Goddess Kaleidoscope

"Alright, stop fooling around. I need to speak with Mr. Bank."

“Mr. Bank? He just went out.”

Aina told Lud that Bank had just been summoned by the village chief and should be in the shack in the backyard of the temple right now, helping the villagers sharpen their weapons.

Upon hearing this, Lud thought to himself that old Rom was really despicable, not giving Bank any rest time all day.

The blacksmith worked all night yesterday and finally finished the "final weapon" for Lud to deal with the bandits by noon today. Lud had planned to let him and the other villagers who helped get some rest, but old Rom singled out Bank and gave him a whole bunch of other things to do.

It's clear that old Rom doesn't fully trust Bank yet, but he doesn't want to contradict Ludd, who advocates trusting Bank. So he changed his approach, constantly assigning Bank tasks to drain his energy.

So Ludlow went around to the back of the temple and saw Bank standing on a grinding wheel, polishing a bunch of broken "weapons," while the village chief Rom sat next to him, looking like a capitalist exploiting his workers.

Seeing this, Lude simply ignored the guy without any politeness.

"Mr. Bank, take a rest. After all, no one is made of iron."

As Lude spoke, he glanced at old Rom beside him. The old man seemed to realize that he had gone a bit too far, so he chimed in to persuade Bank to rest, as if he wasn't the one who had dragged people over to work earlier.

After being persuaded by the two elderly people, Bank finally put down the "weapon" he had just finished sharpening. To ensure that he could truly rest, Ludd simply found a stool and sat down.

No one knows when the bandits will return, so it's impossible to sleep soundly. It would be good for everyone to sit down and chat, relaxing their tense nerves. Besides, Lude also hoped to talk more with the taciturn blacksmith, because in his eyes, he could vaguely see something binding the blacksmith, making him distinctly different from others.

The specific manifestation of this "abnormality" is that since Bank arrived in Pine Village, Lud has never observed even the slightest bit of faith in him, as if he doesn't believe in gods at all!

End of this chapter

Based on Lu De's observations over the past year since his transmigration, it's generally impossible for anyone living in this world to be completely devoid of faith, not even him, a transmigrator; the only difference lies in the degree of faith.

There is only one situation or emotion that, when it becomes strong enough, can hinder the development of faith: the so-called "disappointment"!

This extremely rare phenomenon was first observed by Rudd in the blacksmith Bank, but it was mentioned in the old astrologer's notes. After all, the old man was in the capital back then, and the entire city and surrounding towns and villages had a population of two or three hundred thousand, providing him with plenty of subjects to observe.

Mortals who are disappointed in the gods usually have inner conflicts. Once these conflicts are resolved, they will regain their faith and become more devout than before, producing more power of faith.

After observing this phenomenon, the old astrologer actively recruited believers with inner conflicts in the capital, because these people were considered high-quality seeds, yielding several times, even ten times, more in spiritual output than ordinary believers. Therefore, the old man used his ability to see faith to specifically recruit such people into the cult. He could even create an inner conflict for some people who didn't have one, and then resolve it later!

Lude could tell that the blacksmith Bank was definitely a man with a story, and the story that caused him so much distress was most likely related to his deceased wife.

When Bank arrived in Pine Village, he had no relatives other than his three children and Buddy, a traitor he had taken in along the way. Although he himself was taciturn, his three children were cheerful and talkative. Through chatting with the children, Ludd had already gleaned some key information.

Before Bank came to Pine Village, he lived with his family in a city called Elwin. This city was the largest seaport in the entire Kingdom of Duran, with an economy even more developed than the kingdom's, and was a very prosperous and wealthy city.

Bank lives in this city, owns a shop and has a craft, married a woman he truly loves and has children, and his life is actually quite good.

Unfortunately, their happiness was short-lived. Although Bank's wife was gentle and virtuous, her health had never been very good. After giving birth to her third child, she contracted a cough and her constitution gradually weakened.

In order to cure his beloved woman's illness, Bank sought help from several herbalists to no avail. He had no choice but to spend a lot of money to ask a priest to perform a healing spell on his wife, hoping to use the power of the gods to eliminate the disease.

To Bank's disappointment, the divine magic he had placed his hopes on ultimately failed to save his wife's life. As a result, Bank squandered his once-wealthy fortune, even selling his family's ancestral blacksmith shop. In the end, he left Erwin dejectedly with his three children and his deceased wife's ashes.

The above is the story that Ludd learned from Bank's eldest son. Putting himself in Bank's shoes, Ludd could easily understand Bank's inner turmoil.

However, what moved and concerned Ludwig the most was the detailed account of how Bank sought out a priest to cure his wife's illness.

Because his goddess was still quite inexperienced, Lud, this priest, while no longer considered a fake, was still a long way from being able to truly use divine magic. Therefore, he was very curious about how priests from other sects performed their divine magic.

According to the claims of most religious sects, divine magic is an omnipotent power bestowed by the gods, and the healing magic among divine magic is indeed far more effective than magic. It can heal wounds, detoxify, and cure diseases, and wealthy nobles who have used it all say it is good!

But even this all-powerful magic couldn't cure Bank's wife's illness.

So Lude wanted to figure out whether the priest who treated the illness was cheating and taking money without doing the job, or whether there was something special about Bank's wife's illness.

As the three chatted, Lude deliberately steered the conversation towards this topic. Bank initially didn't want to bring up these painful memories again, but Lude's words prompted him to speak.

"This might help me treat your daughter's illness."

Recalling those agonizing days, the usually taciturn Bank was visibly moved. He told Lud that after his wife's condition worsened, he had consulted almost every priest from several religious sects in the city.

At first, things went well; the magic did seem to work, and his wife's complexion and health would improve immediately. But this effect only lasted a few months, after which the illness would relapse, and she would return to her old state. Bank had no choice but to take his wife back to the temple and pay a priest to perform the magic again.

Over the course of three years, Bank and his wife visited the priest eight times. If he were a wealthy merchant or nobleman, he could have afforded it, but he was just a blacksmith with decent skills, barely middle class in Erwin, and his family couldn't afford such a gamble.

In Erwin, regardless of the sect, the price for a priest to perform a basic, low-level healing spell is a flat three gold coins, which is roughly equivalent to Bank's annual income. He quickly donated all the money he had saved to various temples, but in the end, he still couldn't save his wife's life.

After listening to Bank's story, Lud and Rom both fell silent. Lud was shocked by the exorbitant profits of the divine healing industry, while Rom sympathized with Bank's plight and felt somewhat guilty about his previous actions.

"Mr. Bank, could you describe in detail the process by which the priests performed their magic when they were healing your wife?"

"The process? It was just... a very ordinary way, reciting a divine scripture, and then a burst of golden light appeared and enveloped my wife's whole body. It didn't seem to be anything special."

"In other words, divine magic acts directly on the entire body."

After listening to Bank's description, Lud nodded thoughtfully. However, just as he was about to ask for more details, a villager suddenly stumbled over from the front yard, shouting in panic.

"No, no! Those bandits are back!"

"So fast!?"

"Looks like this handsome guy, Zack, is quick-witted!"

Hearing the villagers' report, Lude was not surprised at all. According to the information obtained from interrogating Badi, these bandits were also preparing for winter. They needed to seize enough food to survive the winter before the heavy snow blocked the mountains, so they would not easily let Pine Tree Village go. Moreover, the bandit leader's "Moth Chicken" was still above them, so they would not give up easily.

"Call everyone who stayed in the village back. The same trick won't work a second time. We're in for a tough battle!"

End of this chapter

Zach is furious, so furious that he wants to massacre the entire village to vent his anger!

What was supposed to be a sure thing turned out to be a terrible deal. Not only did these damned peasants refuse to hand over their grain and daughters, they also dared to cause trouble and resist stubbornly, resulting in seven or eight of Zak's men being injured and more than a dozen of his precious warhorses being crippled.

If we don't rob them clean and then massacre the village as a warning to others, the bandit business will probably be impossible to continue!

The enraged bandits, led by Zack, returned, but this time they were more cunning. Instead of charging on horseback, they advanced on foot, flanking the village from both sides, blocking the main entrances and exits, before finally entering the village to search house by house.

"Charge in! Drag out all those turtle bastards who were banging drums and gongs!"

However, the bandits who rushed in soon discovered that there wasn't a single person in the village, only potholed roads and all sorts of unpredictable earthen traps waiting for them to step on.

Just as these enraged bandits were about to set the village on fire, a bonfire was suddenly lit at the temple. The bright firelight, which was very conspicuous in the dark night, immediately attracted the bandits' attention, and Zack sensed a hint of provocation.

At the temple, Ludger suggested lighting a bonfire to attract the bandits' attention. While maintaining the blackout would allow them to hide under the cover of night for a while longer, they couldn't hide in one room forever, and he worried that the bandits would set the village on fire to vent their anger once they discovered it was deserted.

Even if the villagers manage to keep their food supplies, it will still be difficult for them to survive the cold winter if they lose their houses.

The firelight successfully attracted the attention of the bandits. Looking down from the earthen slope near the temple towards the village, they saw many torches rapidly approaching, like pairs of eyes gleaming with greed in the darkness.

The villagers guarding the main gate were very nervous. Although they had the advantage of terrain and were surrounded by the temple's walls and three rings of barricades outside the gate, they were just farmers, not soldiers who had seen blood. So many of them began to feel afraid, and this fear would spread to others around them.

Looking at the trembling villagers, Lud knew very well that if they held out on their own, the temple would most likely be breached by the bandits before dawn, and no one would survive. So he called over Ron, the village chief's eldest son, and whispered a few words in his ear. The big, simple-minded man nodded after listening and turned to go to the backyard of the temple.

Soon, more than two hundred bandits gathered in front of the earthen slope where the temple was located, and stood at a distance of more than two hundred meters, which was just the effective range of a regular archer.

Zak gazed at the temple from afar, using his high-ranking warrior's eyesight to roughly assess the defenses in front of the temple gates. If all that was on the other side were barricades and earthen walls less than two meters high, his men could launch a frontal assault and take it down in the time it takes to smoke a pipe.

They might not be good at conquering cities and seizing territory, but taking down a village of a few hundred people is a piece of cake!

"Someone with a loud voice, go up and shout to those bumpkins, tell them to give them half a pipe's worth of time to think it over, and hand over all the village's grain plus twenty young girls, or we'll storm in and leave no one alive!"

Zach ordered his men to go up and make a speech. Although he said that, he never really intended to fulfill any promises. Once he got what they asked for, he would still send his men to kill a bunch of people. Negotiating was just a way to demoralize the other side.

However, just as the bandit henchmen were about to shout, a guy with an even louder voice suddenly appeared on the hillside.

"Listen up, bandit Zhak! Your son is in our hands. If you don't want anything to happen to him, take your thugs and get out of here!"

"Holy crap..."

Upon hearing the villagers' shouts, Zak was immediately startled!

He looked up at the temple and saw the villagers had erected a wooden frame at the gate, on which his son Buddy was tied.

Although Zach had anticipated that his son might have given him away, he never expected the kid to be so thorough. Not only was he captured, but he also revealed such important information as being Zach's son.

Now, things have gotten even worse. The villagers are using him as a hostage, threatening him to withdraw his troops. Seeing all his men looking at him, Zach's face fell.

"Boss, it really looks like Buddy."

"This little good-for-nothing..."

Seeing his son being arrested, Zach couldn't help but feel embarrassed.

Perhaps it was divine punishment for the heavy sins he had committed in this life, for despite having slept with countless women, Zach, now nearing fifty, only has one son, Buddy, born to a prostitute. So, though she was furious, she couldn't bear to watch him be skinned alive by the villagers.

But backing down is absolutely out of the question. With so many brothers watching, if Zak were to compromise with a group of villagers for the sake of his son, his time as the bandit leader would likely be over.

Seeing that the situation was becoming somewhat delicate and Zach was caught in a dilemma, he was having a hard time when one of his underlings suddenly ran over and whispered a few words in his ear. Zach's eyes lit up immediately after hearing them.

"What about people?"

"It's right behind us, we'll be there in a bit."

On the temple side, Lud was also observing the bandits down the slope. He noticed that they hadn't reacted for a long time, so he looked up at Buddy, whose appearance was perfect for cosplaying Jesus, and wondered if this guy was a fake son.

Just then, the light rain that had been falling for most of the night finally stopped, and there was a sudden commotion down the mountain. A group of bandits carried some firewood out of the village, lit two large bonfires, and then brought out two people whose clothes looked somewhat familiar, shouting towards the hillside.

"You two tell those bumpkins on the mountain! Who are you?"

Under the threat of the bandits holding knives to their necks, the two prisoners, disguised as villagers, loudly announced their names: Tang and Ansen. They were the two people the village chief had sent to town to buy iron ingots the day before yesterday.

Lud only confirmed that Buddy was the traitor after they set off, so they were unaware of the situation in the village. They were originally scheduled to return to the village this afternoon, but they hadn't seen anyone by nightfall, and now they finally knew what had happened to them.

The capture of these two men suddenly gave the bandits hostages, and a sinister smile returned to Zack's face. He felt that the initiative was back in his hands.

End of this chapter

Two villagers had fallen into the hands of bandits, resulting in both sides now holding hostages. Hearing the desperate cries for help from their fellow villagers nearby, the villagers on the temple's side inevitably began to waver.

After displaying their hostages, the bandits didn't immediately do anything, but Lud knew that they were putting pressure on them.

Unlike bandits, the villagers were all from the same village. Even if they were petty and had frequent conflicts, they still shared a sense of kinship. Seeing their former neighbors now in the hands of bandits, they couldn't help but feel a sense of shared sorrow.

Lude looked around and realized that if this dragged on, the villagers on his side would be the first to break down under the pressure, so he took the initiative to stand up and shout.

"Leader on the other side, let's make a deal!"

"Want to change players? Sure! One for one, two for two. I never do business at a loss."