Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Compared to Void Mask’s preparation for war, the god of mystery and His believers didn’t show their intention to battle at all, they looked pretty calm. They ate when they needed to, slept when they needed to, and held a “regardless of wind and rain, stay lofty and firm” kind of boldness. They didn’t seem to be bothered by Void Mask Church, nor other gods that formed an alliance with Sui Xiong in secret.
That made Sui Xiong feel complicated. He felt angry, as he was belittled, but he felt more of a relaxation.If he could go without war, he’d rather not go into war!
Although everyone knew that it would be inevitable to have conflict between two churches, and it would only be a matter of time for a major war between the gods, it’d be dragged on a day later, which meant another day was a good day, still.
Just like how everyone knew humans would die eventually, but who knew if one would commit suicide at such a young age? Oh, there was then the telltale sign of a psychopath.
Sui Xiong was not a psychopath, so he didn’t object to the temporary peacefulness. On the contrary, he hoped the peacefulness before his eyes could last longer.
It wasn’t for him to prepare better. Even if they started the war then, he wouldn’t think that he was not fully prepared, it was just that he didn’t want war.
One side took no action, since one side didn’t want war. Hence, the war that originally was thought to be vigorous, got delayed. After half a year, there was still no action.
But something else drew many people’s attention. The churches of the Goddess of Bumper Harvest and the God of Wealth got into a fight. Strictly speaking, that was slightly related to Sui Xiong. To be exact, it was related to the high priest in his church.
During the revival of Garth city, Leon Igor, who was a consul, carefully maintained the distance with the church of Goddess of Bumper Harvest, and took a lot of low profile action to disrupt the church of the Goddess of Bumper Harvest to recover their influence in Garth City. Simultaneously, he strengthened the connection with the church of God of Wealth and used his official power to expand the influence of the God of Wealth’s church in Garth City.
The most crucial factor was still money. When Garth City turned into ruin after a war, to revive a city from a piece of ruin, it naturally required an enormous amount of money. The amount of money was terrifyingly huge, and even if Void Mask Church poured in all their money, it would be inadequate. Under such circumstances, Leon contacted the church of God of Wealth, and used the position of official church to exchange the support of church of God of Wealth in reviving Garth City.
The church of the God of Wealth was one of the most well-to-do organizations on the main dimension on the mainland. Forget about those further away, in the two nations only, Dhaka Commercial Association and Gold Coin Federation, it carried a huge influence, or even occupied the mainstream of the upper class society.
But, in the Blue Moon Kingdom, the church of God of Wealth had always not able to develop properly. From the God of Wealth personally to high priests of various levels in the church, they all wanted to be able to do something at the east of the mainland. Thus, Garth City revival was a great opportunity that was hard to come by for them!
Hence, not only did the church of the God of Wealth take out a large sum of money, but they sent many selected warriors and clergies, and formed a pretty luxurious troop to garrison Garth City. All in all, both parties were happy with their collaboration.
Leon grasped the sense of propriety well. He allowed the church of God of Wealth to expand their influence smoothly, by not letting them take away the leading power. After the church of God of Wealth probed a couple of times, they realized that they wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the legendary knight that was smart. So, they forgot their plan to win against political power with clericalism, but focused on their influence among the people instead.
The collaboration took another step forward in development after the Diplomatic Business Hall in Storm Sea was built. The three parties took what they needed and got a lot of benefits.
But, there was someone who was happy and someone who was sad. As the church of God of Wealth laughed, it was the church the Goddess of Bumper Harvest that cried.
Garth City played a vital role to the church of Goddess of Bumper Harvest. In the past, it was like the nerve center of the churches, even though the earth-shattering war led to the wipe out of the entire higher ups of the nerve center of churches. Churches from each places gradually built their center of thought, one after another. Regardless, its position in name wouldn’t change.
Because of the church of God of Wealth, the church of the Goddess of Bumper Harvest had their influence weaken in Garth City, as well as the surroundings. Their believers diminished, and during the most serious times, there remained only a few. Compared to the prosperity before, it was torturing for the higher ups in the church.
They were of course upset, of course angry, and of course held grudges. The target of their grudges was firstly the dirty consul. However, the consul was alone, and he believed in a huge jellyfish that didn’t have much influence like himself, so they couldn’t take revenge on any target.
Hence, they moved on to set their grudges on the second target, which was the church of God of Wealth. The two parties first argued, then fought. They then constantly had conflict, and finally exploded into a bloody vigorous collision. The fight of the church of Goddess of Bumper Harvest, was suddenly lost.
Don’t forget that their higher ups of the nerve center of the churches had already been wiped out. Although there were still many experts, it wasn’t that they didn’t want to help the church in Garth, but their abilities favored one over another.
Comparably, the church of God of Wealth in Garth was a bunch of selected elite troops, and there were already two legendary experts. After exchanging blows a couple of times, the Goddess of Bumper Harvest was at a loss, and even the church’s main festival in Garth City lost its life accidentally.
The Goddess of Bumper Harvest was suddenly angry, and gave orders and instructed each church to select an elite, and to depart to Garth City to fight against the church of the God of Wealth. Even if they couldn’t retrieve their clerical position, they had to at least win back their dignity.
But, she could give orders to select elite, so couldn’t the God of Wealth do the same?
In order for the elites to get to Garth City as fast as possible, the God of Wealth even visited Sui Xiong, to provide him with benefits to borrow the transmission portal by the church of Void Mask that were distributed all over the mainland.
Not only that, but the God of Wealth even went to the God of Conspiracy to ask Him act against His interests, to ask the expert that stabbed knives behind people’s backs to help Him cover the reconnaissance of godly power. Hence, until the both parties took action, dealing with overbearing elites from the church of Goddess of Bumper Harvest, not only was the number of elites from the church of God of Wealth way more than them, they were all much stronger than them, and their equipment was so luxurious, it was to the point where they were a crazy troop that was even wearing a delicate gold mouth guard!
A fierce battle ensued, and the elites from the church of the Goddess of Bumper Harvest were wiped out. Even their souls were taken by the God of Conspiracy. That was a deal He agreed upon with the God of Wealth, so the souls of the believers of Goddess of Bumper Harvest that died in the battle belonged to him.
After the attack, the churches of the Goddess of Bumper Harvest in the entire main dimension had their vitality sapped. It probably wouldn’t recover until fifty years later.
Then, the Goddess of Bumper Harvest finally couldn’t suppress herself anymore. Then, regarding Dhaka Commercial Association and Gold Coin Federation, their crop harvest was simply tragic. On the other hand, the surrounding nations had favorable weather, and every acre of land was at least thirty percent better, so it was a bumper harvest beyond imagination!
Despite the God of Wealth scolding the Goddess of Bumper Harvest at Pantheon temple, the Goddess of Bumper was good at playing at the edge. She didn’t intentionally let Dhaka Commercial Association and Gold Coin Federation have a poor harvest, but only streamed in godly power at the surrounding area, and even poured in the share of the two nations into the surrounding nations.
Hence, famine happened.
The head chef in the “old axe” pub, or maybe it’s called the Traverser Sui Xiong MK4, was lying against the sturdy wooden door and looked at the starving people with worry. These starving people were mostly farmers. Their harvest was bad, but the taxation of the nobles wasn’t exempted nor reduced. After paying taxes, they couldn’t even guarantee a mouthful of food for themselves.
Under such circumstances, they could only take loans from businessmen, but most of the loan was rejected. The businessmen were brutal and smart. They could tell that there’s weren’t much benefits that they could get from the farmers, so they wouldn’t even waste a single penny on them.
The farmers that lacked of food sold everything that could be sold in their houses, but they still couldn’t get a sufficient food supply. Under such a situation, many of the farmers brought their families to gather at the town, as there were number of kind god churches that would give out food for charity.
The kind god churches could not give much food to the large crowd of starving people, but it was better than nothing. To the poor that were already as poor as a church mouse, that was their only hope to live.
Sui Xiong looked at the sight and was sorry. He could simply imagine the terrifying scene that would happen in the ending of winter and the beginning of spring. Although he learned art but not history, the two paintings of Flow Chart and Fluent Map (picture of the migrant figure intended to depict the displaced person) by Northern Song Dynasty official Zheng Xia and Republic of China Jiang Zhaohe were significant incidents that happened in painting history. If an artist that went through professional training didn’t know about this, he must be a counterfeit, of the worst quality kind!
Sui Xiong wasn’t considered as an elite in drawing, but he at least completed his entire degree during university. The sight of Flow Chart and corresponding history and story was appearing in his hear that very moment.
“Boss, can’t we figure out some ways to do something for them?” He returned to the pub in distress and told his boss, “If this continues, at most for two more months, the place would be strewn with corpses of the starved!”
The boss, who had sideburns and a beard that covered all over his face, sighed and shook his head. He was not hard-hearted, and he wanted to do something for these poor people, but what can a small pub do for them?
During that time, he reduced the price of the food to its cost price, with no profits,and the bread was sold out everyday the moment it got out from the oven. That’s all he could do.
“Hey, boss. Weren’t you an adventurer? I remember you have a nice crossbow, right?” Sui Xiong suddenly recalled something and asked.
The boss nodded, but he didn’t understand what he meant.
“Lend me your crossbow, and I’ll bring a few strong men to hunt.”
“Are you crazy?!” The boss got a shock and scolded, “Everything in the woods belongs to the feudal lord, those hunting in secret will be hanged!”
“Hanging means death, but starvation means death too. What is the difference?” Sui Xiong laughed sarcastically, “Regardless, we can’t just let them die of starvation…”
