Saintess Summons Skeletons-Chapter 625: I’ve just been in this place before

The nurse put down her things on the bedside table and came closer, putting a hand on Sofia’s forehead. “The fever is down. Don’t move, I’m fetching you some water!” she said, leaving as fast as she had come.

Sofia watched her walk away, saying nothing, many thoughts were rushing to her head, but the first thing she did was checking the inside of her shirt.

Oh thank the lords.

Pestle was hiding in there, still in one piece, and sleeping peacefully.

Sofia let her head fall back on the pillow. Her body was sore and she needed to use the toilet urgently, but her situation was better than last time as she spared herself the headache of trying to use her mana.

So now we’re just a part of the loop…

But unlike the people of this city, I retained my memory of the last cycle.

Hearing the nurse moving around the hospital, quickly checking in on the other beds while carrying water, Sofia suddenly felt a bit sad. Her own situation was one thing as it was not her first time being stuck in a loop, and this time her odds looked a lot better than they had been with Curse and Zerei. But what hit her was the meaninglessness of the life of the people here, and of all the tethered in the light world in general.

Stuck repeating the same endless day, unable to ever accomplish anything, as all they do and their memories of it are wiped away after some time.

How long have they been stuck like this?

The same loop for thirty thousand years? At a relative speed slower than the real world?

How many days is it? I lived through three before I died, but it could be a lot longer, I suppose. I hope not, though. If I imagine that the loop is a hundred years long, that would be bad for the others. Bookie especially would probably not take it well…

I want to think if it was that long they would have found a way to get out…

Sofia absent-mindedly drank the water the nurse brought her, and continued thinking things through, lost in her own head.

The people here truly live a miserable existence. And not even death can save them, it seems. That’s good for me, at least. Being stuck here with Pestle was truly a lucky break. But if she gets unsummoned when she runs out of lifetime in the real world, then we’re on borrowed time until I’m completely powerless.

I need to find a way out as soon as possible.

The chancellor must be key. The commander couldn’t see him like I did, which, if I had to guess, must be related to me being able to keep my memories. He looked like a corpse… But his mere presence was enough to freeze Pestle and me both in place. And he had black eyes like Aphenoreth…

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Maybe I am really going to find Aphenoreth’s spell here, then. But this also kind of looks like some flavour of necromancy… And how he killed us… There was no projectile or mana or anything, it just happened… I lost my head again… Maybe I should start wearing a mithrium collar or something.

Unable to keep it in any longer, Sofia made her way to the toilets, helped by the nurse, and tried waking up Pestle once she was done, whispering so that the nurse wouldn’t hear.

“Pestle! Wake up!” she called, gently shaking the sleeping fairy clinging to her waist.

Pestle yawned as she woke up. Like before she looked quite weak and famished. “Other no…” she said dejectedly, the same thing she had answered to Sofia’s question in the first loop.

“So you remember as well…”

Pestle nodded weakly, “Remember,” she slid out of Sofia’s shirt, landing on the floor, and mimicked the chancellor’s puppet-like movements. Swiping her hand horizontally, miming her guts exploding with her hands, then letting herself fall to the floor, dead.

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Sofia could barely hold in her giggles, and Pestle stood back up, her tiny hands on her waist.

You look pissed.

“We’ll go and get revenge, don’t you worry,” Sofia reassured Pestle with a smile the fairy couldn’t see. Pestle nodded and climbed back up Sofia’s leg to hide in her shirt.

The first thing will be to find her enough food so she can recover energy to fight.

Taking care of the exit procedures faster, since she already knew how things were going to go, Sofia left the hospital at around the same time as the previous loop.

“Right…” she complained to herself as she was forced to wait at the hospital’s entrance under the porch.

It’s going to be raining like this for another ten minutes, and I’m still in rags. Great.

I could do without getting wet right now. I suppose I’ll wait it out this time as well…

When the rain finally stopped, Sofia took advantage of the memories of the previous time to quickly navigate the streets. She bought the same meal for herself and Pestle, and crashed out in the same abandoned house a good hour earlier than the first time.

Like the first time, she woke up in the middle of the night, her thoughts drowned out by the constant noise of the outside’s pouring rain.

“Pestle. Time to get to work.”

Under the cover of the night, Sofia looked for the same small city manor as last time. She lost no time finding it and breaking in, letting Pestle devour the kitchen’s reserves again. They quickly advanced to the third floor, and this time, Sofia was much faster, knowing exactly where to look and what clothes to steal, even in almost complete darkness. She left through the same way she came, completely undetected, and found herself under the rain once more, but with proper clothes, and no broken legs, this time.

You have acquired [Meal for Pestle] and [Protection from the rain]! And now… Well, let’s see.

“Are you still hungry?” she asked Pestle, who gave her usual nods in answer along with her broken speech.

“Hungry! Hungry leg!”

“Alright, I’ll find you a better meal. We need you to be as strong as you can be.”

“Strong!”

Sofia could almost hear the system notification ding in her head. You have received a new quest: [Find filling food for ferocious fairy]. Ahah… I hope Mr.Scribe is alright… I guess he must be half asleep, considering there’s no mana for him to work with.

Knowing now that her actions were essentially without any consequences in this world, since every loop started the same, down to herself falling from the same bell tower and being comatose for two days, Sofia felt a lot more free to do whatever she needed to than the first time around.

She and Pestle walked through the city in a quasi-straight line, breaking and entering in all the houses, with Pestle’s seemingly infinite stomach devouring every last pantry’s food contents.

Doing this again and again, Pestle finally signaled she was no longer hungry around daybreak.

“Finally!” Sofia reacted, sitting down on a random barrel in an alleyway. “You’re making me glad that you’re usually a skeleton, or I really wouldn’t be able to satiate you. Do all the fae eat this much?”

Pestle shook her head, “All no. No mana, hungry!”

“Only the ones like you, then? Or do you mean it’s because there’s no mana here?”

Pestle seemed to need some time to find her words, “Not here. No mana, always hungry!”

“I see… Say, do you think you will still be able to speak when you’re a skeleton again?”

“Hmmmmmmmmm… Yes!” Pestle answered after some hesitation.

“Is that right? I will be looking forward to that, then. I bet Bookie will be ecstatic to learn that. What about your memories of your previous life? Do you remember anything?”

“Hmmmmmmmm… No!” Pestle answered, shaking her tiny head, “Like face!” she added, pointing at Sofia’s head.

“Like face? … Do you mean blurry?”

“Yes! Burry like face!”

“Understood,” Sofia acknowledged, “honestly, it is probably better like this. The previous you was not very friendly.”

Pestle crossed her arms, and looked up at Sofia, “Previous, not very Pesle!”

Sofia laughed, and Pestle copied her laugh, she laughed with her.

“Alright, enough rest! Now that you’ve eaten, we have to get to work!”

“Work!”

In the previous loop, this was around the time that Sofia made her way back to the abandoned house for another nap, but this time around, she still felt full of energy, and with Pestle hiding under her cape, she started making a beeline for this loop’s first key target.

Queen’s rest, here I come.

No.

Here we come.