Witch Troupe and the Undead

This is what Lord Anta simply cannot tolerate. He can tolerate cults making money, and he himself might not even be able to resist joining in and splitting the profits 30/70. However, if this sect makes those docile, lamb-like commoners restless, that is something he absolutely cannot tolerate.

Frankly, aside from these doubts, it's hard to call this sect a cult based on its usual practices. After all, they don't extort money from commoners or collect strange donations. On the contrary, they are genuinely wealthy and honest. But their actions have truly shaken the authority of the nobility.

If these farmers cannot survive on the brink of life and death, they will think about many things they shouldn't. The fact that the villages that have gathered to resist taxes already shows this trend. As the lord, the Anta family naturally has to suppress them with thunder.

However, the people themselves are also the wealth of the family, and simply slaughtering them would not be very effective. Therefore, the lord's mission for them was to investigate this sect, find their meeting place, kill all these "cultists" and "cult members," and confiscate their property, since this wealth was indeed something the lord coveted.

As for the additional commission, which is to find out where these guys get their money from, whether they dug up some ancient tomb or some other special way of making money, the lord plans to do it himself.

However, while demanding that adventurers not kill too many "innocent civilians," he also implied that they could be more ruthless as evidence to frame the sect. Maripol, who had done so much of this dirty work, had no intention of complying.

LOL. In the end, these adventurers might become part of the lord's way of shirking responsibility and diverting blame. Anyway, adventurers don't stay in one place for long. Once they leave, this fat pig can say whatever he wants.

Those ordinary people below who don't have the brains to analyze right and wrong—or rather, those in the village who have brains or are developing brains—aren't they all about to be labeled as cult members? Then what's left are those who have no brains or aren't planning to develop brains.

"Are we really going to risk our lives for the bounty?"

"Yeah, right," the wizard said, stroking his staff. He only said that to reassure the nobleman. Of course, the adventurers had their own plans: "If we kill them all at once, this quest can only be done once."

This sect is so rich, they probably wouldn't mind spending a few hundred or a thousand gold coins to hire four exceptionally strong men, right? Serving two jobs is a professional virtue for adventurers—at least they do the work for one company before starting the next.

"Try not to kill too many people. Also, use non-lethal methods on the small leaders and important personnel as much as possible." The heads still need to be handed over, otherwise we may not be able to get the final payment.

At the very least, they needed to show the nobles that they had indeed tried their best to eliminate everyone. As for not eliminating them all, that wasn't a matter of attitude, but rather that as newcomers to the adventure, they could only do so much without accurate intelligence support.

"Let's get rid of these noobs, otherwise it'll be hard to explain later." If these guys who are so bad that it's almost like they're openly plotting something aren't taken care of, it'll easily make the employer doubt their professionalism or work attitude.

Inside the church's basement, four braziers burned fiercely. In the center was a beast-like statue that resembled neither a cat nor a beast, with its feet resting on burning flames and a laurel branch in its mouth. Bright water droplets fell from the end of the branch, accumulating into a large bowl of liquid in the basin below.

"Our Lord is the only merciful God in the world, who listens to the wishes of all beings and bestows just blessings and rewards. All you need to do is offer your loyalty and faith!" the cloaked priest shouted, revealing healed burn marks on his arms and neck, and a strange light shining in his cloudy yellow eyes.

"Our Lord has mercy!" The villagers below the stage had fervent expressions on their faces. A god who was willing to listen to wishes and grant them was much more like a god than those merciless and silent statues in the church.

"Your Excellency, I..."

"Ah, I remember your wish," the priest said gently, looking at the woman who had stepped forward from the crowd below the platform. "Come, receive the gift."

He took a small cup of water from the basin beside him and dripped it into the broken bowl held by the woman. This "holy water" could heal wounds and cure diseases, and also remove curses.

"And me, High Priest!" The believers surged forward. To other sects, this showed no piety whatsoever. But for the priest, it wasn't piety he sought, but desire. The more fervent and excited these people were, the sweeter and more delicious their desires and cravings became, and he was getting closer and closer to his own wish.

The priest let the crowd throng around him, a blissful smile on his face as he fulfilled their wishes. Those who wanted money received money, those who wanted health received holy water, and those who wanted women... oh, he couldn't give those for the time being, but he had aphrodisiac potions. He could grant all these worldly desires.

While these people's wishes are being fulfilled, a rich life force is also surging within them, and their own wishes are being fulfilled as well.

"Ah~ the great beast of desire~" the priest praised sincerely.

"Hehe~" In the corner, unnoticed, the man in the purple top hat bowed slightly, savoring the aura of desire and longing. The audience and the stage were like a giant tower. The lowest level was crawling on the ground, collecting money and craving the most basic material desires; while those in the middle were fighting over the elixirs they had made, craving further lust. Isn't kinship also a kind of affection? And those at the top, having satisfied everything, began to pursue immortality and power, and found joy in it.

"Loyal Gregorian is always ready to serve you," the man said, removing his hat and bowing, a savage smile spreading across his face, his sharp fangs gleaming in the firelight. "You who indulge in desires~"

“A contented person never cares where their contentment comes from, just as a lord in a castle doesn’t care where the wealth, delicacies, and beauties in front of him come from.” Gregory left the sacrificial site with light steps. He never expended his own power to fulfill other people’s wishes, at least not now that he had recovered some of his strength.

“The hardworking Gregory is just a laborious porter, earning only a meager reward in the process. After all…” Gregory looked into the distance, towards the direction of the Anta family castle, “Gold has no name, does it?”

Those who crave health are merely transferring their illness to others, while the sick also crave health. Thus, the disease does not disappear, but the desire continues to arise, and in this process, it becomes incredibly fervent.

Those who crave wealth only possess what they have accumulated in the past. Nobles hid this gold in tombs and treasuries, and Gregory only had to work a little harder to bring it out.

Those who crave longevity and power, but both power and longevity are illusory. Longevity comes from the life force distributed by these wishers, while power... "Power is the most illusory desire in the world~" Gregory whistled, his thumb repeatedly flicking a silver coin high into the air, through the soil and stones below.

He glanced at the four adventurers. "Ah, it seems we're almost there too. Let me see... the ugliness of humanity and that surging, sweet desire~" Gregory took a deep breath. The stench of humanity and the sweetness of desire intertwined, making him feel a little intoxicated.

"After all, what bad intentions could kind-hearted Gregory possibly have?" Then he saw a silver glow flashing in the direction of River Valley Town in the distance. "Damn! That shorty brat is chasing after us again?"

The sun, moon, stars, day and night, earth, water, fire, and wind are all divine powers close to the origin. And the beings sitting on these "divine thrones," no matter how unreliable they usually seem or how poor their combat performance is, possess extraordinary and powerful divine power.

In conflicts at the level of "gods" or "demigods," divine power is everything. Just as a piece of frozen tofu cannot break through a piece of iron, and an egg cannot break through a stone, the only time when divine power cannot determine strength is in battles in the mortal world, such as "incarnation descent" or "physical descent."

In other words, when wars between sects, nations, or races involve power and great energy at the level of gods, gods with stronger divine power will appear. They may not be as powerful as those who specialize in combat. However, once they leave the mortal world and return to their divine thrones, that's a different story.

There are no real conflicts between the gods. According to Roach's question to a lonely old god, for the gods, this process is like playing a video game.

You care about winning and losing, but you won't hold a grudge against the opposing player for using a bad character in a game—at most, you'll hold a grudge against that character, meaning that sect or nation might lose divine favor and protection—"This character is too difficult to use, relegated to the sidelines!"

The Lonely Old Goddess is like an unlucky player who gets trapped in a game and can't log out, like in the God version of Sword Art Online. Her sacred remains are a metaphor for "I'm quitting the game, leaving the treasure ship for someone destined to find it."

As for how much power this sacred remains can unleash after being possessed by something, it depends on how much the country that created the sacred remains invested and the skill level of the new player.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the Lonely Old God and the Moon Goddess are completely without conflict. In Luo Qi's understanding, it's like saying, "You fucking stole my account and turned my diamond rating into bronze, huh?! Let's have an offline solo match!"

"Although I don't quite understand your analogy, I get the general idea." Vilandella's expression twisted. You jumped around like that and didn't get struck by lightning. It seems that the lonely old god really has a heart as broad as the plains of Elan.

"But what I want to say is that Mother Yue is not so magnanimous; she is not very petty."

"Isn't it very big?" Roach asked, puzzled. Logically speaking, why would a god who appears as a loving mother be narrow-minded?

“A loving mother and a protective mother are synonyms. Do you think someone who is protective of their own is a magnanimous person?”

“That makes sense!” Roach thought of those unruly children on Earth and their unruly parents, and immediately felt the same way.

"However, Mother Moon is probably too busy. Her friendship with a certain lonely old god has capsized, and now it's time for best friends to turn against each other. Even if we talk bad about her here, she won't hear us. And even if she does hear us..." Even if she does hear us, the short, ugly guy across from her that everyone knows will laugh like a madman, responsible for drawing all the hatred.

Besides, most gods wouldn't be moved by the words of mortals, since most gods are either personalityless or have separate personality aspects, making them unable to play a leading role in behavior—but if someone's divine throne is demoted, then it's not a matter of personality or not.

"That shorty has become a god and returned to his throne, so why is he still chasing after Gregory!" The purple flames quickly fled into the distance. As for the unfortunate priest and his followers, well, well, all we can say is sorry.

His wish would still come true, but if he got caught, no one would save him—he was already in a precarious situation, and no matter how much he tried to move him, he couldn't get that shorty off the throne so he could sit on it!

That position was not easy to sit in. Even a subordinate god like the Moon Mother couldn't sit still in it, let alone be kicked off. He never thought such a thing would happen—even his former chief god might not have dared to kick that short, ugly chair.

"Forget it, forget it. Mortals are right. Indeed, the essence is in the condensed form. Let's go find that big ball of light." Gregory decided it was better not to provoke any bad luck. He decided to take a few more steps to the west or south. The Holy Lord of Light was still easy to bully. After all, there were too many gods or people who had kicked his chair, and he might not be able to deal with them all.

"The goddess said she was busy and told us to handle it ourselves." Lulua's face was full of confusion after completing her prayer, because the goddess's oracle had never been so clear before. Of course, this clarity was relative; it wasn't that the goddess actually said those words to Lulua, but rather that it conveyed some indescribable feeling and meaning, which made Lulua instinctively think of those words.

This is also a characteristic of most oracles. God can hardly convey information directly in a way that mortals can understand. He can only use mortals' own knowledge system and language to convey the simplest meaning. Therefore, the biggest job of church oracles is to translate these ambiguous oracles into something that can be understood by people, or to process those oracles that are so simple and straightforward that they are vulgar into something that cannot be understood by people.

If this were within the former Church of the Night Goddess, the oracle would have been altered by the diviner, becoming more ambiguous, rather than simply telling the believer, "The goddess just said she's too busy to deal with you; you'd better figure something out yourself."

This requires a bit of artistic embellishment to prevent believers from understanding; otherwise, the goddess will be fine, but the church will definitely be in trouble.

However, Lulua had clearly not received proper training as a church oracle, so she spoke so bluntly. Fortunately, the people in front of her had all actually met the throne and were already intimidated by that arrogant little short girl.

"The Goddess of Night says, 'Yes, this is a test that mortals must solve.'" Roach translated as much as he could for Rhine and the others who had never met the Goddess. "The good news is that, at least in the Goddess's eyes, we are capable of handling this matter."

"However, is the oracle that Miss Lulua received really true?" Rhine and the others were quite far away. After all, it was best for non-members of this sect not to directly enter the sacrificial site for rituals, as it was indeed easy for something to go wrong.

"Yes, that's right. But Lulu doesn't quite understand why the goddess doesn't take action against that Gregory."

“That makes sense. Besides, I’ve looked up a lot of information before but haven’t seen this name before. It seems I can only wait until we get to the capital and look for it in the capital’s library.” Rhine was also a little hesitant.

It seems the Empire is indeed going through a turbulent time, with all sorts of monsters and demons emerging at this time. Little does he know that the Beast of Desire, startled by Luluya's altar, is heading towards the largest territory of the Holy Lord of Light—the Imperial Capital. After all, the big ball of light has a good temper; kicking his chair won't hurt him, but that shorty isn't so good-tempered.

[PS]

If we don't create more events for Beijing, isn't it just going through the motions? Haha~

I wonder if such a gathering of heroes and wise men, a scene of vibrant life and flourishing vitality, might cause the old emperor to die on the spot~ haha.

Chapter 212 Gold, golden gold...

As the believers reveled in the fervor of their wishes being fulfilled, faint chanting echoed through the forest. The content of the chants was not mandatory for the wizards, but each syllable had its own meaning.

Maripol took a small handful of black lime from his pocket, made from ground obsidian. The ash spread out with a gentle twist of his fingers, unfolding a supernatural curtain of darkness.

The darkness created by the sorcery, Black Vision, spread forward through the forest. This curtain of darkness did not unfold in the real world, but rather opened within the eyeballs of the guards. On the surface, it appeared to be an impenetrable black fog obscuring the forest, but in reality, it was a faint layer of black matter that covered the target's eyeballs along the range of the spell.

Completely unaffected by magic, the swordsman set his greatsword aside and drew a short dagger from his lower back. The blade was only the length of a palm, soft yet sharp, and lay close to his wrist like a thin gray cloth.

This blade, which many street fighters call the "shroud," can only be wielded by the most skilled swordsmen. This weapon is not used in direct street conflicts, but rather in those clandestine killings.

The blade slowly slipped from between his fingers, and as the swordsman approached, it silently sliced ​​across the throat of the fool holding the wooden stick at the door, precisely severing his vocal cords, leaving him only able to utter muffled and weak sounds.

Novices often slit throats or major arteries. The blood, under the pressure of the heartbeat, will make a whistling sound from the tiny wound. To experienced guards, this means the intruder has been completely exposed.

"Pfft!" The blade slid into the gap between the ribs and the clothes, accurately severing the heart muscle. Then the blade pressed down, and the thin edge, under the sudden contraction of the muscles, sealed off the gushing blood in the cavity. The structure at the handle blocked the continued bleeding from the wound.

The swordsman waited a few seconds until the heart stopped beating completely and no more blood was being pumped out before drawing his blade. He then leaned a gradually cooling corpse against the wall and sprinkled some odor-eliminating powder on it. The powder absorbed the smell of blood to a great extent, and with almost no bleeding, no one could tell that the guard sitting on the bench had become a corpse unless they got too close to observe.

"It's done~" The swordsman made a gesture, and the remaining three slowly approached. The hammer knight was not wearing armor and helped the swordsman take his greatsword.

This abandoned church is the kind of holy church that is very common, and the underground chapel of such a church is not large enough for two warriors using heavy weapons to maneuver, and Hammer isn't very good at this kind of work either.

His job was to guard the exit. This seemingly slow and inflexible guy was most effective in this place full of ruins and bunkers. Those seemingly safe bunkers were his entry points and long-range weapons.

Dozens of seeds slipped from Maripol's palm as he raised his staff in his right hand. Driven by incantations, the seeds sprouted and grew rapidly, layer upon layer of poisonous thorns growing along the broken walls of the church, entwining the ancient pillars and the collapsed painted ceiling, blooming into jet-black roses.

A faint fragrance filled the air, quickly blending into the scents of grass, trees, and woodland. Unless a bloody sacrificial ritual was being performed here, it would not attract anyone's attention.

"Thud~" A small stone was thrown by the swordsman towards the door leading to the basement. "Who is it, Yorn, are you fucking crazy?!" A guard standing near the door pushed open the door, glanced at the stone on the ground, looked around and found nothing unusual, so he went up the steps to ask the guards outside what was going on.

As the head wearing the leather hat appeared, a large hammer swung down heavily. "Thump!" The guard fell silently and was promptly pulled aside by the hammer-wielding knight. The noise alerted the other guards, who came out together, only to meet the same fate: like being whack-a-mole, they were all taken down one by one with a single hammer blow when they were caught off guard.

“They’re really weak…” The swordsman piled the corpses on the original steps of the church. “Don’t relax too much. These guys were just ordinary villagers a few days ago. They weren’t exactly qualified guards. At least compared to the professional mercenaries we encountered at the Tidecaller Guild in Golden Sands Harbor, they were no different from ordinary farmers.”

These farmers subjectively knew they needed to be vigilant to prevent the lord's henchmen from discovering the place, but objectively, their lack of corresponding vigilance and alertness was also an undeniable fact. If a farmer could figure out how to be a bodyguard, protector, and guard in a couple of days, then the militia training camps and adventurer guilds in big cities wouldn't have the confidence to charge tuition fees of 5 to 6 large silver coins.

Moreover, without breaking through to the level of superhuman senses, it would indeed be too difficult for them to detect the intrusion of two superhumans whose minimum superhuman attributes are "Superhuman II" or above.

"With so much money, why don't they hire a few skilled men? I thought we'd have to put in a lot of effort this time." This was the reason why Maripol and his men had been haggling with the lord.

According to the mission description, this sect is the kind that is extremely wealthy and willing to spend money. Regardless of where their money comes from, they don't care if they rob the Imperial Bank. The key is that with money, they can hire a lot of mercenaries and adventurers who work for money.

They were actually prepared to maneuver and fight against their peers, or even those of similar skill level, in this unfavorable terrain, and even to fight against mercenaries of slightly lower quality but greater numbers on the other side's home turf.

"It's hard to say. Maybe we've only caught a tiny, insignificant branch of this sect." Maripol wasn't so optimistic. For adventurers like them, tracking down gangs in the city's sewers and eventually uncovering some strange and unusual forces was quite normal.

After cleaning up the body, the three men approached the wooden door. The ceremony behind the door was nearing its end, and the villagers, immersed in the joy of their desires being fulfilled, did not notice that the three men had tacitly entered from behind and blocked the door.

However, the priest on the platform noticed that he, who had previously been just an ordinary swamp villager, was now in a daze. After a brief moment of stunned silence, he turned and ran away.

"Chasing?"

“No,” Maripol glanced at the priest. He still needed to give him a chance to go back and report. Otherwise, how could they capture more of the prisoners, and how could they take on other people’s commissions after this case was closed?

"What about these people?"

“Kill them all. After all, this is our first mission, and we need to achieve something. Otherwise, it will be difficult to make mistakes later.” Maripol sighed and took out a dark, heavy piece of jet from his pack. This was the first commission. Lord Anta seemed not to be paying much attention to it, but in fact, he was watching it closely.

Moreover, considering the amateurishness of those guards, he really found it hard to believe that the lord's spies hadn't obtained a detailed list of these people. If he hesitated at this point, it would be tantamount to exposing himself, making it difficult to negotiate the final payment and subsequent commissions. Furthermore, the lord might include them in his purges after losing their trust.

"Attack!" The jet quickly lost its black color, revealing a bright and vibrant red filling the transparent crystal. Only then did the villagers notice the three cloaked figures who had drawn their weapons, but it was too late.

Flames suddenly burst forth from the palm, dancing and devouring the nearest human bodies, while others were cut in half at the waist by the horizontal swing of the greatsword. The battle lasted less than a minute, leaving only a pile of corpses. The adventurers collected the gold coins and potions, since 30% of them were theirs.

"That's quite a lot of money, over a hundred gold coins, right?" The blood-stained gold coins seeped blood from the pocket, looking unusually eerie.

"That's about enough. Notify the lord's men to come and clean up the area. As for that priest, I've already sent my familiar to track him. He's not a spellcaster; his power is a bit strange," Maripol said, shaking his head.

Since they needed to stay in Valley Town for a while, they needed a plausible reason. Roach's reason was that the train was under maintenance. Anyway, these people wouldn't understand the mechanical parts and magical creations he was fiddling with. In fact, even an alchemy apprentice like Vilandella couldn't quite understand them.

While this was happening, Natalia's carpenter knight also took the opportunity to build a batch of fairly comfortable bunk beds according to Roach's request and install them in the third-class carriage, so that a group of people wouldn't have to sleep on the floor.

The bed was made of hay, covered with a clean, thick linen sheet with multiple stitches, and the quilt was made of linen and filled with dried hay and scraps of cloth. In this small town, it was considered a relatively high-end item.

As for down-filled quilts, they can only be bought in the capital and other big cities. As for fur quilts, they are too thick and too hot for the train environment. Moreover, the smell of fur permeates the closed carriage, which is quite suffocating.

“Gregor, that’s the evil creature we encountered in the mine.” Faced with Black Raven’s confusion, Rhine explained to him why they were staying here to deal with the Gregor situation.

"It tempts people to make wishes, and these wishes are fulfilled in a malicious way, and it incites people's ambitions..."

“Hmm…” Black Crow nodded slightly, then pointed out a blind spot, “So, when he grants other people’s wishes, he doesn’t use his own power, but rather things he gets from somewhere else? And these things are things that the wisher should have? Then I have a question: Who takes these things away from the wisher? This evil object?”

This question is a bit malicious. Which nobles did this mess? That purple beast of desire was just a middleman. And to be precise, the root cause of the Warren family's actions was that old Warren abandoned his support for his illegitimate son and chose to stand on the side of his biological son and the family's interests.

Further back, it was his in-laws, the Frost family, whose pressure and plans led to the beginning and occurrence of all this. Of course, given Gregory's situation, even without these factors, it would have found someone to help it out of its predicament sooner or later.

"But when is 'sooner or later'?" Black Crow shrugged. "Maybe ten years, maybe 100 years, or even later. You see, although these problems can't be completely solved, if these lords did anything right, these crises would be greatly postponed, wouldn't they?"

“Perhaps you’re right, but now the trouble has come to us. As you said, he won’t use his power to fulfill the wishes of those who make the wishes. So, when do you think the local lords and nobles, and those wealthy merchants, will discover that the gold in their cellars is missing, and when they will find that the villagers are holding this gold?” Congel shrugged and said, “We all know what those lords are capable of, don’t we?”

“Yes…” Black Raven said wearily, “but we Shadow Ravens aren’t exactly champions of justice. In fact, we’re not exactly good people. So, if you want to persuade me to help, you’d better come up with a more convincing reason.”

They traveled together only because they shared a common enemy and a common crisis to deal with, not because they were actually on the same side or even subordinates of these imperial people.

“Gold coins,” Rhine said. “This sect is very wealthy and has a lot of gold coins to buy people’s hearts. Regardless of whether these gold coins come from the Anta family’s treasury, it’s like what those nobles often say: gold has no name.”

"Just gold coins?"

“What you need most is gold coins,” Rhine said meaningfully. “Although we can exonerate you, and even the emperor can pardon you, your birth determines that you cannot and will not so easily blend into the circle of nobles. Even if they don’t bother you in the short term, what about in the long term?”

"The Emperor will not, and cannot, eradicate the Floros family and all their supporters, relatives by marriage, and associates, as that would mean the complete destruction of the entire empire's rule."

There are too many entanglements involved. Even the emperor might not be able to completely eradicate the Grand Duke of Florus. He can only deal with the rebels or the more active members. As for the rest, apart from those unlucky ones who couldn't see the situation clearly and were drawn into the incident either actively or passively, most of them will only receive varying degrees of punishment.

“You and I both know that this punishment won’t completely destroy them, and the reason they were affected is also clear. Who do you think they will hold accountable for this?”