Father Walker finalized his point selection and was immediately greeted with more screens popping up.
Default Action: Spirit Blast: You can unleash a simple blast of divine energy.
You have gained access to the following Actions and Augments:
• Accuracy: Improve the accuracy of your attacks.
• Miraculous Damage: Imbue your attacks with faith for more damage.
• Practiced Recitation: Increase casting speed but risk losing the spell.
You have three (3) Augment Points remaining.
Default Action: Gather Mana: You can gather motes of mana from the environment.
You have gained access to the following Actions and Augments:
• Splash of Mana: Instantly gather easily accessible mana points.
• Efficient Gathering: Gather more mana in the same period of time.
• Wide Mana Reservoir: Store additional mana for later use.
You have one (1) Augment Point remaining.
He glanced at them briefly before dismissing them with a curt swipe of his hand.
“Are we done with the process now?”
“Yes, Father, Character Creation and Integration was completed as soon as you spent your first Ability Point. Anything else is optional at this point. It would be good to spend your Augment Points, but it’s not strictly necessary.”
“Good. Your job is finished then?”
“Er… yes?”
“Excellent, then I think I’ll release you from your service now.”
“Master! I mean, Father, please, no! Have I displeased you? How have I failed you? Please, let me make it up to you! I can do better!”
“You haven’t failed me. I just don’t want anyone to be forced to serve me. I want you to be free of that. Nobody should be enslaved to another’s will.”
“Father, no! Please. I… I can’t…” her words broke off as Amy dropped to his shoulder and devolved into uncontrollable sobbing.
Father Walker simply stared at the small woman as she cried, unable to understand or even guess at her response to his attempt to free her and really, really wishing he understood what to do.
You have consumed a Divine Boon to learn a new Ability simply by attempting to use it! Learned Ability has been advanced to Rank 1! You can gain additional Divine Boons by expanding your Harem!
Alternative Default Action granted: Visual Empathy!
Visual Empathy allows you to visually examine a target to gain insight into the target’s current emotional condition and the potential related cause. Advancing the Rank of this Ability will increase the accuracy of information gained.
You have inspected a System Sprite. These rare beings are occasionally born to serve a System User who meets certain unknown requirements. System Sprites are a manifested fragment of the User’s soul and are inextricably linked to their User.
This System Sprite appears to be distraught, because its User has expressed a desire to terminate her bond. This will result in System Sprite’s dissolution, which can be understood to be equivalent to death.
“Oh.”
Father Walker really had no idea how to fix this. He definitely didn’t want Amy to die, yet having someone whose entire life existed just to be his servant chafed at him. He simply could not free her without causing her immediate death. This is the world he was supposed to save? What the hell was wrong with this world? Oh. Right. Hell. This was Hell.
It all suddenly made much more sense. He’d almost forgotten. This world didn’t look like he’d expected of Hell, what with the lack of brimstone and pitchforks, so he’d almost been deceived. Yet this place was definitely Hell. Father Walker would have to keep that in mind and learn to expect these kinds of things.
“Amy, child. Hush now. I didn’t understand. I’m not getting rid of you.”
Amy sniffled but said nothing as she tried to calm herself.
“I don’t want you gone. I’m just not comfortable having someone forced to serve me. I only wanted to give you the chance to decide for yourself what you want to be.”
She threw her arms around his neck, reaching almost halfway around him as she forced back further tears.
“That… that doesn’t make… doesn’t make any sense…” she managed to whisper. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“We can talk about that later. It’s not important. What matters is that I’m not telling you to leave, and I certainly don’t want you to die. I’m sorry I didn’t understand and did this all wrong. Can you forgive me?”
“… Okay. Please, just don’t send me away.”
“I won’t. I promise I’ll do my best for you.”
You have forged the beginnings of an emotional bond with Amygdalae the System Sprite! Strengthen this bond with your new partner and learn to understand her to advance this quest!
Success: Love! Amygdalae will happily join your harem!
Failure: Hatred and resentment! Amygdalae will hate you forever.
It took all Father Walker had to not scream in frustration at the wholly inappropriate quest appearing at the worst possible time. He really should have expected it.
“Alright!” Amy exclaimed, her sadness seemingly forgotten in an instant. She flitted up to the top of Father Walker’s head and plopped down, grabbing two fistfuls of hair to keep from slipping off.
“It’s time to get started on your first quest! Let’s go!”
“Right. Uh… First, can we…”
Survive the Venomous Grove
You have found yourself lost and poorly equipped within the Venomous Grove.
Objectives:
• Escape the forest alive.
• Discover civilization.
“There we go! Your first quest! Are you as excited as I am?”
“Uh, this isn’t… Actually, you’re right. This is a fine first quest to attempt. It looks easy enough.”
“Oh, no, Father, it’s an official quest. It’ll be anything but easy. Easy tasks don’t become quests. If you’re ever offered a quest to pick five flowers from a nearby field, you can definitely expect it to take more than just a few minutes and involve several combat encounters. Don’t even consider accepting a quest to retrieve a loaf of bread from the next town over!”
“No bakery-related quests. Got it,” he responded, forcing an awkward chuckle.
Was Amy really mercurial enough to overcome her grief so quickly? Is she just putting on a strong front now? He couldn’t look up enough to use Inspection without dumping her off and felt like it would be a bit too invasive anyway.
Ugh. This was ridiculous. He didn’t want either outcome for that quest. Couldn’t they just be friendly acquaintances? Acquainted friends? That should have been easy enough. Father Walker had plenty of those over the years.
Intimacy? Pah. The very idea of having that kind of relationship with another person was completely foreign to him and not something he wanted to start experimenting with now. Romance? That was for the layman and bad novels. He’d not get pulled into that, even if it killed him… Again. Killed him again.
Still, he didn’t want Amy to die, and he certainly didn’t want to be responsible for Amy’s death due to his own carelessness. Maybe he could try to find a…
“Hey! Father!” Amy interrupted his thoughts with a sharp kick to the cheek. “Are you still with me here?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry. I was lost in thought for a moment.”
“You’ve been staring into space muttering to yourself for way too long! Like one or even two whole minutes! It’s been so boring! Besides, you’re on a survival quest, which you’ll fail as soon as you stop paying attention. Case in point…”
The sound of rustling grass behind him drew Father Walker’s attention. He managed to half turn towards it before a large shape rammed into him, slamming him to the ground. A horrific high-pitched scream of feral rage rattled his teeth and left his ears ringing as he tried to regain his feet.
“I told you so!”
Yeah, Amy was definitely still upset.