Saintess Summons Skeletons

It took Sofia a few days to find the Ogres. It was easy to spot them whenever they entered her field of view, their red skin contrasted strongly against the gray stone hills.

They’re not quite as imposing as I thought… Maybe it’s because I’m so high up.

Sofia would have loved to get her hands on a skeleton without having to fight, but these Ogres ate their deceased whole, which meant she would have to kill one herself. From what she could tell, this ‘tribe’ had around thirty members. Mostly females as expected. The only males in an Ogre tribe would be the alpha and his sons. Eventually the sons would leave with a few females to become alphas themselves. Such was the way of the Ogres. Most of them were busy eating rocks right off the hillside. Despite being humanoid like goblins, trolls, and other such creatures, Ogres were much dumber, they didn’t even understand how to use tools or make primitive clothing. The sight of them was quite grotesque, especially the studded parts...

As the researcher explained in the book on Ogres Sofia had read, they didn’t evolve brains because they didn’t need to. What they lacked in intelligence they made up for in raw power.

The females are too small. The sons are more varied. Smallest is around two, tallest around four… She spotted one that wasn’t that tall, barely over three meters, but he was quite large. This one will do. Now to lure him out…

She had to remember that even the weakest of this group couldn’t be far below level 200, and the alpha could be as strong as level 300, depending on the tribe.

Since they couldn’t fly she could always try to send an [Angel’s bolt] their way, but she doubted it would be an instant kill, and if it was, that would mean the bones would only be good to throw away. Also that would probably make them flee into their caverns, which would be terrible news. Let's just go with the plan.

Sofia left the tribe to their own devices while she went out to test some things. She flew out to the east until she reached the cliff to the ocean. About five kilometers… That’s still alright for plan one… It will depend on how accurate the book’s information was.

There was one type of ‘rock’ in particular that the Stone Ogres held up as a delicacy: cobalt. Sofia had gone out of her way to find cobalt, and finally with [Identify] she found a large copper ore in a dwarf’s market stall that showed up as [Copper and Cobalt ore]. So this was her lure for plan one.

Since the chunk of ore was quite heavy, she would make Pareth carry it. She had him sneak up near the Ogre tribe, holding the ore. Next she had to get this particular Ogre’s attention. But the Ogre she wanted was busy stuffing his face with rocks, and there was no way she could lure him out without alerting the whole tribe.

Sofia decided to wait. Setting up camp on the opposite side of a nearby hill, she checked every so often to see if her target was alone near the tribe’s border. It took two full days before the opportunity she was waiting for showed itself.

The large Ogre was loitering on a side of the group, at least twenty meters away from the next Ogre. Sofia snuck up by going around from the other side of the hill. There were big rocks everywhere, which made it quite easy to hide. She and Pareth were about fifty meters apart from the Ogre, hidden behind one such big rock.

She had Pareth put down the ore near them but not behind the rock, so that the Ogre would see it if he turned their way.

Next, she summoned blood on the Ogre's right side.

The sound of the blood splashing on the ground didn’t fail to catch the Ogre’s attention. Grunting, he turned his head, looking down and crouching, he seemed confused that there would be blood on the ground. Then, no longer interested, he stood back up, looking up at the same time.

He saw it.

The reaction was wilder than Sofia had hoped for. The Ogre broke into a sprint.

Go! Grab the rock and run!

Pareth jumped out from behind the rock, grabbed the ore and ran for his unlife. Sofia did her best to be as hidden as possible in the crevices of the rock as the Ogre ran past her. Perhaps he had seen her, still, but he didn't pay any attention to anything that wasn’t the large chunk of ore.

Sofia soon found out that Pareth actually ran a bit faster than the Ogre. That would make things easier, no flying and teleporting Pareth ahead kind of shenanigans needed. But the Ogre’s stone magic made things difficult.

This Ogre had three tricks that he liked to use, one of them carved a spherical hole into the ground. Pareth fell into it the first time, he recovered and started running again quickly but lost some distance. After that Sofia had to tell Pareth when to jump by monitoring the Ogre’s mana to preemptively dodge his cast. This was the only way as he would create the holes right under Pareth’s feet.

Another of his spells raised stone walls. This one was quite straightforward, with Pareth jumping over the smaller ones and going around the higher ones.

And finally, he sometimes used a spell to throw boulders at Pareth. It was nothing refined like Orvod’s cubes but it would still hurt. However, perhaps because he didn’t want to crush the ore, these boulders’ aim was always slightly off, making it quite easy for Pareth to dodge them all with Sofia’s guidance. She had sprinted away from the Ogre tribe as soon as she could, in another direction. That had actually alerted a couple more Ogres to her presence but they did not give chase after she flew away. She was now monitoring the chase from high above.

Still three kilometers to the cliffs, he’s giving chase like a madman.

Pareth led the fuming Stone Ogre all the way to the cliffs overlooking the sea. Sofia had to time her spell. Flying as high as she could in the sky, electricity sparked around her hand. This was the spell version of [Angel’s bolt], without using the system, it was significantly weaker, but much more flexible. Like this she could actually somewhat control the amount of mana she wanted to use. It still had to be around the original ten thousand, and the result would be a weaker bolt no matter how much she used. But this gave her the possibility of using it without hurting herself too much, which also meant she could hold it for a bit longer.

Pareth ran along the cliff’s edge, the Ogre still chasing. The skeleton slowed, acting as if it was tired from the chase, letting the Ogre close the distance, and letting him sample the sweet taste of victory. Sofia was counting the seconds in her head, she could hold this weaker [Angel’s bolt] for longer but not that much.

As the Ogre charged toward Pareth, who had almost slowed down to a halt by now, the skeleton used [Gravity well], making the monster lose his footing.

Now! Sofia summoned the legendary grade [Midenicite catalyst] in front of her. Magical projectiles going through gain 50% speed… She let loose the bolt of lightning, hitting the catalyst on its way and almost immediately touching the ground near the Ogre and Pareth. Then she caught the catalyst and sent it back to her storage ring. Pareth was the only ‘item’ that she could store in there remotely.

The explosion was impressive but nowhere near what the system skill could do. However, the shockwave was enough to blow both Pareth and the airborne Ogre off the cliffside and into the sea, a good fifty meters below.

Pareth took no damage, none, zero?! That’s great but also kind of insulting…

The Ogre summoned walls of stone out of the cliff-side to try to stop his fall but they all broke under his massive weight, only barely slowing the descent. With two splashes, the Ogre and the skeleton fell into the sea.

Sofia’s thinking was that Stone Ogres were too heavy to possibly be able to swim, so the convenient option to kill them was by drowning. Just in case it tried to get back up by summoning more stone walls, she sent Pareth down with him, the chunk of ore helping him sink quicker. She switched her vision to Pareth’s.

Can’t see, Pareth, lights up please.

Pareth’s halo and armor of light did a good job showing what was going on in the dark depths, the Ogre was nowhere to be seen around Pareth. Did it sink that much faster?

And indeed, as Pareth finally touched the bottom, they could see the heavy footprints of the Ogre, already disappearing on the ocean floor. It’s going for the cliff-side.

Pareth dropped the ore and followed as fast as he could. He finally spotted the Ogre. He was climbing the underwater cliff by summoning stone steps out of it, holding his big hands over his face.

[Chains of the four seals]

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