Saintess Summons Skeletons

“So this is how Cinthia feels all day.”

Sofia stared at the scroll then at the sleeping woman in front of her.

“Velania… If Ihuarah is named after her… How long has she been stuck here? By the sounds of it she’s a hermit rivaling even grandma’s moon isolation…”

Saying this, Sofia decided to take off her Dragon-scale armguard. Is this why she fainted? Since it was super annoying to store due to being extremely magic-resistant, she just embedded it in the bone of her armor along her spine.

If mom is going to go out of her way to send me this message then I can probably afford to relax a little? I don’t want to believe someone here would dare impersonate her.

Velania opened her eyes slowly, it took her a second to take in her surroundings, her face turning bright red.

Sofia was on the opposite couch, her full attention on Alkorm’s jade slip, she did not even notice Velania waking up.

“S- Sorry you had to see this…” Velania mumbled, slightly startling Sofia, a blanket appearing over the scarred woman out of nowhere, covering her up to her nose.

*click*

The jade slip disappeared into Sofia’s storage. “Nothing to feel sorry about,” Sofia brushed it off, “Are you feeling better now?” she asked, which was answered with an almost imperceptible nod. Then she pointed at the stuff on the low table in between them, “I made tea if you want some, and I might have helped myself to one of your cookies, hope you don’t mind.”

Velania blinked several times, her blanket slipping down to her chest, “H- how was it?”

“The cookie? Slightly overbaked, but still good; better than anything I can make.”

Sofia could see a faint start of a smile form on Velania’s lips, but it only lasted an instant.

“I burned them again…”

She seemed downcast about it, but she also wasn’t shaking violently anymore, so it was better than Sofia expected.

“You probably wouldn’t have burned them if not for my interruption, sorry about that. Do you bake often?”

Velania nodded a bit more energetically than before. “The food I summon doesn’t taste good so I need to do it myself,” she explained, no longer stuttering or hesitating at all.

“Summoned food? You can summon food?”

Velania blinked several times like she did not understand the question, instead of answering, she extended a hand from under her blanket and summoned a perfect looking round and golden cookie.

What… Is this real? Sofia observed the cookie like it was breaking all laws of physics.

“D- Do you want to try it?” Velania asked.

“If you don’t mind...”

Sofia was going to stand up but the Cookie just flew to hover in front of her. She grabbed it, made an opening in her helmet, and took a bite.

The cookie’s texture was perfect, it was even slightly hot as if coming right out of the fire, but it tasted like dirt. Warm dirt.

As she swallowed, Sofia felt the Cookie turning into mana by itself, and it made her feel a bit more full.

Sofia took another bite. Which seemed to shock Velania.

“Do you like it?!” she asked.

“No, you’re right, it doesn’t taste good. But the way it turns back into mana is interesting.”

“Everything I summon does this when it leaves my area of influence…” Velania said, sounding quite saddened by this fact.

“Everything you summon… Are the birds outside your summons too?” Sofia asked.

Velania looked at Sofia with a questioning look.

“Th- this entire place is my summon,” she said hesitantly.

That gave Sofia pause. She looked around, everything felt quite real, with a plethora of detail, if not for the obviously strange environment of the inside garden, she might have wondered if Velania was lying.

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“The entire manor and garden, then?” Sofia asked, taking another bite of the summoned cookie because she didn’t like to waste food.

After a few seconds of silence, Velania silently brought the blanket back up to her face and muttered a few words “The entire palace and jungle…”

Sofia swallowed wrong, and almost started coughing, but the cookie bit turned back into mana in her throat. She gulped. “The entire jungle?!” Velania sunk a bit more in the couch, so Sofia tried to calm herself, lowering her voice, “W- What about the monsters?”

“Monsters?” Velania paused to think for a second, the blanked sliding down ever so slightly, “Romuald made me summon three big guardians, I think, they are probably still around? Only them and the animals in my garden,” she finally said, answering Sofia’s question.

Then the Ochiarans and the Candle Zombies and… They all just moved in to live in this summoned illusion of hers? The palace and the entire jungle will disappear if she leaves?!

“I… What about this?” Sofia asked, bringing out the book she got from the palace’s library.

Velania extended a hand making a slight grabbing motion, the book flew to her hand. She carefully turned it around, opening it and closing it delicately, before sending it flying back to Sofia’s hand. “Looks like Romuald’s handwriting,” she concluded.

So at least the books are real. Sofia thought with a sigh of relief, storing the book back.

“S- Say, Sofia?”

“Yes?”

“Did you come for the shroud?”

“Shroud? I came for Sorrow’s divine item, is that the shroud?”

Velania nodded, “I hope you’ll get it.”

“So do I, why is it here, though? Can I ask why and how this whole trial came to be, since you’re the one who created it?”

Valania began to blush again for no apparent reason, one of her cookies flew from the table to her left hand while her other hand still held the blanket close to her chest. “I… This is… Romuald and Death’s hound did almost everything, I just built what they asked…”

Death’s hound? Is the cute dog actually one of Death’s subordinates? How come he said nothing about that when I met him, seems like that would have been important…

“That’s not any less impressive. Are you fine with it though? Being stuck here, I mean.”

“It’s fine if it can bring auntie back!” Velania said with more energy than she had ever said anything until now, almost shouting.

“Sorrow, you mean?” It is true that Sorrow is one of the stronger Recessed so by all means she should be powerful enough to… “Wait… Sorrow used to be out here in the physical world? And this can bring her back somehow?!” Sofia asked excitedly, leaning forward.

Almost instantly Velania started shaking again, hiding behind her blanket.

Oh… Sofia did her best to calm her emotions and leaned back into the couch, and this seemed to calm Velania down just enough that she started speaking again.

“W- We made this place to make sure the Shroud was safe, and that it would only go to someone who has potential to retrieve the other half…” she explained, “Auntie cannot come safely without them both, or everything becomes wrong around her…”

“Wrong?”

“Yes… All wrong… They stop following logic and every outcome becomes bad. Everything that can go wrong goes wrong,” Velania clarified with a trembling voice, fear in her eyes.

Just like Death coming would make everything wither and die…

“I see. Why not get another strong person to retrieve the other divine item, then? Or even do it yourself? You’re a lot stronger than I am.”

Valania shook her head, her blonde hair swaying revealing more of the scarred half of her face, “It has to be a child of Auntie, and I cannot be one.”

“You can’t?” Sofia asked reflexively.

“I never could, my body is…” Velania started, looking at her scars, she never finished the sentence, leaving the room in an awkward silence.

Sofia was trying really hard not to stare at the scars and not to bring them up, as the woman visibly tried to hide them however she could, but it was hard not to look. Not wanting the situation to become any more awkward by asking Velania about what might very well be a touchy subject, Sofia changed the subject back to the divine items.

“Alright… Well, I’m willing to try, where is the other half?”

Velania looked up at Sofia for an instant, her fleeting gaze soon returning to somewhere else. “It was stolen…” she admitted.

“Bad start…”

“We know who has it but we couldn’t get it back… Ackenohh tried but…” Velania mumbled, her voice dying in her throat.

Not wanting to trigger another panic attack by speaking at the wrong time, Sofia said nothing and waited for Velania to find the courage to continue.

“The Wheel of Progress is somewhere in the hands of the Fairy king…” the scarred woman finally said.

Sofia recoiled a little bit. Her first impression of fairies and everything associated with them had not been the best. And the second divine item is a relic of Progress?

“He’s not going to give it back? How about asking someone for help? I know a lot of strong people that I could try to get involved in this,” Sofia said, only to be answered by Velania shaking her head.

“That’s no use, the ascended cannot fight for so little… Unless you ask the Kleptra, but then chances are we are not going to get the relic back anyway… Not to mention that it would draw the ire of all fairies…” Velenia lamented.

“So what can we do? The situation sounds pretty hopeless when you put it like this.”

Velania nodded weakly, “Not all hope is lost but it is dangerous… The fairy king announced we could get it back if Auntie fostered an Apostle more worthy of the Wheel than his own son… As such, here we are…”

Sofia paused a second to take it all in, grabbing another cookie from the table.

“I suppose the first step is to get past you. There is no chance I could fight you at my current level so… How are we doing this?”

Velania grabbed her cup of tea, she had poured it herself earlier with her powers but not touched yet. She gulped it down and stood up, letting her blanket fall to the floor.

“You will need to prove your intellect next. We are going to play the fairy death game, Escalation.”

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