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Chapter 501: Religious Reform

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

The next day, this temporary campground became clamorous even though the sun had barely rose. All the experienced travelers knew that time was limited in a day for traveling, and setting out early in the morning was a common sense. While mostly everyone were finishing their preparations for setting out, a certain individual ran over to say goodbye to me.

“You want to stay behind to help reconstruct the village? Sure.”

I agreed quite readily, to the point where Thor was rather astonished.

Actually, there wasn’t much to guess regarding his reasons. Thor was staying behind for another reason besides simply reconstructing a village. Since he had decided to begin spreading the teachings of Law, of course he would need to carefully protect the seed he’d just planted as it would wilt quite easily if he left it alone.

And, the villagers would only dare to return to their original homes with the protection of the Silver-ranked Thor. After all, bandits weren’t the only threat in this world. Violent wild beasts or magical beasts would also be fatal encounters.

When the Swift Sword bandit gang attacked, the village militia that was only sufficient to deal with some wild wolves had all been instantly slain. After that, since the bandit group wasn’t numerous enough to keep control over all the villagers, all the adult men that might be troublesome to deal with were killed off as well. Only the elderly were kept alive as sacrifices to be sold off, together with the children and women who were more valuable. Since no adult men were left, these villagers would meet great difficulties by themselves in reconstructing their village, not to mention the possible dangers they might encounter.

Not only that; if they didn’t have any guarantee of safety, they would only be able to try going to a larger city to make a living for themselves. Some villagers with certain skills would be able to make a living there, but it would be more common for the villagers to be forced into becoming beggars or prostitutes there.

They would obviously prefer to try reconstructing their homes instead. Their fields had been left untouched by the bandits, and perhaps they would even have an abundant harvest this year. Plus, they received the Swift Sword gang’s belongings as compensation, so at least they didn’t have to worry about food and clothing for the time being. If they could have a decent life in their home village, who would want to leave?

“What about your two companions? Are they going to go together with you?”

“No, I discussed it with them already. They’ve both decided to go to the ruins. Their power is likely to be needed there.”

I nodded as this was something I’d expected as well. I then handed him a slip of paper.

“Take some of these mercenaries with you. Reconstructing a village will require a lot of physical labor. Mercenaries should be quite good for that. Once the reconstruction is finished, hire the mercenaries to protect the town for a while. It’ll be impossible for you to do everything yourself.”

“Baten—owes 17 gold coins? This paper is a list of gambling debts?”

Yep, I had just given Thor a list of some gambling debts that the mercenaries owed me. I felt pain in my heart as I dug around in my belongings and even tossed a small sack of gold coins to Thor.

“Yes, that’s the money they owe me, which will be used to pay for their salaries. This money I just gave you is the additional payment I promised them for coming along with me. I personally picked these mercenaries, they’re all trustworthy veterans that are reliable. You can rest assured making use of them.”

The goblin Thor had a grateful expression, and was about to say goodbye and set off when I continued speaking. “It’s such a pity. Miracle Hand Timlad is probably the greatest and smartest engineer in the entire world. It’s said that he’s already developed a brand-new path of goblin engineering...”

For any goblin engineer, being able to meet a master engineer would be an incredibly valuable chance. It would be the same for an art student to meet a grandmaster artist. This wouldn’t be a simple meeting of one’s idol, it would be a chance for great progress through discussion.

And, Timlad was no ordinary great engineer. He was the critical genius engineer at the center of the entire magical engineering revolution. He was revered as the wisest person of all by countless goblins and gnomes. If Thor missed the chance to meet someone like Timlad...

Alright then, Thor’s earlier grateful expression instantly turned awkward. I could feel that his goblin passion had instantly transformed into depression and helplessness, causing me to chuckle happily.

“Hmph, since I have to pay money, how could I possibly let you leave in such high spirits?”

“...You really are a twisted individual. Since you’ve paid the money already, why can’t you just happily act the part of a good guy?”

“Tsk, I’m already a good person.”

“Yep, yep, a good person, a good person who’s been single for more than three hundred years. Perhaps you’ll remain a good person for the rest of your life.”

“What a vicious curse! I also bless you to become a good cat for your entire life!”

The silly cat shook her head, appearing to lose interest in our elementary schooler level argument.

“Still, that little brat is really lucky. Since you wrote a letter of recommendation for him to Xueti, doesn’t that mean his future path will be quite easy?”

“Ha, you don’t understand the bastards in the Church of Law at all. In their eyes, ‘a valuable potential sprouting seed’ is the equivalent of ‘a novice that needs extra trials and tribulations’. Anyone I personally recommend will probably undergo ‘the harshest trials possible’. Thor wants to get promoted? He’ll probably have to go through every hard time imaginable first.”

Although I indeed felt rather helpless to comment on Thor’s previous behavior and actions, I was at least quite satisfied with how he acted last night. That was why I had written a recommendation letter for Thor to Xueti, the highest-ranked priest of the Church of Law.

“He’s no longer called the high priest. I received news last month that Xueti’s official title has been changed to high judge. Every priest in the Law job classes shall all now be referred to by terms in the Law profession.”

Harloys’ words caught my attention.

“They’re using the level 1, level 2 judge, and so on system from Sulfur Mountain City again? Isn’t that making it obvious that we’re making a break from the old Gods’ Churches’ system? How will the Gods’ Churches react to such a large-scale religious reform?”

This appeared like only a simple name change, but it was far more than that if one thought it over carefully. This represented the fact that the Law job class members would now be acting as their statuses in the Law profession rather than in a religious profession. This was a major religious reform by the Hell Faction, aimed at reducing divine authority.

This also meant that the Law believers were believing in the Concept of Law itself, not the God of Law. While this might seem insignificant, there was actually a huge difference. This was basically a declaration of war against traditional religions in Eich. It was easily predictable that there would be a great backlash.

“...There was no reaction. Not a single church member at Cardinal level or above made any comment.”

Even though this was clearly supposed to be a success that was happy news, Harloys’ emotion in her message was filled with worry as if this was the worst possible result.

“No reaction? How is that possible? Oh... they decided on having a reckoning with us later!”

If the Gods’ Churches didn’t issue any official opinion on this, that was the equivalent of a tacit acceptance of the Church of Law’s religious reforms. And, such a reform was already treading upon the taboo of the Gods’ Churches. Believing in a Concept and believing in a God were already two ideological factions that were mortal enemies with each other. Unless the God intended on unifying with the Concept, there would always be a war in the end.

Of course, it was theoretically possible to ignore someone as a special exception, but this would basically be the equivalent of having a pure materialist in the middle of a pack of religious ascetics. Obviously, this would attract a great deal of negative emotions and dissatisfaction.

“The God of Law and his Church of Law don’t even solicit donations or offerings. Why do your Gods want so much money? Also, they claim that sinners will enter Hell, while you claim that you can enter heaven simply by offering enough money. Just who is in the right? They also have divine power and Divine Arts, but their priests are capable of taking care of themselves. Why is it that your priests need to do nothing but pray, and never have to worry about food or clothing, why...?”

Well, it was likely that not even Pope Caloma of the Holy Church would be able to answer such questions.

In that case, the best way for the Gods’ Churches’ higher-ups to deal with this was probably to temporarily pretend not to see us “heretics”, and deal with us later after the Holy War.

“Xueti rushed things too much. It’s too early for such religious reforms; it’ll attract enmity from the neutral True Gods...”

I stopped complaining halfway through. I had chosen that tauren with so many negative hobbies as the boss of the Church of Law because he actually had a steady personality. Xueti wasn’t the hasty type at all, and even if he made a rash decision, Lilith and the others would stop him.

“Just how long have you not read any religious magazines? Alright, I know that you hate those things the most, so I’ll just tell you.”

All the Gods’ Churches followed what was popular, and put out their own magazines for scamming money as well. Half of the magazine would contain the teachings and sayings of their particular church, and some bastards even placed weak hypnosis runes within their magazines to help influence the readers to believe in their church. I would never pay even a single copper coin for such mental pollution! Yep, it was all because it was a scam, definitely not because I was stingy!

“...You lost your imposing manner at the end there, along with exposing the truth.”

Harloys, however, loved to purchase and read all sorts of random religious magazines, especially the ones from the Elf Gods... alright then, it would seem that the silly cat wasn’t foundationally different from before at all. Yet, she always called me stingy and grudge-bearing.

“Ever since two years ago, many Gods’ Churches have been complaining about Law job class members invading and stealing members from their territories. There have been more than two hundred complaints, and starting last year, the complaints more than tripled. As for this year...”

“How many complaints were there this year?”

After hearing this, I pretty much understood.

“This year’s not over yet, but there’s already been more than eight thousand complaints. The complaints come from a total of approximately ninety churches and two hundred and forty different countries. Shall I report each and every one to you?”

“F*ck! Isn’t this pretty much half the world opposing us? Are we becoming the mortal enemy of the entire world?”

Now, I finally understood why the moment that the Church of Law’s Northlands trio arrived in Anton Town, the priests and holy knights from that tiny church rushed all the way over from the distant Sala Dukedom capital. The Church of Law was getting too famous for stealing believers from other churches. If it wasn’t for the fact that the Holy War was still ongoing with the fight between Order and Chaos, the other Order Gods’ Churches would have long since made their move against the Church of Law.

“This is basically, basically... a wonderful job!”

My originally depressed feelings completely disappeared? The other countries and churches were complaining? Let them complain. At any rate, there would be no “internal war” until the Holy War ended. It wouldn’t hurt me one bit if they just angrily scolded me.

Originally, I had been worrying that we would attract too much enmity while spreading our teachings, but since I learned that enmity against us was on such a large scale already, this actually meant that the Church of Law had been highly successful in spreading their teachings. I was plenty used to being viewed with enmity already.

“Many places are now calling spreading the teaching of Law as the ‘Law plague’.”

I even broke out into laughter when I heard this. Indeed, from a certain standpoint, the spreading of the teachings of Law indeed resembled a calamitous plague.

Let me use the villagers here from Lanty Village as an example. If Thor successfully planted the seeds of Law here, then it was highly likely that several dozen low-level Law job class members would be born here within the next two years. And, if one of those Law job class members visits another village, perhaps another several hundred Law job class members would be born, and then they would travel and spread again... This really did feel a bit like a plague, or even a cult.

“Our original plan was that it would take a minimum of thirty years to spread our teachings through the entire world. We accomplished this in only seven years? We’re more cult-like than a cult.”

In the end, the teachings of Law had only been able to spread so quickly because of its own specialties.

This was a world where the strong preyed on the weak. A power that could be used by an ordinary mortal would naturally spread quite quickly. This was also why Evil Gods’ Churches were impossible to stamp out completely. While it was definitely better to believe in a True God rather than an Evil God, the True Gods wouldn’t reward their believers so easily. Meanwhile, the Evil Gods would typically reward their believers instantly when they prayed, and Evil God believers were also able to progress far quicker in power level. In this world, concrete power would be far more convincing than any abstract church teachings.

And from a certain standpoint, the Church of Law did things even more ridiculously than an Evil God’s church. After all, if you worshipped a demon or devil’s church, even if you were given power or your wish was realized, you would definitely lose something even more important and valuable. Meanwhile, the Church of Law would also give you power, but not take anything in return.

The Church of Law didn’t have actual churches. There was no need to pray to the God of Law. No expensive religious rituals were required. One only had to believe in Law, Justice, and Protection... There was nothing abstract about the Church of Law’s teachings. This greatly reduced the cost of cultivating the power of Law, along with greatly reducing the difficulty of teaching Law. A small booklet would be far more difficult to defend against than an Evil God’s ritual.

The power of Law focused on protection and punishment. It wasn’t a power that could be used effectively for attacking. Most domain lords were quite happy to see law job class members appearing in their domain as Law was a power specialized for protection. While law job class members weren’t effective at invading, they could be used to protect towns, along with repelling wild beasts and enemy invaders. And, the powerful individuals in the Law job classes wouldn’t pose any threat to the domain lord’s rule (for the time being). And on a deeper level, the Law job class members would even deal a blow to the local religious authority, which would expand the domain lord’s authority. From a certain standpoint, this was yet another battle between royal and divine authority. If it wasn’t for the domain lords secretly stirring up trouble and helping the Law job class members along, it wouldn’t have been possible for the teachings of Law to spread so quickly.

But, the most important factor of all was that the requirements to become a Law job class member were incredibly low. And, growth rate in Law job classes was rather fast. This caused mortals who desired to control their own fate to voluntarily learn more about the power of Law.

Of course, there were also plenty that tried to pretend to believe in Law just in order to obtain power. However, it would be impossible for such individuals to utilize Law Incantations without a sincere understanding and belief in the Concept of Law. And even if there was a person who was intelligent enough to use Law Incantations regardless of personal beliefs, that person would always become self-inflated after obtaining power. The moment that person used their own powers for personal gain...

“Divine Law, the seventh crime of the thirteen crimes, those who forget their own duties and use their powers for personal gain shall be stripped of all their powers of Law forever!”

The previously wild and fantastical declaration was now concrete reality. It was no mere saying that Wumianzhe was forever watching you. Anyone who was stripped of the power of Law would find it impossible to use the power of Law again for the rest of their entire life.

And, everything about all of the above was all because Wumianzhe had now reached Main God status, and also because the God of Law and his Hell Faction had now become an independent third major faction.

Only if the God’s divine power was sufficient would they be able to summon divine miracles as they pleased. Last night, the divine miracle that Thor showed the villagers of Lanty village caused several dozen people to choose the path of Law. By giving them the seeds of Law, this in turn obtained their belief, which would also provide more divine power for Wumianzhe.

As I previously said, the Holy War would both be a trial and an opportunity for the True Gods. It would seem that the God of Law had already turned this into an opportunity.

Perhaps this was also how the God of Holy Light had achieved his rapid growth during the previous Holy War. In the end, the God of Holy Light completely lost control of himself. As for the God of Law of today, he was tightly bound by his own rules. Wumianzhe was destined to remain as one of the most important gears of Hell.

“Since things have already reached this state, why don’t I add some more fuel to the fire?”

And so, I brought out a piece of paper and started thinking about what I should write in my letter to Xueti and Lilith.