Chapter 6: Rat

Chapter 6: Rat

How are the Heroes doing?

Scythe and Jason are still holding the frontlines, your Majesty. Izuka should still be dealing with the salamander situation up north, she is scheduled to come back in three months.

What about the three from the last batch?

Another dud, your Majesty. Minato showed great potential but he was caught by the empires inquisitors. We quietly disposed of the other two. They were utterly inadequate.

*Sigh* What is the church doing, sending us these clowns again and again

Sofia woke up to the same boring marble room.

You have defeated [Forest Slime - lv. 2]

You have defeated [Vampire Bat - lv. 4]

The hero : Holy Skeleton gained a level!

You have defeated [Starved Wolf - lv. 5]

You have defeated [Wild Hare - lv. 1]

You have defeated [Wild Hare - lv. 5]

The hero : Holy Skeleton gained a level!

You have defeated [Wild Hare - lv. 6]

You have defeated [Wild Hare - lv. 6]

You have defeated [Wild Hare - lv. 2]

The hero : Holy Skeleton gained a level!

The faraway skeleton had done some quality hunting during the night, going up to level 5. The shared experience wasnt enough to get me to level up, it probably barely made a dent. Her idea of using the skeleton to speed up her leveling while she was stuck here wasnt looking very promising.

She tried to leave but to her surprise her door was locked. Did they find out about yesterday? She checked and the rat skeleton and knife were still there. She let herself fall on her bed. It was still the only piece of furniture in the large room. It would be nice if I could get a bath. She had to sweat a lot to get her levels the previous day and felt unclean.

Her mana was full so she spent it all.

[Holy Skeleton] reached level 9

[Holy Skeleton] reached level 10

She left her room late at night.

As she was coming out of the books room one of the other duo of guards came out to see what she was doing. This one was kinda short and he looked bored out of his mind.

Hey, what are you doing out of your room this late?

I- I just wanted to read a book under the moonlight. She held up the book she had just taken. I cant sleep

Just dont leave the cloister. The man sighed like this was the worst day of his life, and returned to the guard post.

Alright now to find a suitable spot

It took her some time but she found a nice place with large and flat stacked rocks, out of view from the guards door. A perfect moonlit place for reading. She carefully took out the knife from between her breasts, the blade was rolled in some cut cloth. She moved the first rock of the pile away, and got to work carving on the second one.

She had drawn the necromantic skeleton circle many times before getting it correct in the crypt. She could almost do it with her eyes closed now, especially one as small as the one she needed, the only hard part was not making excessive noise. The stone was quite brittle which helped a lot. By the end, the knifes point was ruined but the circle was complete.

She retrieved the rat skeleton in the folded rag she had tied to her ankle, it was quite tight to lessen the noise it would make and she struggled for a while to undo her own knot. I should have just cut it open. She would have to cut herself open next anyway

She frowned. Can I not just use [Summon Blood]? Does it have to be mine?

[Summon Blood] reached level 2

As the blood filled the carved circle the rat skeleton slowly reassembled and came to life.

[ERROR]

AGAIN?!

[User cannot summon the same hero twice, please choose one]

[Holy Skeleton (Human) / Holy Skeleton (Rat)]

Thats just it? No halved thing bullshit? No admin call? Alright I can deal with just this. Goodbye old skeleton I guess, youre just too far away.

[You summoned the Hero : Holy Skeleton (Rat) - lv. 5]

It even kept the levels of the other skeleton!

The small rat skeleton stood still, awaiting his orders, his eyes emitting a soft golden light, a small, round but spiked halo of yellow light hovering, crooked, over his skull.

Her first command was to hide the lights. How could he do his job of being discreet if he was a walking lightshow. To her relief, it could actually be turned off. But she felt the rat getting significantly weaker without it.

She hid the circle by replacing the first rock on top of it, left the skeleton there and went back to her room. Her orders were to explore all unguarded places, as discreetly as possible. She established signals like stop moving for a second or immediately retreat then do a circle to know what exactly it encountered. Since it was still close to her, she could very precisely sense its position and movements. She restricted the rat to the first two floors. Higher up was dangerous, she assumed the thing would absolutely get caught if it went near a high priest, and she thought they had to be up there in the highest floors. People in power always love to live high up.

By morning, she would have mapped the entirety of the Holy Sees lower levels. It was good that she had napped for so long. She wouldnt be getting a lot of sleep tonight.