“Saintess! You shouldn’t be here, you only just woke up!”

  Right, the Bishop… No wonder he’d been so tired that he fell asleep in his chair… He must have been absolutely exhausted from constantly trying to treat people over the past few days…

  “Huh? The Saintess?”

  “The Saintess is here…?”

  “We’re- We’re saved!”

  “We can live!”

  “Please, Saintess, look here first! My son, he’s-!”

  Almost everyone whose faces had just looked like they had lost everything suddenly lit up as if they’d miraculously been saved. It’s crazy… I’m the one who failed them, so why are they all so happy to see me now…?

  Well, I guess it doesn’t matter why they want me to help them, since I’m gonna do it anyway; I’m the Saintess, and this is my duty in this life, after all. And besides, this is free exp, isn’t it? You know, the thing that I need to keep on living?

  But why do I feel so hollow right now…?

  “I’ll be fine Bishop, so let me help heal these-”

  “Saintess! Please listen to us!”

  Suddenly a small group of people pushed everyone else who was flocking towards me out of the way, and dove down to grovel in front of me and cling onto the ends of my clothing, which was already a strange new experience without them attempting to tug my dangerously precarious-feeling toga out of pce.

  Really, when I finish with all of this I really have to go talk to those padins about my new clothes!!!

  At the very least they must have some cash put aside for escorting me that I could use to get an undershirt or something, right?!

  Ugh… Is there some sort of a nice way to sweep these people’s hands off of me…?

  “Remove your hands from Her Holiness!”

  With a yell close to a roar the two padins rushed into the chapel, bee-lining it for the people who were hanging off of me. Judging from the shining bdes that they had out and at the ready, the padins definitely meant business. It’s completely no surprise that a majority of the people who’d been crowding around me took a big step back.

  Definitely unexpected that the people at my feet only started crying and absolutely refused to budge, though.

  “No! Even if we lose our hands, we must confess our sins to the Saintess!”

  Wow, they must all feel the same way, considering how they’re frantically nodding along to that first guy’s words, and, you know, with how their pulling on my toga has increased to very threatening levels… If I wasn’t holding it in pce with everything I had, I’m sure I’d be giving all the people who are sering me with their eyes right now a nice revealing show.

  “Such heresy!”

  Woah okay, can everyone just calm down?! Both of the padins look pretty indignant, but the dy-one who just talked looks like she’s really gonna take off someone’s arm!

  I’m already gonna have a bunch on my pte trying to heal all these people, so don’t go making more work for me here!

  Extra exp is all well and good, but having my own escort padin going around slicing people up doesn’t sound very Saintess-y to me, thank you!

  And who knows, this stupid Goddess might even find a way to put the bme on me somehow and punish me for it!

  “Okay look! Please, everyone let’s just take a few steps back, and you can tell me whatever you need to while I heal people, alright?!”

  “Yes, Saintess! Thank you, Saintess!”

  “And you two! Stop waving your swords at these poor defenseless people!”

  You’re padins for goodness sake! I’m sure you guys are strong enough to use other methods that’s not gonna end up making the cushions on the floor get even more covered in blood! I have to sit on those things while I heal sometimes, you know!

  “We shall do as you command, Your Holiness!”

  “...We shall do as you wish, Your Holiness.”

  …Huh. I’m gonna pretend like that dy-padin didn’t just give me a worrying pause there…

  I don’t have the energy to try and fix whatever went wrong with her right now.

  ~~~

  Alright, so maybe I missed one or two details while I was busy trying to heal and listen at the same time, but apparently those clingy people’s story went a bit like this:

  -There was a monster wave, full of various kinds of mid-tier monsters!

  -The first town got destroyed, and the people in the second town panicked!

  -Some of the people in the second town ran to their town’s shrine for safety, knowing it had a very sacred relic in it that would protect them!

  -Despite the warnings of the priests there, a few frazzled idiots decided to try to sneakily grab the relic for themselves, and immediately got cursed and were forced to let go of it!

  -In cssic zombie scenario fashion, they didn’t say anything about it, since they didn’t want to get in trouble!

  You can guess what happened next. I’d wondered how a town with such a great relic protecting it had possibly been wiped out, but apparently everyone ran out of the shrine once they saw those idiots transforming. Lots of people died because of the mistake of a few greedy fools, and the unlucky ones got turned into dregs themselves.

  All they had to do was chill in the shrine, and everything would have been fine! From what I’m told, with the force that the Guild Master had prepared, we could have easily handled that mid-tier monster wave so long as they had me backing them up. But after I’d led all the dregs away, the real monster wave, the one that had wiped out the first town, attacked. It seems like the dregs had been holding them back until then, keeping them scared. And when they were gone, the wave was free to roam wherever it darn well pleased.

  Like I said, if we hadn’t had to fight the dregs first, everything would have been fine; The people that the Guild Master got together were plenty enough to handle things. But having to fight a bunch of mid-tier monsters after an hours long exhausting fight, while also suffering a bunch of injuries and casualties due to the dregs stampeding after me…

  Yeah, it didn’t go so well.

  It makes me so mad to think about! Because of a few stupid people, hundreds of others had to die, and three towns had to be destroyed! How is that possibly fair?!

  …Well, maybe I’m being a bit dramatic here; This town hasn’t been completely destroyed. It sure as heck wasn’t saved, though! I haven’t been out there for myself yet, but from what’s been described to me, a lot of the pce got demolished when the monster wave came through. Luckily my escort padins showed up when they did and helped the surviving adventurers and mercenaries take the wave down before it killed everyone, so the civilian casualties were minimal, but… I can’t say the same for the adventurers and mercenaries though, or, you know, for those six padins that had to sacrifice themselves all because of me…

  I’m sure the main church must hate me right now. There’s no way padins are an easy thing to come by, right? They already lost one group of them to the monster wave, and now they lost six more… I wonder if I’m gonna be in any trouble once I get there? Are they allowed to punish a Saintess for wasting their precious manpower? Would they even punish me though? I’m sure it would be bad for their image if they did anything to me, right…?

  “Um, Saintess…?”

  “Oh! I’m sorry, I’m, uh… I’m just tired. You’re all healed now, you can go.”

  Ugh, I need to stop zoning out and finish healing all of these people, but it feels like it’ll never end! It’s already been 10 straight hours! Whenever I finish healing someone, a bunch of townspeople always appear to take their pce! If I didn’t know better, I’d say the floor of the chapel had always been dyed red like this!

  I really have to commend the Bishop and the balding priest for being able to vaguely keep up with this gigantic horde of patients. Apparently other healers that weren’t affiliated with the church would drop by every now and then to lend a hand and stuff, but it seems that the brunt of the work had still been pushed off to those two, so kudos to them! They managed to keep a crapton of people from kicking the bucket before I woke up.

  I should be happy about this, really, since this is basically a feast of exp for me. In fact, I’ve actually already leveled up three times! With all this constant struggling and mess ever since we first fought with the dregs, I’ve somehow managed to leap my way up to level 23 in under a week. Honestly, it’s making me start to think that catastrophes are really good for this whole Saintessing business.

  But, you know, the fact that things didn’t have to be like this in the first pce is really weighing on my heart, even if it’s not wholly my fault that it got this bad…

  Or maybe I only feel like that because I can practically feel the eyes of the dy-padin boring into the back of my head constantly.

  Really, what’s her problem? Besides keeping a dutiful eye on me and my surroundings, the guy-padin seems like he’s mostly just chilling, so why is she being like this? I can’t help but feel like she’s judging me all the time. It’s making me feel like I’m doing something wrong! I can’t even take a tiny break in between healing people so that I can look at any of my new stats and skills, all because she’s constantly watching me! I feel guilty every time I try to sneak a peek, like she can see me scking off!

  Please, let everyone be healed already so I can get out of here and do my own stuff!!!

  _____

  -{Arissa

  Age: 17

  Occupation: [Saintess](Lv23)

  XP: 655/2200

  Health: 200/200

  Energy: 3200/3200 (Divine)

  Status: None

  Skills: [One who redeems], [Heal], [Greater Heal], [Cure], [Appraisal], [Benediction], [Cleanse], [Judgment], [Lulby], [Soothing Bell], [Small Dimensional Space], [Regenerative Heal], [Pressure of the Divine], [Healing Augment: Ranged], [Divinity 1], [Rejuvenate], [Incarnation: Iniah]}

  -{[Heal]: Heal basic wounds, such as cuts, bruises, sprains and fractures. (5 energy)} (gives 5xp)

  -{[Greater Heal]: Heal greater wounds and broken bones that the average healing could not. (30 energy)} (gives 10xp)

  -{[Cure]: Remove basic debuffs and lesser afflictions. (10 energy)} (gives 5xp)

  -{[Benediction]: Puts a blessing on the target, shielding them from damage for 1 hour. (50 energy)} (gives 20xp if it protects someone else from major damage, and 5 for a ‘blessing’.)

  -{[Cleanse]: Satisfactorily clean the target of any dirt or grime. (Cost based on area)} (gives 5xp for a person, 10 for a pce.) (costs 25 for a person) (xp for clothes, energy

  -{[Judgment]: Good or bad, let the Goddess sort them out! Gives out a judgment based on the opponent’s sins. (100 energy)

  Note: Attacks may vary wildly.

  Note: Committing crimes or hurting others for no reason will cause all current experience gained to drop to 0.}

  -{[Lulby]: The Saintess sings a lulby, putting the target to sleep for 1 hour. (80 energy)} (gives 30xp if used to help)

  -{[Soothing Bell]: The Saintess rings an ethereal bell, which pys a note so soothing that it pacifies all who listen for the duration of the skill. (150 energy on cast, 20 energy per minute after)}

  -{[Small Dimensional Space]: Opens a small dimensional hole for the Saintess to store things inside of. (10 energy per activation)}

  -{[Regenerative Heal]: Regenerates any missing pieces of the target’s body, including partial and full amputations, as well as organs. (100 energy)} (gives 40xp)

  -{[Pressure of the Divine]: All kneel before the divinity of the Saintess! Forces the surrounding targets to prostrate themselves on the ground, disabling both talking and skills. (350 energy per minute)

  (Toggled On/Off)

  Note: Passive skills of others may still work, depending on their attributes.}

  -{[Healing Augment: Ranged]: Allows for the Saintesses healing and curing to be used at a range, for double the cost.}

  -{[Divinity 1]: Doubles the Saintess’s passive energy regeneration.}

  {[Rejuvenate]: Restores the target’s energy by using the Saintess’s as a base. (x2 energy cost)}

  {[Incarnation: Inaiah]: Channels the spirit of the Saintess Inaiah, enabling the use of her strength. (1000 energy per minute)}