking about it… [Poker face] stopped leveling at some point during the talk… Weird.

Crap! I forgot to ask about the Lich! Guess I know what I’ll start with next time. I could ask about the Dragon and the Hero’s family too, if anyone might know…

 

After landing near the city, Sofia went back in. She paid for a month’s worth of stay at an inn, and proceeded to do what she had wanted to do for a long time. Reading.

She wanted to be as ready as she could before heading to Sovuln. This felt like a good first step. She needed to stop being clueless about obvious things. And she had a few specific topics she wanted to take a deep dive into before doing anything else.

First she devoured all the books she had brought from the castle. Then the books she had already bought. Then she took to the bookstores in the city; she read and read some more. Spending her money like no tomorrow. Books were expensive. And her subjects of predilection when it came to choosing books were mana and ritual theories, item production, known classes and their fighting styles, common monsters, and religions. These were all subjects on which information was worth good money. She also searched for information relative to Sovuln and the monster tide but there wasn’t much on it.

She made some of that money back by reselling the books afterwards but that was only a fraction of what she spent.

Many evenings were also spent taking sword and whip use lessons, Sofia still wasn’t very good, but her new skillset was serviceable.

Sofia was pretty sure she had spotted small foxes spying on her from afar on a few occasions, but she could never confirm it. She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Hopefully that will stop once I leave the city…

She came out of the city after a month, her pockets lighter, and her brain heavier than ever.

Sofia felt like she had taken off a blindfold, she had learned many things, especially about rituals. In essence, they were out-of-body spells, which implied different possibilities and limitations.

‘[Fast reading] reached level 20’

…

‘[Fast reading] reached level 52’

I wonder what Alith has been up to. We’re still stuck at 119… Well, no matter. It is time to initiate the last plan before I go west: Pareth the colossus!

If the system wanted to keep breaking, she would be the one to initiate the breakage. And what better way than to turn her main summon into an unkillable juggernaut?

Watch as I turn Pareth into a being capable of miracles!

She had done some math, now that she was starting to have a better idea about how Pareth's stats worked, and the numbers she came up with were downright absurd. She couldn't wait. The first step was to procure a good base skeleton.

The criteria were : humanoid, about three meters tall, hands that can hold weapons, as heavy as possible. Simple enough. Three meters tall was about the maximum height she could have him be if she wanted him to be able to also fight in tight indoor spaces and heavy was to maximize the effects of his blessing of bloating.

As such, she found the perfect target for a good skeleton : stone ogres. Regular ogres were monsters around level 80, supposedly they didn’t have much going on for them beyond their big size and strength. They were known to live in some remote forest areas. Stone ogres were a dangerous variant that lived in groups, were usually closer to level 200, and came with powerful stone magic to boot. But most importantly, they were very heavy, in part due to their sturdy skeleton. They also boasted two frontal horns and spikes along the spine, which Sofia found really cool. If they had a single flaw it was their blunt teeth, compared to the regular ogres’ sharp fangs. It couldn’t be helped since they primarily ate stone.

Following directions she had bought for a fair price from a group of Dwarves with the adventurers' guild as the intermediary, Sofia flew north-east.

She also wore the Saint Alliance brooch. From her research, it seemed the Saint Alliance was a relatively low-profile group of peace adhering saints, which operated on the principle of a non-aggression rule between members. And more importantly for Sofia, it was a sign for all who could understand that she was part of a powerful organization. She had found at least three records of events that she believed to be big groups getting trashed for killing a Saint of the Alliance. Although no one was found to be responsible for the attacks. And these were not peaceful occasions in the least.

The soulbound part of the description was a bit scary at first, any time that had shown up until now was with items from the system. But after searching for a bit, what she found reassured Sofia a great deal. A soulbound item meant its magical properties couldn’t be used by anyone else, and if it was separated from you, you could follow the connection to find it. That was it. The only way to undo it was to destroy the object, and if you died, the object would self-destruct. It was essentially the ultimate anti-theft magic enchantment. And it was very expensive to produce, getting harder to place on an object the higher level and grade it was in the first place.

She couldn’t find much more about the group she was now a part of, except the name of the founder : Valeure Dargent.

She really could have at least explained the basics before sending me out… Am I her subordinate now? No that’s not what the name Alliance implies. Well, Scriptures, the Deep, Sorrow, what’s one more pair of eyes on me at this point?

All that matters is that I’m free.

 

Sofia re-entered the massive mountain chain north of the human kingdoms, then she turned to go fully east. Couvauz was already the easternmost kingdom of the human continent, but she needed to go further. Further east were only craggy hills, and then huge cliffs gave way to the ocean.

If she followed the cliffs north, a tribe of Stone Ogres had been spotted up there by the group of Dwarves a few months back, it was just a matter of locating them. Sofia hoped they hadn’t moved too much.

“Man, these Dwarves are terrible at drawing maps!”

She exclaimed to herself, lost in the hills.

“Did I get scammed? If Valeure has a skill to see through lies I want to have it too…”