Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia summoned a cup and filled it with blood. “Drink up, this one’s on me.”

“Thanks…”

Shaking, Astelia greedily gulped down the contents of the cup, it instantly helped sooth her nerves. Sofia lent her a hand to stand back up.

“Thank you… I… Sorry you had to see me like this.”

Sofia waved her off. “It’s nothing; Vampires do vampire things. Stress makes things worse, it looks like.”

“It does.” Astelia confirmed. “Now what do we do? Is it even safe to continue?”

With a shrug, Sofia started walking back toward the students. “Even if it’s not, we will deal with it. I was looking forward to fighting the boss with you, so we can’t stop now, right?”

“Your way of casually shrugging dangerous things off is scary,” Astelia told Sofia as she floated up to her.

“Hang out with me a bit more and you will get there too, I’m sure. Just ask Alith… the real question is, what do we tell the students?”

It was Astelia’s turn to shrug. “You handle it, I’m starting to get a bit tipsy…”

I should have grabbed a smaller cup…

“What happened to Clint?!” was the first of the many questions the students had for the two teachers.

I don’t want to lie to them… And they’re not stupid, they clearly saw that something was wrong… I should probably just hide the thing about assassination until this is over. I’ll tell my class after the event ends.

“Finish your meal,” Sofia told them as she sat among the group, taking out a loaf of bread and some dried meat to snack on. “I can’t explain in detail but…” Sofia started, stopping to drink some water, “In short, Clint had been acting weird for a bit. Turns out he was afflicted by something nasty, so the priest of Death who had been on the lookout for our safety took him to the headmaster. That’s all it is.”

“He was really acting a bit strange since yesterday…” one of Astelia’s other students mumbled to himself. “Is he going to be alright?” another asked.

Sofia finished chewing on her bread and answered, “He’s with the best healers I know, I wouldn’t worry too much. You should all just focus on the competition. The half-boss of the dungeon is coming up soon, since Evan’s group is lacking a member, you nine will all fight as one large unit from now on. Organize yourselves accordingly.”

Sofia and Astelia continued to supervise the students as they adventured through the overgrown halls of the dungeon. With Clint gone, things progressed without a hitch; the first few battles as a large compound group were a bit messy, but they rather quickly fell into a good rhythm and the flawless encounters afterward continued all the way until the half-boss.

Still, Sofia had this nagging feeling that something was waiting to go wrong. What if the true goal of the ‘assassination’ was to get the priest away? Was the question that looped in the back of her head. Every so often she checked her storage ring and the sight of the emergency catalyst in there helped quell her worries somewhat.

The half-boss was the first monster in the dungeon which hadn’t fallen to the root parasites. It was a big mechanical knight on a steel horse, wielding a huge scythe so heavily covered in layers and layers of dried red sap that it seemed to be made out of it, the hooves and legs of the horse were in a similar state.

On the student’s side, the frontline was Lola’s spirit guardian, Topaz and a boy from Astelia’s group with a shield. Their only priority was to keep the knight away from the casters, which they managed to do cleanly, with the spirit guardian focusing on taking the hits from the scythe while Topaz and the Shielder limited the movements of the horse.

Shaily and the [Mender] class caster from Astelia’s group spent the entire fight keeping track of each other’s mana while they healed Topaz and the Shielder. En and Evan were in the middle, each using utility skills to boost everyone else and getting a few hits in when they could. It was Evan who eventually managed to land a paralyzing blow in the back of the knight, allowing the mages, Opal and the last person from Astelia’s group, to launch their biggest spells, emptying all of their remaining mana without the worry of missing their target or hitting their allies.

This coordinated attack finished to destroy the horse, almost bringing the fight to a close, but the knight wasn’t defeated. He unexpectedly stood back up for a final struggle with a spin of his scythe, deeply injuring both Topaz and the Shielder in one swing. They were urgently evacuated to the backline, carried away by En and Evan, and the healers focused on their critical wounds, leaving Lola and her spirit guardian as the last effective fighters of the entire group.

Astelia looked at Sofia worriedly, “Do we step in?”

“Not yet.”

Lola has improved tremendously over the last two months, she can do it, she needs to!

The knight was stronger and faster than Lola’s spirit guardian, and yet, the armor-possessing spirit guardian was holding on. It parried and blocked strike after strike of the scythe without faltering. It was possible because of their shared control, the spirit guardian only focused on using its weapon to counter the scythe while Lola’s constant direct orders from a distance maneuvered the rest of its body and its few skills from a different point of view.

Lola was so into the fight that she unconsciously moved her body like the armor she controlled. After a tense exchange of blows between the guardian and the knight, En and Evan were back, En summoned a speed boost totem and Evan used it to circle around the knight. He threw a dagger perfectly at the joint of the knight’s left knee.

The knight was destabilized for just an instant. Lola caught this golden opportunity to land a heavy knee blow to the mechanical knight’s torso. The armor of the spirit guardian was all orichalcum, as it copied Lola’s attack, its knee left a deep dent in the knight’s chestplate, sending it reeling, back against the ground.

It’s now or never! Strike the core!

Had it been any other one of her students, Sofia would be worried that they wouldn’t know what to do to finish off the mechanical knight, but Lola had [Mana Senses] as her highest-level passive skill. There was no way she wouldn’t know to strike the golem core hidden below the waist of the knight’s armor.

The spirit guardian held its blade high, and struck down, its mithril-coated blade penetrating the thick armored plates of the mechanical knight. It pierced right through the creature’s mana core.

The knight spasmed, and its movements stopped.

Lola didn’t celebrate her victory, as soon as the kill message appeared, she relinquished control of her guardian and ran to the healer to check if Topaz was alright.

Very good!

Sofia walked up to the students, followed by Pareth and Astelia. She clapped. “Well done. Very good fight. The injuries were avoidable but not unwarranted, Topaz and Leon were ensuring the safety of En and Evan by staying in the front even when the knight fell, so you won’t be penalized for the injury. Everyone did their job very well, especially you, Lola, I’m impressed,” she complimented them as she summoned the High-priest skeleton to heal the two injured. Thanks to the healers, their condition wasn’t critical, but they were still bleeding with semi-open wounds, there was no reason to let them suffer for nothing.

The group went over the fight, their level-ups and observations, Sofia was quite proud as she read the message that her students shared with her.

‘Your party has defeated [Steadfast protector of Mezanthil - lv. 183]’

Now it’s my turn!

“And that is it for the general safety rules. Any questions left?” Astelia asked the group of students.

Shaily was the only one with a question, “Can I send sprites to attack when you fight to get some experience?”

Sofia shook her head. “Not at first. We’ll have to be sure to understand what we’re going up against before anything. Then we might let you in specific circumstances. And you absolutely won’t when we’re up against the boss. But this kind of ‘easy’ leveling doesn’t really work well. The experience is proportional to your contribution to the fight so even if the monsters are worth enough experience to get you to level 99 in one go ten times over, you’re only going to be getting scraps.”

“I know, but it feels like a waste not to since you and teacher Glacier are both already at the filter. But if you say so, then I won’t insist.”

“You’re right, but your safety goes first. I don’t want a monster to suddenly decide to attack you because one of your sprites flew too close or something. Pareth will be your protector but there’s nine of you and only one of him, so let’s not make that too harsh on him.”

“In the worst cases, a teleporting monster could use your link to the sprites to teleport right besides you,” Astelia added.

“Understood! I won’t do anything unless you ask me to,” Shaily accepted.

“Good. That applies to all of you,” Sofia added, “Now, let’s go. Do you need any preparation, Astelia?”

“Armor and blades ready, I’m good to go!”

The armor and blade in question were all new, Sofia recognized Zerei’s runework on the Orichalcum armor, while the blades were a slick design no longer resembling real swords with a handle. They were just a collection of ten extremely sharp thin mithril spikes floating behind the Vampire’s back.

“It’s still surprising that your [Orbital blades] skill can work on mithril like this,” Sofia told her as she summoned her own armor.

Astelia giggled. “It shouldn’t be able to, but I modified it enough that it can. I’m not really controlling the blades as much as I am contorting the space around them to make them move.”

“Do you even still need that skill now with your specialization?”

“Yes, it helps with multitasking. I need to focus hard to use the specialization on so many targets but [Orbital blades] makes it completely effortless, at the cost of a skill slot and a bit of lost flexibility,” Astelia explained as she walked up to the door separating the group from the second half of the dungeon. “How do you usually explore dungeons? Just pick a random direction?” she asked, “I’m not too used to this.”

Bookie appeared in Sofia’s hands.

“Let me introduce you to the Bird Reconnaissance Squad,” she announced with a large grin.