NOVEL NEXT Chapter 11: Chapter 11: A True Miracle!
"To my knowledge, wolves tend to pick off the stragglers of herds. Your family abandoned you. I… Can empathize with that." Alchemy spoke, her approach still at a snail's pace.
The Crystalline deer seemed sad at the mention of its herd, much to Alchemy's complicated delight.
'Okay! The first question answered…' Alchemy hummed inwardly.
She was just speaking nonsense to see if the deer could understand her, and luckily, it seemed to.
That being said, being abandoned by your family couldn't possibly feel great for any living creature.
"How about you join us, youngling? The Verminae will become your new herd, your new family."
She managed to get into the arms length of the deer and reached out towards its injured legs.
'Now second question… How on earth do I use this skill?'
The first thing she tried was simple.
'Okay… [Miracle Generation]!' She thought, only for nothing to happen.
A verbal command?
"[Miracle Generation!]"
Nope.
A verbal command and the name of the subskill?
"[Exaltation]!"
Pausing for a moment, Alchemy sighed. All that big talk, and nothing was happening. Lovely!
'No, I must be thinking about it wrongly. What is a Miracle in the first place? Amongst the three powers, what IS divine power?'
Magic, the power of nature, relied on knowledge and intricate calculations to manipulate the world in fantastical and powerful ways.
Demonic Energy, the power of curses, relies on the internalized chaos and uncertainty of one's self—effectively, negative emotions and hesitation.
And Divine Power, the power of miracles, being the opposite of Demonic Energy, coming from the faith of believers.
"Imagination…?" Alchemy asked herself in an unsure tone.
Unfortunately, she didn't have any more chances to get this wrong as the deer began whimpering in pain as the blood loss became too much. She was running out of time.
'Imagination. Imagine a… A bandage to stop the bleeding? No, forget that. A panacea capable of sealing the wound and restoring blood loss! If I'm truly a goddess now, then that is the least I should be able to do!'
Visualizing the effects of a feat that even modern medicine couldn't hope to achieve for years, Alchemy's dominant arm began to glow.
Followed by an immense amount of pain, making her fall to the ground.
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{Mother?}
'Wait, what? No, no, no, no! That was never a thing!'
In Ancients of Ascension, using Divine Power was not penalized. A few very powerful Magic spells existed that did, but those were related to rituals requiring multiple people and a completely different power system.
{MOTHER! Are you okay?!}
But she couldn't stop. The wound on the deer was being stitched up at an irregular pace. And even if she wanted to quit…
Alchemy didn't know how to.
Gritting her teeth, she used her free arm to prop herself up while she monitored her SP.
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"Yeah… This is more like it. This god-forsaken game can't be too easy now… CAN IT?" She scoffed, smiling through the pain as blood dripped from her lip.
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The wound finished closing quickly, allowing the deer to stand up slowly. This caused the Thornskirmishers to prepare their stingers.
The next moment, Alchemy tore her hand away as hard as she could, sending her body to the ground as the radiant glow she exuded retracted.
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{MOTHER! PLEASE RESPOND TO US!}
'Less than 10% haha. I'm just… So freaking… Good.' Alchemy cheered inwardly, throwing her arm up in celebration.
She regretted that instantly as it felt like someone had placed her arm in a hydraulic press, readily crushing every bone in her arm. She could move it, so it was fine, but the feeling was everything aside from fine.
Propelling herself upward with her upper body strength alone, she was greeted by a bombardment of System notifications despite having minimized the amount she received.
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Suddenly, the pain didn't feel so bad as every pleasure receptor in Alchemy's brain went crazy.
This was bad. If this were to become a normal thing, Alchemy might accidentally become a masochist…
She wanted to scream in joy but somehow managed to restrain herself. If she were to scare her newly acquired [Hero] unit, it might turn her into a tree ornament out of reflex.
Finally, she could return to her quaint little home.
{MOTHER, HOW ARE YOU FEELING?!} The Thornskirmishers continued to scream, causing Alchemy to jump before quickly turning her head to the group.
"Oh, hi. Yeah, I'm peachy. Just great. How are you?"
{Don't scare us like that! Please, never endanger yourself like that again! Leave the dangerous fighting to us.}
"And stand in the back? What am I, a trophy?"
Stretching her arms and cracking her knuckles, Alchemy let out a sigh.
"Answer me this. How many of you did we lose?"
{0! But that doesn't change tha-}
"Ah ah ah. Don't trail off topic… And what did we just manage to kill with 0 losses?"
{A vermin.}
"I… Yes, but not the answer I'm looking for. Elites. 2 of them! That was seven levels above me! With one squadron of Thorns and 0 losses. I could say everything was calculated from the very beginning, and you couldn't refute it… So don't."
The telepathic link went silent as Alchemy let out a sigh.
"Look. I won't throw my life away for NO reason. I don't even know if I can die. Theoretically, as long as I have Divine Power, I should be able to revive myself through an avatar later… Frankly, I want to find out if that's true even less than you. With that being said, however, what kind of Mom would I be if I watched my children fight and die for me?"
Although she said this, Alchemy didn't believe in her words at all.
Avatars were indeed a way for Divine Prospects to evade death if they took a nasty fight or something, but with her Divine Power going berserk over such a simple injury made it excruciatingly clear that the energy she wielded worked a bit differently than it did in the game.
{Mother…}
"No, don't worry about it. I'm alive; you're alive. Happy ending. Now go bring those wolf corpses back to the Sylvies. We should get quite a lot of food from them."
{But… What about that Vermin that still breathes?}