Level Up Saintess

AN: Sorry for the irregular waits between posting this week! Had a bunch of medical stuff pop up all at once for my family, and it's been hectic. Should be all back to normal in a week, though.

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Well, it turns out wandering aimlessly while your mind screams at you to do something or else you'll die doesn’t make you really get much done. I checked in with the adventurer’s guild, but of the people present, only a few of them needed any healing or curing, and I came out of there with only a measely 205 exp after I made sure to sneak in a few desperate [Cleanse]s. I thought about taking a quest since it was such a surefire way to get exp, even if it was just a little, but I decided against it in the end. What I’m looking for is big free feasts of exp, not tiny little trickles! Kale needs me, and the sooner I save him, the better! Besides, I’m kinda on the brink of dying and going to hell, so I really need to do better than this right now, or else!

 

So yeah after a lot of panicking and hyperventilating, I decided I couldn't let myself die like this yet, and...

Well, I guess I decided to finally go try my luck in the slums.

 

Sure, maybe I could have scrounged up a bit more exp at the brothel, but… Damn would it have been awkward for me. I wouldn’t be able to take it if they all started asking questions about why I left last time, you know? It just wouldn’t go well. I don't want to go through all that hassle, not even to save my life. I know it's stupid and I'm being dumb, but I just can't. So yeah, I’ll give that one a bit more time for me to get over it, thank you very much!

 

Anyways, rest assured, I wasn’t going to dive head first into the slums like I had last time. No, I learned my lesson, and I didn’t need Chella getting mad at me again for it later. But I was going to dip my pinky toe into it a little bit and check if the water was fine! You see, while I was at the adventurer’s guild, I asked around to a few of the friendlier looking ones to see if they knew about anyone who needed healing. And you know what? One of them actually told me about this little orphanage near the slums that they grew up in. Apparently it’s not terribly well off, and even though the lord or whoever it is that governs this place makes sure that his people at least won’t starve, the orphans don’t particularly have much else going for them, you know?

 

Sounds like a good chance for me to get a chunk of exp, although I hate thinking of kids like that. Oh well, maybe that’s just what all strangers have become to me now; Just packets of exp to help me save myself and Kale. … Yeah, I really don’t like the idea of that, and I like it even less for how true it sounds to me.

 

Maybe it’s just one of those occupational hazards, I guess…

Or it could just be the desperation to live talking.

 

~~~

 

I was a little scared with how close this orphanage actually was to the slums, even if my survival hinged on the place, but all that fear just morphed into straight worry once I finally saw what the orphanage looked like. Damn, they let kids live in this janky old thing?! Sure, it was a decently sized building, but the roof had clear holes in it, the ground was muddy and smelled like it had something bad or dead leaking up through it, there were clear gaps in some of the wall boards, and when I knocked on the door it sounded like it was going to straight up break off. It also didn’t have any glass in the window panes, but when I remembered that my room in the church also didn’t have any, I quickly struck that from my list.

 

What was even more worrying was that I couldn’t find even a single kid running around and playing outside. I did say that the ground smelled wrong and was crazy muddy and wet, but I’m certain that wouldn’t stop any of the adventurous, playful, or mischievous kids in the orphanage from going out and playing around in it. I want to believe that all the kids are just off in the distance, running around somewhere through the town and scrounging for scraps or something, but A: I don’t really like the idea of kids having to live like they’re rats anyways, and B: If the kids aren’t here right now then I’m gonna have one heck of a time trying to heal them.

 

While I was looking around all concerned for any trace of the children, a matronly looking woman opened the door and greeted me with a very practiced sounding paragraph of words.

 

“I’m sorry, miss, but we aren’t accepting any visitors right now, not even for adoption. It’s been quite a rough spring, as you know, and the children are suffering from a few seasonal allergies, so if I could just get you to come back-”

 

“Oh, well if it’s that bad then it's a good thing I showed up, huh?”

 

Her words practically scream opportunity for me to live! I feel like I’ve become one of those businesses that capitalize off of people’s misfortunes, except I’m actually doing good things for them instead of trying to rip them off. Maybe I don’t have to feel guilty for being so excited about hearing bad things happen to the people I wanted to help, then. Yeah, let’s just stick with that.

 

The woman was of course confused by my words. It's unsurprising, really; Guess she couldn’t connect the dots about me right away, just like everyone. Hopefully once I get my official Saintess robes, people will just look at me and get it, but for now…

 

I gestured to my clothes with a big business smile on my face.

 

“I’m here as the new Saintess to heal up all of your kids! Don’t worry, it’ll be completely free.”

 

I could see her eyes scanning all over me. It was true I had priest robes on, even if they were still only the apprentice priest robes, but most civilians didn’t seem to realize the nuances behind the clothes, so it should be fine. You know, why the hell hasn’t the Head Priest given me even just regular priest robes yet, or even the fancy ones he wears? Is it because he’s waiting to give me the exact robes I'm supposed to put on, or did he just… forget or something? I should bring that up once I get back, after I fix this whole 'about to die' problem.

 

Anyways, maybe she decided she had nothing to lose even if I was somehow a fake, because she let me in after a few more moments of deliberation. I could feel her eyes watching my every move, though, and I could see her grab for a fireplace poker and hide it behind her skirt out of the corner of my eyes. I’m sure she was planning to whack me with it if it seemed like I had any silly ideas. Can’t blame her; She was near the slums, so it was definitely the right choice. Good thing I also made the right choice and put a preemptive [Benediction] on myself before getting here. Now I just need to remind myself not to let it fall off anytime soon so that she doesn't get to me before my timer does.

 

A buff timer on my character screen would really be helpful you know, Goddess. Maybe you should patch that into your Saintess design sometime.

 

~~~

 

Yeah, she was really downplaying how sick these kids actually were. They weren’t all the same levels of sick, and they didn’t actually all even have the same

sickness, but almost every single one of these kids had at least one thing or another going on in their status section for sure. Like, for instance, some of the kids were completely bed-ridden with a fever, while some were only a little snotty and itchy, but were still able to slowly move around. A majority of the kids had little red bumps all over their body, and the smell in the room where they all slept was absolutely putrid, like death. I heard the woman in charge of the children swear up and down that they all had a reliable supply of food from the town, but a few of the children looked positively skeletal, like they would pass away at any moment from starvation.

 

Oh, and for the record, the matron had made all of the kids, even the lesser sick ones, stay home and not go out because she was worried word would spread about how absolutely sick everyone was, thinking no one would want to adopt any of the kids in the future if they learned about it. I can totally see where she was coming from, but her ‘hold on and hope that it’s really just a seasonal thing’ was definitely not the right choice for the situation. She told me she’d been trying home remedies, but that just wasn’t going to cut it with how absolutely horribly sick some of these kids were. I shouldn’t be too hard on her since I know there’s no way she had the money to get all of these kids treated, but keeping the barely sick ones with the terribly sick ones was just a recipe for disaster, really! Damn you dark ages, and your lack of transmission knowledge!

 

Scanning the kids brought up a variety of different ailments and problems, but the main ones that kept coming up were various illnesses caused by drinking bad water, a couple of flu-type deals that mostly children were susceptible to, and even a few cases of pink eye. The children all had bed bug bites and were cold at night, so their immune systems were totally not doing good due to lack of sleep and proper living conditions, too. I used [Cure], [Cleanse] and [Heal] on every single one of the 24 orphans in the building, but I knew there was absolutely no way that that would be enough. I was 100% convinced that these kids would just re-catch all of these diseases again after I left, since they’re children and this place is still completely unfit for them to live in.

 

I could have let things be and come back to farm exp from these kids multiple times a week probably, but there’s no way I was going to be okay with that. I’m a Saintess, and these are kids! And what’s more, didn’t I say I would strive to not be an asshole? I’m not going to sacrifice the well-being of a bunch of children just to make mine and Kale’s lives easier! Hell no!

 

That being said, I suppose the only thing I could really do for these children is to clean everything up? There’s mud on the floor that’s been tracked in and caked on for what I presume to be weeks, the beds clearly still have their bed-bugs in them, and I’m sure that stinky smell that’s still lingering in the air can’t be good. I took the time to clean the raggedy clothes the children were wearing when I used [Cleanse] on each of them earlier, at least, so that’s already taken care of. I guess I’ll have to deal with all the other problems once I come across them, but for now-!

 

I scanned my eyes across the room, designating every wooden plank, shabby toy, and bit of furniture in my sight as my targets, and the power flowing out of my voice felt like it might burn my mouth as it came out.

 

“[Cleanse]!”

 

I even gave a light stomp with my foot for a bit of theatrics as I activated the skill. The usual white shimmer that covered the things I cleaned was a bit brighter than usual, and the room became almost blinding for a moment with how almost everything was being swallowed in it. I could actually physically feel how much energy was being sucked out of me by the skill. Maybe I shouldn’t have rushed things and cleaned everything one at a time instead of doing such a big unfocused [Cleanse] like this? I guess I got too excited by the fact that I'd leveled while fixing up the kids and wasn't on the brink of dying anymore. The effect was certainly cool looking, though, and I’m sure any residual doubts that the matron of the orphanage still had should have been blown away by this, at least. Heck, maybe she’ll even spread the word about the amazing display I just put on.

 

‘Wow, you mean she both healed a bunch of kids and put on a light show while she cleaned their room? She really must be a Saintess!’

 

…Yeah, that conversation will totally happen... when pigs fly. I should really give up on that hope. Besides, it cost me upwards of 1200 energy to fully fix up these kids and clean their clothes, and I’d even leveled up from the 480 exp I got from it, putting my now newly 2200 max energy just about 400 less than full by the time I got to cleaning the room. But that over 1200 energy I spent was absolutely blown away by the about 1600 energy it cost me to do that massive [Cleanse] I just did on this room. If anything, I’m more of a maid than a Saintess at this point.

 

I only have a little under 200 energy left, and I only gained 200 exp from all of that cleaning, which doesn’t seem very fair. My feet even feel a bit woozy just from me standing here, because I’ve gotten so low on my energy reserves. I didn’t feel quite this bad the last time I got this low I don’t think, even though I had gotten down into the double digits at the time. I’m pretty sure I was sitting down then though, and my energy certainly hadn’t all been yanked out of me at once back then like it just was now. Sure, I felt loopy for a bit while I healed a few people, but it hadn’t hit me like a sack of bricks like this did. ...Maybe since my energy pool has grown, now my threshold for exhaustion rose too? Wow. I should probably be careful with draining myself like this from now on, then.

 

I carefully sat down on a nearby bed for a moment to try and rest, but the shiny eyes of the children who’d just seen me pull off that flashy little stunt were a bit too strong for me to just ignore. Right, the job’s not done yet is it? So I guess I don’t get to rest. I still haven’t made everything safe for these kids, even if I managed to make things safer for myself. I guess this is just the price I have to pay for getting to live a bit longer, then. I should be grateful to these kids for what they've given me.

 

I looked over and gave a weak but hopefully nice looking smile to the child nearest to me.

 

“Can you show me where you guys get your water from?”