A Demon in Priestess’ Clothing – Part 2

Fortunately for the wannabe Demon Queen, she didn’t actually have to drink the entire bucket—but she still guzzled a couple of liters of the stuff, easily, with a few stops when nature called. She complained she didn’t seem to be feeling any better; however, the Debuggun didn’t lie—her curses steadily went down in rank, bit by bit, until they were completely gone.

“There. You’re done. The curses are gone.”

“Ugh. No wonder no one has ever gotten rid of a curse like this. I’m never doing that again.”

I guess it’s too late to say I could have just doused her with the stuff, and it would probably do the trick too.

“We aren’t done here yet. Time to get that Holy Magi class.”

“How do we even do that without a priest? Or the holy book?”

“We just need to pray at the altar.”

“It can’t be that simple. What do I even say?”

“Hmmm… something like ‘Please, Elr, give me Holy Magic?’”

“As if that’s ever gonna work, ya doofus!”

Aaaand she punched me. Hard this time. Guess she’s actually feeling better.

But seriously, it was that simple. Usually, the Holy Magic anointing ceremony was attended by a priest, and you were supposed to recite a certain phrase from the holy book. However, in the game’s code, you didn’t actually need neither a priest nor the phrase. The only condition to get the class was to adopt the appropriate praying position by the altar.

“Just trust me on this one. I’ve been in this world before, remember?”

“…Fine. It’s not like I care about offendin’ Elr or anythin’.”

Silently, while throwing daggers at me, Yzara kneeled on the altar, and recited the “magic words”.

“Please, Elr, give me Holy Magic?”

I was about ready to laugh at her, but when a soft glow emanate from the skylight, I was in awe. The scene was incredibly ironic—the heavens themselves were bathing the Demon Queen in their glory—but I couldn’t help but find it beautiful. She glowed a bit herself, with the glow dissipating soon after. I had the Debuggun pointed at her, and indeed, the moment it happened, she got the <Holy Mage I> class, as well as the three basic Holy Magic skills—<Light Strike>, <Heal>, and <Light Orb>.

“Congrats, you’re a Holy Mage.”

“I can’t believe this…” Yzara said as she got up. “What sort of shameful god is runnin’ this church?!”

“Maybe he just has a sense of humor. Now’s time for you to flex your newly-acquired magic and heal my leg injury, okay?”

“Argh. Fine. Can’t have ya catchin’ an infection out here.”

As I sat down, Yzara knelt next to me with her palms over my injury.

“Heal.”

A soft, greenish glow emanated from her hands. The basic <Heal> took its time to work, but as it did, the warmth seeped into my flesh, and I could feel my injury closing just like magic.

“There. I’m done.”

Woah, that’s awesome! Real magic right here!

“Hey, thanks a bunch—woah, you ok?”

As Yzara started getting up, she began to wobble. If I hadn’t rushed to her side, she would have crashed into the ground.

“Ughhh. I knew this was gonna happen. I feel like I just ate rotten food. Using Holy Magic sucks ass.”

“I guess a demon being accepted into Elr’s graces doesn’t happen every day. You can handle it!”

“I’ll have to…” She said as she sat down on a bench. Her face was as white as a sheet.

Guess drinking Blessed Water and using Holy Magic was a powerful two-punch combo.

“While you recover, I’m going to search around and see if there’s anything we can use here.”

“‘K…”

Even after looking at every nook and cranny of the church, I couldn’t find anything of value. Like with the villager chief’s house, the church was bereft of many items—either not restored or looted in the past one hundred years. I was on the verge of giving up this fruitless attempt, when, tucked away in a room at the back, I almost got jump-scared.

“Woah!”

“Hey, ya okay?” I heard Yzara ask from the main hall. “Have ya finally met yer creator?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry,” I said, trying to keep my voice controlled. But my heart had other ideas.

“Tsk!”

Man, this demon is something else.

Somehow, Yzara’s banter had made me relax. What I had found was a skeleton of a woman, slumped against the basement wall, with a staff next to the body. I had never seen a “real” skeleton before, only skeleton “enemies” in games and such. It was… unnerving, to say the least. It looked so realistic, with the empty eye sockets on the skull staring back at me with ridiculous intensity.

The reason I knew she was female was her outfit—a mostly white robe with a dark red section in the front—which was actually quite valuable. I could tell the skeleton was old since the bones were brittle and turning to dust in places.

Did this NPC die in a last stand when the White Death got to this area?

Sadly, I couldn’t just use the Debuggun to get them back to life and ask some questions. The screen only said <Skeleton>, so it wasn’t even tied to an actual “NPC” anymore. It was only an inanimate corpse and nothing else.

But then my thoughts paused.

Dying… what does that even mean for an NPC in this “real” world?

In Arcforge, when an NPC died, the NPC object was destroyed by the garbage collector, and a <Corpse> would spawn in its place. If they were really unlucky, some Necromancer would come around and bring them back as an undead—but there was no way to restore an NPC to life at all. However, now that this world was kinda real and everything, maybe they actually did die, just like real humans.

Was she scared? Did she even feel anything?

Pondering about it was giving me a headache—and besides, I could do nothing for this girl even if she had died a horrible death. Still feeling a bit conflicted, I approached the skeleton to try and see if I could recover the outfit. At least, the outfit wouldn’t have to rot away in this damp basement.

Now that I was a bit closer, I could see that there were strands of blonde hair stuck to the skull and leading down to her back. As I realized that, my heart was racing faster and faster, and my muscles tensed up. I even started trembling.

Huh? Why am I…?

What I was doing felt wrong, somehow. I knew this was just a prop, but part of me was being totally fooled by the damn thing.

I shook my head.

Nothing good will come of chickening out now. It’s just an NPC, goddammit!

A priestess’ robe was heavy, with multiple layers, so I couldn’t see what was inside. I started pulling off the outfit from the feet down, which forced the skeleton to slump down even more. However, that didn’t have the effect I was hoping for. As the skull hit the floor, it broke off, cracking into multiple pieces.

“Ewwww!”

The arms refused to budge, so I had to manually go in there and pop them out of the joins. The bones felt surprisingly light, and it didn’t take much at all to pry them away. From there, I lifted the outfit by the collar, which made the remaining bones fall to the floor, breaking into smaller pieces or outright turning to dust. The strands of hair were left strewn around the bones, making for a macabre scene.

Yeah, even if this is a fake skeleton, this was kinda nasty.

I had obtained the outfit—but somehow, I felt like I had violated some sacred rule in the process.

Hopefully, I’ll never have to do that again.

I quickly grabbed the staff, too, and used the Debuggun to restore both items to their original condition. I gave the broken skull one last, long look, its half-broken eyes somehow still piercing my soul.

“Stop looking at me like that. You’re just a <Skeleton>. Nothing more.”

Before a ghost popped out an actually answered me, I ran out the room back into the sunlit hall.

“Yer back. Finally got something good?” Yzara asked, her face not nearly as pale as before.

“Yeah. I found something that will really complete your transition to the side of Holy Magic,” I said, trying to put the whole ordeal behind me.

“Aren’t ya gonna to get smitten by God for stealing stuff from a church?”

Nah, we never programmed that in, I wanted to say, but obviously, she’d have no idea what I was talking about. As far as I recall, the worst that could happen if you stole from a Church is you getting the <Heretic> status condition, which sealed all your Holy Magic-related skills. But you’d need a priest to inflict you with that, and there were no priests around.

“What, are you scared of being sent to Hell?” I quipped.

“If angerin’ Elr sent me to Hell, I’d gladly do it,” Yzara responded. “But I think I’d just get erased from existence. So, what did ya find back there?”

I presented the outfit to Yzara.

Her reaction was instantaneous.

“There’s no way I’m wearin’ a priestess’ outfit!!”