The Holy Saintess (3)
Jin-soo looked at Shin Sua's face and gave a bitter smile. That expression is full of resolve.
The shackles are on tight. If he meant to party with other players, secrecy came before everything else. Stats that blew past common sense, skills like Shadow Summons—those could be explained, more or less, if enough miracles stacked on top of one another.
Two status windows, though? No pile of miracles covers that. No point drawing attention I don't need.
He was satisfied all the same. He had secured, as a party member, the Shin Sua who before his Regression had been called the Holy Saintess.
Time to pick up the pace. The moment every hidden piece and achievement to be had on Floor 50 was in his hands, he intended to climb to Floor 51.
If I can take that bastard too, I should. But I can't camp Floor 51 forever with my eyes on him alone. Hunting that one would take a long stretch of time, or a long stretch of luck.
"Could I go say goodbye to my party first? I can't just walk out without a word."
"Go ahead."
"I can still hunt with you today, though."
"Then we leave now."
Jin-soo did want a look at what Shin Sua could do, now that she had advanced into a healer. Not that I'll be able to tell. On Floor 50, aside from the gatekeeper, nothing existed that could so much as wound him.
Still. Blessing, Recovery, Protection, Purification, Dispel—those ought to help some. On raw specs she would fall far short of his Shadow Healer, of course. At least she's holy-attribute. That's a mercy. Had she been dark, she would have been nothing but a strictly worse copy of the Shadow Healer. Dark healers alone could learn Curse, Decay, Aggravate, and Absorb; holy healers alone could learn Blessing, Protection, Purification, and Dispel. The distinction mattered.
Steel sheared. Bone split.
"Gwaaaargh!"
Shin Sua's eyes flooded with shock. He's hunting them that easily?
A pack that size, met alongside her comrades, would have meant one thing: run. Jin-soo was not her comrades. Alone, he cut down a staggering number of monsters as if it cost him nothing. And that was not the end of it.
What are those summons? Knight, warrior, assassin, archer, mage, healer—their combat power was absurd. The healer summon, above all, was her superior in every respect. At this rate I might as well not be here. I'm no help at all.
Her anxiety tightened. There was hardly a moment worth spending on Recovery. The one small mercy was that the healer summon was dark-attribute, and so could not cast Blessing, Protection, Purification, or Dispel. The problem was that the versions she could cast were so low-level they barely registered. Blessing's buff was faint as dust. Protection's defense was thin as paper. Purification and Dispel left no sign they had been used at all.
I'm truly useless. He didn't give me the healer advancement scroll because he expected me to help. He had given it so she would stay in the safe rear instead of charging the front, hunting monsters she had no business fighting, and getting herself maimed or killed. The self-respect she had only just scraped up off the floor slammed straight back into the dirt.
Even so, I can't just stand here. She used every skill she had, as hard as she could.
She's good. From the front, cutting monsters down, Jin-soo watched her pour herself into support from the rear. They didn't call her the Holy Saintess for nothing.
Her timing on Recovery, Blessing, Dispel, and Protection was razor-sharp. This was her first battle since advancing to healer. She had never practiced. Even so, she cast Recovery and Protection on a knife's edge, laid Blessing back down the instant it faded, and threw Dispel and Purification before an orc shaman's curse could so much as take hold.
Born for it. Her eye for the shape of a fight was exceptional. Stack experience on top of that, and— Later, she'll be a real asset.
Right now, she was not much help. Her skill levels were simply too low. Recovery trickled in. Protection was paper. Blessing was faint, and Dispel and Purification failed more often than they succeeded. Still, she'll be eating at least a little experience.
Healers had a harder time leveling than other classes. Unlike warriors or mages, they could not hunt monsters themselves. But the System did not hand out experience according to who landed the killing blow. What matters is how much you contributed to the hunt. Without a rule like that, tanks and healers would never have leveled at all.
Partying with me doesn't do much for Shin Sua. He was so strong that her share of each hunt dropped through the floor. I can't hand her to another party, though. The contract was already signed. And it's not as if there's no fix.
He hunted an overwhelming number of monsters compared to other players. If a thin contribution meant thin experience, then volume would solve it—dust gathered into a mountain. Just like now.
The Shadow Mage loosed an attack spell. Fire roared up and detonated, and the monsters the Shadow Assassin and Shadow Archer had driven in melted away in a single blast.
Herding them in really is the efficient way. Jin-soo smiled, satisfied, and sent the Shadow Assassin and Shadow Archer to drive in another wave.
Day darkened, the hunt ended, and Jin-soo and Shin Sua returned to the village.
"I'll head over, then."
"All right."
She parted from him to meet her party. What is he, really? Walking away, she turned the day's shocks over again. How can anyone be that strong? And those summons—why are they so powerful? Each one had looked stronger than several ordinary player parties put together.
I barely did anything, and my level shot up. Several times faster than hunting with her own party. There was no sense of achievement in it. Nothing's actually changed. Before, she had leveled on her party's help. This time, she had leveled on Jin-soo's. That was all.
The lodging door creaked open, and Shin Sua stepped inside. Her party was chattering among themselves and did not even notice she had come in.
"Hey. I'm back."
"Oh, you're here."
"Come sit."
They waved her over, light and easy.
"I have something to say."
"Yeah? What?"
She hesitated, then forced the words out.
"I'm leaving the party."
"Huh? You're leaving?"
"Why?"
"What are you saying all of a sudden, unni?"
"Noona, is this about what was said earlier today?"
Their fluster pleased her. It's already decided, but still. She had to meet her younger sister, Shin Sujeong, and she had signed a mana contract besides; the outcome could not be undone. Even so, it made her glad that they did not want her to go.
"I decided to join another party. What happened was..."
She told it without exposing a thing about Jin-soo.
"You didn't get scammed, did you? Why would that person want to party with you?"
"Unni, you could die out there and no one would even know."
"It's suspicious. We looked after you because we're us. Why would some stranger do you a favor like that?"
"I get that you want to reach Floor 51 as fast as you can. Rush it at your level and you'll just die."
"Or maybe they're so weak they're trying to use you, noona. Then you won't even get past the gatekeeper. You'll die."
It sounded like worry. Underneath ran a parade of thorough disregard and contempt. Before she met Jin-soo, words like these would have left her even more apologetic toward them. Not now.
"I've already decided. I'm leaving the party."
Their faces twisted.
"Well, nothing we can do, then. What an idiot..."
"Hope you weren't scammed, Sua unni. Looks like you already were, though."
"You're older than me, noona, and you still can't read a situation."
They made no further effort to stop her.
"Then I'll go."
Shin Sua turned quickly.
"What a stupid bitch."
"This is better, honestly. We couldn't kick her out because of the history. Now she's leaving on her own—how great is that?"
"But who's doing the chores and carrying the bags now? Having unni around was quietly convenient."
"Right? With Sua noona gone today, I was the only one who suffered. Just because I'm the youngest, they work me to death."
"Let's just hire a porter. Then we don't split experience or points. We'll actually come out ahead."
Their voices reached her as if they wanted her to hear every word. There was no regret in them, no pity. Only mockery, and relief.
I didn't leave. I was thrown away.
She had known she was a burden in that party. That was why she had taken on every chore, trying to be of some small use. She had believed they saw her as a close comrade, a friend, an older sister, a younger one, and she had thought she owed them her best in return. A delusion. In that party she had only ever been a troublesome lump of baggage, and a drudge.
"Why do you look like that?"
Jin-soo frowned at Shin Sua, back looking half dead. Did they call her a traitor? A party that had been together since Floor 1 might well have.
"You won't throw me away for being useless, right? No—you can't throw me away even if I am, can you? Because of the contract?"
What followed left him dumbstruck. What is she even saying? Don't tell me— The party members who had looked down on her in the open rose in his mind. Idiots.
Her party had been properly built: tank, melee damage, ranged damage, healer, all of it. The problem was that they had made Shin Sua a melee dealer instead of the healer. Not especially strange, I'll grant. Good advancement scrolls went to whoever had the skill and the voice. And Shin Sua looks a long way from either.
A party that was truly united, though, would have given a player who could not pull her weight in melee a healer scroll, a mage scroll—an archer scroll, at the very least. Put a strong melee fighter into healer, mage, or archer, and the party's power dropped hard. Healers and mages need their own sense, their own quick thinking, but early on it doesn't show much. If the fit was truly hopeless, you switched later, once a higher advancement scroll came along. Even if not healer—give her a mage scroll and she would have shone.
Her melee ability and sense seemed a total bust. Her eye for the whole battlefield from the rear, and her sense for the right skill in the right place, were first-rate. To Jin-soo, healer was the clothes that suited her best, but she would have performed at the very top as a mage as well. Even as an archer, so long as her talent for the bow was not rock bottom, she would have been better than average.
Well. Ideals and reality are different things. How many parties actually ran on pure profit and reason? Most are ruled by force, power, and politics. And no party lasts forever. Even ones that had shared life and death for ages and boasted a bond like family broke apart, for one reason or another, all the time. When that day comes, all that's left is your own skill.
Which was why, when a good advancement scroll or skill book appeared, rationally weighing the whole party's gains and losses and sharing accordingly was nearly impossible. Even if it guts the efficiency and hurts everyone, people want the good things for themselves. That's instinct.
One corner of his mouth lifted.
"Right. I can't throw you away. No—I absolutely won't. I'm going to work you for a long, long time, so quit worrying about nothing."
At his answer, the fear left Shin Sua's eyes.
"Thank you. Really, thank you."
Deep relief flooded her face.