Chapter 150: Setting Ground Rules (1/2)

Two days after the Fishmen Island event came to a perfect end.

After Vela received a report about ‘a suspicious character wandering just outside the Unnamed Town but can’t be fought because she’s an ally unit’, she led several guardsmen players whom Angora had recruited as NPCs to take a look. That was where they found that it was Kinley Ainsworth, the alchemist apprentice she had met back in Tunaya.

Kinley’s already-large eyes widened at the sight of Vela.

“Y-y-you… aren’t you supposed to be dead?!”

***

Although Kinley had witnessed firsthand how the Players fought as she stayed behind Edward and the others, Edward’s group was the top fighting force amongst all Players and any battle would flow smoothly like a stream as long as they did not do anything stupid. Moreover, Eleena the Saintess-in-training had gained great power through her tantrum over being denied milk pudding, and hence fought with so many special effects that the film studio must have unlimited budget.

And in the confusion, even if Joe and Gou Dan were accidentally killed while luring monsters and be immediately revived by Jessica and Eleena, the impression Kinley would get was that the two were merely punched to the ground by demons and then immediately brought back to the battlefield with a single healing spell. It remained within the realm of understanding even if Kinley wasn’t sure what healing spells had such cool special effects.

On the other hand, the reality of having someone come back from the dead was just too astounding that Kinley could not maintain her delicate lady image in her immeasurable shock.

After all, the Silver Eagle Duke himself had believed Vela too be dead, even convinced that he had inadvertently caused the death of his son’s retainer-slash-lover and was very guilty about it. He had even suggested matchmaking parties on multiple occasions for Angora wherein he would invite every noble daughter in the north for his son to pick one he liked, but Angora would never hesitate to decline.

Angora’s intentions were clear: gamers-got-no-time-for-babes.jpg

Horan naturally did not know that his son was too obsessed with his game for a blind dead, instead assuming that Angora was caught in the heartbreak of lost love and therefore felt even guiltier.

Though Horan did try to think of other ways to salvage the situation, Angora’s group had promptly teleported to the Lifestone at the Frogmen Village when they received word of the tsunami before Horan could do a thing.

As such, Kinley, who had been stunned by the System technology and assumed that the Unnamed Town was developed in alchemy beyond its time sought out Horan, informing him that she intended to head to Angora’s fief to visit him (and then think of something to learn the alchemy over there). The old man was at once relieved and did not protest at all, even giving her a lot of money for transport fee, several luxury carriages and diverting some of his best soldiers to be her escorts. In fact, Horan even went so far to hint that Angora had become the convert of a heretical god so as to prepare her mentally.

Kinley did not care much about the hint from the old man. As an alchemist, she was naturally a believer of Alchemie, the Lord of Alchemy—who was a heretical deity to the Brilliant White Church despite being a true neutral.

Be that as it may, Alchemie had believers far and wide with master alchemists who held monopoly over the core alchemy skills of the current age, and therefore controlled technology that could turn the status quo of the continent upside down. That was why every existing nation treated them with deference, with kings of certain smaller countries being ranked less important!

Kinley’s master was one of them. As such, even Cecil was acting like a dog trying to lick her feet despite being the eldest son grand duke, just to gain more power in his desire to expand his influence…

Either way, with their own gods having not set the rules to compensate for arguments between humans, the Brilliant White Church naturally wouldn’t go on inquisitorial hunts on Alchemie believers like they did to believers of other heretical deities.