pappabearbooks Chapter 11 : Abnormality
Chapter 11 : Abnormality
AbnormalityAt first, Cecilia could still more or less endure the countless gazes cast upon her from all directions, but soon, as the crowd gathering to watch only grew denser, she finally felt that her composure was reaching its limits.
It wasn't really anyone else's fault. After all, Cecilia in a maid outfit was— from a certain perspective— just far too potent an XP trigger. Her skin was always excessively pale, without the slightest rosy tint, making people instinctively pity her at first sight, as if she possessed an innate beauty of sickly frailty.
And with her eye-catching twin-tails, paired with her formidable strength as a top player, all these elements combined into a powerful contrast of cuteness, making others feel that bullying such a cold-faced, arrogant, yet capable little maid was an exceedingly amusing thing.
"She's blushing! She's blushing!" a voice from the crowd jeered again.
Her patience finally reached its limit, and Cecilia gripped Gu Yanxi's hand tightly, speeding up her pace and almost fleeing this street.
Fortunately, the Healing Church wasn't far from the central plaza—about three blocks away—and they quickly arrived at their destination.
As the name implied, the Healing Church was a church-shaped building, with a strong Western Gothic architectural style. In front of its entrance lay a rather spacious plaza, imposingly arrayed judgment towers standing tall around, thronged with people coming and going—Every day, countless priest players entered and exited through here.
Cecilia glanced around briefly. Among all the priest players present, about seventy percent were female, while the rest two or three tenths were male. As always, no matter the game, females were the mainstream among support-class players.
Her class wasn't priest, so she naturally couldn't enter the sacerdotal sanctum of the priest class. After watching Gu Yanxi enter the church, Cecilia found a secluded, empty corner nearby and began to wait quietly.
Inside the church, Gu Yanxi lifted her head to look up. The spire-like towered architecture blocked out the sky and sun, magnificent and grand, filling her entire vision like an ancient temple.
"So, this is the Healing Church? It's so huge..." she couldn't help but sigh, glancing about as she began to look for a place to learn skills.
According to what Chen Zi...no, according to what Cecilia had said, it didn't matter if you didn't know your way around here—as long as you followed the others, it would work out.
So, just as she was about to follow a priest player who had just entered the door, heading deeper into the church, a hoarse and aged female voice suddenly sounded beside her.
"Are you a nun from the Hymn Class?"
Gu Yanxi instinctively turned toward the source of the voice and immediately saw an elderly nun, her entire body wrapped in a black robe, standing solemnly in place, silently watching her.
Hymn Class? Nun?
Gu Yanxi looked down at her own equipment. It did indeed look a bit like a nun's habit.
She remembered now.
The set of equipment she was currently wearing seemed to be called [Novice Nun Set of the Hymn Class].
"Hello, may I ask who you are?"
Raising her head again, Gu Yanxi hesitated for a moment, looking a bit puzzled as she asked.
"You can see me?"
The old nun smiled, deep wrinkles fanning out from the corners of her eyes.
"Under the Goddess Heath, I am, like you, a nun of the Hymn Class."
It was a genuinely kind smile, but for some reason, Gu Yanxi felt a faint chill in her heart.
Is this person an NPC? Why did she seem a little odd?
Gu Yanxi started to hesitate about leaving, but she worried it would embarrass the old nun before her—even if she might just be an NPC.
Forget it, the old lady seems pitiful, anyway, and I have time. I'll chat with her for a bit first...
Gu Yanxi's personality wasn't saintly, but she was timid and kind enough—making things awkward for others wasn't in her nature.
Thinking it over and having made up her mind, she politely asked, "Grandma, do you know where I can learn skills?"
To her surprise, at these words, a strange gleam suddenly flashed in the old nun's eyes. Like withered tree bark, a hand reached out from beneath the black robe, grabbing Gu Yanxi's wrist and letting out a night owl's shrill, unpleasant laugh: "You want to learn skills? Very good, very good! I'll teach you!"
Her right hand being grabbed so suddenly, Gu Yanxi was startled—she forgot whether she should be angry or afraid, and didn't withdraw her hand at all, just stood there in a daze.
It was only after several seconds that she began to react, and a faint chill spread from her right hand gripped tightly by the old woman.
Are all NPCs in this game this strange?
But this was fine too—she couldn't find anywhere to learn skills anyway, so learning from her was just the same.
Just the same...
Not far away, a player was walking out from the depths of the church, and immediately saw a fair-skinned, beautiful girl in a set outfit, standing alone in place, talking constantly to a patch of thin air.
He was both bewildered and a bit shocked.
He had been thinking of striking up a conversation, but that impulse was instantly doused. He quickened his pace and left the gloomy church.
.......踆〲翏把〢9焐芭〉令斯林午〙
More than ten minutes later, Cecilia, who had been waiting outside for quite a while, finally saw Gu Yanxi gracefully exiting from the church.
"Were you lost in there? Why were you so slow?"
It wasn't complaint, just a simple question.
"No, I met a strange old lady as soon as I entered, and after we exchanged a couple of sentences, she insisted on teaching me skills. So I learned a lot of new skills from her."
Gu Yanxi thought for a moment, then said softly.
Hearing this, Cecilia immediately found it odd and pressed for more: "What skills did you learn?"
"Let me see."
Gu Yanxi opened her personal panel, scrolled all the way to the bottom, looked for a few seconds, then said somewhat uncertainly:
"Shadow Form... Soul Scourge... Torment of Pain... Heartbreak Curse... and..."
"Wait, wait!"
The names of these skills sounded stranger the more she heard, and Cecilia finally couldn't bear it, interrupting her.
Where in the world had Gu Yanxi learned these skills from?
Would a normal priest learn these skills? They didn't sound like healing or salvation at all—if anything, they sounded more like something from a cult.
This was ridiculous. Was Gu Yanxi tricked by someone shady?
"What's wrong?" asked Gu Yanxi, puzzled, gazing at Cecilia.
"Your skills seem wrong somehow. Hold on, I'm going to ask someone about this."
With that, Cecilia walked toward the front gate of the Healing Church.
At that moment, a male priest player was just leaving through the main entrance and immediately ran into a silver-haired twin-tails girl in a maid outfit.
His first impression: beautiful.
A soul-piercing beauty that left him dazed for a moment.
It was only after two seconds that he recognized who it was.
"Ce...! Cecilia!"
He stood there stunned, never expecting that just coming to learn a skill, he would bump into such a legendary figure, only ever heard of in rumors and legends.
"Tell me, what skills do people in your class have?"
The silver-haired girl frowned up at him, her expression full of contempt as she asked.
***
New Names, locations, skills and Techniques: