Goddess Kaleidoscope

"I don't even have that thing, what am I afraid of?"

"...Forget it! Let's just roll the dice. One or two means a vow, three or four means marriage, and five or six means a child. One roll decides everything. Don't be too disappointed, all of these will definitely be arranged for you in the future. Right now, it's just a matter of order."

"Alright then, but I'll throw it away myself."

Shanis took the dice from Lud and clasped her hands together as if grasping hope. She muttered something, praying to someone, and shook the dice for a long time before finally throwing them onto Table Mountain. They spun around a few times and finally landed on a five. This meant that Shanis's second new divine position would be "Child-Giving".

Shanis seemed quite satisfied with the result.

End of this chapter

Having finalized Shanis's second divine position, Lud felt he had almost finished dealing with his tasks and returned to his bedroom for a peaceful sleep. However, for Trin, who was trapped in a cage, it was destined to be an incredibly difficult and sleepless night.

Before being arrested, Trilling had some concerns, but ultimately, under the influence of wishful thinking, he contacted his family behind Lud's back. As a result, he was slapped in the face by his own brother, and it was a "physical slap" that was extremely damaging and humiliating.

From the very beginning, Dorn, who captured Trilling, never intended to let him leave the dungeon alive. He didn't act immediately, purely to extract information from Trilling and, incidentally, vent his years of resentment.

By age, Dorn and Trinn were the same age, with Dorn being less than a month younger than him, but the two brothers were treated very differently at home.

Trinn, the eldest son born to the legal wife, was pampered from a young age, while Dorn, the third son born out of wedlock, held the title of "young master" but was actually raised as a servant. This stark difference in treatment made Dorn, like his other unfavored brothers, feel resentful.

He was clearly a playboy who only knew how to eat, drink, and have fun, a good-for-nothing who wasn't even worthy of carrying his own shoes. But his father was out of his mind and insisted on making him the eldest son, entrusting the entire Navarro family to this piece of trash, and he would have to work for him in the future.

Fortunately, "God" finally opened his eyes and let Terlin go too far, and in the current situation, he fell into my hands. If I don't play with him for ten days or half a month, it would be a waste of my more than twenty years of resentment.

Therefore, when Trinn knelt and begged Dorn to spare his life for the sake of their brotherhood and the fact that they both shared the same surname "Navarro," Dorn immediately wore a cruel smile and, without saying a word, slapped him a series of crisp, loud slaps, cursing him with resentment as he did so.

"How come you have the surname Navarro? You don't deserve to have the surname Navarro."

Dorne's humiliation caused Trilling immense pain and shame. He regretted not heeding Ludd's advice and instead staying obediently in the hut where they were hiding, waiting for news from the old man. That place might have been small and simple, but at least there wouldn't have been a stinking little brother with a bunch of big men humiliating him so brazenly.

Fortunately, in order to "play" for a few more days, Dorn specifically instructed his men to be careful and not to kill Trin before getting enough information. So, although Trin was tortured until dawn, he managed to save his life.

"That's all for today. I'm going to go back and catch up on some sleep. We'll continue after dinner tonight!"

After torturing the near-death Trin into an iron cage, Dorn laughed as he left the dungeon, leaving only two men to guard it.

They were assassins hired from out of town by the Chamber of Commerce manager. They considered this job a good one, as the pay was good and the work was not difficult. Moreover, the manager had given the brothers a hint that Young Master Dorn was very satisfied with their skills and intended to recruit them.

For assassins like them, who roam the underworld, going from "wild dogs" to "domestic dogs" is a successful class leap.

After leaving the dungeon, Dorn intended to go back to his room to sleep and recharge for the evening's "entertainment," but he ran into the merchant guild manager on the way. The manager handed him a letter, and Dorn, who had been nonchalant, immediately became serious upon seeing the black border on the envelope.

"When did you arrive?"

"Just now."

Dorn glanced around and, seeing that only he and his trusted steward were in the corridor, quickly opened the envelope and glanced at its contents. It was brief, containing only a few sentences, instructing Dorn to send someone to Pine Town to find a young girl named Olivia, fourteen years old, whose main physical characteristics were blonde hair and blue eyes.

The letter also subtly indicated that the girl came from a top-tier family and had been pampered since childhood, so her appearance and demeanor would be very easy to recognize.

What concerned Dorn was that the urgent letter from his hometown only told him to search for the girl in the area and to write back to inform his family immediately if he found her, and not to take any rash actions.

"Olphia...who is this girl?"

Although he didn't know exactly what his hometown was planning, Dorn at least understood what the black-bordered letter meant, so he immediately ordered the steward in front of him to send someone to do it.

Songshu Town is neither large nor small, with a local permanent population of just over ten thousand. And right now it is winter, and most of the outsiders are busy evacuating. If they don't want to wait until the heavy snow closes the mountain passes, they will have no choice but to stay in the town for the winter.

So the area to be searched is only this big. If we really start searching, we can probably get results in three to five days.

After assigning the task to his subordinates, Don, who hadn't slept all night, yawned and was about to go back to his room when he saw his head guard, Chris, running towards him with a nervous expression.

"Grandma... what's wrong now?"

"Young Master Dorn, the Baron's men have arrived; they're right at the door!"

"The Baron's men! What are they doing here? Who's leading them?"

"The leader was the Knight of Athos, who also brought a whole squad of soldiers, saying they wanted to see our highest-ranking official, but they didn't say what they wanted to do."

Upon hearing that the knights were under the Baron's command and that they were accompanied by soldiers, Dorn, who considered himself to be a seasoned traveler and accustomed to all kinds of local lords, immediately thought that they had come to "extort" them, which is commonly known as blackmail!

In his preconceived notion, most nobles were greedy and stingy, racking their brains every day to figure out how to exploit the people under their rule, while merchant groups were just passing "fat sheep." Those who were ethical might just take a few sheep, while the wicked ones might even want to kill the sheep and eat them.

In most cases, when a lord sends his knights and troops to their doorstep, it's to ask for money. If these merchant guilds want to continue operating in the area, they have to meet the other party's demands.

Having only recently arrived in Pinetown, Dorn naturally assumed that the local Baron Cork was the same. A three-year-old might not understand the value of money, but the old lady certainly did. Dorn had prepared for this in advance, not only procuring a complete set of jewelry as a gift but also mentally preparing himself for the consequences.

Aristocratic widows in their forties typically have high sexual desires, and a young man in his early twenties like him is exactly what these tigresses crave. Dorn is quite the expert in this area, having cultivated numerous relationships with women outside the marriage.

After a moment's consideration, Dorn had a plan. He told Chris to go find the steward and prepare at least one hundred gold coins in cash, while he himself headed towards the entrance of the trading post to meet this Knight Ados in person.

End of this chapter

In the sunless dungeon, the battered and bruised Trin huddled in a corner of his cell, barely covering his face with the last piece of his cloak. Outside the cell bars, two guards ate and drank, verbally humiliating Trin for their own amusement.

"Hey! You ugly bastard, are you hungry? I have some good food here. If you just bark like a dog a few times, I'll be kind enough to give you a couple of bites."

"If I don't want to bark like a dog, I'll imitate a pig's bark!"

"Hahaha!" x2

Both guards were hired assassins who had already been recruited by Dorn. They were present during last night's interrogation, and these scumbags of the underworld had already roughly guessed the relationship between Dorn and Trinn from their conversation. But each of them wisely pretended not to know.

They had all heard of, if not witnessed, the sordid affairs among the heirs of powerful families. Everyone knew in their hearts that this person had no chance of leaving this dungeon alive, and it was unlikely that he would even leave with a complete corpse. How many more days he could live depended entirely on the mood of the new boss.

"Hey buddy, how about we make a bet?"

"What are you gambling?"

"Let's bet on how many days this guy can last."

"Heh! Three days at most. And if I were him, I'd smash my head against the wall right now. At least I'd die a quick death without suffering!"

The two guards were talking loudly, and Terlin heard it all. He tried to calm himself down, but he couldn't stop himself from trembling uncontrollably. A chill ran down his spine and spread throughout his body, making him almost cry as he murmured.

"Help me! Someone please help me!"

As if under the watchful eye of a deity, just as Trin was muttering a few words, a strange "click" sound suddenly rang out from the dungeon. The two guards immediately noticed the anomaly; their years of experience made them almost instinctively reach for their weapons.

At this moment, one of the sharp-eyed guards noticed a black hole about six or seven centimeters in diameter on the wall where the entrance to the secret passage was located not far away. He clearly remembered that there was no such thing on the wall before.

Realizing something was wrong, he quickly patted his companion on the shoulder, reminding him to watch out for the black hole in the wall.

However, before they could take any action, the black hole suddenly made a series of "thump thump thump" sounds and sprayed seven or eight black balls into the dungeon. One of them rolled right at the feet of the two men and then exploded violently.

"Boom boom boom..."

A series of explosions instantly turned the entire dungeon into a mess. Even though the dungeon was located several meters underground, the muffled explosions and unusual vibrations still reached the ground, causing Dorn, who was negotiating, to suddenly change his expression.

The explosion came from underground, and the noise wasn't particularly loud. Dorn estimated that it could only be heard from this side of the courtyard, while the noise from the street outside the courtyard wall would easily be drowned out by other noises.

But as fate would have it, this Knight Ados from the Baron's family chose this exact moment to come knocking. Not only did he hear the explosion clearly, but the town guards he brought with him also heard it. Several veteran-looking men even instinctively reached for their sword hilts, and the atmosphere instantly became tense.

"Mr. Dorn, what is that sound?"

"Ah... this might be the pot used for brewing medicine that exploded! Haha, Sir Knight, you may not know, but our big pot for brewing medicine often explodes."

Dorn reacted quickly, hastily concocting an excuse to try and smooth things over, but Ados, with a furrowed brow, clearly didn't believe him. Seeing this, Dorn quickly gave a signal to the steward beside him, who immediately stepped forward, turned his back to the guards, and handed over the money pouch he was holding.

"This is just a small token of my young master's respect. I hope you won't find it offensive, sir."

When doing business abroad, knowing how to offer sacrifices to the local deity is arguably one of the fundamental skills of most successful businessmen. In Dorn's experience, this tactic is extremely versatile; most people wouldn't turn down money. Of course, there are exceptions—a few stubborn individuals, whom Dorn dislikes dealing with the most.

Upon seeing the money bag handed to him, Ados took it and weighed it a couple of times. Dorn, who was looking down, caught a glimpse of this familiar gesture out of the corner of his eye and was immediately delighted. However, when he looked up at Ados, he found that the other man was staring at him. Then, he turned to the side, held up the money bag, and said...

"I was just asking, but you confessed without asking."

"My lord knight, we are here..."

"Ron, take your men and search this place thoroughly!"

"Wait, wait! Sir Knight, you can't do this! We have an order from a high-ranking official in the capital. If your men accidentally break something, and the higher-ups blame us, even the Baron you serve can't bear the consequences!"

Dorne tried to stop Ados and his guards, and was forced to bring up the so-called "big shot in the capital" to intimidate them, hoping that Ados would back down. The latter half of his words even carried a hint of threat.

However, Ados on the other side only sneered, and without saying a word, he drew his knight's longsword from his waist and placed it directly against Dorne's neck.

"An important person? I don't know him!"

"you……"

Without Athos saying anything more, the apprentice knight Ron immediately led a group of soldiers into the trading post to conduct a thorough search. They had only come on a routine patrol, but they hadn't expected to make an "unexpected discovery" at the Black Mandala Trading Company. Ron, who had long wanted to make a good impression on his seniors, was working extra hard.

Search! Search carefully!

Faced with the well-equipped and well-trained town guards, everyone in the Black Mandala Merchant Guild, from the shop assistants to the guards, was trembling with fear, none daring to actually step forward to stop them. After all, their young master was standing right there in the courtyard, the knight's sword only 0.01 centimeters from his throat!

Soon, Ron and his men discovered an illegally constructed two-story basement beneath the Chamber of Commerce building. Part of the first and second floors were warehouses, where they found a lot of contraband. At the deepest part of the second floor, they even found a private torture cell.

However, when they arrived, the place was already in a mess. One of the walls had a large hole in it, seemingly violently broken open from the outside. The other side was the town's sewers. Only two guards from the merchant guild were found unconscious on the ground. No one else was found.

After listening to his subordinates' report, Ados thought to himself that he had really run into trouble. The problems of this chamber of commerce were far more serious than he had imagined. Meanwhile, Dorn was horrified. He vaguely sensed that he might have been tricked by someone!

End of this chapter

Let's rewind five minutes to when the explosion first occurred.

Faced with an unprecedented attack, the two bewildered guards reacted just a fraction of a second too late, getting their faces slammed by the magical shock bomb. Trinn, however, escaped unharmed because his face was covered by a tattered cloth and he was a bit further away.

A series of explosions instantly killed two guards and startled Trin, who sat up abruptly, completely bewildered. Then came an even louder explosion, blowing away the secret door leading from the dungeon to the sewers. Trin watched in horror as a massive, long-legged shield emerged from the gaping hole.

"Hmm, hmm, cough cough... Damn! Third brother, didn't you put in too much alchemical explosives?!"

"Hey! You were the one who complained there wasn't enough and asked me to put in more!"

"Stop arguing, you two, let's find the hostages first... Are you sure you won't get blown up?"

The giant shield suddenly spoke in a soft, cute girl's voice. Terin, still in shock, thought he was going insane and had a bizarre illusion.

Suddenly, three round, light green heads (Alkin Helmets) emerged from both sides of the giant shield, looking around like three-headed monsters from mythology. They quickly turned to look at Trin, who was huddled in a corner of the cell, making Trin's scalp tingle. He only snapped out of his daze when one of the heads spoke up.

"Hey! Is your name Trillion?"

"Ah! It's me!"