“Done, let’s leave it like this for now. Let these people grind some Slimes first. As for the quantity… let me see… Hmm, they actually brought half a month’s worth of rations, so I’ll let them grind for half a month. A guy who is almost Second Rank takes about 6 minutes to kill one Giant Slime. There are 60 minutes in an hour, which means he can kill 141 in 24 hours. For four people, that’s 588 per day, and half a month makes it almost 2,500! Is that a bit much?”
Truth knew that 2,500 was just a theoretical figure; she still had to account for the resting time of these four, their physical endurance, and equipment wear…
“But these four guys have no idea that I’m using my brilliant brain to perform precise calculations for them. Besides, this is just a temporary design. Whatever, I’ll just show them a Progress Bar.”
Truth thought of a very worry-free method.
Meanwhile, inside the Punishment Stage, after defeating the first Giant Slime, a Progress Bar popped up before Mailun and the others without warning.
The Progress Bar had no exact numerical value; it was just a Common “loading progress” bar with a small tip below it:
[Progress bar full to leave]
“Full? What do we need to do to make it full?”
Mailun wondered, until they killed two more Slimes to clear a path and noticed the Progress Bar actually increased a tiny bit.
“Do we actually have to kill a certain number of Slimes to leave, or is this our progress toward the exit?”
Despite the lingering doubts, the four now at least had hope of leaving.
Whatever it was, they just needed to focus on two things: moving forward and killing Slimes.
Consequently, Mailun and the others sharpened their focus to the maximum, carefully calculating their every move to kill the Slimes.
In reality, the Progress Bar was neither the progress toward the exit nor the cumulative count of Slime kills.
It was simply a Progress Bar, or perhaps a timer.
Truth had set it so that as Slimes died, it would occasionally increase a bit every day until the fifteenth day.
“Perfect. Next, I can continue to mess around with the Punishment Stage. It’s just a pity that there are no poison pools or jumping puzzles yet. I need to hurry up and raise my Level…”
After returning to the Cathedral, Truth sat beside the statue of the Goddess of Life with her eyes closed to rest.
The cool breeze blowing in through the window from time to time was very comfortable.
The Disciples coming to pray were also very quiet, not daring to disturb Truth’s rest; they only stole a glance from a distance, took a deep breath of air, and then left.
Now, every believer considered Truth to be a Socially Anxious Saint, so they wouldn’t go up to interact with her directly for fear of scaring her.
Coupled with the rumors from Wangsheng City about a failed Assassination attempt on the Saintess, the Disciples felt the Holy Maiden was under immense pressure.
She had to lead Deya City toward Prosperity while staying on guard against Assassination.
No matter how capable the Holy Maiden was, she was still just a child right now!
The local Noble of Deya City, however, had slightly different views.
After several high-level figures, including the president of the Deya Bank, died suddenly overnight, the other Nobles drew a clear line between themselves and Truth, no longer daring to take the initiative to find her.
In their thinking, as long as a person accepted a gift, they were one of their own. But Truth was different.
This girl accepted every gift and refused no one.
Originally, a bunch of people wanted to provide for this great figure with good food and drink as a mascot, but Truth’s response was a series of unreasonable Assassinations, breaking a bunch of Deya City’s unspoken rules.
One could only say that when young people strike, they really have no sense of restraint.
It had caused everyone to lose sleep for the past few days, fearing that the moment they opened their eyes, a Church Assassin would be at their throat.
To protect themselves, they had no choice but to accept High Priestess Tia’s orders in all aspects.
If they couldn’t deal with the Ninth Saintess, couldn’t they deal with her?
The Nobles applied their usual way of doing things to Tia, using every trick like the “good cop, bad cop” routine, all to gain more benefits before Tia evolved into a seasoned veteran.
Then, just today, a mysterious fire suddenly broke out in the homes of the two guys responsible for playing the “bad cop,” and they were burned to death inside…
Without even thinking, it was obvious this was another Assassination!
Did a High Priest also have the Permission to mobilize Church Assassins, or was this the handiwork of the Ninth Saintess again?
Regardless, the Church truly didn’t care about them at all; they were just a group of dispensable consumables.
Later, everyone originally thought about reorganizing and working together to deal with the Ninth Saintess’s harassment.
Unfortunately, because too many people in the upper class had died, many were trying every possible means to climb up and achieve a class leap.
Other Nobles either took the opportunity to expand their sphere of influence or retracted to protect themselves, refusing to participate in the reshuffling after the night of Assassination.
Just like the nearby Watchfort, which was constantly in a state of riot despite having an army to suppress it, Deya City was also in a complete mess.
It was just that the undercurrents were surging here, unlike Watchfort where various Great Powers fought with real blades and spears in the open.
So now, in the eyes of all the Nobles, Truth was the most terrifying existence in the world.
Even now, no one could figure out if she was killing people on a whim or if she had calculated long ago who should die and who shouldn’t.
However, a few people caught a glimpse of something different from all of this…
“You, Priestling, come over here for a second. I want to ask you a question. Have you seen the God-guides in the city lately?”
Inside the Cathedral, a Student of Tia’s was suddenly called out to by Truth as she walked out from the back of the building.
“God-guides?” Faced with the Holy Maiden’s question, the Priestling clearly felt a bit panicked.
Her hands gripped the hem of her skirt, and her speech became somewhat stuttered.
The Holy Maiden actually took the initiative to talk to me!
“I… I don’t know. I only know they came to the Cathedral to give gifts on the day of the Divine Selection Ceremony. After that, I never saw them again.”
“Then can you help me go scout around and see? Tell them I want to meet them.”
“Me? No… No problem!” After receiving instructions personally from the Holy Maiden, the Priestling also ran out in a fluster.
This was a Task from the Holy Maiden; its importance had to be ranked First!
After the Priestling left, Truth entered energy-saving mode again, sitting quietly on the bench. She now wanted to figure out for what purpose this group of God-guides had used their real names to report her.
Actually, the purpose was simple: they wanted to go all out against Truth.
And the reason was that Truth had pushed the God-guides too hard.
It was already common knowledge that the Church personnel and the Nobles in Deya City were in cahoots.
Therefore, the God-guides also knew about the encounters the Nobles had during this period, and they knew even more details than the Nobles did.
For example, they had a better understanding of the Church’s rules and processes.
They knew the Church would not grant Saintesses the Permission for Assassination.
They also knew that the methods of Church Assassins involved cleanly slitting necks, rather than brutally hacking corpses into pieces.
After just a bit of careful thought, the God-guides guessed that there must be an extremely powerful force helping the Ninth Saintess clear obstacles and establish authority!
The Ninth Saintess was actually colluding with other Great Powers to persecute her own people?! This wasn’t like a Saintess at all!