Saintess Summons Skeletons

The discussion only lasted a few minutes more before Everelle excused herself. She stood up from her chair and stretched.

“I gotta get back to work. I managed to negotiate something with the higher-ups while we were chatting. I’ll be preparing that, so just stay here until I come get you three in a few hours to start the last stretch of the dungeon.”

“Did you go out of your way to spare us from another maze? You did not have to, really, but thank you, I guess,” Sofia thanked her.

“I’ll explain when I come back, don’t rejoice too early, but yeah, no more maze,” Everelle confirmed as she spun around to leave. “See ya in a bit.”

The floor opened under Everelle and closed back up right after she fell without a sound.

“There she goes… It’s hard to believe she’s out to kill us when she’s acting so relaxed…”

“I think she’s a nice person,” Bookie commented from his oversized chair, feet dangling back and forth in the air.

“I won’t deny that. But if she ends up being the dungeon boss we will have to beat her up, you realize that?”

“It’s fine as long as she survives like the sword man!”

Sofia approved, “True, Tarren survived just well.”

It really makes me wonder what the Sunless really are.

I have my doubts but I think, at the very least, Everelle used to be human. Some things were suspicious, but stretching after staying still for a long time? That’s not something someone who was born with a body made entirely of mana would naturally do.

And I don’t know how the Sunless reproduce, but I don’t think that would go a long way into having maternal instincts like she has. She was really weak to Bookie’s little trick, and that’s with him looking like he does.

Still… She’s actually just really nice. She even left us the chairs when she left. I feel bad for overanalyzing her so much…

“Bookie, Pareth. I’m gonna take a nap. Wake me up when she’s back.”

About an hour later, Sofia opened her eyes.

I knew I was worrying over nothing. She’s not playing some game… Makes me feel doubly bad, but I had to be sure.

Since Sofia knew that Everelle could hear everything she said in the rest area, she had placed a bait of faking falling asleep. If the rest areas and Everelle’s pleasant personality were traps meant to lower one’s vigilance, then being openly vulnerable like Sofia falling asleep was the perfect moment for her to launch a surprise attack. But nothing had come of it, the rest area was truly safe, it seemed, and Everelle’s laid back attitude was genuine.

From this point on, Sofia joined Bookie and Pareth in their ongoing game consisting of putting bones into a pile and trying to pull them out one by one without making the pile collapse. The bones used for this were the four Withered Vampire skeletons playing dead, which Bookie had summoned on his own accord.

Some time later, Everelle entered the room again, a random wall opening to let her in this time.

“You guys are playing while I bust my ass out there working for you. Unbelievable,” she greeted them as she walked in with a big sack in hand. “Anyway, dungeon’s ready. Let’s get a move on!”

“Want to join?” Sofia asked as she pulled another bone from the pile. She was losing at the moment, with Pareth far in the lead, so having another player join might save her from the last place.

“Are you serious?” Everelle asked with a short laugh.

Bookie stared at her for a bit and that was all it took to convince her.

“Fine, but just for a bit…”

While Everelle played, and she was terrifyingly good at the game, much to Sofia’s dismay, she also explained what was going to happen with the ‘last third’ of the dungeon.

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“So, I was meant to be the final boss for you guys, but crudely speaking, it’s just stupid, even for hell difficulty or whatever. There’s no timeline in which you lot beat me as you are right now. Completely impossible.”

“Aren’t you underestimating us a bit too much? We have a pretty good track record when it comes to beating impossible opponents,” Sofia answered while she looked for the next bone to pull out of the pile.

“I know. You told me about the destroyer, and I managed to get some data from Kyle, so I know about Victory too. I still don’t have the data on your full skillset and such, but no matter what, what I’m saying is, there’s really no way, even for you.”

“You’re that confident even knowing what the crown on my head means?”

“Yeah. Let me put it into perspective for you. Currently, you could utterly trash someone at my level with a low quality mana heart. For someone with a regular to good mana heart, with both Pareth and Bookie with you, you might struggle but maybe still win, depending on the person. For someone like me with an SSS rank Mana heart with a Keystone? You stand no chance. I’m not saying this lightly.”

“Woah, I see I’m not the only overachiever in the room. Impressive.”

“Well, yeah, the system doesn’t employ just anyone.”

“But, hmm… If you’re so certain there’s absolutely no chance, why was I meant to fight against you in the first place? That does not exactly sound very fair. If you’re telling me my odds against you are worse than my odds were against the actual God of Victory, then yeah, I would rather give up on the dungeon now and go back to the regular trial.”

“Well, I’ve been wondering about that too. I wasn’t even aware of this shit until about when you started fighting the mimic and I got new orders from above. Been busy communicating with Kyle and — —---- since then. Everyone on my side agrees that the scribes who gave the orders had to be really deranged to think this was a good arrangement.”

“I don’t follow everything but that means you’re not meant to be the boss for the dungeon even in Hell difficulty, and the scribes tried to change that last minute?”

“I’m not. I never fight here. I manage the dungeon, and that’s it. The regular boss is one of my summons. The normal setting for hell difficulty should be three of them plus five homunculi in the back. And I think that you could maybe beat that, but if I fight directly? No.”

“So the tier five scribes are trying to make me fail here, is what you’re saying?”

“Someone is trying to make you fail, for sure. I can’t say who, though, but I don’t think the tier five scribes would do that, they could just —- — — – — —--- if they wanted.”

“Corruption within the system, huh. I’m honestly not too surprised.” I guess Sen moving us to the Draconic system wasn’t enough… So my enemies within the system are tier four scribes? But Sen couldn’t do anything to fix the issue at the root despite being supposedly higher ranking? Are these scribes allied with scripture?

It was also scribes who helped summon Connections with the assisted inspiration scroll. The archangel even said that the scribes had gone overboard with their help. So… Are the scribes having an internal war with me as a proxy? This is turning out to be a lot more serious than just having to deal with a dirtbag god…

After organizing her thoughts, Sofia gave Everelle a polite bow, “Thanks for the help, I won’t forget it.”

“Just doing my job. Kyle’s busy making sure that this kind of stuff doesn’t happen again right now, so you can just continue the trial as normal.”

“Will we get to fight the regular Hell difficulty boss, then?”

“Nope, you still get to fight me.”

“Huh?”

“But with a twist!” Everelle added, sounding very proud of herself. She turned to grab the big bag she had brought with her, and threw it to Sofia.

Sofia grabbed the bag and looked inside, there was a wooden case in there, she could feel magic items inside, six of them.

“Come on! Open it!”

Sofia opened the box, revealing an assortment of six enchanted blue glass balls resting on a velvet lining.

“And that is?”

“A personal creation. I’m lending them to you for our ‘fight’. You can Identify them to get a bit more info, but I’ll explain the rules when we’re in the actual boss arena. Ah! I’ve been wanting to use these for so long, you have no idea!” Everelle explained, looking and sounding really excited.

[Summoning orb]: A Special spatial storage item meant to store summoned beings. You need to throw it at one of your summons to store them, and the same motion is needed to release them. Its enchantments will bring it back to your hand after throwing. A singular summoning orb can store up to one summoned entity (A summoned group, such as a school of fish, counts as one entity). This Summoning orb can hold up to 200 mana worth of summoned entities.

A quick scan of all the orbs showed that they each allowed for a different amount of mana’s worth of ‘summons’. With the 200 mana being the lowest of and 100 million being the highest.

By the time Sofia looked away from the description, Everelle had produced a second box out of nowhere, which she held under her arm.

“Are we meant to… Throw glass balls at each other’s summons?” Sofia guessed.

“Ahah, good try, but no. Follow me, I’ll explain, I’m sure you’re going to love where this is going.”

Everelle turned around and left the rest area, through the doors for once. And as she did, the calm background music of the rest area stopped and a tenser, more dramatic tune started playing.

Already far into the next room, Everelle turned back and shouted.

“What are you waiting for? Come on guys! It’s time to duel!”