Option 2

2) mana lance: you can cast it once before running out of MP. If you hit however you would stun her allowing a possible different angle of attack.

You decided on a fairly risky strategy hoping for 2 things.

1) slimes can’t cast magic in this world (as is the case in most RPG’s) so you casting something hopefully catches her off guard.

2) your attack hits the cultist and stuns her allowing you take take further action.

Now the question was: how do you cast spells?

Deciding now wasn’t the time for asking questions you closed your eyes to concentrate and started internally yelling:

Mana lance! mana lance! mana lance!

As you spoke you felt your skin getting colder, if you were still human you would be shivering. But as you opened your eyes you saw your creation having taken form: a beam of purple light was floating threateningly in the air above while purple colored mist rose from it like steam.

The cultist meanwhile had stopped walking towards you, she came much closer then you would have liked while your eyes where closed. This however did allow you to for the first time have a good look at your opponents face.

Unlike what one would expect from a cultist (some manipulative ugly bastard old man) you saw the face of a terrified soft looking girl. She had red hair, a small nose and blue eyes. Looking past her dirty face you would rate her at least a 7, but more in the range of an 8.

And in this moment of clarity with you essentially pointing a gun at her you realised why the gods expected you to **** and pillage through the land. If the rejects of society, the cultists looked this good then what would the upper class look like? Any truly depraved individual getting a request from a god and a body to go along with it would find it rather challenging to resist the urges. Especially when a monster core is messing with your brain, no incentive besides your own morals to hold you back, and gods promising your every desire if you succumb.

Luckily for the girl you didn’t like the gods all that much, and you valued your humanity and morality rather highly. Unluckily for her: you still needed her incapacitated. And since she had a knife, you saw no other option other then to blast her to smithereens.

Hopefully she would survive, you wouldn’t want to be a murderer just yet.

And so with a hint of regret but seeing no other option: you released the spell by stopping your chant. The spell had started vibrating and it had taken more and more of your concentration to keep it “contained” so when you released the spell it was like letting go of a very stretched out rubber band.

The shocked girl somehow manages to block the spell with her arms but you saw you did a significant amount of damage to her HP: [15/25).

The hit send her flying backwards causing her to fall on her back in the middle of the room. You also heard a clattering sound and noticed that the knife had flown out of her hand into a wall.

At first you just thought she was an amateur with a knife but when you looked closer at her hands you saw why she dropped it.

Her entire knife arm was bleeding and had a massive purple wound where you had hit her, it reminded you a bit of burn victims but much worse and purple. Her other arm was slightly better but still had large scrapes and you doubted she would be able to fight back.