“You must know how to be a good god. Can you teach me?” Miranda looked at Roland hopefully.
“I’m not a god. How can I know how to be a good god?” Roland smiled helplessly. “When you have time, why don’t you talk to Elyse, the Life Goddess?”
“Won’t she look down on me?” Miranda didn’t seem confident.
After all, she used to be a girl from the countryside.
Although she knew neither Roland nor the floating city, she could identify the main gods and goddesses such as Life and Light.
She had been an undevoted believer of the Life Goddess, and she had a natural awe for gods and goddesses.
Although she had become a goddess, she couldn’t change her opinion just yet, and she still respected the Life Goddess more than she should’ve.
“It was her who asked me to protect you. I don’t think she’ll decline your request.” Roland smiled.
“Oh, right.” Miranda heaved a sigh of relief and became more hopeful. “Then how should we meet?”
“I don’t know.” Roland shook his head. “I’ve never seen the Goddess of Light or the Goddess of Magic leave their paradises. The Goddess of Light only showed up once in her territory on the main plane as a clone. The Nether God actually came in person once. Maybe you should ask her.”
“But you don’t allow me to leave my paradise. How can I ask her?”.
That was indeed a dilemma. Roland heaved a sigh. “I’ll ask for you if I have a chance.”
“Great! You’re really a great guy.” Miranda looked at Roland gratefully. “Right, can you teach me some things? Mages are the wisest people on the main plane. Sir, can you tell me your opinion on pain?” My opinion on pain?
Roland looked at Miranda.
The girl hadn’t been a goddess for long and looked simple. Roland didn’t know how she turned the Divine Spark of Suffering into a Lawful Divine Spark, but he knew better than to ask.
It was probably some sort of secret.
Sizing up the Maiden of Pain, he thought for a moment and said, “In fact, I don’t know much about pain, but I’ve read a thing or two in that aspect.”
“Please do tell me about it.” Miranda’s eyes shined.
“The sages among my people divide pain into two types: physical and mental. At first, we thought that mental pain was greater than physical pain, but then we realized that was wrong.”
Miranda’s eyes bulged when she heard that. “However, the books I read said that heroes and knights could suppress pain and even completely control their bodies with their minds.”
“That is, in fact, incorrect,” said Roland casually. “Certain people with a strong mind can ignore physical pain for a short amount of time, but not forever. If your body is always in pain, your mind is inevitably affected and you may suffer from mental illnesses. The liches are typical examples. Their lack of a physical body is essentially the greatest agony. What do you think of the liches’ behavior? By the same logic, enduring pain of the mind will affect the body too, causing weakness, insomnia, lethargy, etc. If it lasts longer, it will cause more serious diseases, such as chronic colitis.”
Miranda nodded. “So, physical pain and mental pain are equal?”
“Yes, or at least the sages among the Golden Sons think so,” Roland explained. “True health is that of both your mind and your body.”
Oh… Miranda didn’t really get it.
Then, Roland told her a lot of ambiguous moral lessons regarding the derivative meanings of “pain.”
For example, he said that negative emotions would cause mental pain and disappointment, and that people who were satisfied with their lives were less likely to feel pain but might also be less hardworking and competitive, so expectation management was very important.
To be honest, those moral lessons were all adaptations of the Chicken Soup for the Soul from reality.
However, Miranda listened attentively.
It was mainly because she was too unknowledgeable, and her believers… In this feudal world, females were far less educated than males on average.
The knowledge of a goddess, on the other hand, came from her believers.
The Maiden of Pain’s vow was to protect women. As a result, her rightful believers weren’t too many, because her target believers overlapped with those who believed in Light, Life, or Death.
This world had a limited population, most of which had been claimed by the Four Lawful Goddesses. The Maiden of Pain could only draw the females who lived in misery to worship her.
But the number of those women wasn’t great.
Miranda was aware of her restrictions too. That was why she threw so many questions at Roland.
Knowledge was a luxury in this world that even a goddess had to acquire one step at a time.
After the conversation on pain was over, Miranda wasn’t entirely satisfied, so she asked other bizarre questions. Roland answered all of them except those he wasn’t sure about.
For example, could the Divine Spark of a goddess be given to someone else? Naturally, Roland didn’t know the answer to that question. While Roland answered questions for Miranda, all the players were seething.
“Because Roland has been making fast progress, our title system can’t keep up with his pace anymore. So, we’re making a belated announcement: Roland has received the title of Godslayer for killing the Evil God of Suffering in the Astral Plane with Andonara (NPC). The stats of the title are kept confidential for now.”
Almost all the players were lost for words when they read the message.
They knew that it was coming, but they still found it unacceptable.
Actually, ever since Roland started flying the floating city, he had already been inhuman to most people.
It wasn’t a surprise that he slew a god. What was surprising was that he accomplished the task with only two people.
Last time, O’Neal organized hundreds of people, including more than a hundred Legends, to kill a goddess, but failed.
Additionally, they were only trying to kill a clone of the elven goddess.
That was far less remarkable than killing an Evil God in the Astral Plane.
The clone of a goddess was only one-tenth as strong as herself in reality, whereas the Evil God was in his prime in the Astral Plane.
Also, hundreds of people had tried to kill the clone, whereas only two people slew the Evil God.
The difference was greater than that between a human and a dog.
It was more like the difference between a human and a bug.
At least, that was the opinion of many players.
“I’ve lost interest in this game. A man should always fight to be the best. But how can you play the game when you’re so far away from the top?”
“I’m a casual player. I don’t care. I even admire him. He doesn’t spend any money on the game, yet he crushes all those rich players. This feels so great.”
“To be honest, it’s not strange that Roland can kill an Evil God, but it’s unbelievable that he’s faster than the official plan of conquest. Is he a bastard son of one of the game producers?”
“I’m quite curious about Cornucopia who swore to get back at Roland. Are they still confident of challenging Roland?”
“I haven’t heard about them recently.”
“The guild is already gone.”
“What happened?”
Then, the informed players told them what happened in another thread.
Three months prior, Charles, the chairman of Cornucopia, declared that they would fight Roland relentlessly, and they did.
However, Roland’s counterattack was imposed only two days later.
Firstly, the royal family of Hollevin dropped their cooperation with Cornucopia and shared detailed evidence of Cornucopia’s tax evasion.
They also announced that Charles would be wanted if he didn’t pay the taxes. Having no choice, Charles could only pay up. He had truly committed tax evasion, and he thought nobody knew. He didn’t think that the underdeveloped tax system in this world could trouble him. However, the royal family had hired a lot of players as advisors, and many of them were familiar with tax investigations. After that, the people of Cornucopia were hunted by the Guild of Assassins.
Not only was the leadership assassinated, but their heads were also chopped off and delivered to unknown places.
The leadership’s levels dropped by almost five levels.
Then, negative rumors about Cornucopia were sung over in all the taverns in Hollevin.
The rumors included their tax evasion, forced transactions, selling unqualified goods, framing their business competitors, etc.
Under the successive strikes, Cornucopia lost their cohesion. A lot of people left even though Charles promised them huge salaries.
The guild didn’t even survive for three months after the strikes began.
Charles, for one, had deleted his account. It was already level zero anyway. He might as well create a new account instead of being killed all the time.
“No wonder the market price is stabilizing.”
“That’s what I said. None of those monopolizing capitalists are good. The market is normal the moment they fall.”
In fact, not just the players, the other merchants in Hollevin felt like a mountain was removed from over their heads too.
The NPC merchants had always hated Cornucopia, but nobody dared to piss them off as the guild was the Golden Sons’ chamber of commerce.
They had learned the lesson that nobody who pissed off the Golden Sons ended up well.
The vampires were gone. The bandits in Hollevin had been mostly killed too.
As for the gangsters in the cities, they were like grasses that were cut again and again.
Anyways, no matter where the Golden Sons went, the safety level had significantly increased.
More importantly, the Golden Sons were particularly nice to the untouchables and asked them all the time if anyone was mean to them, promising to serve justice if the answer was yes.
Having been lashed for eight years, the rich merchants and nobles already knew how to keep a low profile.
Even the slaves were treated much better than before.
They had to keep a low profile. There were a hundred Legends, and countless Masters, among the Golden Sons. When Hollevin had almost become a garden to the players, a strange team traveled across mountains and forests to the edge of Wetland City.
After a brief rest, they took off their disguise and came to the gate of Wetland City openly.
Wetland City was already the most important business center of Hollevin.
A tremendous number of wagons passed through the city every day. Businessmen and travelers were entering the city 24 hours a day.
When those people appeared at the city gate, the merchants in line whispered to each other for a moment. Then, they moved aside and gave way. The city guards, on the other hand, nervously gathered into two lines and blocked the gate.
Outside of the gate was a group of fully-armed elves.
The captain of the guards, wearing standard armor, spoke in a casual and graceful tone. “Elves? You don’t seem very friendly. Is there anything I can help you with?” “I am Ans.” The young elf in the lead slightly bowed. “I’m one of the members of the Elven Council of Elders. I’m here to negotiate with the master of Wetland City on behalf of the Mother Tree.”
“The Mother Tree?” The captain was a player. Many players had lost interest in adventures and simply worked in the army for a reasonably good salary. “You mean the World Tree?”
“Yes,” said Ans coldly. “Several months ago, some of the Golden Sons invaded my people’s lands and slaughtered a lot of civilians. They even assassinated our queen. It’s a disgrace to the elves. We demand compensation.”
“Your queen died because she sacrificed herself, right?” The player chuckled.
“You were one of the invaders?” Ans turned extremely cold. He clutched his vine staff so hard that his fingers became pale.
“Not exactly. I was too weak to participate.” The player smiled and said, “However, I’ve seen the video… or as you elves put it, the magic footage of the past. I know what happened in the battle.”
Ans looked better. He said, “If so, ask the master of this city to welcome us immediately!”
“To welcome you?” The player shook his head with a smile. “I’ll report this matter to the city master. Please wait a moment.”
Then, the player rode a horse away very quickly… He was a Lancer.
Ans waited patiently with a thousand elves at the city gate.
More and more wagons and travelers were jammed on the road.
At this moment, another player who wore standard armor stood up and said, “I’m the deputy captain of the city guards. My elven friends, can you step off the road? We need to keep the lines moving.”
Ans narrowed his eyes and stared at the guy for a while, before he demanded unhappily, “You think those civilians and merchants are more important than a thousand elves who have returned with wrath to seek revenge?”
“Yes, they are.” The deputy captain smiled delightedly.
Not just Ans, all the elves who heard their conversation seemed outraged.
Many of the elves took out their bows and waited for Ans’s command.
Exactly at this moment, a transparent shadow appeared next to Ans.
The purple-haired woman, who carried a sacred vibe, looked at the deputy commander and said coldly, “The Golden Sons are just as condescending as they’re rumored to be. Tell your master I’m here, and that if I don’t see him in ten minutes, the elves will wage total war against Hollevin and the Golden Sons.”
