Urgent Case
Serenia walked back from Elias' office in joy. Although it was only a small victory, it was a win nonetheless. Against the big, scary villain, Elias Ashborn himself.
'At the very least, I've regained some sort of control over my living space.' Serenia didn't like how whenever she left her room, there were eyes on her from all directions.
Her guards were not allowed in her inner chamber unless they were instructed to. The maids, on the other hand, roamed free. Having them removed and Alia instated in their stead meant that she would now gain a larger room to act in.
"I should take my time to pray in the chapel~" Serenia happily headed towards her new destination.
Within less then five minutes, she arrived.
Unlike before, there were still some people inside the chapel, so she couldn't just go straight in and pray in the middle of the platform like before.
She greeted them, then proceeded to sit on the frontmost bench. She kneeled and began to offer a short prayer.
Ding!
[Faith points: 11/100]
'As expected, this really isn't effective.' Raising the bar by one reminded her that she needed to find other ways to fill the bar.
'Praying.. and getting someone to respect you.'
'Saintess system..'
Could it be, she just needed to perform duties that a regular Saintess is supposed to do, and she would be set?
The two examples so far matched the theme.
'I could try healing someone.' She had learned a ton of healing magic spells from the library.
Putting back a torn limb should be in her range of capabilities by now.
'I'll make a visit to the health center after this.'
Amidst her deep trance, the other spectators in the room were surprised by her.
It was because, the moment she kneeled down to pray, a gentle, warm ray of light illuminated her figure. It caught everybody's attention and made them rub their eyes multiple times to confirm that what they were seeing was real.
Indeed it was!
After praying, Serenia sat back up and didn't move. The glow disappeared, but they saw her stop and stare blankly at the El's statue. With the amount of grace and beauty she naturally possessed, they were enchanted by her presence and act.
Their imaginations ran wild on their own. They thought that she must've received some sort or oracle!
Ding!
[Several people have perceived you as the 'chosen one' and sees you in a good light.]
[Faith points: 18/100]
'???'
Serenia was utterly dumbfounded. What's with the sudden addition?
Her focus broke, and she carefully processed the system's words.
'Chosen one..? But I haven't done anything!'
'Wait..'
She looked over it once again and realized that she gained a total of seven points, which was the same amount of people that were in the room. Her eyes lightly scanned over them, and sure- they were intently looking at her.
'...Them. It must be them.' Serenia mused.
This was a great discovery. She did close to nothing, but was able to farm some points, albeit little in number.
Serenia's mood lifted up. She stood up and smiled widely. She even said words of encouragement to the people there as she bid farewell and left the chapel.
She needed to test the theory. That the system was leading her to do 'Saintess duties'.
No, it was more like.. the system wanted her to be acknowledged as a true Saintess and not just a puppet. That was why, whenever the people's thoughts about her became more positive, her points increased.
'Nevermind that. Performing a quick healing of some random patient will prove it all.' Serenia was excited to solve the mystery, so she headed towards the health center in high speed.
___
'It's quite large.' Serenia looked up to observe the place, protecting her eyes from the glaring sunlight with her hand.
"Hey!! Come here quickly!! Take this one first!" A loud, thundering shout pierced Serenia's ears.
"Yessir!"
"There seems to be a huge commotion.. I wonder what happened?" Serenia saw people entering and exiting the center back and forth in haste, each with a disturbed expression on their faces.
The health center was a busy place every single day. The healers would be swarmed with various people coming in with different stories and concerns nonstop.
After all, the health center offered treatments that charged people based on their backgrounds. For example, a treatment that might've costed a peasant 1 gold coin would translate to a 10 gold coin invoice for an affluent merchant. The greater the wealth, the higher the price.
However, due to how sacred the location is, people normally wouldn't dare to raise their voices in fear of the repercussions they could receive. Fights and so on could get them banned from any future visit to the Palace.
Serenia became interested and went inside to check things out. Immediately, she heard many sounds of pained groans. A heavy stench of blood permeating her nose.
'It's a lot more serious than I thought.'
"Good day, Mr. Franz." Serenia greeted the head healer, who was currently overwhelmed with directing the flow of patients and trying his best to calm the chaotic mess unfolding in the center. "May I ask what happened here?"
"Saintess..? Why would you be here.." Franz looked extremely confused at her presence. "There has been a serious monster breach in the nearby forest of Agni. The soldiers who were stationed there were caught off guard and led to casualties.. We are trying our best to treat them, but-"
"Mr. Franz! Six more patients are on the way! One of them is gravely injured..!" A young woman wearing light blue robes, signalling that she was a healer in training came forward and delivered the news.
"What?! We are already packed! Tell the patients not involved in this case to vacate the center for now! We will serve them at a later time. We will focus on treating the soldiers first! Gather all the healers in the main hall! We have no time to move them into separate rooms!" Franz shouted.
"I'm sorry, Saintess. As you can see, we're very busy right now. If it's not too urgent, could we continue our talk later?" Franz was under the assumption that Serenia was here to get something out of the health center
"No." Serenia stopped him.