Chapter 37

In a tavern in Glimmerstone Town, Palin, Satan, and Rod—the newly appointed head of the Thieves Guild, known as Grey Eyes—sat drinking together.

Rod's attitude was exceedingly humble, and his face wore a fawning smile. To borrow Mr. Gulong's words, he looked as though he could hardly wait to kneel down and lick Palin and Satan's boots.

After witnessing His Majesty Void Mask's incredible power with his own eyes, Rod, who had never been a particularly devout follower of the God of Thieves, was already quite tempted to join His Majesty's ranks.

The God of Thieves wasn't a very powerful deity. Although he was one of the elder gods, he had never done especially well for himself. This was mainly due to his way of doing things. His primary domains were thieves, concealment, and illusion. At first glance, they seemed quite impressive, but in practice, he had always taught his followers to protect themselves, avoid getting involved in anything too risky, restrain their desires, and take only small risks in life to get by in peace...and so on. Under his guidance, the Thieves Guild's main lines of business included not only traditional theft, fencing, and selling information, but also making and selling counterfeits, running general stores, taverns, and inns, as well as locksmithing and appraisal. Beyond that, it had some fairly respectable trades, such as building houses and cemeteries, archaeology, and basic disaster-preparedness education for ordinary people.

Making money through all this was certainly easy enough. But using it to reach the pinnacle of life and become a legend was clearly unrealistic. If there were no other choices, quietly making money and living in peace was perfectly fine. But after witnessing His Majesty Void Mask's immense power, Rod couldn't help thinking about switching to another god.

It wasn't that the God of Thieves was a bad deity, nor that Rod was unwilling to go to his divine kingdom after death. But everyone knew that reaching a divine kingdom after death wasn't easy. The God of Thieves' limited power and modest divine rank meant he couldn't accept the souls of many followers. Even as the head of the Thieves Guild in a town, Rod couldn't be sure he would make it to the divine kingdom.

If he couldn't reach the divine kingdom, Rod's fate probably wouldn't be very pleasant. Though he hadn't committed any particularly infamous crimes over the years, the accumulated offenses of theft, counterfeiting, and fraud alone would have been enough to get him beheaded several times over—not to mention all the underworld feuds that had nothing to do with justice.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help envying the dead Ryan.

Going to the divine kingdom of the God of Redemption wasn't exactly a great choice. The deity's creed was that followers should redeem themselves and others. Ryan had redeemed himself, but until he had redeemed enough people and truly completed his penance, he wouldn't find peace or happiness. As the God of Redemption's envoy had said, his road was still long. In Rod's view, Ryan had merely avoided the terrible fate of falling into Hell, trading torture for long-term labor.

But...that was already pretty good!

If he could build a good relationship with His Majesty Void Mask, then even if he didn't receive His Majesty's protection in everyday life, he would only need to ask for a blessing when he was dying to get a chance at redemption and avoid going to Hell. That alone was enough to tempt a coward like Rod beyond measure.

What's more, the protection His Majesty Void Mask offered his own followers was so powerful it made people green with envy!

With so many gods in the world, which one would fly into a rage over a follower being ambushed and directly confront the God of Conspiracy?

And he had even—won!

By comparison, their own God of Thieves, who hadn't noticed that the head of his guild—an important figure equivalent to a high priest—had betrayed him, was really a bit...sigh!

Palin was relatively young, with little experience and no knack for reading people from the smallest details. But Satan was an old hand. A man who made his living with his wits, and had once even used his intelligence to suppress Gerald, he immediately saw what Rod was after and smiled.

"Guildmaster Rod, let's get straight to the point. Do you want to become a follower of our lord?" he asked bluntly.

This direct manner of speaking clearly caught Rod off guard. Accustomed to slowly bargaining, he had prepared plenty of lines, but now he was left speechless. After a moment, he smiled wryly and nodded.

"The Immortal Thief isn't a petty god, but as the head of a thieves' guild, aren't you afraid he'll punish you for abandoning his faith?" Satan asked, going straight to the most important question.

Rod had already thought carefully about that, of course, and answered at once. "Strictly speaking, I'm still only the vice guildmaster. I haven't yet held the formal sacrificial ceremony or been recognized by His Majesty as the guildmaster. His Majesty certainly wouldn't tolerate a guildmaster abandoning the faith, but he should be able to tolerate a vice guildmaster doing so. Besides, no matter what, His Majesty Void Mask is also opposed to his enemy. The enemy of one's enemy may not be an ally, but he can at least be considered a friend."

"Looks like you've thought it through and carefully weighed the pros and cons. Then I have one more question." Satan said, "Our lord is one of the Ancient Nature Gods, not a deity eager to spread his faith. If you join us, what do you think you can do for him? If all you want is to worship him, then forget it."

Rod was taken aback. He hadn't expected that question. Most gods in this world were eager to spread their faith, because receiving Faith Power was the most common way for a deity to advance in rank. But for the Ancient Nature Gods, who drew their power from the source of the world, faith—or the lack of it—was no great matter. Whether they had worshippers or not made no difference to them.

That made it extremely difficult to join a church under the Ancient Nature Gods.

After all, they had never been looking to recruit people in the first place.

Rod thought for a long while before saying, "I'm fairly well-informed across the Four Northwest Towns. I'm also very skilled at appraisal. Even in the Gold Coin Federation in the south, I'd qualify as an expert in the field. Besides that, I'm good at forging documents and building and dismantling all kinds of mechanisms and traps. I also know quite a bit about geology, history, plants, and animals..."

"But are any of those things useful to our lord?" Satan asked.

Rod fell silent for a long time, then shook his head despondently.

The Ancient Nature Gods existed outside the world of civilization. Skills that were highly useful in civilized society were of no use to them. And as for things like geology or knowledge of plants and animals, a great god had no need to concern himself with such trivial matters.

Just as he was feeling utterly dejected, Sui Xiong's voice suddenly rang out in the air. "This tavern is run by your Thieves Guild, right? Do you know how to run a business?"

Rod shook his head. "Someone else is in charge of the tavern. I know very little about business or management."

In front of a god, he didn't dare think of lying.

"Then what about you, Palin?" Sui Xiong asked.

"Your Majesty, I can learn," Palin answered immediately. "I'm still young, so I can pick it up quickly. And before I master it, I can find a few experienced people to help from my uncle."

"If you need people to help, I can provide even more!" Rod quickly cut in. "Your Majesty, I know plenty of capable people, including at least ten merchants with excellent track records!"

"So your specialty is your connections..." Sui Xiong smiled and said, "Gerald has kept suggesting that I establish my own church and system of faith. I haven't made up my mind yet, but trying to establish a Pioneer Village seems like a good experiment. Rod, if you're willing to serve me, I'll have you and Palin help build the village. How does that sound?"

"No problem! I'll make sure it's done right!" Rod exclaimed delightedly, thumping his chest as he agreed.

Palin lowered his head and accepted the task. "Your Majesty, I'll do my best."

He knew he was young and had limited abilities. All he could promise was that he would do his best.

"Don't worry. Establishing a Pioneer Village won't be difficult for us." This time, it was Rod who encouraged him. "To establish a village like this, we need only three things: food, people, and force. Food just takes money. Pioneers aren't hard to recruit. And force is even less of a problem. With that big fellow Gerald around, as long as we don't foolishly build the village beside the lair of one of the Ash Forest's fiercest legendary monsters, could a few skeletons really stand up to his axe?"

Everyone understood. As Rod had said, with force to protect them and no shortage of money, building a pioneer village in the Ash Forest wasn't difficult at all.

It was like planting seeds: if the seeds were good, the soil and climate suitable, and there was no shortage of water or fertilizer, all that remained was to tend them carefully and wait patiently.

Thinking of this, Palin and Satan both smiled.

Perhaps to His Majesty Void Mask, establishing a Pioneer Village was no more than a trivial little game. But for them, it was an opportunity to devote their strength to the god they worshipped.

The Ancient Nature Gods had always been detached from worldly desires, and their followers often went unnoticed. Yet the world followed its own rules: if a follower failed to live by their god's principles, or if the god failed to make a sufficient contribution, then even if their soul was taken into the divine kingdom after death, they wouldn't be able to reincarnate properly as a divine being with an almost immortal life. In the divine kingdoms of the Ancient Nature Gods, there were countless souls that had failed to complete their reincarnation, merely sleeping between life and death and occasionally waking.

Neither Palin nor Satan wanted that fate. So, while they were still alive, they naturally had to work hard to make more contributions to their god, in hopes of being able to reincarnate successfully after death.

This was the first proper task their god had entrusted to them, and both wanted to put their whole hearts into carrying it out, setting a positive example for future followers and laying a solid, reliable foundation for their own path to reincarnation in the divine kingdom.

Soon, they began discussing the details of the Pioneer Village in depth: where to buy supplies, where to recruit villagers, where to build the village, how to handle transportation, and how to carry out the construction. One question after another came up, and they discussed solutions.

At first, Sui Xiong listened with interest, but before long, he grew bored. He turned his attention to what was happening outside the tavern and checked on Gerald. He found Gerald teaching the thieves martial arts. Though the big fellow had grown increasingly straightforward and honest, his love of teaching hadn't faded. The moment he saw this group of physically fit but poorly trained students, he couldn't resist teaching them a thing or two.

His followers were all busy, and Sui Xiong didn't want to disturb them. So he settled down and began reading the materials the God of Redemption had given him...