Ferr welcomed us enthusiastically of course. Turns out she’d come to check on me the next day after the whole dungeon raid debacle, and had found out that I’d almost died, so she’d been really worried about me all this time. She was also super interested in Kale, since she’d pieced together who he was almost immediately. She bombarded him with questions, but I did my best to deflect them away for him. He still looked a little bit uncomfortable near her, and I couldn’t tell if it was because of how overly zealous she was being towards him, or if it was because of our talk from before. Eh, it’s not like I’m hoping he’ll become super close friends with her anyways. Honestly, I’d probably get jealous if he immediately warmed up to her, since I’ve got a #1 friend spot to uphold. If he said he wanted to stay here with someone else instead of coming with me to the capital, then I’d probably blow a gasket, really.

 

Oh, but there was one question that Ferr asked that was a very very valid point, you know? She knew Kale had been a former slave, but she was confused why I hadn’t given him any better clothes. Of course, the only clothes we have in the church are priest clothes, and since Kale’s not the same kind of priest as us, it didn’t feel right putting him in one of our beginner togas. Still, though, she’s completely right that it’s weird to have him still going around in his slave attire, huh? I don’t have the money to buy him anything else, though…

 

I guess Ferr must have realized my predicament, because she said she was going to go buy him something to wear.

 

At first I was like ‘oh god no I can’t just have someone buy things for me when I have absolutely no way of paying them back’, but then Ferr reminded me that I’d been healing everyone completely for free for weeks, and that usually the girls would pay to get fixed every month anyways. Apparently with how much they would usually spend each month on healing, it would be enough to buy at least 10 sets of pretty nice clothing, so Ferr insisted it was totally a steal if all she had to pay for was just one regular outfit. In the end, I totally caved and let her do it. Really, Ferr was always so good at being convincing to me… I wish I also had that super power.

 

~~~

 

Kale and I left the brothel 2 hours later. His raggedy small burlap sack-like outfit had been replaced by a nice pair of loose tan pants and a simple white tunic. Somehow, maybe because it was white like the rest of him, the tunic really looked like it suited him. In a way, he looked like he could be some kind of angel, until you caught a glimpse of his raptor-like feet. Ferr had asked if he wanted some shoes at first, but after observing what his taloned feet looked like, she was sure she wouldn’t be able to find any that worked for him. Kale had insisted that his people never wore anything to cover their feet anyways, so he probably wouldn’t have felt right with them on in the first place, and so we gave up on the idea.

 

Ferr had also given Kale a black cloak, but I didn’t really like the idea. Kale was beautiful, and I didn’t want to hide his feathers like we were ashamed, you know? Sure, I feel bad that people were treating him like that, but there was no way I was going to force him to wear a cloak and pretend he wasn’t a bird! No one should have to be like that! But still, after a lot of Ferr insisting on taking it on the off chance that we decided to use it, I stuffed the cloak into my dimensional space for safe keeping.

 

Pulling that thing up for the first time in a while was a big reminder that I really don’t own anything.

Honestly, it feels like such a huge waste of a super useful skill.

 

I still had a bunch of hours before I needed to go back to the church, and since I only managed to get 105 more exp from the brothel, I decided to sneak back to the guild and try and do a quest or two. I mean, I only needed 155 more exp to level up, so wasn’t it totally possible to do that while hunting down monsters? Besides, I needed more practice fighting them anyway. I was still very broken up about the whole kidnapping event before and how absolutely garbage I was at fighting. The only way I was ever going to get better at defending myself was with more practice, right? Best to work my way up with that, then.

 

Before I just went ahead with my plans, I of course double checked with Kale that he would be alright with coming with me. There was always the chance that Kale was no good with fighting, just like I was, right? He was a servant of the Bird God for the past 10ish years anyways, so I doubt he got a lot of time to fight anyways. It’s better to be considerate and ask now, than to get there and have him freak out after all, as unlikely as that seems. If he was really uncomfortable about it, then I would have to rethink what I’d do.

 

And you know what?

Turns out my consideration was completely unnecessary!

Kale’s actually quite used to hunting, unlike me.

 

Apparently, he used to hunt monsters and animals all the time with his father before his feathers grew the golden tips and he was forced to become the Bird God’s servant. And then, even after that, it turns out that the Bird God would send him on small missions to fetch him certain kinds of food as well, since preparing the Bird God’s food was also one of Kale’s responsibilities. So yeah, Kale was actually way more used to this stuff than I was. I even got him to agree to mentor me while I practiced, which would hopefully help a lot, so that was a very nice surprise. Hopefully I’ll get better even faster, and stop being such an easy target soon.

 

~~~

 

Slimes and lizards were far too easy for me to really learn on, and since I had Kale to back me up a bit, I decided to do something a little bit more challenging. There was a quest to clear an area of the undead that were inhabiting it, and I thought that it might be right up my alley, so I took it. Apparently, from what I heard from the secretary at the desk when I brought the quest to her, there was an illegal dumping ground that a shady organization had been using in the woods, and no one knew about it since they’d used a wizard proficient in earth spells to bury all the bodies. Still, since none of the bodies had been properly buried, and none of them had been purified, given tombstones, or shown any proper respect, many of the dead there came back and began to wander the place. Seems that was just a risk one takes in this world. Wonder if they call priests to bury people right, or if there’s some kind of undertaker job here that gets things done. I’ll have to ask later.

 

Anyways, I’m sure with my priestess abilities this should be a breeze, so I think it’s a good starter for me, right?

 

We had to go about 40 minutes into the forest, at about a 90 degree angle from where I’d gone to fight the lizards at their cave. At first, just like with the lizards, I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to find where I was supposed to be going, but it was actually a lot easier than I expected it to be. I mean, the spooky fog and the noises that I could only describe as being ‘undead moaning’ kind of really gave it away, and then it was as simple as just following that, you know?

 

“Saintess, look.”

 

I followed Kale’s pointing finger and looked a bit to my right, seeing a small bright wisp floating around between the trees. It looked almost like a ghost orb, the kind you’d see on those paranormal investigation shows all the time. This one was about the size of a human head though, and I wasn’t looking through a camera or anything right now, so I don’t really think that’s what it was. Then… Was it just actually a ghost?

 

Ah, what am I doing trying to figure it out by sight when I have exactly the right skill to figure it out?

 

“[Appraisal].”

 

{Forgotten Spirit

Health: 30/30

Energy-}

 

Yeah that’s all I got to read before the thing started charging at me. I’d already placed a [Benediction] on the both of us as soon as we first made it to the fog just in case, so I wasn’t too worried about getting hit. Still, it was a ghost, so who knows what special kind of crap it could have pulled, right? So yeah, I dodged it just in case.

 

It didn’t seem like the ghost could control itself all that well even though it was fast, so it took a while to turn around and try to attack me again. I didn’t like that I didn’t get a good enough try at reading its stats, and I kind of wanted to keep practicing dodging it, but after the second time dodging, Kale looked a bit too on edge, and I decided to just try and read the stats on the next one instead.

 

“[Judgment].”

 

Of course, that’s all it took for the interaction to be over. A beam of heavenly light came down, and the spirit quickly followed it up into the sky as if it had been sucked up. Guess that means the Goddess took it up to heaven or something? Heck, I’m not really sure if this place even has a heaven. It should though, if it has a hell, right?

 

Anyways, I got a nice little ‘+20xp!’ from that thing, so it seems like it definitely gave more exp than slimes or lizards do. I’d been thinking monster hunting hadn’t been too terribly effective for me, but now I might be changing my mind. I’ll definitely be able to level up off of these if I can find enough of them!

 

Kale came to check if I was alright, and I had to get him to promise not to panic and step in unless I asked for his help. He’d looked super worried about me during that whole thing, even though the spirit hadn’t even managed to land a single hit on me. I may suck right now, but I don’t suck as much as he thinks. What happened to him saying ‘Saintesses can do anything’? Believe in me a little more, jeez…

 

It’s still sweet that he worries about me though, don’t get me wrong.

 

After Kale promised not to get in my way, we moved along a little more, and Kale pointed out yet another wisp, further off in the distance than the last one. I wasted no time using appraisal on it, since I wanted to actually get to read through it this time instead of getting interrupted like before.

 

{Forgotten Spirit

Health: 36/36

Energy: - / -

Status: Intangible

 

Skills: None

 

The spirit of a #<p\They died screaming>?-+ who has come back to @xb2_This is her fault&7x! It spends its time angrily searching i%98)Why does the Goddess allow them to suffer so?z.Lq6^ Grows strong the more undead are ~`.mpJoin me and the suffering can end#:’:/}

 

…What?

What the heck is that?!