Shaily blinked after picking the skill, and just like that, she found herself somewhere else.
She was standing on top of tall ramparts made of some cold dark stone. What seemed to be an infinite castle, amalgam of ramparts, walls and spires, extended as far as the eye could see in all directions under a cloudless crimson sky.
Thick red mist hid the bottom of the ‘castle’ so any notion of ‘the ground’ was completely lost. There were windows everywhere but it was impossible to see through any of them. In some places, the rampart paths met in ways that made little sense to the eyes, like glued together in sharp angles that seemed to lead nowhere.
Perhaps the strangest part, though, was the sound of violent winds permeating the place, despite the fact that no trace of wind could be felt.
“That might have been a mistake after all,” Shaily murmured under her breath, her eyes wandering around the incomprehensible scenery.
She tried to access her status but there was no response from the system, which is when she noticed her blue skin. Her instant first reflex was to reach for her horns, finding them well on her head.
Am I out of the trial?
“Hello?”
“Can someone hear me?”
No answer, there was only the growling of an inexistant wind to keep her company in this otherwise completely still and dead world.
She tried to summon a sprite, pulling on her internal mana to activate the spell she could easily cast without the system. The magic activated, and Shaily’s heart sank; no sprite, nor anything else, just a waste of mana.
She activated the magic again.
Still nothing.
The exidian woman’s expression became sinister.
She activated the magic again.
To no avail.
Shaily’s eyes were strangely wet.
She activated the magic again.
She breathed in short, uneven bursts.
She activated the magic again.
Tears rolled down the young woman’s cheeks.
She activated the magic again. Again. Again… AGAIN!
She ran out of mana.
The girl fell to her knees. Her head hurt, her eyes were unfocused and her limbs unsteady.
“D- Don’t…”
“Don’t leave…”
“Don’t leave me alone…”
“Not again…”
“Please…”
“Don’t leave…”
Her pleading voice died down, drowned by her uncontrolled sobbing.
Shaily laid defeated in a torpor she could not escape by herself. The sounds of the wind continued.
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How long had it been? Shaily could hardly tell. The sound of the wind had gradually died down. Now there was only silence and dried tears.
Shaily could not bring herself to move.
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A new sound disturbed this realm’s peace. A song.
Calls of an ethereal creature high in the crimson sky.
Like the chant of a siren, it forced Shaily to look. There she witnessed the majesty of a creature only described in books, a giant whale.
Yet, it looked abnormal. Calling it a whale might have been a mistake. To begin with, no whale flew in the sky, and it looked so far away, yet so big… No living creature should be of this inordinate size.
Shaily sat up. She was no longer alone, for now. The whale was here for her, she believed. It sang to keep her company.
As the whale slowly flew closer, its singing became louder, and the ‘castle’ became alive. Strange creatures appeared, as if drawn by the singing, they had not been there but now they were. Coming out from strange impossible angles and shadowy corners, thousands of them.
Their appearance was fascinating, a show of shimmering colors that were hard to describe.
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First they appeared from far away, and soon, some were appearing near Shaily herself. They could be a danger, her mind screamed, but she accepted it. It was worth the risk. At least, she was no longer alone.
One of the creatures drew closer. Stopping right in front of Shaily, it extended a limb.
Shaily extended a hand. Her fingers touched the creature, and all the creatures disappeared in the blink of an eye.
The whale itself was nowhere to be seen, silence reigned once more.
But Shaily was not alone. She could feel a gaze.
Something was watching. It was making itself known.
In the deepest parts of her being, she could feel it. It watched her. It had always been watching. It watched everything. She had never been alone. No one was ever alone. It would keep watching, forever.
Tears rolled down Shaily’s face once more.
She sniffled, and, in her broken voice, expressed what she was feeling, “Thank you…”
As abruptly as this strange dream, or whatever it was, had begun, it ended. Shaily found herself in the Holy-See once more, she was inhabiting Sofia’s body. Yet, there was a subtle change, reflected in the already-open status window only.
Name : ♢ Shaily Ormoncleth ♢
In the corner of Shaily’s vision, another system window started to flicker.
[Blessing of Deep] : The saintess is blessed by the Deep.
It disappeared for an instant, and suddenly its text had changed.
♢ [Hand of Ordinance] ♢ : Shaily was granted a name.
She has been marked by Ormoncleth, the Regulator.
She may see the inhabitants of the Deep.
Valid spells she casts through her right hand cannot fail, be canceled, negated, interrupted, absorbed, redirected or taken over.
Never forget one’s staunchest ally: oneself.
Shaily looked at her right hand. Though it was currently Sofia’s, she still managed to see something changed with it. It was quite subtle, and hard to describe, like a volatile glimmer of unnatural colors, reflected by the light on her skin.
She placed her palm near her heart, and activated the spell. A smile crept up Shaily’s lips.
“I’m so happy to see you,” she whispered, feeling the shadow sprite gliding over her skin, hiding in the shadows of her bloody clothes.
I should change.
The white robe given by the Church was a bit tight, but it was at least clean. Of course, as she changed clothes, she still had a thousand questions about what exactly had just happened to her. She was not even sure of the nature of the events; had it been a dream, an hallucination, or had she really been transported somewhere else, out of the trial? This she did not know, but what she knew for certain, was that Ormoncleth was watching, even now.
Better to focus on the trial for now.
Softening the dark bread in the water she was given, Shaily had a frugal midnight meal, watching the lights of the human city below.
Forgetting everything else, this is a beautiful view. Exidia is mostly flatlands, in comparison…
I wonder how Sofia was feeling back then.
And how she escaped.
Did she also dream of the castle world?
Someone knocked at the door.
In the middle of the night?
“Yes?”
The door opened, revealing the appearance of an armored young man holding a lantern. It was the same one who had been following earlier when Shaily was summoned.
“Saintess, are you well?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” Shaily answered with a nod, “I could use access to toilets, though…”
The man nodded in return and gave Shaily a sign to follow him.
“In there are the guards watching over you,” he explained, pointing to a door right next to Shaily’s room, “if there’s anything wrong you may ask them. The next room contains a few books that you will have to read and understand, and this door there is your private restroom where you can get water and such things.”
“Understood, thank you.”
“You may also rest in the cloistered garden,” he added, pointing at the moonlit garden right next to them, “but that is as far as you are allowed to go without guidance.”
Shaily rushed into the toilets as soon as the man started to leave.
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The next morning, the Magisterium brought Shaily to the slime farm underneath the Holy-See’s kitchens.
“Go in. Try to reach level twenty by tonight,” he said before closing the door behind her.
I suppose he didn’t Identify me again. Good, because I would have had a hard time explaining how I’m already level 14.
Up to twenty, then? How? Do they keep wild monsters under their kitchen?
Arriving in the small slime-killing room, pulling the lever and hearing a slime fall behind the wall, she quickly understood what was going on.
That’s very safe. I don’t need to go that slow killing them one by one, though.
Shaily summoned an Ice sprite, sent it through the spear hole meant to allow her to stab the slimes.
‘You have defeated [Composter Slime - lv.6]’
Go up when I pull the lever.
Shaily pulled on the lever, and another slime fell into the wall for her to kill, while she felt her small sprite fly higher up into the wall.
Soon the notifications started raining. For the weak and watery slimes, the mere presence of the ice sprite was enough to freeze them solid and make their envelope crack, killing them instantly.
‘You have defeated [Composter Slime - lv.5]’
‘You have defeated [Composter Slime - lv.2]’
‘You have defeated [Composter Slime - lv.8]’
‘You have defeated [Composter Slime - lv.12]’
‘You have defeated [Composter Slime - lv.6]’
…
The sooner I get to twenty, I will get more half skills to work with. Maybe I’ll try to level up [Holy Skeleton] until then.
Thinking this, she still couldn’t help but use [Summon blood] to create a small drop of blood on her fingertip. The spell’s circuits were fascinatingly complex, and ever since she discovered that the previous night, she kept using it every so often, just to marvel at the magic’s beauty.
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