Chapter 3: How Cultists Disguise and Sneak into Towns

Rand's judgment was wrong, because it took nearly a month for those who read the news to travel from the Theocracy to the towns with inconvenient transportation.

As for the King of the South, some people could no longer hold back and took action.

The war has begun.

Just one day after Rand saw his wanted warrant and left the town to return to his hideout, the army of the southern Kingdom of Lensa surrounded the place.

After the army passed, apart from the dead soldiers and the villages that were burned, killed and looted, what remained were the wounded who were not dead but had no way to survive.

Once the army passes by, no matter how prosperous the place was before, it will turn into purgatory.

The rich may be able to move to another place to live a life of luxury, but the poor will only starve to death on the streets.

In corners that are beyond the garrison's sight, corpse-eating creatures swarm together.

Beggars formed gangs and robbers became kings of the mountains.

There are also regular troops who are ten or a hundred times more greedy and vicious than the bandits.

Rand, unaware of the war outside, was sleeping.

These days he has been arranging for his congregants to work hard on the fields.

In addition to building toilets, the simplest composting still needs to be done, and piling the feces in one place can also effectively maintain hygiene.

After finishing all this, the exhausted Rand was sleeping soundly in the sacrifice room.

At this time, a group of robbers with barely any equipment appeared outside the hideout.

The bandit leader rode a skinny packhorse, holding a rusty sword, but looked at the village arrogantly.

This is a group of thin villagers who like to wear black robes, digging the land there with great effort.

He looks very weak at first glance.

For robbers, these people are undoubtedly fat sheep.

Although they may not be that fat, these people are pale and thin, and they don't look fat at all.

But he must be very weak! What he likes most is to bully the weak!

Although bullying the weak goes against his former morality, morality is nothing in the face of hunger.

They hadn't had a decent meal in two days, ever since the fighting had burned their village to the ground.

Hunger will quickly erode a person's rationality and morality.

The bandit leader called over a dusty boy and asked with a smile, "Kid, what's your name?"

Although he felt that this uncle with a sore on his face seemed to be a bad guy, he still answered seriously: "Seth, my name is Seth."

"Sers!" The bandit laughed arrogantly, "Call out all your people! If you behave well, I can leave you some food to survive!"

Twelve bandits were tied to wooden stakes in fear, while Rand rolled his eyes.

Fifteen cultists took on twelve bandits and won easily.

He really underestimated this group of relatively kind-hearted cultists under his command. Although they looked frail, their fighting power was actually much stronger than that of ordinary bandits.

Originally, after arranging his men to work, he would return to the sacrifice room to sleep. After experiencing the incidents of being sacrificed due to a bug in the assembly line and himself using a bug to brush his skills, he always felt that it was more peaceful to sleep here.

As long as he keeps sacrificing himself, he will be immortal!

Living in the sacrificial room is also in line with the temperament of a messenger of God.

Unfortunately, he was woken up by a noisy quarrel before he had slept for long. Rand, who was in a bad mood, walked out of the sacrifice room quickly and saw that one of Thes's hands turned into a tentacle and pulled a bald man with sores on his face off his horse.

How come these cultists really have such evil magic? I, a messenger of God, don’t even know how to use it. Now I have to go meet the Goddess of Fertility and learn from her!

Although sacrificing oneself now can no longer bring any substantial benefits, there is no cost to meeting the Mother Goddess anyway.

He always felt that this ability of sacrifice immunity had many uses.

He plans to develop this ability. Maybe he can learn some new skills by seeing more gods.

With Rand's arrival, the cultists present, including the paladin who didn't know that Rand knew he was a paladin, seemed to be boosted in morale.

Shouting "God!" "Friendship!" "Bond!" and other incomprehensible words, they beat down the bandits who didn't even have weapons and looked more like refugees than bandits, and tied them to wooden pillars.

Rand sighed, straightened his chest, and walked towards the bandit leader with a superior attitude. His face was covered with sores due to the wounds that had not been treated in time. "I am the messenger of the Mother Goddess. Do you want to meet our Mother Goddess, the great goddess of fertility?"

The bandit leader screamed in terror.

Perhaps the fact that he has managed to hold on without incontinence until now has consumed all his courage in this life.

The first robbery in his life was a cult den.

This life may be over, or it may be ending now.

"It seems you don't want to." Rand sat on the stool that Taner had very cleverly brought to him. This paladin seemed to want to be promoted. "So tell me what you have done. If you are qualified, our Fertility Goddess Sect also accepts people."

The leading robber was about to speak when he met Rand's dark eyes that seemed to see through all secrets: "Don't use lies. The Mother Goddess is thirsty for your flesh and blood."

He had no choice but to explain hurriedly: "Although, although we didn't do anything well before, we can do very well in the future, just give us a way to survive."

Rand looked at the other bandits, their frail bodies. Some of them had wet marks with a fishy smell on their trouser legs.

They are definitely not professional robbers, and this den just happens to be short of people.

Why are there robbers?

Although these people look like refugees.

"We are in need of slaves here." Rand smiled and patted the paladin who was like an iron tower beside him. "He will keep an eye on you."

…

"Today's lesson is how to hide your identity in the town." Rand sat on the stone platform in the sacrificial room, holding a makeshift wooden stick in his hand as a teaching stick.

There was a group of believers sitting cross-legged in the audience.

So who was not invited to attend this class?

It was Tanner! Tanner was not allowed to attend the course because he was assigned to supervise the robbers working hard at the time.

Now that the speed of land reclamation has increased due to the addition of a group of people, a simple problem has arisen: there are no seeds.

Since Rand is wanted, it is very dangerous for him to be outside, so believers need to go and buy him.

Then we have to confirm that they really have the ability to blend into human towns.

Rand glanced downward.

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Seth and Rand made eye contact.

Rand immediately understood: "You, that's you, answer my question."

"Ah?" Seth was stunned. Didn't the lecture start yet? Why was he asking questions? Rand ignored Seth's surprise and smiled evilly, "If someone in town asks you who you believe in, how would you answer?"

"The Goddess of Fertility! The mother of all things!" Seth answered almost reflexively.

"Wrong!" Rand shouted, and the pointer hit the ground with a bang.

"You answer!" Rand turned to another person. This person was called Serai. Unlike Seth, he was thin and had a big frame. If he was well-nourished, he would be a big man. He was the one who poached the lord's rabbit before and had to flee for his life.

He was obviously smarter than Bithers and replied, "Goddess of the Torch! The light and heat of the first civilization!"

"Very good." Rand nodded approvingly. "Tell Seth why you answered that way."

"Because if I say I believe in the Goddess of Fertility, I will be hanged. People outside are all pagans and are full of hostility towards us!" Serai said, puffing out his chest.

"Very good, that's a good idea." Rand nodded in agreement, then said with regret, "Unfortunately, it's still a wrong answer."

Serai was a little stunned and looked at Rand in confusion.

Rand shook his head slightly: "Because only registered freemen, nobles, mages, and royal families are qualified to believe in religion and enjoy the protection and assistance of the church.

"And if you go to the town now, you can only call yourself ordinary villagers. Villagers are not free people, but the property of the lord. You are not qualified to worship the Torch Goddess."

Rand clapped his hands and said, "I know you may not understand. Anyway, if someone asks, just say you don't know what God is or what faith you have."

"Okay, get out of class is over!"

Although Paladin Taner did not have the opportunity to attend Rand's course on how to disguise and sneak into a town, he later learned about the course from other believers.

But he was finally able to confirm that he had not come to the wrong place. This was indeed a cult den. At least these people knew that they were cult members who were hated by everyone.

And when he subdued the robbers, he clearly saw Sers's right hand transformed into a tentacle, and the evil power continued to stimulate his nerves as a paladin.

But now he was completely confused about his undercover plan.

These people are not evil and do not appear to be associated with other cults.

At present, the only evil thing that can be said to be happening is to turn these bandits into slaves and reclaim wasteland, but in fact, it is not too abusive, at least they are well fed.

Apart from that, they were no different from villagers hiding in remote areas to avoid taxation.

It's not that Taner hasn't seen other cultists. When he was a Paladin's squire, he also helped the church to eliminate cults.

The human skeleton fragments, rotten internal organs and dried blood all over the ground are still fresh in his memory.

But there were no such things here. He also went to the so-called sacrifice room and took a look, and quickly ruled out the possibility that sacrifices had been offered here.

Whose sacrificial room is full of furniture? This is obviously where people live. What are they sacrificing? Sacrificing the gods? Rand was a little panicked.

Because he felt that this paladin might discover that he was not a real messenger of God.

Wherever he went recently, he would see the suspicious look of this paladin.

He had clearly been promoted to overseer in charge of disciplining slaves, but he didn't do his job properly and instead suspected Rand!

Rand wiped the non-existent sweat from his forehead. He had no means to resist this paladin at this moment.

He had observed it over the past few days, especially the glimpse he took when subduing the robber.

Although he was wearing heavy armor, he did not look clumsy in his movements, and his strength was precise, each of his strikes was just enough to subdue a robber. When the robbers were tied up one by one, the ones who were actually injured were the cultists who failed to control their strength well, and none of them were caused by the Paladin.

If in the game, at least in the first expansion pack, this Paladin's strength is already among the strongest.

Maybe Rand is not much weaker than the Paladin now, but as an ordinary college student in his previous life, his combat experience was limited to chickens, ducks, geese and cats.

If a real fight breaks out, he will probably die in the first encounter. He has a very clear understanding of his own fighting ability.

Such a strong Paladin actually came to join this shabby cult. The possibility that he is really a fanatic has increased again.

It seems that I have to find a way to do something weird to dispel his suspicion!

(End of this chapter)