Chapter 42: Trickery (2/2)

“What? Are you a preacher?” Leah was doubtful.

Other churches would only recruit eye candies for their preachers or someone with the impression of being straight and honest so that they could rake in new followers into their church.

On the other hand, this preacher the God of Games has was… hmmm, boorish?

As expected of my god—such a personality!

“Preacher? I’m just a normal Player.” Marni laughed as he hurried the carriage along—he quite liked the title of Player, because it sets him apart from the believers of the other gods who were essentially harvested like leek in a farm. “Shush, silence. Something’s happening just ahead.”

The carriage quieted instantly at that.

Soon enough, several men in black robes stopped in front of Marni’s carriage.

“Hold. We’re having an inspection—what’s inside your carriage?” One of them yelled loudly.

“I am a traveling merchant from the Silver Chimes, in servitude of the Goddess of Prosperity!” Marni did not hesitate to shoot back. “You lot aren’t city guards of Wickidor, aren’t you? What right do you have to inspect my carriage!”

“Cut the crap. Open the door!” The same man urged with a stiffened neck, but his voice was not as confident as before. In fact, he looked like he was barely keeping it together.

After all, although the Goddess of Prosperity was not a greater god, her believers were many—some believers of other gods were her shallow believers as well, and in terms of divine power, she was the best of the best amongst the second-tier deities. If not for her singular Divine Order and the fact that she could not ascend in divinity, she probably would have reached the same threshold of the Seven Heavenly Fathers.

Therefore, the Skull God itself would only be given a violent beatdown against the Goddess of Prosperity, much less some pesudo-deity like Rotten Bones who was in fact, a denomination of the Skull God…

“I can open the door, actually, but it’s a blasphemy to my faith so you would have to pay up. 500 Rions per person!” Marni conceded with great timing.

“Tch! Blasphemy my foot! So expensive, do you think your carriage is made out of gold?” Another black-robed man complained.

“What, don’t you know merchants who pray to the Goddess of Prosperity has a rule that carriages only store merchandise! Your suspicion that I’m hiding other things is in itself a heresy against my faith!”

Marni turned to place his hand on the carriage door handle, ready to open it. “Get your coins ready, or I’m complaining to my branch chief if you forfeit the debt! Ah, which church are you lot from by the way?”

The men, upon seeing that Marni was about to con them of their money just by letting them look into a carriage flung curses and foul language at him before running off without turning back.

It was not as if they could not pay, but they did not want to spend it so foolishly—if Marni had charged them an impossible price, they would instead find him suspicious. Therefore, a price that was expensive but not out of the question was as realistic as it was disgusting.

Additionally, the cultists’ religion was not one that could be exposed to the public. Any mishap here could bring the existence of Rotten Bones to light, and their fate afterward was quite predictable!

Still, they did suspect Marni. However, the Silver Chimes guild was just nearby and he did not appear to belong to some unknown church given how the other merchants were quite acquainted with him. Moreover, even if his guild ring that identifies him as a member of Silver Chimes was gone, the crests of Silver Chimes and the Goddess of Prosperity on his carriage had not faded yet. After all, that goddess was not as idle as Xi Wei and would certainly not act immediately over some trivial thing, and it would be some time before the crest disappears.

With that, Marni slipped past the Rotten Bones’ checkpoint and brought Leah to the refugee camp outside of the city to recruit some of the vagabonds as new Players…