“100,000 Gold Coins?! Does this Ninth Saintess really lack worldly experience, or does she think money grows on trees? She asks for 100,000 just like that!”
Three days later, at the Church headquarters in Wangdu, Archbishop Tichara swore loudly as he looked at the letter sent from Deya City.
He had originally thought the Ninth Saintess was writing to offer greetings or ask for guidance, but instead, she opened her mouth and asked for money!
Did she even understand the concept of 100,000 Gold Coins? Tichara took a deep breath and slowly placed Truth’s letter on the table.
‘But I can’t just not give it to her. I’m afraid she’ll be just like Aisia and go straight to the Goddess to complain… Wait!’
Tichara suddenly thought of an excellent solution. He snapped his fingers, signaling the servant at the door to enter.
“Someone, go check the Ninth Saintess’s Priest Evaluation and her Academy grades for me!”
100,000 Gold Coins was a massive sum. As an Archbishop, Tichara had to follow the rules, didn’t he?
Doing things according to the Church’s procedures and the rules previously set by the Goddess was perfectly fine!
Then, he needed to find that boy Marius to ask what kind of person the Ninth Saintess actually was.
Even now, Tichara felt the Ninth Saintess was very strange.
On the day of the Divine Selection Ceremony, believers from several cities had come to see her, yet she hadn’t used the following days to expand her influence.
Instead, she had retreated and didn’t even meet with the Nobles.
It could only be said that she was either planning something or she understood nothing at all. Tichara leaned toward the latter.
Soon, Tichara found Marius reporting for work at the Inspectorate.
After some questioning, Marius replied, “The situation in Deya City is actually a bit more complicated than we imagined…”
“How so? Is the Ninth Saintess really some kind of tyrant?”
Tichara suddenly became excited. This was good news!
Their Church of the Goddess of Life was always taken advantage of by other forces because the previous eight Saintesses were all pushovers.
They lacked an iron fist, causing the Church’s military strength to decline steadily. Now, only the Demon Hunter Legion was worth mentioning.
If the Ninth Saintess had some backbone, wouldn’t the Church become martially formidable under her leadership?
Although it slightly contradicted the tenets of the Church of the Goddess of Life, the Saintess was the one leading it!
To every believer, the Goddess of Life was equivalent to the Life Saintess. Therefore, if the Ninth Saintess said it was time for war, then the Goddess had said it was time for war!
“I must disappoint you, Archbishop. My first impression of the Ninth Saintess was that she is quite gentle. If you want more details, you can ask Eve. She stayed with the Ninth Saintess the entire time we were in Deya City. Also, please gather the others later this evening. I have something very important to report to all of you.”
Marius planned to reveal the matter of the “Mist Faction” that Truth had mentioned.
Since the Goddess had seemingly permitted it, the Church had to be informed.
He feared that a future misunderstanding might offend the Goddess’s will, which would be disastrous.
“Eve? The eldest daughter of the Igor family? I’ll go ask her.”
Thus, Tichara immediately rushed to the Igor Manor. As soon as he entered, he saw Eve lying in her mother Ilia’s arms, weeping piteously.
“Mother, I almost didn’t get to see you again. I almost caused your deaths! And I’m not clean anymore, waaaaah…”
……
Deya City, Cathedral of the Goddess of Life.
After three days of waiting following his negotiation with Truth, the Demon Hunter Kavier finally secretly gathered the legion.
They prepared to launch a surprise attack on five Demon gathering spots on the plateau.
Simultaneously, all Demon-Hunting Armies within the Sylvia Kingdom would conduct a large-scale purge.
Their goal was simple: to make sure the Demons wouldn’t dare show their heads for the next ten or even twenty years.
If they did, they would be eliminated instantly!
Now, Kavier officially invited Truth to their Fourth Front to oversee the operations and comfort the wounded.
With the Saintess watching over them, the Demon Hunters would be even more courageous!
At the same time, Kavier hoped Truth would do something about the conduct of the Military Priests in the army…
“Military Priests? When I went to Watchfort before, why didn’t I see any Priests in the military camp?” Truth asked.
Previously, she had only seen Demon Hunters and regular soldiers in the camp; she hadn’t seen a single Priest.
“I deliberately isolated them for the time being because I was afraid you would be furious upon seeing them, or perhaps be corrupted by them… In short, you’ll understand once you see for yourself.”
Corrupted by them? At this moment, Tia, who had been listening, suddenly frowned and interjected, “Then I must go with the Saintess to prevent any accidents!”
Kavier agreed with this. Only Truth remained completely bewildered.
Were they guarding against those Priests or guarding against her? And if Tia left, who would manage Deya City?
“Deya City doesn’t need managing for a while. Many positions in the local Church are now vacant. After you leave, Little Truth, they’ll spend the near future fighting each other to the death for those spots. Besides, no one in Deya City dares to oppose you now.”
Tia was determined to go with Truth. Truth saw no downside and agreed, planning to set out after the Sun went down to see what this Demon-Hunting Campaign was all about.
After Kavier left, Truth quietly returned to the Mist, intending to see the situation inside one last time before leaving.
The Dungeon was still incredibly popular, with long queues still forming.
Truth had already increased the Dungeon rewards twice.
Coupled with the news of ultra-rare Monsters appearing in the Mist, a huge crowd of people was wandering all over the Mist in addition to the teams challenging the Dungeon.
‘Maybe I can set aside an open area as a free challenge zone for the Adventurers to run wild in,’ Truth thought, rubbing her chin.
However, the available Monsters and materials were currently too few.
Their Level was still a major issue.
She needed to continue expanding the Mist.
The Adventurers would just have to be patient; once she returned from the Demon-Hunting Campaign, she would definitely make them suffer!
After checking on the Myron Squad—who still had about one-third of their Bread Rations left—Truth decided to go check on her cottage. Four days had passed, so Ariel should have finished her work.
With a flash, she appeared at the cottage door. She saw a girl and a snake crouching on the steps, holding several old books.
Ariel was carefully critiquing Myron’s illustrated masterpieces, while Little Mist used the tip of its tail dipped in ink to write the thirty-two basic letters on a piece of white paper.
“What are you two doing?” Truth snatched the book from Ariel’s hand and flipped through it, finding she couldn’t understand a thing.
“Uh… we, we are… studying?” Although she really was studying, Ariel still felt a bit guilty. Little Mist also timidly put down its pen, waiting for Truth’s reaction.
“Studying what?”
“Well, I thought it was quite smart, so I wanted to try teaching it how to read… and stuff.”
Ariel would never admit that she was teaching Little Mist to read just to pry information about Truth out of it!
“Is that so?” Truth stared at Little Mist for a long time, making the snake curl into a ball out of fear.
‘What should I do? Has my goal of learning the human language to find this person’s weakness been exposed?!’
After a long silence, Truth finally broke into a smile.
“Isn’t that great? Learning leads to progress. Keep up the good work. Oh, right, Ariel, these books you found are too low-quality. Can’t you find some better ones in the Academy’s library? Just give them my name when you go.”
“I can go into the city again?” Ariel asked softly.
She had always felt she could only leave the Mist if Truth agreed, like when she was allowed to go into the city to pick out furniture.
“Actually, the entire Dea Plateau can be considered my territory. It’s just that you aren’t very obedient yet, so I restricted your range to the Mist at first. But now, I permit you to move around within Deya City.”
After saying that, Truth walked into the cottage to see how Ariel had decorated the place.