The fight was basically a done conclusion once I turned on my [Healing Aura]. I’d been a little bit worried that its healing might have been at the most basic level or something, and that it wouldn’t do enough to weaken the slimes like my [Greater Heal] did. I admit, I panicked for a second when I turned it on and nothing seemed to be happening. Thankfully though, after a minute it definitely started showing results, and after two minutes the slimes were rendered totally useless.

  It was a completely worthwhile buy, for sure.

  I’m honestly getting a bit excited to see what this thing can do for me in a crowded city.

  I’m sure I’d rack up exp like nobody’s business!

  Of course, while I sat there thinking such thoughts, Kale and the guy padin ran over to me, killing every slime they came across along the way. I got an earful from the tter about how dangerous everything that I did was, while Kale just stared at me and nodded along like he was mute. It felt a bit like I was a stupid little kid again, pissing people off in the neighborhood, but I didn’t really mind it too much; Them being able to scold me like this meant that we'd won. I did it, I saved us. And what’s more, I kept my promise to the vilge.

  For once, I kind of feel like a hero.

  ~~~

  At first the dy padin looked like she was determined to act all aloof to us when we got back, even though she was dutifully standing at the entrance to the vilge waiting for us, but all of that went away once she took a good look at us.

  “W-what happened to you three in there?!”

  All I could do was smile and prepare myself to get scolded more, fully expecting her to unch into some speech about how she’d been right and how it was way too dangerous in there, and that we shouldn’t have gone in. To be fair, past her bullshit about it being ‘beneath me’, I have to admit that it’s true that I endangered all of us, including the people in the vilge, by going into the mines like that. If I hadn’t been able to somehow cheese out a victory like I did in the end there, then the vilge would have definitely been doomed, and it would have been completely my fault for rushing in like I did.

  Well, maybe the dy padin would have been able to avert a portion of that disaster, but I don’t know. At this point my view of her isn’t all that great; Part of me believes that she’d just huff, say I told you so, and leave the pce just to spite me. It’s probably not true, she probably wouldn’t just abandon people so easily, or at least I’d like to think she wouldn’t, but consider this:

  She has a duty to the church to tell them what happened to the Saintess and her escorting group.

  There’s a chance she would find that duty more important than anything else, and split without helping the people in this vilge at all.

  It’s all a moot point to think about anyways though, since we succeeded. If I keep thinking about it it’s only going to make my opinion of her drop lower and lower.

  “There were-”

  “Ah, actually, there was quite a rger nest of slimes in that mine than was expected. But we were perfectly fine since we had a Saintess with us, so it’s nothing to worry about, Rayanne.”

  At first I was surprised that the guy padin cut me off, what with how much he’d started sucking up to me and everything, but then I realized what was going on. He must not have wanted me to rat us out to the dy padin, right? He must have thought that I was going to say the wrong thing and set her off even more than she was about to be.

  Or, if I think more sinisterly about things and take into account the way he was acting with her when he changed sides, I could even guess that he’s not letting her know what happened in there on purpose. Maybe he pns to keep her out of the loop and cim a bit more of the credit for this happening without her. Sure, I’m a Saintess, so it’s going to be taken as a fact that I did something 'great' somewhere, but for regur, non-legendary people, I’m sure assisting me as my ‘only escort knight’ will probably get him a lot of recognition afterwards, right?

  Well, then again it’s not like I know anything about how all this crap works. This is just a second-hand guess made from all those stupid historical dramas that Kale used to make me watch with him. I could be totally off the mark. Either way, I have no pns to sabotage what he’s trying to do here; I owe the dy padin no favors for how she’s been acting towards me.

  “...He’s right. It’s all taken care of, but it was really tiring, so let’s go get some rest for now and leave in the morning, alright?”

  I made sure to put a bit of extra authority in my voice, even if I’m not used to it, just so she wouldn’t find it as easy to back talk to me and nag about everything. To tell the truth, I was actually pnning to just sit still and let her scold me like the other two did at first, but now I don’t think that I’m in the mood to let things just be like that anymore. Nagging from someone who doesn't actually care about you is worthless to listen to, after all.

  “Oh… Yes, I see. You must be tired from your outing, Your Holiness. Of course, please head back and rest for now.”

  Hmmm. Nope, I don’t think I’m fooled at all by how ‘polite’ her words seemed there. That ‘for now’ bit that she said didn’t slip past me at all, I’ll have you know. Neither did that little distrusting look that she gave between me and the guy padin before she spoke.

  Eh, it’s whatever. I think I’ve started to learn how I need to treat her. If she starts getting too out of hand again then it wouldn't be too bad to just abandon her and get that kiss ass over there to take me to the main church without her. I’m sure he’d love to show up and be the only one out of all the failures that was able to bring me to the church successfully.

  C’mon, Kale. I’m tired of having to think about all this stuff. Let’s just go to bed.

  ~~~

  We actually did leave in the morning like I said, for the record. I gave one st fsh of my [Healing Aura] to the vilgers and said goodbye, and then we set off for three days to make it to the next town. The journey was very… quiet overall, I'd say. The dy padin tried a few times to question us more on what happened in the mine, but since no one wanted to talk to her, most likely due to her bitchy nature, she eventually gave up and settled on just occasionally shooting little gres at me from time to time. On the other hand, the guy padin had tried to strike up conversations with me quite a few times, mostly just to continue trying to earn points with me I’m sure, but I had so many more important things to think about that I didn’t really pay much attention to him, so he eventually stopped with all that too.

  Kale, poor kale, didn’t even try to talk to me unless it was necessary. It was my fault. He obviously wanted to talk to me; I could tell from the look on his face that he was boiling up with the want to say something that was very very important to me. But in the end I already had too much on my pte, or maybe I was just scared of what exactly it was that he might be wanting to ask after all the new stuff we learned, so I just kinda did one of the things that I do best:

  I sat there quietly, desperately hoping that the thing I didn't want wouldn't happen.

  Kale has always been quite perceptive, so it’s no wonder he just shut his mouth and didn’t say anything to me. Doesn’t mean that he stopped looking at me constantly, though. Honestly, it’s making me feel really guilty, but I have no choice; I need more time to figure out how I feel about everything that I learned in that mine. I might have to completely change how I treat him afterwards, depending on what answer I come up with. It's horrible to think that I might be the cause of all of his suffering in some way. Really, if it turns out that what the guy padin said is all true, then I don't think I can live with myself...

  Meanwhile, while I was busy stewing over everything, we ended up finishing our quiet trip into the town.

  As soon as we made it to the town’s church, they started making a whole town-wide fuss about me. I can’t tell if they were just talented or prepared, but it took less than half an hour for them to set up some crazy ‘seat of honor’ thing in the middle of the town square and sit me on it. Either they just have way more priests working for them or they quickly hired some help, because they really got things done at the drop of a hat. They didn’t even ask any questions or double check who I was when the padins informed them that I’d arrived either, I was just immediately given a very very ‘holy’ looking cloak to wear, both to protect me from the sun and to give me a more mysterious and divine look, and then they hurried me out to where they were going to have me heal. They even managed to send people to run around the town decring I was there and where to come see me, and also set up a sturdy looking guard perimeter around where I was sitting so that people wouldn’t be able to rush at me like they had the first few times when I healed at the starter church.

  I hate to say it, but I don’t think I mind this treatment all that much if it’s going to be like this, you know?

  Or maybe I’m finally getting used to this whole thing, who can say.

  My [Healing Aura] managed to bnket a good portion of the town square I was set in, if not just slightly less, so every person who showed up to see me for sure got a bit of healing, so long as they needed it. At my request, a few of the more experienced priests slowly weeded through the crowd, finding people who needed something more from me, like a [Cure]ing or some kind of higher healing, and slowly sent them up to my seat for direct treatment. From the numbers that I was getting, it seemed that my [Healing Aura] was capable of putting out comparable healing to a [Greater Heal], although oddly enough there were some heavier wounds that a [Greater Heal] could take care of that my aura seemed incapable of fixing, no matter the amount of time spent in it, so it’s a bit difficult for me to judge exactly what the cut off is supposed to be, you know?

  All I know for sure is that it pays out pretty much the same as if I’d been healing normally, so it’s definitely nothing to roll your eyes at for time saving.

  Well, even having said that, it’s not like this Saintessing-session didn’t take for-freaking-ever to finish still. I shudder to think how much time and energy it would have taken me to work through healing this town normally, considering that it still took 7 hours to heal a majority of this town even with my aura being activated. Really, I don’t have many things to thank the Goddess for, but this [Healing Aura] might just be one of them. It’s just so darn helpful!

  Makes me wonder if I'm starting to hit the power curve, you know?

  All in all, by the end of my 7 hours of service, I managed to make it to level 25, with 655/2400 exp on my way towards level 26. It’s crazy how much I managed to get in such a retively small amount of time, really. Although actually, if you consider how many people came by to see me, the number is quite a bit smaller than it should be, just from the fact that I didn’t get to see each of them one on one. There’s a limit to how well the average priest would be able to spot an illness, or how well the average person would realize they had anything wrong with them, either. I’m sure if I could have checked over everyone myself that I’d have gotten at least a third, if not half, more exp than what I got.

  Still, I’m happy with how things went.

  It might have taken quite a while, but this was much more chill and less mind-numbing than all the other times.

  I think I’m starting to understand now why the Pope rides around in a popemobile, instead of just meeting people one on one all the time.

  Having a buffer between me and everybody else is nice.

  Oh, and since I leveled up I have a new skill to check out, but I’m a bit too tired and hungry to really care too much about it at the moment. I’d probably be more enthused about checking it out if there was any chance of me actually getting it anytime soon, but considering I only have 1 skill point to work with and everything new now costs 3, it’s gonna be a little bit until then. I’d really hoped that I might get a sneaky little extra skill point as a reward for cleaning out that mine for the vilgers, you know, as some kind of surprise quest reward or something, but sadly that didn’t seem to make the cut. Sometimes I just don’t understand the Goddess’s criteria for offering up these ‘quests’ of hers; If that mine wasn’t worth giving me some kind of reward over, then what is?!

  …Anyways, now I’m off to drown my sorrows/ celebrate with some food.

  “I’ve checked with the priests, and this town is supposed to have quite the thriving pasta culture, Your Holiness.”

  Thank you, Sir Kiss Ass! Good job scouting for me! This is very welcome news indeed. Now I understand why people keep ckeys desperate for their favor around; It must be for times like these.

  “What kind of pastas do they have, exactly?”

  I’ve always been a pasta lover. There were plenty of times that Kale and I used to make them together. We’d even go to restaurants and try out new interesting looking ones sometimes, but our favorite-

  “There are the conventional kinds with noodles, something called gnocchi, and there’s even a quite new one that I’ve heard is called 'pierogies' that-”

  “Pierogies!”

  For the first time since I came to this world, I’m finally excited to eat something!

  Before I even knew it, I’d already snatched up Kale’s hand and started running.

  “Come on, Kale! We have to go get the pierogies!”