Chapter 60 “On the brink of death.” Part 4 (Patreon)

A flare of fire began to form deep in the throat of the Sajhun, who with his mouth wide open, looked her in the eyes with intent to burn her alive.

“Water creation!” Kalysto shouted. Putting her palms together in front of her, aiming at the enemy’s face and a jet of water spurted from her palms, falling right into the open mouth of the Sajhun, who with his other head and upper torso stuck to the ground with ice, struggled in vain to get up while coughing trying to expel the water that had gotten into his nose and mouth.

But before he could do it and just when he opened his mouth again to cough, Kalysto, who had not stopped throwing water at him as if her hands were a hose, as soon as she saw that water had entered his mouth again, changed the spell.

“Ice creation!” She shouted, and all the water she had thrown at him froze, sticking his head to the ground and sealing his mouth full of ice.

Completely determined to drown the creature.

“Ice manipulation!” She whispered, extending the reach of the ice layer not only to the creature’s face and the puddle lowered its head, but also down its neck and shoulders. “Ardrach, cut its head off!” She ordered, willing to lose a couple of points in order not to take any more risks to get the crystal hidden in the back of the Sajhun’s shoulder.

[Ice Manipulation skill has been leveled up!]

[Ice manipulation is now level 2]

[Ice manipulation is now level 2]

Ardrach raised his sword as soon as he reached her side and set about doing as she had commanded, so Kalysto pulled out two of the knives with penetration stats she had stolen from the goblins and used them to climb up the Sajhun’s shoulder until she reached her prize. And even though the only thing she had ever climbed in her life were forest trees in the village where she was born, she struggled to make it while Ardrach cut off the monster’s head and the rest of the elves took care of the wolf pack.

As soon as Kalysto reached her goal, she put the knives away in her inventory and pulled out a sword, trying to penetrate the thick layer of ice over his shoulder without damaging the crystal, but it seemed impossible.

“Shit!” she growled, knowing that a broken crystal meant getting a much lower percentage of any ability she could absorb.

But realizing that extracting it was going to be much harder than she had thought, she began to hit the frozen flesh hard near the edges, so that if she caused any cracks, it wouldn’t be anything serious. And kept hitting hard until the ice gave way and the cracking of both the ice and the crystal alerted her that she had achieved part of her goal.

[You have gained 13,000 experience points!]

[You have leveled up!]

[The user is now level 14.]

It was just after she got the notification about his death that she realized what a foolish thing she had been doing. And she knelt down, put the sword back into her inventory and pulled out a long knife, placing it to the side of her as she clasped her hands together on top of the ice she had created earlier.

“Ice manipulation!” She whispered, causing the ice around the crystal to recede. It took her much more concentration than when she was spreading it out, but she managed it a couple of seconds before the Elven vice commander spoke to her again.

“Saintess, are you all right up there? Do you need help to get down?” Ardrach asked, his voice full of concern.

“I’ll go down on my own, don’t worry about me," she assured him as she buried the knife in the monster’s skin, its green colored blood caked her hands but she didn’t care and continued stabbing it to soften the flesh around the crystal until she was finally able to pull it out.

And as soon as she succeeded just after lamenting the huge crack that almost pierced its center from one of the corners, that a purple sign appeared to her left.

[The user wishes to absorb the remains of this core of Sajhun?]

Kalysto wished she could absorb immediately, but she remembered what had happened on the two occasions when she had absorbed a crystal, where she either got very hungry or fell asleep. And after noticing that this crystal was ten times larger than the ones she had absorbed before. She decided to wait until she was in the safety of her room to do so.

So she immediately put it away in her violet inventory and ignored the notification. Letting it pile up with the rest and taking advantage of her vantage point, she began to shoot arrows into the eyes and necks of the rest of the wolf pack with dark gray fur and crests on their backs.

“Inspect!” She whispered, filled with curiosity as she remembered how many points she had been given, even if the kill was shared.

[Name: N/A

Race: Dacket

Level: 17

HP: 14,420/17,000

MP: 100/100

DMP:100/100]

What the heck is DMP? She wondered and frowned, remembering that the Sajhun had also had this stat. And why the hell do these monsters have so much HP? I want to have it this high too! She lamented. Thinking about what kind of deal and who she had to make it with in order to get such high stats.

And as the elves continued to fight the rest of the wolves, she kept shooting arrows at them, robbing them of experience points.

“Ezhil Purification! Ezhil Purification!” She gasped as she saw the small strands of black smoke that began to rise from the purified arms of the corpse she was standing on.

[You have gained 1,000 experience points!]

[You have gained 1,500 experience points!]

[You have gained 2,000 experience points!]

[You have gained 1,000 experience points!]

[You have earned 1,000 experience points!]

[You’ve earned 1,500 experience points!]

As soon as she finished receiving the notifications Ardrach’s voice broke her concentration, as she fired arrows at the two wolves that were still alive and those that the group of elves that Ardrach had been with earlier were still fighting. A fire mage threw two fireballs at one of them, killing it on the spot. Preventing her from stealing any more points.

[You’ve gained 500 experience points!]

[You have gained 500 experience points!]

[You have leveled up!]

[The user is now level 15.]

I think I’m starting to really like this way of leveling up. She thought, feeling her heart beating excitedly against her chest.

”Saintess? Do you need help to get down?”

“No, but from here I can see a group of twenty dark goblins approaching the army below, from the edges of the forest. I think we should go help them." She then descended on the creature’s shoulder.

“It would be better if we first purify the blood of the monsters we have killed, so we avoid creating pools of miasma and then spreading the plague through the forest.”

Kalysto didn’t quite agree with his words. But she got his point across and after using the elf’s muscular body to hide the fact that she pulled a bottle of mana from her inventory. Pretending to take it out of her pocket, she took a long swig of one of the high mana concentration potions Caranthir had given her and set about purifying the miasma that came out of the monsters’ blood.

Technically, I’m not getting paid to do this. She thought with annoyance. So she turned to Ardrach.

“Can you conjure up some more arrows for me while I finish?”

“Of course, saintess” and with a wave of his hand, three other archers approached her, conjuring arrows in their own quivers and laying them on the ground near her.

-“Thank you,” she said to them with a smile, then the fire mages began to burn the bodies of the monsters and a black-colored smoke rose from them as Kalysto continued to purify the earth and air around them until not a single trace of the miasma that had begun to form was left.

And after healing the elves that had been wounded during the short battle, Ardrach handed her over five hundred arrows that his warriors had conjured and Kalysto immediately put them into storage.

Great, more arrows to practice incantations! And she suddenly remembered that she had less than a week to level up that profession, according to the mission her boss had assigned her, thanks to Artemis’ interference.

I definitely want that vacation! She thought, realizing that her to-do list was getting bigger and bigger. Maybe I should hurry up and finish my mission with the elves fast.

The problem was that although she could claim she just needed to stay in the shelter and heal them, she had heard the elves talking while she was healing them. Realizing that they were no longer inside the kingdom of Elenium, but on the outskirts, near the border that led to another kingdom that had been destroyed by a wave of monsters last week.

Which meant that Caranthir had deliberately withheld this information from her. As had the king. Who had not yet given notice of the completion of the mission, so she could not yet claim her rewards. And she was beginning to suspect that the sly king was taking advantage of her ignorance of the geography of these lands to make her believe that his older brother had been magnanimous in offering to teach her magic in exchange for traveling to the “camp” they had set up and healing the warriors inside the makeshift canvas tent.

“I think the saintess should stay behind. It is too dangerous for her to accompany us to the battlefield,” whispered Ardrach and Kalysto arched an eyebrow at the comment.

“It’s less safe to stay in one place under a gaudy beige canopy in the middle of a lonely but showy hill, don’t you think?” Ardrach opened his mouth and then closed it again, then frowned.

“ The saintess has nearly died twice, three times if you count the wolves.”

“More, if you count the dark goblins," she added, causing his face to twitch in concern. I came here just to heal the wounded, but Ardrach, if we don’t do something, those dark goblins and that thing that went through my chest will end up infecting all of you," she added, trying to show concern. Deep down, though, she did feel sorry for the fate of those elves who would die from the plague if she left, which she had begun to think about since she was annoyed with Caranthir. Especially since less than four hours after he had begged her to help him heal his warriors, the fellow had abandoned her to her fate, even after assuring her that she would never be in danger.

And she’d come closer to dying here than the little time she’d spent in the Los Lamentos forest.

The crazy things I get myself into just to get a good magic tutor. But a part of her was already beginning to doubt whether it was a good idea to accept him as a teacher.

And while normally she would put her safety above all else and wouldn’t bother risking her ass for a bunch of strangers, she was too excited about the amount of experience points she could get just for serving as their backup.

“But...”

“Call Caranthir. And tell him I need to talk to him.”

Author's note: One of the things I find so curious about Kalysto is the ease with which she risks her life to protect a child. But it's a completely different story if it's an adult.