Plan

After that, following the caravan, Duanmu Huai and the others arrived at Carcassonne, the central city of Bartonia—the city said to be blessed by the Lady of the Lake.

The city was a perfect example of medieval style: white walls, conical towers, bright red flags fluttering in the wind, and fully armored knights riding warhorses.

No wonder the forums said that Bartonia perfectly combined everything people imagined about medieval knights. Looking at it now, this truly did seem like a pastoral paradise.

With the caravan from the Lady of the Lake Merchant Guild accompanying them, Duanmu Huai and the others entered the city without much trouble and arrived at the Lady of the Lake Merchant Guild. The foolish knight's father also apologized to Duanmu Huai for his son's reckless actions and expressed his willingness to help them.

In the end, Christine and Elisa successfully bought a shop from the Lady of the Lake Merchant Guild. They mainly planned to sell small ornaments—as nobles, they had a decent eye for that sort of thing.

Old Knight Kado intended to stay behind and continue serving the two of them as a servant, while the Elf Scout also said she would remain there. After all, as a royal spy, she had lost her master and had nowhere else to go.

The only ones leaving were Duanmu Huai and Okegis.

"Are you really leaving, Black Knight? Sister Okegis?"

Elisa looked at the two of them with tears in her eyes, her face full of reluctance. After finally escaping alive, Duanmu Huai and Okegis had stayed by their side the entire time. It could even be said that without those two, they would never have been able to leave the Empire and reach Bartonia so easily.

"Of course, Elisa. We still have our own mission to complete."

Duanmu Huai reached out and patted Elisa's little head. He had accompanied her all the way to Bartonia mainly as repayment. After all, she had given him the Holy Relic directly and decisively, so Duanmu Huai naturally could not simply abandon them. But his journey certainly would not end here. Aside from this Holy Relic, he still had other Holy Relics to recover, including the ones from his memories and the ones currently held by the other three imperial heirs. Since Elisa's Water God's Gift was one of the Holy Relics, there was an equally high chance that the other three were as well.

However, taking the Holy Relics from them probably would not be as peaceful as it had been with Elisa.

Besides that, Duanmu Huai's most pressing task was to continue searching for ruins and increase the number of Soul Cards in his possession. Among the decks he currently had, the Puppet Card Deck's attack power could no longer keep up, and only Okegis could hold the line. The Necromancer Card Deck could occasionally be used, but it was unsuitable for being released outside. Combined with his attire and appearance, it would instead easily arouse suspicion.

Thus, Duanmu Huai's next goal was first to increase the number of usable Soul Cards, then search for Holy Relics outside the Empire. He had no interest in getting involved in the Empire's current mess. He planned to find another Holy Relic, unlock the Hall of Inquisition Library, analyze the Antimatter Energy Core, and build an entirely new energy reactor. After that, he would be able to supply power to the space station.

Then... he could rain down justice.

By then, no matter how chaotic the Empire became, it would all be settled with a single shot.

"Thank you very much, Sir Knight."

Christine also respectfully bowed to Duanmu Huai.

"If not for your and Miss Okegis's assistance, we would probably never have been able to escape the Empire and reach this place. We can never repay such a great favor..."

"There's no need to repay me."

Duanmu Huai waved his hand.

"Elisa gave me the Gift of the Water God, and in return, I brought all of you out of the Empire. It was merely a transaction, so you don't need to take it too much to heart. Well, then..."

Saying this, Duanmu Huai turned toward the Elf Scout.

"I'll leave this place to you. After all, one should not harbor the intention of harming others, but one must always guard against others as well. Bartonia may be praised to the heavens outside, but who knows what it's really like inside?"

"I'll do my best. This isn't the Empire, and there's only so much I can do."

The Elf Scout nodded. She was now tied to the others, so to speak. She also agreed with Duanmu Huai. Although Bartonia truly looked like a wonderful pastoral land, as a scout—and a royal spy at that—she did not believe there was really such an innocent and perfect place in this world. Thus, she planned to investigate secretly. Even if she did not cause trouble, she could not allow herself to be inexplicably taken advantage of, could she?

After everything had been arranged, the group fell silent for a while. They had not known one another for very long, but during their journey as refugees, they had grown accustomed to always being together. Now that they were suddenly going to part, they were all somewhat reluctant to leave.

"...Well, then, I suppose this is it."

In the end, Duanmu Huai was the first to speak, while Elisa gazed at him with tears in her eyes.

"Black Knight, will you come back to visit us again?"

"Of course. If I have the time, I'll come see you."

Duanmu Huai was not merely saying that to comfort her. Now that the Teleport Beacon had been activated, he could place a beacon here and travel back and forth whenever he wanted. This planet was only a primitive civilization world, and it had no Void Shield. With the Strategic Command Room unlocked, Duanmu Huai could teleport wherever he pleased. If this had not been an escort mission, he could have simply opened and closed his eyes and arrived in Bartonia. There would have been no need to waste so much time.

Besides, Elisa was the first person he had met after crossing over. She was cute and obedient, so Duanmu Huai had a fairly favorable impression of her.

But Duanmu Huai did not intend to grow too close to her.

Generally speaking, most Inquisitors would not become too close to the local natives, lest they encounter troublesome problems. After all, if they grew too close to certain people, it was very possible that those people would consequently attract the attention of an evil god. Although Duanmu Huai was not yet important enough in the eyes of the Warp Space evil gods for this to matter much, considering what he planned to do in the future, being marked down by the evil gods was practically inevitable.

When that time came, given the evil gods' nature, if they discovered that he was in close contact with Elisa and the others, it was almost certain that they would cause trouble for them.

The reason he had warned the Elf Scout was also because he was wary of the Lady of the Lake.

In this world, many things that appeared good on the surface were often anything but.

Something similar had happened in the game before. A disaster had struck a planet, and the Radical Faction had tried to control the entire planet and spread the glory of the god they worshiped. The planet had fallen into crisis, but at that time, a Saintess had stepped forward and led the resistance forces against the Radical Faction's attacks. Later, quite a few player Inquisitors joined the fight as well. In the end, everyone worked together to defeat the Radical Faction and protect peace on the planet. A happy ending, a happy ending.

However, just as everyone was celebrating their victory, a Grand Inquisitor player descended and arrested the Saintess on charges of spreading heretical doctrines.

His actions were not only incomprehensible to the people on the planet; even some of the player Inquisitors could not accept them. But in the end, that Grand Inquisitor player ignored them all, directly sentenced the Saintess to be burned at the stake, and then sent her corpse to the local church to bring the matter to a close.

Naturally, that Grand Inquisitor player became an enemy in the eyes of the planet's people. Even many players could not understand him and thought he had become deranged from playing the game.

Later, several players who enjoyed getting to the bottom of things investigated the matter. Only then did they discover, to their shock, that everything that had happened on the planet had been an elaborate farce. Both the Radical Faction and the Saintess's faction had actually been pawns of the God of Deceit, and no matter who won the war, it would have had no effect on the God of Deceit.

If the Radical Faction won, the planet would become a world of the God of Deceit's believers.

If the Saintess won, everyone would follow the Saintess's guidance and become believers of the God of Deceit.

Either way, it was a victory. They could even win twice—an overwhelming victory.

So the Grand Inquisitor had taken the most straightforward measure—win this, you say? DEEEEER! I'll smash the whole game board! Burn them all! Leave no one alive! If I lose, you're not winning either. We'll all go down together!

It was after that incident that players began to retain a few reservations when dealing with planetary natives, rather than giving them their complete trust.

Because there was no way to determine whether the other party truly thought that way or had merely been led to think so by an evil god. Some people were not even aware that they were being guided by an evil god. Under such circumstances, all sorts of problems could easily arise—and quite a few players ended up suffering for it.

Thus, in the game, the beings each profession trusted most were actually the ones around them.

For example, Super Soldiers trusted their own Gene-Seed legions the most.

Tech Priests trusted the Servitors they had made themselves.

Psykers trusted Soul Cards the most.

Psykers had the best deal of all. Soul Cards contained not only beautiful and adorable girls but also fluffy little animals, making them extremely soothing. Some female players would even remodel their bases to look like zoos, with all kinds of cute little animals and sprites flying everywhere. It was practically therapeutic.

Tech Priests and Super Soldiers, on the other hand, either had fully mechanized cyborgs or hulking muscular men. Unless one had some very unusual interests, was it really safe to cultivate feelings for things like that?

Clearly, a mage was still a mage. No matter where they went, they lived well.

Thus, in the end, every player in the game would dabble in being a Soul Walker and acquire a few Soul Cards. Even if their level was too low for them to fight, keeping them around in their base was still pleasing to the eye.

They could not really spend all their time staring at muscular men and mechanical cyborgs, could they? And if something happened, who would be responsible?

After that, Duanmu Huai and Okegis bid farewell to the reluctant Elisa, left Carcassonne, and settled the Escort II mission on the way. Aside from receiving enough experience to raise his level to 23, he also obtained a Purification Badge as an additional reward.

Evolution Badge (Holy Relic)

+10 Warp Space resistance

+5 to all resistances

+5 seconds of fear duration

...All right, his fear aura was becoming more and more powerful.

"Where are we going next, Master?"

"Hmm..."

Hearing Okegis's question, Duanmu Huai thought for a moment.

"Let's first go see what cards the ruins here can produce."