Chapter 23: Chapter 23

Marni Wilf was a little troubled.

Because the five brats who had helped him send a tribe of goblins fleeing had asked to come along with his merchant convoy.

He certainly welcomed them with open arms since the quintet who called themselves believers of the God of Games held undoubtable ability—even if their behavior was rather bizarre. With their company, they might actually even stand a chance if they ran into magical beasts.

Moreover, he did not have to worry about them having ulterior motives toward his merchandise. To put it unkindly, the brats could simply kill his entire group and take anything they want if they wanted to. With his group’s escorts dead or injured, they did not hold a candle against the youths at all.

With that in mind, Marni Wild did not hesitate to agree with Edward’s request to tag along.

It only took two days for the merchant to realize that he had been too naïve…

The brats were bothering every person in the merchant group in almost every waking hour to preach about their God of Games.

Being a traveling merchant who knows things, Marni certainly was aware of the God of Games—it was less than ten years since the fall of Tierra, and back then, the nation of entertainment had been a paradise even for merchants. In fact, Marni’s first bucket of gold was made by selling wooden chess sets in Tierra.

He missed the nice and sincere citizens in that country who would even treat inferior traveling merchants such as him as equals.

Nonetheless, the rumor he heard was that it was precisely because Tierra’s faith in the God of Games left their citizens obsessing with playing and gambling. Their minds deteriorated and in turn weakened the nation, allowing neighboring countries to besiege them.

Moreover, their faith in the God of Games proved meaningless. In the end, Tierra’s royal capital was taken, with their king Yakaran the Eleventh falling in that battle.

Then, after dividing Tierra’s lands, those neighboring nations made it so that the fall of Tierra became a cautionary tale in education, banning all their citizens from praying to the God of Games.

In fact, the soil on which Marni and the others tread now had been Tierra land, belonging to one of the countries which had helped destroyed it.

One way or another, in most people’s minds, the God of Games was a weak god, and holding faith in him was as unrewarding as it was not worth the trouble.

There were actually those who would believe the deity was fabricated by Yakaran the Eleventh himself, that the divine being himself never existed.

Marni had himself believed that the God of Games did not exist. He thought that the five brats were trying to disguise themselves when they tried to preach about their faith, that they were reluctant to reveal their true god.

After all, the Divine Order of many gods were in itself a flaw that left their clerics vulnerable. It was better therefore to stay cautious and not simply offer their own actual faith.

It was therefore unexpected that the brats really believed in the God of Games, and kept preaching to the merchant group!

At first, there were one or two escorting guards who, unable to stand their incessant, almost pestering coaxing that they agreed to be converts, even learning to pray like they did.

Marni had expected them to be putting on a show to spare themselves the trouble. But in two days, those guards were actually preaching about the God of Games as well!

Moreover, that evangelism most crude was actually a success: half of the merchant group was now were believers of that whatnot God of Games!

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Marni also noticed then about the oddity revolving around guardsmen who converted as believers of the God of Games. They had virtually given up on their battle qi meditation or daily training, and yet it would be not quite right that they had become lazy—those were the same guards who would leap into action immediately whenever the convoy ran into beasts or obstacles or any sort, and would in fact chase their target for days just to slay them. Still, it did leave their group in peace since no wild beasts dared to cross their paths anymore…

That being said, the new believers seemed to have learned a new mysterious language entirely as well. They would often gather to discussing or arguing unusually, saying things like ‘shit, how can you steal kill my target!’, ‘no beast no EXP, go do main quest’ or ‘which class is better? can’t choose, should default as warrior’.

In fact, Marni had by chance caught one of those guardsmen converts who sleep-talk saying that he hoped the goblin tribe would attack them again…

‘How is that deity a ‘God of Games’? He is entirely an evil god who corrupts the heart!’

More than that, some of the guards were asking Marni to learn his sword skills over the last two days.

***

Though Marni was a traveling merchant, but doing business with the many beasts—even magical ones—prowling the land, one should naturally have a skill or two apart from guts.

Even if Marni’s ability was not actually comparable to his guards’ captain, he did inherit a sword style from his family.

Still, even if it was an heirloom, it was nothing more than an ordinary style improved from the ways of the sword his ancestors molded from being in battle. It was not really anything secretive, and indeed, his grandfather had hoped that the improvised style could be spread, and as such Marni taught it to the captain when they sparred.

Then, it turned out that the guardsmen captain whom he had put his hopes and dreams was also brainwashed, and became another convert of that bunch on the fourth day. Nonetheless, soon after his conversion, he suddenly told the other believers of the God of Games that Marni Wilf’s sword style could help with leveling up.

And with that, the guards kept approaching him to learn his sword style…

But annoyingly, once he showed any of them his skill, they would nod and say they understood before quickly launching into a tirade of swings and stabs more proficient and deadly than his style… if Marni did not know that they had not learned it beforehand, he would have suspected that they were out to make a fool of him.

They also often attempted to preach to Marni, only to be rejected on every occasion.

“I would die or fall of that tree over there before I renounced Gaglomeia, the Goddess of Prosperity!”

Marni sighed when he remembered that. Wolfing down his ration in three bites, he rose to his feet, ready to continue the journey.

With their current location, it would be around two days before they leave the forests to reach Salt Mine City.

Then, one of the guardsmen who converted just yesterday approached him.

“You want to learn my sword style too?” Marni excitedly drew his sword, ready for a demonstration.

“Ah, it’s fine. Mister Edward just did an experiment a while ago, and it turns out that even Level 2 of your sword style would not match Divine Earth Split Sword, and it is one of the basic skills…”

A variety of expressions happened over Marni’s speechless face. “Is it hard to learn that Divine Earth Split Sword?” he asked.

“Not really. The requirement is Level 3, and I learned it yesterday,” the guard replied.

Marni was silent once again. It was after some time that he said with great difficulty, “Well, can I still convert to the God of Games now…?”