Saintess Summons Skeletons

Blurb

She wanted to be a Necromancer, but awakened as a Saint! Somehow her summoned heroes are all undead?

How will the church react when their Saintess summons a skeleton in place of a mighty hero? Sofia isn’t too keen on finding out.

In this world, Gods choose [Saints], and [Saints] summon [Heroes] from other worlds; everyone knows that. But Sofia had a thing for bones ever since she was a child; there’s only one [Class] she wants: [Necromancer]! When, by the whims of fate, she gets both classes at the same time, the system breaks.

Two classes? That isn’t allowed!

It cannot be! The system’s administrators would not let it go… If only they were still there.

But they were not, and it was too late. Sofia saw an opportunity to abuse a loophole in the system, and she is just the kind of person who would try to stick her whole arm into said loophole if she could if only to see what happens.

Thoughts

As of writing this review, I’ve read both Amazon ebooks and a bunch of chapters on Royal Road.

I haven’t read too many necromancer stories, but this one was a fun, popcorn read that consumed several nights where I should probably have been trying to sleep.

So, the story follows Sofia, our MC, who is both a Saint and a Necromancer. Saints are rare, and normally captured by the church and put into effective slavery summoning heros for the church. This isn’t appealing, obviously, so Sofia escapes and begins her own adventure.

The shenanigans she and her summons (ie friends) get up is varied, fun, and combat is a lot more nuanced and enjoyable than “Summon skeleton and make them hit things.” There are some faint crafting elements (ritual circle modification), but it’s not a strong focus on the series. Similarly, there are many small slice-of-life sections to help separate more action-heavy segments, but it’s not a slice-of-life story. The structure of the story and the cliff hangers with skill and item teasing kept me turning pages for many hours, and the inventiveness and broadness of both items and skills is great.

I shudder to think of how many hours the author spent making all that content just to have them as unpicked options.

The scope and variability in the story is one of its best strengths, but perhaps also the main thing I think could have been tightened. Or to be more specific, in terms of the overarching plot, I would have loved if this was more explicit early on, and the various arcs we had were tied into this.

For two small examples, Sofia and friends teleport to a castle in the void, filled with [redacted]. Clearing this is a big arc, but it has zero overarching plot relevancy even into the Royal Road chapters post book two apart from some small hints about how [redacted] are bad and other people are fighting them too. Same about the black pyramid and a few other small arcs that seem to be side journeys that, while fun to read, don’t seem to push the plot anywhere.

Or Sofia has a sister, Saria, who didn’t seem to feature at all in Sofia’s thoughts and priorities in book one, but were suddenly made more prominent in book two. It would have been nice in the Royal Road -> Amazon editing pass to ensure that Sofia’s family and childhood friends (like Chino) featured a bit more, even just to the point that I didn’t forget they existed.

Of course, a web serial meandering without a super tight overarching plot is perhaps the most common complained ever, and its one I can level to dozens of series, so please don’t think that I’m calling this story out as singular example. All arcs were fun to read, I promise. On that note, big shoutout to the author for, when faced with a spire-climb, not making us read through a hundred different levels and instead focusing upon the final levels where stakes are high and pacing can be kept tight.

So, if you’ve enjoyed other necromancy stories like Awaken Online, or expansive serials like Defiance of the Fall or Solo Leveling, you’ll definitely enjoy this.