The Lost Sun Revamped - Ch.3: Limit

“Is it a curse that I always end up as a priest?” Sun thought to himself. In his own world, he would always be branded as a priest instead of a Holy Knight because of his poor sword skills.

Personal matters aside, he was finally able to leave the city and look for clues. Then he realized a very important fact that he had not noticed before. He didn’t have anywhere to start looking in the first place. From his research he knew that the known continent was gigantic. He would never be able to find any answers by just wandering around and sooner or later his money will run out.

“Sun, there you are.” Calvin called out to him. “It’s a good thing that you have not departed yet.”

Calvin reached into the box he was carrying and pulled out a robe and a staff.

“Here is the basic equipment for a priest that has joined the Order.”

Sun took the equipment and looked over it.

Priest Robe: Durability 90/90. Defense: 2

A standard robe made for a priest of the Order of Freya.

Restriction: Faith 50. Recognized by the Order of Freya.

Equip: Raises Faith by 10. Raises mana regeneration by 10%.

Priest Staff: Durability 80/80. Attack 2-8.

A standard staff made for a priest of the Order of Freya.

Restriction: Faith 50. Recognized by the Order of Freya.

Equip: Raises Faith by 10. Holy based magic power raised by 10%.

Along with the robe and the stuff, Calvin handed him two dozen small vials of [Holy Water].

“These shall help you in your journey.”

Sun thanked Calvin for his consideration but was still troubled about what he should do from here on.

“Sun, could it be that you do not have any plans about where to start your journey?” Calvin noticed Sun’s hesitation. “If that is so, then let me offer a suggestion.”

“What is it?”

“In the nearby town of Lexington, the Order has a large problem with the growing number of undead. Though they are fine for now but, if the number of undead continues to rise, it would most likely result in the destruction of the town.”

“That’s horrible.” Sun never did like the undead very much.

“That’s why they decided to put together a task force to find and eliminate the source of the undead. Earlier this week, they sent a message to the church requesting aid in the expedition. Would you be willing to lend you skills to this request?” Calvin asked him hopefully.

The Infestation of Lexington

The rising number of undead in Lexington has become a growing concern for its inhabitants and its neighboring towns. Join the expedition to find and destroy the source of the undead.

Difficulty Level: E

Requirement: Recognized by the Order of Freya.

Reward: The results will determine the reward.

Sun thought about the benefits that accepting this mission would have. Taking this mission would at least give him somewhere to start looking. Since the expedition was led by the Order of Freya, then that meant he wouldn’t have to pay for his meals. He wouldn’t be placing his life in any danger since, as a priest, he was safe in the back of the fight with plenty of meat shields in the front.

“I will join the expedition to save the town.”

You accepted the quest.

“I am happy to hear that Sun.” Calvin was overjoyed at his response. “You are the honorable and righteous person I thought you were.”

Calvin recommended that Sun go buy some supplies for the trip as well as a map. Since most of the items were common everyday material, they could all be bought at the same place. Sun headed to the general store to make his purchases.

“Welcome!” a cheerful voice came from within the store as Sun walked in.

“Hello there Recette, how has business been lately?” Sun asked her.

Recette was the owner of the item shop Recettear. The shop sold various types of items, such as swords and loot from monsters. It was pretty weird the type of random stuff she would sell, and surprisingly enough there were people that bought that random stuff.

“It has been pretty good lately.” She answered him. “What are you looking for today Sun?”

Thanks to his contributions to the church, almost all the NPCs in town knew who he was by sight.

“I’m planning on going on a journey and I’m going to need some supplies.”

“Eh? So you’re planning on leaving the citadel?” Recette asked him curiously.

“Yea.” Sun answered and then started choosing the various things he would need for his journey. The number of things he bought was mainly food, camping supplies, bandages and herbs, and a map.

Recette began totaling up the price for the purchase.

“The price is going to be 5 gold.” She said after a brief moment.

“That’s a bit high; can’t you come down a little?” Sun tried to see if he could barter for a lower price.

“Since you’re part of the Order, then I can come down a little bit.” Recette began to see how much she could lower the price by. “How about 4 gold 80 silver?”

That was the effect of belonging to the Order; people that believe in the Church would give several types of benefits to the members of the Order.

“That sounds perfect.” Sun reached into his pocket and paid for his purchase. The items were then transferred to his inventory. Sun was still amazed at the pouch he had. Seemingly small, it was capable of holding several times its capacity and weight. It was as if it was a small 4-dimensional pouch that could magically hold anything, however even these pouches had a limit on its capacity.

“Thank you for your purchase!” Recette called out to him as he left the store.

Sun left the store a bit unsatisfied. Recette was a cute young girl, yet she had not shown any interest in him at all. It couldn’t have been his appearance since back in his world, he would always get first place on the Sunshine Beautiful Men list. Sun could not really find a reason why he was always so unpopular with women.

Little to his knowledge, in this world, the female NPCs did not show any romantic feelings towards users unless they are supposed to. The female user base didn’t have any romantic feelings for Sun either because they thought he was an NPC.

“Perhaps this is my fate as the Sun Knight.” Sun sighed over his misfortune.

Feeling depressed, he headed for the exit of the town.

“Halt.” The guard, from before, called out to him.

Sun stopped and looked at the guard.

The guard looked Sun over, examining him. He would scrutinize his fiercely with his keen observing eyes, looking for the feeling of someone that was not ready to exit the city yet.

“The monsters outside are quite fierce.” The guard explained. “However, it would appear that you are sufficiently prepared. You may proceed.”

He was finally able to get past that annoying gate guard the kept stopping him from going outside, though he could never find out how the guard was able to tell whether or not he had stayed in the city for a month.

…

Sun walked on for hours upon hours in the scorching heat.

“It’s so hot.” He complained to himself. “I thought this town was supposed to be nearby.”

Even though many things have changed since he had arrived in this world, the one thing that remain the same was his pitifully low amount of stamina. Along the way, he took several stops in order to rest and further delayed the trip.

Along the way, he would use his staff to ruthlessly beat rabbits to death. Then he would prop them up on sticks and cook them on the fire he started from the campfire kit he bought at the store.

Back in the town, he had learned that a large number of rabbits roamed around various parts of the forest. Being the cheap person that he was, he decided kill and eat the rabbits instead of spending money on food.

Along the trip, he killed dozens of rabbits for food because he would frequently take breaks to rest. That and he was actually a glutton. With no one around to criticize him, he would eat as much as he wanted.

Truthfully, the town was relatively close since he had walked nearly the entire distance. However, he took yet another break about a mile from the town and the large, lush forest obstructed his sight so that he was unable to see the town in the distance.

Then, out of nowhere, something jumped out into the clearing he was resting in and started to attack!

Sun jumped out of the way and then looked over at the enemy monster.

It was a slime monster.

“The hell is this thing?” Sun didn’t know what classification this creature would fall under since he had never encountered anything like this before in his life. He decided that he couldn’t be too careful because he didn’t know what it was capable of doing. For now, he lifted his staff and focused on the enemy. Then he realized an important fact. He didn’t have any magic spells he could cast.

The slime circled him for a few seconds and then jumped forward and attacked with Slime Punch.

Thankfully, he was barely able to roll to the side and dodge the attack.

Enraged that the monster was making a fool of him, Sun gripped his staff and ran over to the monster. Swinging the staff erratically, he bashed the end of the staff onto the slime. Just to be sure it was dead; he continued smacking it with his stick repeatedly. The slime, being a semi-solid, semi-aqueous monster, splattered upon repeated impact of the staff. Upon dying, it gave off a horrid shriek of pain and then collapsed.

Because of your first victory against a monster, you have learned a new holy skill!

Before Sun could check the content of the skill by touching the window, a strange rustling sound made him stop moving in alarm. The rustling continued as the bushes and shrubs in the forest shook violently, then countless slime monsters emerged and filled the area. The slimes were in the middle of their migration period and they had heard the call from the slime he had just killed.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Seeing that he was horribly outnumbered and had no combat skills to speak of, he turned away and ran as fast as he could. He kept running and running until he was starting to get tired. He looked over his shoulder to see if he was safe.

Those damn monsters were somehow sprinting after him despite having no legs. At the sight of this, he could do nothing but continue running. However, even running soon became unviable to him.

A dead end. He had run in a random direction and now he was cornered at the edge of a cliff.

He just couldn’t believe how unlucky he was at the moment. Just earlier he was eating delicious food at the church and now he was being lynched by a bunch of jelly monsters at the edge of a cliff. The monsters were rapidly catching up and he had nowhere to run.

Sun started looking through his pouch, panicking for his life.

“There’s got to be something in here that can help me!” Sun looked ardently for anything that could save him. If he had a grappling hook or some sort of item that could let him glide then he could safely escape.

However, he had not foreseen such a situation and didn’t think to buy such a thing.

The slimes had finally caught up to him and he was truly out of options. Then he finally noticed a system announcement window that told him that the skill Holy Burst was available for use, the skill the he had learned earlier by killing the slime. Given his current situation, he wasn’t able to check the skill description as he was in the process of being murdered. He decided to bet on it since he had nothing else he could use at the moment. The only other skills he had were Holy Mastery and Divine Blessing. One was a passive skill and the other was a buff, both useless in his current circumstances.

“Holy Burst!” Sun shouted the skill out in hopes that it would do something to save him.

Sun’s mana rapidly depleted after he shouted those words and he felt drained. Having all of his mana taken from him in a brief moment caused him to become dizzy and fall over. He couldn’t see what had happened to the slimes and could only brace for death.

Death did not come. All of the slimes were gone. Sun slowly stood up and looked around.

The slimes were truly gone, but he did not understand why they had vanished.

Walking over to where the slimes were, he studied the area for any hints about what had happened.

Then he found it. He had at first thought they were mounds of dirt on the cliff, but they were in fact ashes.

Holy Burst had vaporized the slimes.

Sun couldn’t help but to check the skill description.

Holy Burst [1]

Allows the caster to channel great holy energy at the cost of all of the user’s mana. Anything that the caster recognizes as an enemy will be targeted by the skill. Holy energy will cause scorching damaged to all enemies stuck. The damage towards the undead will increase two fold and will be ignited. The damage caused by the skill is affected by the user’s Faith, Intelligence, Wisdom, and current amount of mana.

Mana Consumption: All of caster’s mana.

The skilled looked quite powerful at first, but it drains all of the user’s mana. This left nothing left if the monster was still alive. Normally the skill would not have such a powerful effort for being level one, but Sun’s high Holy Mastery, stats, and equipment helped to improve the effects of the skill. The 50% class bonus to the effect of holy spells greatly enhanced the overall effect of the spell.

Sun let out a sigh of relief. If not for this skill, he most certainly would have died.

“But still, priests are horribly weak.” Sun thought about the various limitations that he had as a priest. At least back in his world he had complete control of magic to help him out.

Priests were only slightly different from a cleric. The main difference between the two classes was that priests were able to use higher level holy magic and had a greater effect with holy spells. A small benefit of the priest class was that they were able to learn Divine Magic Skills, in other words Holy Magic Spells, to fight with. The skills were not very strong but, if used correctly and under the proper conditions, they would prove extremely useful.

After using Meditation to recover his mana, he walked to the town which was just below the cliff and all he had to do was walk around and go down the hill.

He entered the small town of Lexington and was surprised at what he saw. Unlike the urban atmosphere he had seen back at the citadel, this town was locked up with boards over the windows, large furniture blocking the doorways, and torches were placed in a holder on every building.

“What the hell is going on here?” Sun was shocked. He had heard that this place was being attacked by countless undead monsters but it was ridiculous that it was to such an extent. The entire town looked as if it was a war-zone.

Stepping past the bodies of the rotting undead that the expedition had not bothered to bury, he tried to find his way to the command center of the church. In fact, it was relatively easy to find. The closer he got to town square the less undead bodies that were lying around.

However, before heading to the church, he decided it was time to restock on supplies. The earlier brush with death was enough to tell him to be more prepared. So he tried looking for the general store in town.

After walking by the ruins of various shops and stores, he finally found a beat up shack that had a sign that said ‘Items’ on it. At the counter was a tired, middle aged man that was trying to fix a bag.

He looked up weakly to Sun. “What are you looking for?”

“Just a few things.” Sun didn’t like the atmosphere in the town. It felt as if everyone had already given up from the long struggle against the undead. After he bought the goods he was looking for he asked the man a question.

“Where can I find the Church of Freya in this town?”

“The Church of Freya!? Why do you wish to find the church? Could it be that you...” the man was shaking as he spoke. “Now that I look you are wearing the robes of the Order. Are you here to help us?”

“The Order requested aid from the nearby cities and I have arrived to help. The head priest at the church I was staying at dispatched a number of paladins and alerted other cities to give aid to Lexington.” Sun repeated what Calvin had told him earlier.

“Thank Freya. Not all is lost.” The man started crying. “Please help us… those monsters have taken everything from us.”

Sun could not express how he felt at that moment. Before him was a man that has lost everything and was now asking, no begging him, to do something. Anything that could help the townspeople feel a sense of security in their own home. Unlike the other generations of Sun Knights, the peace among the kingdoms has caused no major wars in the past few decades. So the Church of the God of Light was unable to pillage in the confusion of the war and had to downsize its army. With the exception of his belligerent teacher, this period of peace made it so the last few generations of Sun Knights had no experience for the cruelty of war. Sun was no exemption to this fact.

So there was nothing he could do except try to reassure the man that he will do whatever he can.

He left the general store and headed out to the square. He headed to the largest and most damaged building of all, the Church of Freya. On its front was a small wrecked symbol that barely made it recognizable as the church.

He walked into the church and to the front desk. Pulling out the letter requesting aid that he had gotten from Calvin, he explained that he was sent to help in the expedition. Then he told them about the reinforcements that would be arriving later on.

The receptionist was relieved at the mention of reinforcements and told Sun to follow him.

The once beautiful halls of the church were heavily damaged from undead attacks. It looked as if the entire building was smashed in. In fact, earlier in the month, the undead penetrated deep into the church and destroyed many of its facilities. It was only earlier in the week that they drove the undead out of the church.

“So you are the one that Calvin has sent.” The paladin commander Jacob looked over Sun, evaluating him. “You will make a fine addition to our troops. The lack of a healer has left many of our comrades to die when they had a chance to live. As you have been recommended by Calvin, I trust that you are more than capable of leading a group of paladins. I will give you command of the 8th Platoon.”

Quest Update:

Jacob has given you leadership of the 8th Platoon.

The men of the 8th Platoon will follow your orders.

A total of 20 Paladins have been placed under your command.

“The details of the operation will be revealed tomorrow when the rest of the reinforcements arrive.” Jacob informed Sun.

Looking over to the receptionist he said. “Take this priest to his room for the night. The rooms may not be the best since the undead attack but it’s better than nothing.”

Sun was taken to the room, where he slept for the night. All the while, he was thinking about all of the things that had happened to him earlier in the day. The shock, the weakness, and his own helplessness. There was nothing that he could do about any of it; he lacked the power to change anything.

“God of Light, please grant me the strength to protect your children.” Praying to the God of Light, Sun began to feel his consciousness fading as he fell asleep.