Goddess Kaleidoscope

Thanks to the "subway" built by the three sisters, Lud now has the ability to travel quickly between the labyrinth and the temple, reducing the time required for a one-way trip from a day and a night on the ground to less than two hours.

Although it's called a subway, it's actually just a mining cart that runs on its own along a grooved track, traveling at around 60 kilometers per hour. Thanks to the straight underground tunnel with no obstacles and no curves, it's even faster. However, its stability needs improvement, and the riding experience is poor. Every time Lude gets off, it takes a while for his buttocks to recover.

In addition, this subway tunnel is currently exclusively for Lude's use. Since all the goddesses in his household broke through to the second stage, they have all gained the corresponding teleportation ability and can use their own statues as teleportation coordinates, so they don't have to suffer like Lude.

However, this super convenient movement ability seems to be limited to the god himself and cannot be shared with priests like other conventional divine spells. If you want to teleport people along, you have to wait until you break through to the fourth level.

When Rudd returned to the temple from the labyrinth, it was almost noon. But perhaps because he was numb from sitting in the minecart, Rudd had no appetite at all. So he decided to go to the study first to see if there were any letters sent back from Flamewood City.

More than a month ago, the eldest son of the Navarro family, Terin, was ambushed by the necromancer Dick in the maze and turned into a soulless undead. This terrible news eventually reached Flamewood City, which greatly angered the Navarro family.

In order to monitor the reactions of the Navarro family and the Black Hand Brotherhood, Hume had already secretly gone to Flamewood City with Fallen Leaves to spy on the enemy's situation before the news was sent out, and would send Raven back every few days to deliver messages.

The Black Hand Brotherhood is, on the surface, the largest criminal organization in the southern part of the Kingdom of Duran. The organization is extremely large, with a total of over 100,000 members, both inside and outside, but its composition is also quite complex.

Among these, the Navarro family belongs to the "gang faction," while the opposite is the "cult faction." Although both factions belong to the Brotherhood and believe in the false god of thieves, the former are gangsters, while the latter are members of a cult, and there have always been some ideological conflicts between the two sides.

When news of Terin's accident reached Yanmu City, it was like throwing a lit cigarette butt into a powder keg, just as Lude had hoped, instantly igniting the long-simmering resentment between the two factions.

However, the struggle between the two sides is currently relatively restrained, and no large-scale fighting has broken out. The patriarch of the Navarro family, Tyler Navarro, questioned the elder of the sect, Tivana, in a very tough manner, because the necromancer Dick was her subordinate, so the other party had to give her an explanation.

Interestingly, despite the ongoing verbal sparring between the two sides, the mysterious Brotherhood leader has yet to appear and mediate. The fake thief god seems to be watching his followers fight amongst themselves with indifference, whether out of laziness or simply because he is not yet capable of intervening.

Regardless, Ludd's primary task at this stage remains to focus on developing his own strength, while continuing to observe the Brotherhood of the Black Hand in secret, providing just the right amount of instigation when necessary to keep them from stopping.

Pine Tree Town is currently experiencing rapid growth. In less than six months since the beginning of spring, its permanent population has almost doubled, nearly surpassing 10,000. The new population includes settlers hoping to acquire land, as well as many believers drawn by the Medicine God Cult. If we include transient populations such as adventurers and caravans, the town's total population has likely exceeded 20,000.

After all, the town is located at the crossroads of the three-way intersection connecting the Earl of Ramley, the Duke of Gammelin, and the settlement of the Steelwhip Clan dwarves, making it a prime location for making money off the spot.

After the road was opened, this place quickly became the most important transportation hub in the northern border region, with a constant stream of caravans coming and going. Some caravans even opened trading posts here, driving the rapid development of local commercial activities. In response to this demand, Ludwig established a special accounting major in his school.

The influx of people brought about by the prosperity greatly benefited Rudd's missionary work. The number of baptized believers was no longer limited to the local residents; many outsiders were also drawn to the church. Some even wanted to become disciples of the saint Rudd and formally become monks.

Luther couldn't very well turn away these activists who were likely to become devout believers, but he also couldn't really accept them into his own school. So he set up a so-called "outer disciple" to house them.

Lude told these outer disciples that the Pantheon's cultivation emphasized engagement with the world, accumulating "good karma" by helping others. He then had Romian show them his "Trial Manual" and the holy seal on the back of his hand, which greatly encouraged the believers.

Currently, these outer disciples are all staying in town. Lu De has arranged accommodations for them near the temple. Those with a certain level of education will start by doing volunteer work, while the illiterate will be sent to school for literacy education. Lu De has been secretly observing their daily actions and words to confirm whether there are any opportunists with ulterior motives.

Lost in thought, Lud walked until he reached the door of his study, then pushed it open and entered. The moment he stepped inside, a gasp suddenly came from the bookshelf on his right. Looking in the direction of the sound, Lud saw the snake girl Hydra standing with her hands behind her back in front of the bookshelf, visibly tense.

"What are you doing?"

"I...I didn't peek!"

"..."

Due to her poor mental fortitude, the snake girl confessed on the spot, while Lu De, after a few seconds of stunned silence, realized that the other party was peeking at something, and his expression became somewhat subtle.

"Did Hume tell you that?"

"Yes, it's Senior Sister..."

"Damn! How can this be transmitted from person to person?"

He muttered a few words to himself, but Lu De remained outwardly composed. He knew that in awkward moments like these, he should never show his embarrassment, or he would lose all his authority as a master.

So Ludwig stepped forward and gestured for Hydra to hand over the notebook he had hidden behind his back. Ludwig took it and saw that the title on the cover was "The Night of the Master and the Maids' Assault," and the author was listed as "Sans."

The work profoundly exposes the decadent and debauched nightlife of the feudal aristocracy in this world, while vividly demonstrating the resistance of the lower classes, represented by maids, against oppression. Through a protracted struggle, they successfully turned the tables and punished their oppressors severely with whips and flames (candles).

Among the many works he bought, this one had the art style that best suited Lud's taste, and its plot also had a strong "critical realism" spirit, so Lud read it more than once in private.

It's worth mentioning that the maid outfits worn by the female protagonists in this picture book received high praise from Lud, the transmigrator, and were one of the main reasons for his high evaluation. The style of these maid outfits was subtly similar to one Hydra had worn before, leading Lud to feel a connection with the author and to speculate about their identity.

At this moment, Lu De asked the snake girl in a serious tone.

"Hydra, I'm asking you, how many times have you secretly looked at these books?"

"Three...no! Four times."

"Then...you didn't tell Aina and Romianne, did you?"

"No, I didn't say that!"

"real!"

"It's true! Absolutely true!"

With a faint sob in her voice, Hydra shook her head vigorously, like a rattle-drum. Although she was new to human life and didn't understand many of the intricacies of human society, her innate, keen sense of danger as a wild animal told her how to avoid harm in this situation!

Seeing that the snake girl's face had turned pale with fright, Lu De patted her shoulder with a "river eel" expression, put the notebook back in the hidden compartment on the lower shelf of the bookshelf, as if nothing had happened.

End of this chapter

In mid-September, Lud's school was still on fall break, and most of the local students were helping with farm work in their own fields, but some students remained at the school.

Most of these students are international students from other places. If they go home to visit their families during the two-month autumn break, they will spend more than half of their time on the road, and there are also certain risks involved. So they simply stay at the school.

Some of them are orphans that Lud has adopted from various sources. The school is their only home now, so naturally they have nowhere else to go.

To make these students who stayed on campus feel cared for and warm, Lude would visit the school every few days, chat with the children, play games together, and then assign some homework to keep them from getting too bored.

Faced with Principal Lu's "warm concern", many children silently shed tears of gratitude.

As usual, Lud brought gifts to the school, accompanied only by Shanis. Shanis, currently under investigation for deliberately leaking the temple's "top secrets," followed behind Lud, pushing a cart full of items.

There are currently 154 students remaining on campus in the school dormitory, 16 of whom arrived just two days ago. They come from a marquisate in the southern part of the kingdom and were sent by their lord to study epidemic prevention medicine.

The students, averaging only thirteen or fourteen years old, were escorted to Pine Town by a six-man cavalry squad. Originally, there were twenty of them, but four died on the way due to illness and accidents. The cavalry squad that escorted them left two guardians behind and set off back south.

To Lu De's utter dismay, all sixteen of these young students were completely illiterate, unable to read a single character. The marquis who had sent them to study medicine seemed unaware of the admission criteria here, assuming they were simply there to learn some herbal formulas or something.

The two guardians who remained even asked Lude in a serious tone if he could finish the course in a month, so they could return before the heavy snow blocked the roads. After receiving the reply that it would take at least three years to graduate, the two of them were completely stunned.

Regardless, Lude took the children in and prepared to teach them from the very basics. Under his arrangement, these new students would receive one-on-one assistance from senior students after entering the school, providing academic tutoring and helping them quickly adapt to campus life.

The upperclassmen selected by Ludger were initially a little reluctant to tutor these out-of-towners. However, Ludger then said that scholarships would be awarded based on the progress of their students, and outstanding educators would be selected to stay on as teachers at the university. The upperclassmen immediately transformed into their mentors.

Before Lude and Shanis even reached the dormitory building, they could hear upperclassmen kindly instructing their juniors.

"It's weak! The bone setting wasn't done properly at all!"

"Try again! Is that how you bandage someone?"

"You think you can study pediatrics with such a soft voice?!"

Hmm... This is way too much!

Slightly embarrassed, Lu De scratched his head and thought to himself that it would be best to talk to the older students later and tell them not to get too excited.

As soon as Lu De arrived at the dormitory entrance, he was greeted by the dormitory supervisor, who enthusiastically reported on her recent work and, with great enthusiasm, recounted how many couples she had slapped on the wrist in the sacred campus.

At Ludd's request, the school adopted a neutral stance on the issue of dating, neither supporting nor opposing it. After all, locals marry young, and fourteen is considered an adult. No matter how much Ludd explained to the public that the optimal age for men and women to have children is after twenty-three, it was still to no avail.

Therefore, according to the school rules set by Ludwig, dating is not against the rules, and holding hands is not taboo. However, if you want to take things further and be more intimate, you have to wait until graduation to lift the ban.

However, even with school rules in place, Lu De would frequently educate students about the dangers of teenage pregnancy and use religious methods to warn them, listing premarital sex as a "bad deed" that the goddess disliked. But this was still no match for the restless hormones of adolescence, and "crossing the line" among students occurred frequently.

Left with no other choice, Lu De had to resort to even tougher measures, granting several dormitory supervisors supervisory authority and allowing them to use force when necessary. With a long broom, the young couples were easily defeated.

This time, however, in addition to reporting her achievements, the dormitory supervisor also mentioned another "strange thing" to Lu De: last night, the management staff unexpectedly discovered a small group of problem children among the students staying on campus. These children were sneaking out of the dormitory late at night and going to the school cafeteria kitchen to engage in some strange religious activities, which were just caught by the night patrol security guards.

As soon as the two sides met, the dozen or so children scattered in all directions, while the security guard, who was startled on the spot, only managed to grab two of them in his haste.

The security guard initially thought the kids had run into the kitchen to steal food and didn't intend to do anything to them. However, upon closer inspection of the remaining traces at the "crime scene," he realized that things were probably not so simple.

On the floor in front of the kitchen stove, a strange ritual circle had been drawn with white lime powder, while the two captured children had used ashes from the stove to draw flame-like patterns on their faces. Even the most inexperienced security guard knew that this was a common tactic in religious rituals, and that most of them were from cults.

So the two arrested kids were taken to the guard room overnight for questioning. They were asked to confess and confess their other escaped accomplices in order to get a lighter sentence, but the two refused to talk no matter what, leaving the guards at a loss.

The dormitory supervisor was originally planning to personally go to the temple to report to Rudd at noon today, but Rudd came first.

After hearing the dormitory supervisor's report, Lu De was also shocked. He did not expect that there was an underground church hidden in his school, and that he, a veteran police officer with eight years of experience in fighting cults and pyramid schemes, had not noticed it at all!

What puzzled Lud even more was that, in theory, he possessed the primordial fire within him, his eyes could see the faith of mortals, and he could identify the object of faith based on color.

So theoretically speaking, if there really are "heretics" in the school, as long as these believers unconsciously develop a little faith in their daily lives, it will be difficult to escape his discerning eyes. He can tell at a glance whether they are moles or not.

Thinking about this, Ludwig couldn't help but become interested in these heretics hidden among the students and the gods they worshipped.

"Elbow! Take me to see those two children."

End of this chapter

He instructed Shanis, who was traveling with him, to first deliver gifts to the students staying on campus in the dormitory and assign new week's holiday homework, while Lude himself followed the dormitory supervisor to the school's academic affairs office.

The two students who were arrested were named Cha Ye and A Gou. They were both thirteen-year-old boys, and were considered to be relatively strong among their peers.

It is said that the two were caught because they deliberately stayed behind to hold off the security guards while covering the escape of their companions. After being caught, they remained quite defiant, refusing to cooperate with violence throughout, and seemed determined not to talk under any circumstances.

The school security guards, on the other hand, had rules and regulations set by Lu De that prohibited excessive corporal punishment and arbitrary beatings of students, so they were completely helpless against these two troublemakers for the time being.

Upon arriving at the registrar's office, Ludwig first checked the two children's student files and discovered that their identities were somewhat unusual. Although they were also from Oyster Harbor, they were not students sent by Viscount Maupe. The files did not specify their backgrounds, but Ludwig knew them.

At the beginning of the year, during the fight against the epidemic in Oyster Harbor, Ludwig preemptively framed Bishop Evanrus of the Church of the Four Seasons, who was trying to frame him. In his name, he ordered a batch of contraband from Treasure Island, including twelve child slaves, who came to Oyster Harbor on a smuggling ship.

After Evanrus was overthrown, the smuggled goods on the ship were confiscated by the local Viscount Maupe, and the child slaves, at Ludd's request, had their slave status erased and were taken back to Pine Town to be raised by Ludd.

To protect the children's self-esteem and prevent them from being discriminated against, their student files made no mention of their dark history of child slavery, and instead listed them as "island residents" in their place of origin.

Ludwig recalled that when he first met the children, he didn't notice anything unusual about them. The captain of the smuggling ship was just a deliveryman; he didn't know the children's origins, only that they were natives captured from an island by a slave-hunting team in Southeast Asia, and that was all he knew.

Lude observed the appearances of these young men and women. They were not much different from the common races on the mainland, and even had fair skin. Each of them had a beautiful face, which was completely unlike his preconceived notion of "island natives" who were dark and thin.

Furthermore, although most of these children are not talkative and always wary of those around them, they are not incapable of communication. They speak the same language as the common language of humans, only with a slight regional accent.

Therefore, Ludwig speculated that the ancestors of these children were probably from the mainland who fled to sea many years ago and have been isolated from the world ever since. Considering that they were forcibly taken away from the island where they had lived for generations by a vicious slave-hunting crew, their wariness and even hostility towards outsiders is not hard to understand.

Lude took the children back to Pine Town and enrolled them in school. Lude promised them that he would teach them the knowledge and skills necessary to survive in today's society, and that once they graduated at the age of eighteen, they would have the right to choose their own way of life.

To Lud's relief, these indigenous students behaved very well after entering the school. Although they remained quite withdrawn and reluctant to have much contact with others, they did not attempt to escape. It was only after this incident came to light that Lud realized how deeply they had been hiding their true nature.

Facing the benefactor who rescued them from their suffering, the two little boys remained silent with their heads down, but Ludwig could easily tell from their evasive gazes that they still felt somewhat guilty.

So Ludwig moved a chair over and sat down directly in front of the two of them.

“I know you don’t want to betray your friends, but just by looking at the two of you, I already know who the others are. It’s alright if you don’t tell me. Our school rules clearly state that students have religious freedom, and it’s a personal choice which god they believe in. I will absolutely not interfere, but there’s one major prerequisite… the one you believe in must at least be a legitimate god!”

With a slightly teasing tone, Ludwig chuckled and shrugged. The two children wanted to argue, but the words caught in their throats.