Chapter 48: Sleigh

“The reason why He did not respond to all of you was because you were not faithful enough! Don’t tell me how you pleaded with all your heart for help and offered all your faith. You purely wanted aid for your own life or any other plight, not caring whether the aid came from Him or not! That was just a request and not belief!” she exclaimed, “Right here and right now, I plead all of you to try and believe in Him once more, and believe in His blessings!”

Saying that, Leah knew that in these people there were probably people that truly believed in the God of Games back then, but the God of Games had not been revived back then so any prayer would not have worked.

But it was okay, because human memory is vague and easily changes according to subjective thoughts and emotions. An example of this was the nostalgia filter that humans have toward past memories.

Adding onto that was the fact that the degree of faith and purity of belief was a hard thing to define. Even if they were faithful believers in the God of Games, they would probably start to think that the way they believed in the God of Games was wrong after today.

After all, these remnants of Tierra needed hope and faith more than anything, and believing that the God of Games was a primordial deity would probably bring them more confidence than telling them that the God of Games had just been born.

Xi Wei’s special effects weren’t added in vain. Seeing the supernatural scene that occurred and the strong words of the young princess, the refugees started trying to pray and beg for the God of Games’ forgiveness, hoping that they could believe in him again.

Divine energy immediately flooded in, much more than the bit that was used by Xi Wei to produce the special effects. This gave Xi Wei more confidence to get up in arms with the Rotten Bones Church.

Under the pleasantly surprised gazes of Marni and Leah, a bunch of names in white font sprung out from the refugees’ heads like bamboo shoots after a spring shower.

The rapid increase in believers immediately made Xi Wei perk up in excitement, feeling his thoughts becoming more fluid and clear than before. Even his Divine Kingdom grew somewhat larger from the influx of believers.

Maybe you, loyal reader, would think that if a mere hundred believers would boost Xi Wei’s power by so much, then couldn’t Leah just go to a random large city and promote his church with special effects, so that the people from this world who have never seen Hollywood movies before would become his believers and boost his divine energy infinitely?

The answer to that question is of course no.

First off, a majority of citizens from large cities were already true believers of their respective churches, and would not believe in Xi Wei like these atheist refugees—In fact, these refugees were so recruited so quickly only because they were his believers in the first place…

Secondly, most large cities were taken over by multiple large churches, so the citizens would have probably seen lots of miracles already. It was only a pipe dream to have them join his church using flimsy special effects.

Finally and most importantly, Xi Wei was still too weak at this point in time, and if he did something like that to attract the attention of stronger and more experienced deities, he would probably be blown up on the spot…

Marni who had leveled up by one level had thought that perhaps they could have sped up after so many of them were converted into Players, but after resuming their journey he realized he was wrong.

Even though most of the refugees had been converted successfully into believers and had blessings from Xi Wei, but the blessings that were gained by Level 1 Players were somewhat insignificant. Other than having a higher resistance towards sickness and abnormal statuses like frostbite, their improvement in other areas was quite limited.

It was going to be night soon, but their progress was still not satisfactory.

If they tried hard enough, perhaps they would be able to arrive at the starter village in three days… But there was still the problem of food supply.

“Make a sleigh!” Xi Wei who was peeking in from his Divine Kingdom stomped in frustration (even though he didn’t have any legs). “You guys can make a sleigh with just a few pieces of wood!”

If the situation persisted, the refugee Players might probably starve or freeze to death.

After all, the refugees who had just been converted into Players were just Level 1, and they didn’t have any experience points. If they died they would be dead for good!

As Xi Wei was about to give Marni a quest, he realized that the former merchant had already gone to sleep…

“Should I give the quest to Leah? Not, that child is too simple, she probably doesn’t even know what a sleigh is… Seems like there’s only one thing to do.”

Xi Wei refocused his gaze onto Marni who was snoring in his sleep.

It was a peaceful night…

On the second day.

“Mister, this tool that you invented is so useful! Even though it’s just a few pieces of wood it could make things so much easier!”

Leah tried out the sleigh that Marni had finished making early in the morning. “How did you think of this invention?”

“I didn’t invent this, it’s a tool from the Southern Lands that I came across while I went there for business.”

Marni let out a loud yawn, deep dark circles visible under his eyes. “I dreamt of it last night and immediately tried making some…”

Of course he could not tell the young girl that the sleigh was something he thought of after dreaming of a glowing ball with tentacles beating him up and shouting, “Make sleighs, make sleighs you dumb*ss!”

He had originally been scared awake, but then he went back to sleep shortly after thinking it was a normal dream, making a mental note to make some sleighs when he woke up.

But as soon as he fell asleep, he dreamt of the ball of light again, and it wrapped him with its tentacles and beat him up again. “How dare you come back without making a sleigh?!”

This immediately shook him awake.

After that, Marni didn’t go to sleep anymore and burned the midnight oil to make a sleigh.

After trying the sleighs he made, even these crudely made sleighs were extremely effective in the snowy plains.

With the sleighs, the journey that continued was much easier.

Marni took out the remaining food and gave it out to the refugees, before they left behind the carriages with poor mobility in the snow and changed to using sleighs.

At the pace they were going at now, they would probably be able to arrive at the unnamed town by evening.

Xi Wei who was in his Divine Kingdom nodded in satisfaction.

Even though giving prophetic dreams needed more divine energy than issuing a quest, he thought of how he would have to give rewards to Players that finished their quests. In comparison to that, the cost of prophetic dreams was less. More importantly, he could beat up his believers and relieve stress…