The game had a distinction between animals and monsters.
Animals were… well, just animals. Like the boar we killed earlier and yesterday's deer.
Monsters were animals that mutated through continued absorption of corrupted mana.
Mana was the life essence, the energy that existed behind all living beings. It could be corrupted by several different factors.
Where that corrupted mana gathered, monsters spawned. The more corrupted mana in a region, the more powerful those monsters were.
By killing them, the mana (still corrupted) would return to the environment.
But looting the corpses using magical tools like boning knives would purify that mana. Some of it would convert into loot, some would flow to you as experience points, and some would return, purified, to the environment.
As an experienced player, a mere dozen low-level beasts wasn't even a warm-up. But she was worried for Mutt, who had a lower level than those monsters.
((Strange… those monsters are behaving as a unit, encircling us. Is someone behind them?))
The monsters are all recently mutated animals, so they still look a lot like the original. Though a couple of them were undead, monsters raised from the decaying corpses of the animals.
((No time to think about that. Let's deal with the challenge in front of me. And I'll begin with the undead... No, there's that other spell.))
"Eclipsion! Nythea kai anthyra, phaneros moratha!"
(Eclipse! Death and rebirth, light of the eternal cycle!)
Cecilia chanted the old hymn, gathering mana at the tip of her staff, then releasing it above herself.
The mana released formed the image of an eclipse, having both light and darkness radiating from it. The eclipse pulsated and then briefly formed the image of a butterfly before bursting.
Rays of radiance and darkness spread in the area around them, hitting every living being in its range - plants and monsters alike.
The undead turned into dust by being touched by the radiance, while the living beings withered and died under the necrotic darkness, creating a circle of fifteen meters of radius in which nothing was alive.
Only Cecilia and Mutt, in the center of the circle, and the grass under their feet, still stood.
The boar they killed earlier wasn't affected because it was already dead and hadn't turned into an undead.
"What… was that?"
"Oh! Ah… Eh… My… spell. I'm sorry, I panicked for a bit."
She didn't panic, but it's true that she didn't expect the spell to have such a devastating effect.
She chose an aoe spell that was very useful in dealing with scores of low-level enemies, but, in the game, it didn't affect 'environment vegetation.'
Probably the game didn't treat trees and grass as living creatures. They didn't even have entries in the creatures compendium, unless they were monsters. Instead, they were resources, with completely unrelated mechanics.
"Bah, whatever. Miss Cecilia, this is starting to smell pretty bad. Let's take that boar out of here, quick."
"Oh, yeah. Of course!"
Cecilia took the boning knife with the multiplication bonus, activated the skills, and cut through the boar's carcass.
It magically disappeared, with the resources appearing in its place. She put it all in the inventory without even looking at it.
The necrotic spell really rotted the monsters it killed, and it smelled pretty bad. She was already having to make an effort to not put her breakfast out.
Mutt looked at her, wide-eyed, but didn't ask anything. As soon as she finished, they ran away as fast as possible.
:::
"Huuuuh. That was scary. I thought that we were dead. I'm so glad that you were able to deal with them."
After arriving at a place where the smell couldn't reach them, they finally stopped. Mutt was breathless, panting, and with his face red.
Cecilia, on the other hand, was fine, as fresh as if she had just gotten up from bed.
"Heh. Those low-level beasts wouldn't be able to even lay a scratch on me."
"Now I'm convinced. You really are strong. There's so much I want to ask you, but what happened with the boar?"
Despite all his curiosity, Mutt focused on the practical problem first. They were hunting with a goal in mind; anything else was a distraction.
Cecilia explained to him the effects of her knife and techniques, leaving him astounded. When she showed how much she got from the boar, both in hide and meat, he was beyond marveled.
"Well… we'll have a lot of work to do with all that meat. Otherwise, it will spoil away."
"Yeah, I'll leave that in the townsfolk's hands. Let's go back to the village, then."
:::
On the way back to the village, they stopped twice, as Cecilia detected animals with her mini-map and hunted them down.
In the end, there was enough meat to feed the village for a couple weeks, as long as they dried it for preservation.
Both Gertrude and Mayor Otmar were very happy and thankful for the meat. They wanted to pay very generously, but she refused, as she only wanted some change to not have too much trouble on the road.
She was very rich, after all, and hunting was a very simple thing.
:::
Later, at night, Cecilia was on her bed, looking at the ceiling, ruminating on everything that had happened in the last two days.
"The weirdest thing is that I really can't tell if this is a game or reality. People seem real and act like real people would. But at the same time the game skills and techniques exist.
I killed several animals and monsters, and most of it was exactly like in the game. But a lot of things weren't, like the rotting, the smell, and the effect on plants."
She couldn't sleep, as those thoughts were plaguing her, going on and on in an endless loop.
Every time she thought about the game-like elements, she would think about the non-game elements, and vice versa.
"And there's Margarete. She is literally pregnant, and the symptoms of anemia were too realistic. Yet, I healed her with a spell. A spell from the game… Oh!
The spells I gain come from Ephemerys, my patron deity. Maybe I could try praying for her… Would I be able to get a response?"
Gertrude had said earlier that the gods had disappeared five hundred years ago. But it wouldn't hurt to try.
She tried to recall the rituals for her deity in the game. She had a lot of input on its design as a member of the highest-ranking guild and a whale.
Because yes, she was a whale. Living in the hospital meant that she had no other matters to care about, so she regularly spent most of her allowance on the thing that gave her happiness.
And cosmetic items tied to roleplaying her character were the happiest thing for her. In the end, her patron deity even had a proper language and a lot of lore.
After all, the motto of the devs was 'a world created by players for players to live in.' The irony of that statement brought a smile to her face when she remembered it.
She was the Oracle of the Cycle, which was the title for the High Priestess in the religion, for some time. But later abdicated the position for an NPC.
She didn't want to govern the inner politics of a temple. Instead, her desire was to help build Drakestadt and explore the world of Hyperborea.
She opened her stats screen and looked at her titles. She still held the title of High Aelysid, which is the second-highest ranking of the church.
She found the book where she annotated Ephemerys' lore, which she always carried around. It had some rituals written down. But there wasn't any to communicate with the goddess.
"So I'd have to improvise, huh? But all that… drawing circles and sigils, and all those elements… spring water, butterfly wings, candles of several colors… what a pain.
Even with magic, this world is not as fun as the game."
She decided that it wouldn't be good to conduct a sacred ritual inside an inn's room, so she shelved the idea for later.
"There was a chapel inside my home in Dakenhof… I wonder if my house still stands. Also, the hidden base. Hmm… I think that staying here won't give me the information I want.
I thought of staying for a week, but that won't do. I'll depart tomorrow for the capital, try to find a way to talk to Aelindra, see if I can find a temple of Ephemerys, and seek my house.
Then later I'll go for my hidden base. Yeah, that's the thing to do. It's decided, then."
With that decision made, Cecilia finally managed to relax, and soon she was sleeping heavily.