Editing Skill Tree Goddess:Volume1 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 8===

Come to think of it.

Gilbezos Overridge had already seen a crown of flowers on this Sky Territory.

…Hadn’t the Saint been wearing one when he saw her in the temple’s window?

This also explained the instant change of attitude after the bearded man attacked that horn with his magic. That hadn’t been a response to an attack on the dragon’s weak point. It was a response to the damage done to a gift from her daughter.

“Then…what?” asked Penelope, grimacing as she healed her broken arm using a Saint’s Jewel. What did a 50% heal do with a broken bone? But her grimace wasn’t from the pain.

“They were forcibly separated to create these recovery items, so the dragon’s been rampaging in order to get her daughter back?”

…On that note, what even were the Saint’s Jewels?

Those mysterious local recovery items healed 50% of the user’s HP and MP at once.

They had seemed almost too good to be true. Gilbezos had wondered why they weren’t found all across the continent.

The answer was simple.

There was a more than comparable risk involved. The Saint had been forced to ''make'' these items by using a dangerous skill that ate away her own HP and MP. They could only be made within a closed environment where no one was blamed for repeatedly forcing her to make that command against her will.

“Hey, hey. And that’s not all.” Goddess Seliphenia interrupted. “Remember the Seal Talisman? Compare it the dragon before you and it should be obvious this flimsy thing can never seal an SS-rank dragon. She could tear out of it by force at any time if she wanted.”

“But Yuileen wouldn’t do that,” coldly stated High Elf Sayuran Cuchanbern. “The answer is obvious when you look at its structure. ''The talisman and the Saint are magically linked.'' If Yuileen tears out of the talisman, the Saint’s body would be torn apart in the same way. The talisman is designed to do that.”

The ability to seal the SS-rank dragon as long as she was knocked out with sleep or faint or something was nothing but a lie. The priest who had given the Seal Talisman to Gilbezos’s group had known all this from the start.

He had known the dragon’s true weakness.

“How could he do this? Goddamn that priest. Are you saying he’s using her daughter’s life as a shield!?”

Of course, if the dragon did nothing, the Saint would eventually reach her limit.

But if she forcibly tore out, her precious child would die then and there.

So she couldn’t do anything.

That talisman would bind her even as she knew she had to do something.

“So what do you want to do, Gilbezos?” asked the goddess.

“…”

''“Return her to me.” “I cannot bear it any longer.” “Return my daughter to me.”

Gilbezos Overridge thought on the meaning of those words…and spoke.



“No. I can’t make a meaningless promise.”



He made his choice.

The high elf wanted to say something, but the goddess held out a hand to stop her.

So Gilbezos was able to state the cruel path laid out before him.

“I agree what the priest is doing is reprehensible. I can’t agree with continuing to force the Saint to create Saint’s Jewels until she dies. …But that’s no excuse for you to attack Temple City Aeropremise.”

This was harsh.

It hurt Gilbezos to say it, but he knew without trying that way wouldn’t work.

Because…

“The temple has ''a special barrier preventing anyone nonhuman from entering''. Even a goddess like Lady Seliphenia was stopped. Rampaging through the city will not return your daughter to you. All you will do is needlessly harm the 700 thousand people living in the city. I can’t allow that.”

“A perfect response,” said the goddess, but she seemed to be coldly spitting out the words. “But do you really think a silly thing like being correct will get through to a furious mother whose precious daughter was taken from her?”

The ground audibly strained. SS-rank Uroboros-form Yuileen had been brought down once, but she was getting back up.

However…

“All these crops were left here to rot. You’ve been living off those plants, so while a normal person probably couldn’t manage it, you may have some way of recovering from the fury status effect. Maybe even some other status effects.”

Gilbezos spoke softly.

Because he had applied status effect magic to the stone spikes scattered across where the dragon had fallen.

“But you can’t handle all of them. There are more than 10 status effects. Did you forget? I win as long as I knock you end up unconscious with paralysis, faint, or anything else. It just has to work once.”

The dragon remained there.

She couldn’t move. No, she wasn’t even conscious.

…The paralysis status effect had been applied repeatedly with 100% odds. Had it actually affected her this time?

Gilbezos Overridge pulled a piece of parchment from his pocket – the Seal Talisman. If the dragon broke free from that, she would be tearing open her daughter’s body in the same way. That cursed restraint used a hostage in the most horrific way.

He only had to hold it out and speak under his breath.

“''Seal''.”

Something glowed in the bastard’s hand.