Chapter 42: Trickery

Rotten Bones did not have a base in Wickidor, but had the overwhelming advantage of numbers compared to Leah’s party of six, especially after their coadjutor arrived as reinforcement.

Having received a sign from the evil god called Rotten Bones, they immediately went up in force and set up ambush points by every gate in Wickidor.

Leah, who never expected that her value to Rotten Bones had suddenly become so important, was planning to lead her guards out of Wickidor from an alley in the east when they all ran headlong into cultists who each had a black corpsefly with them.

Although the guardsmen managed to unleash their might and repel the cultists thanks to their Systems, they never caught on that the cultists were just buying time. The moment they had caught sight of Leah, they released their black corspefly which led the coadjutor of Rotten Bones to them!

And the instant the coadjutor the other cultists addressed as the venerable one appeared, Leah and her group were caught in a disadvantage.

Unlike Carlo, the coadjutor possessed a divine power granted directly from Rotten Bones to summon hordes of zombies to fight, even commanding a deadly atmosphere and skeletons to help him fight. He cast his spells swiftly and attacked viciously, Leah and the guards whose level just reached two digits simply could not stand against them.

As her guards were killed one after another, Leah, who had been enraged by their deaths (but was not sad because she knew they would be revived) and would avenge them even if she would die, she suddenly received quest instructions from the God of Games.

[Ding! Main Quest started: Vengeance Dawn]

The quest kept her from squandering the time her guards bought her with their leaves and left the fight immediately, and make haste to the small town outside the Valley of the Tragic Dead.

The instructions indicated that the guards who died for her would be revived at once when she accomplished that quest with a more lenient penalty than usual for dying. Then, when she reached the town, she would also begin a chain mission to exact her revenge upon Rotten Bones!

Hence, as the cultists watched in astonishment, Leah, raging and teeth-gritted suddenly spaced out and stared at thin air just before she was about to charge towards them. Moments later, she was already calm, and actually abandoned her stubbornly fighting guards to turn and flee.

Even the cultists themselves were jeering inwardly, ‘Wow, the girl our boss told us to catch actually abandoned the guards who would protect her with their lives? Is she really so toxic? No wonder even our god would choose her and demand her as a living sacrifice…’

Meanwhile, the abandoned guards were neither angered or disappointed that they were left behind even until the end. All of them simply died right then just so that the girl could have a chance to escape!

Even the Rotten Bones coadjutor who barely had any humanity left in him sung a psalm of loyalty in their honor.

They were simply unaware that the guardsmen had also received a quest that matched Leah’s: the longer they could delay the cultists, the more rewards they gain after they were revived. Although the guardsmen had not been affected by the dimwittedness typical of the other Players, their deaths remained fated.

Still, with rewards being at stake, they fought as hard as they could since they could earn more by buying more time.

Later, Leah ran into her fellow God of Games believer Marni outside the Silver Chime merchant guild’s Wickidor branch.

“That’s about what happened. I’ll reward you handsomely if you could take me there!” Leah whispered to Marni from inside the carriage.

“What a coincidence, I’m returning there soon as well…” Marni slapped his chest heartily upon learning that the girl was heading for the starter village as well. “But I have something else to do before that.”

“Something else?”

“I have my own quest as well: I’ll be recruiting new believers for our God of Games amongst the refugees.” Marni did not keep the quest for himself since Leah did tell him everything about herself—not that she could steal it since his quest was simply his own.

“What? Are you a preacher?” Leah was doubtful.

Other churches would only recruit eye candies for their preachers or someone with the impression of being straight and honest so that they could rake in new followers into their church.

On the other hand, this preacher the God of Games has was… hmmm, boorish?

As expected of my god—such a personality!

“Preacher? I’m just a normal Player.” Marni laughed as he hurried the carriage along—he quite liked the title of Player, because it sets him apart from the believers of the other gods who were essentially harvested like leek in a farm. “Shush, silence. Something’s happening just ahead.”

The carriage quieted instantly at that.

Soon enough, several men in black robes stopped in front of Marni’s carriage.

“Hold. We’re having an inspection—what’s inside your carriage?” One of them yelled loudly.

“I am a traveling merchant from the Silver Chimes, in servitude of the Goddess of Prosperity!” Marni did not hesitate to shoot back. “You lot aren’t city guards of Wickidor, aren’t you? What right do you have to inspect my carriage!”

“Cut the crap. Open the door!” The same man urged with a stiffened neck, but his voice was not as confident as before. In fact, he looked like he was barely keeping it together.

After all, although the Goddess of Prosperity was not a greater god, her believers were many—some believers of other gods were her shallow believers as well, and in terms of divine power, she was the best of the best amongst the second-tier deities. If not for her singular Divine Order and the fact that she could not ascend in divinity, she probably would have reached the same threshold of the Seven Heavenly Fathers.

Therefore, the Skull God itself would only be given a violent beatdown against the Goddess of Prosperity, much less some pesudo-deity like Rotten Bones who was in fact, a denomination of the Skull God…

“I can open the door, actually, but it’s a blasphemy to my faith so you would have to pay up. 500 Rions per person!” Marni conceded with great timing.

“Tch! Blasphemy my foot! So expensive, do you think your carriage is made out of gold?” Another black-robed man complained.

“What, don’t you know merchants who pray to the Goddess of Prosperity has a rule that carriages only store merchandise! Your suspicion that I’m hiding other things is in itself a heresy against my faith!”

Marni turned to place his hand on the carriage door handle, ready to open it. “Get your coins ready, or I’m complaining to my branch chief if you forfeit the debt! Ah, which church are you lot from by the way?”

The men, upon seeing that Marni was about to con them of their money just by letting them look into a carriage flung curses and foul language at him before running off without turning back.

It was not as if they could not pay, but they did not want to spend it so foolishly—if Marni had charged them an impossible price, they would instead find him suspicious. Therefore, a price that was expensive but not out of the question was as realistic as it was disgusting.

Additionally, the cultists’ religion was not one that could be exposed to the public. Any mishap here could bring the existence of Rotten Bones to light, and their fate afterward was quite predictable!

Still, they did suspect Marni. However, the Silver Chimes guild was just nearby and he did not appear to belong to some unknown church given how the other merchants were quite acquainted with him. Moreover, even if his guild ring that identifies him as a member of Silver Chimes was gone, the crests of Silver Chimes and the Goddess of Prosperity on his carriage had not faded yet. After all, that goddess was not as idle as Xi Wei and would certainly not act immediately over some trivial thing, and it would be some time before the crest disappears.

With that, Marni slipped past the Rotten Bones’ checkpoint and brought Leah to the refugee camp outside of the city to recruit some of the vagabonds as new Players…