Black Healer

It had already been a few days since Evelyn and Matthew had parted ways.

He had escorted her for well over three hours, almost the entire way to the slime field in the outskirts of the forest.

Evelyn had tried to tell him that if he just pointed her in the direction, she could go on her own. She felt bad for both him and his teammates, after all, for pulling him away. They had a hidden boss to defeat.

'Just until it's safe,' he had repeated, smiling, not seeming to mind escorting her, wasting his time.

But it had also been a deciding moment for Evelyn.

'I can't keep expecting him to help me. I can't expect anyone to help me. Not if I am to continue climbing the tower.'

'It's clear that I was not even remotely prepared enough to start climbing the tower when I first entered. I didn't pack food, I was not prepared for getting lost, and I froze when I got in a slightly scary situation…'

'These are all things that could kill me. That could've killed me.'

Evelyn had found the slimes about an hour after Matthew had left her, and half a day after that, she had finally mustered the courage to fight one that was off by itself.

She had held the dagger in her right hand, grasping it so hard that her knuckles had turned white. Slowly sneaking up behind it, she held her breath as she kept her steps as soft as possible.

Then, when she was right behind it, she stabbed it with all her force. The dagger easily sliced through the slime as if it were jelly, before it got plunged into the ground.

Relaxing after the attack, Evelynn rejoiced at the conquest as she tried to pull the dagger back out of the ground. It was stuck harder than she expected.

As she was trying to drag the dagger back up, she felt something cold travel up her arm. It was the slime.

"It didn't die?!", she softly screeched, as she fervently tried to shake it off, releasing her hold on the dagger in the process.

Waving her arm around was no use, as the slime tightly squeezed around her arm, trying to consume it.

In a moment of utter panic, Evelynn activated steal life, trying to consume the slime as well, still flailing her arm.

"Come on!" She yelled, wanting the cold, wet sensation on her arm gone.

"Just die already!", she continued, her whole body shivering from the sensation. She tried to pull the slime off with her other hand, but the slime simply enveloped that one as well.

Now, with both her hands surrounded by the slime, Evelynn felt like crying. She tried to steal its life force even faster, and a few seconds later, the slime lost it's form and dripped to the ground, leaving a puddle by her feet.

"What the heck was that…" she shivered, as a ding sounded from the system.

*Congratulation on stealing the life force from a living being and unlocking the class quest 'Stealer of Life (1)'! This is the first step towards conquering the life force in those around you.

Quest: Steal the life force of 5 beings

Reward: Ability 'steal life' +1*

Evelyn had come out on top, but the fright stayed with her. Not only had the slime been harder to kill than she thought, the slimy feel when it crawled up her arm felt like hundreds of snails. Cold, slimy and icky as hell.

It had taken her another several hours before she had mustered the courage to attack her second slime. But knowing that one stab wouldn't be enough, she had stabbed it repeatedly, and that seemed to do the trick.

Now, three days later, she no longer felt any aversion towards fighting the slimes.

The second day, after killing her tenth slime, the system had finally given her a floor quest. The quest she needed to complete before going to the next floor. The quest was to kill 50 slimes, and by the time another day had gone by, she was done.

It took her a bit longer to kill the slimes, as she had to make sure that no other climbers saw her fight, and that the slimes weren't in groups.

It wouldn't be a problem if they saw her using the dagger, but if they saw the dark light that accompanied steal life, she might get in trouble.

She healed any scrapes she got with the extra stats she got from steal life, and the rest was sent to the egg. Since she didn't get hungry when using steal life, Evelyn fought through parts of the night to finish her quest.

But even after the quest was done, Evelyn decided to stay.

The egg still hadn't hatched, and she was unwilling to leave just yet.

She tried to tell herself that it was just that she wanted the egg to hatch before she moved to the next floor, but the truth… she was afraid.

She was afraid of meeting stronger monsters on the next floor. She was afraid to go back to her apartment, in case her parents suddenly showed up. What if someone had found out she was a healer, and they were just waiting by her apartment to kidnap her.

So, she stayed in the tower, on the first floor, even though what she wanted most at the moment, was a long bath. To get clean again. To rinse of all the goo from the slimes she had defeated.

It wasn't like in the novels, where the defeated monsters disappeared and left loot behind. No, the slimes remained as a puddle on the ground, sticky and wet.

Matthew had told her that the slime could be sold in the system auction site, but she would have to travel further up the tower to access it. Matthew had still given her a dozen empty bottles she could fill up, so that she could sell them when she accesses the auction later on.

He had also told her about the potions that could be made from the purple and yellow flowers, in case she ever stumbled over them.

She hadn't found the opportunity to tell him that she had already been there and collected quite a few of those flowers, so she had just nodded her head.