Time flowed like water, time flowed like that … cough, anyways, two years passed by in the blink of an eye.
Many things happened in these two years … well, of course many things happened. After all, more than 700 days and nights had passed. Even if one simply clocked in and went to work every day, there would still be countless work to do.
Not much happened in these two years … after all, the Game Church and Rorschach himself had entered a period of rapid development.
Although the situation was good, Rorschach had always been cautious and patiently accumulated resources for the future. He also didn't go out and cause trouble.
And so, many things changed in these two years. For example, the Game Church was no longer a mediocre New God Church. It now had a certain reputation and status in Saul.
Both its reputation and foundation had greatly increased. Most directly, the number of descenders had multiplied by several times … fine, since the number of descenders had been too small, this was still a weakness of the Game Church.
However, since the Game Church had always insisted on focusing on quality over quantity, as well as some internal benefits similar to cheats, the Game Church's losses in these two years were astonishingly low. The result was that the actual combat strength of Ansorenne had increased explosively.
Just like other churches that were expanding, the Game Church's human resources were always insufficient. The solution was the same as other churches': hiring stowaways or locals was fine.
"… You call it hiring, but you can even pay them for the rest of their lives. This is basically human trafficking."
[At the very least, we're all friendly employers. It's much better than selling them to the Colosseum or the battlefield as cannon fodder. Yep, let's cut the crap and find more qualified craftsmen, gardeners, craftsmen, and so on. We also need blacksmiths.]
Rorschach shook his head and didn't say anything. After all, what Lori said was the truth. No matter what, it was better than the current life of a slave.
In Ansorenne, the travel expenses were quite expensive. It wasn't easy for a small or medium-sized New God Church in a remote area to enter a major city. Rorschach's group had to take on a series of additional tasks.
Ansorenne was not a peaceful world. It was an area of ten thousand years of war. War captives and looted goods were very common. For many local lords, the lack of manpower was never a problem. They could solve it by sending troops to capture some slaves.
There were also those debt servants who sold themselves to support the family. Apart from not being able to kill them for fun, they were essentially no different from slaves.
The Seymour society was relatively more civilized, but they wouldn't reject the sale of slaves and servants. As for the Aishi Church of the New Gods, when there were no free people to hire in the market, or free people with even the slightest bit of skill would be willing to pay a sky-high price, it was only natural for them to engage in some gray transactions.
At first, Rorschach was very resistant to this, but when the slaves and servants saw the Nature's Leaf and G God medal on Rorschach's chest, they couldn't wait to introduce themselves and fight for the opportunity to leave this place.
What else could Rorschach say when he was sure that his arrival was a once-in-a-lifetime ray of salvation for these unlucky bastards?
"At the very least, we will be a qualified employer. In my world, these unlucky bastards will at least live like humans."
From a certain standpoint, out of all the New Gods of Eich, this pair of siblings from Earth seemed a bit off from the rest.
Perhaps it was because they came from Earth, which was more peaceful than the Aishi Church, the two siblings had a much higher moral bottom line than the local gods. They treated mercenaries, servants, and natives with kindness.
"Our contract is obviously a scam. I've even used the excessive contract of the black companies on Earth as a reference. Such an obviously unfair contract would never be recognized on Earth."
[Heh, you have to look at it. For example, the abnormally long term of employment was seen here as a safety amulet that meant that they wouldn't be treated as cannon fodder. That damned promise to work overtime every day and guarantee supper was seen here as "F * ck, he actually provides meals. Where else can I find such a good master?"
[Now, there are devout believers who add in their prayers every day, saying, "Merciful Goddess of Fussiness, thank you for your bread and rice, but please don't carry those ridiculous things. Washing your hands before eating is a privilege reserved for nobles. Washing our hands for us is a waste of precious water."]
Rorschach didn't know how to deal with the huge difference in perception between the three different worlds. He could only smile.
[Do you know what they call me? Fussiness Goddess! To be honest, all I did was add a few rules. How could they call a young girl like me that! Ansorenne's believers don't even call me the God of Games!]
"… These people don't even know what games are, do they? Didn't you consider the fact that after Ansorenne's expansion, no one understood this Divine Concept at all? "
Rorschach couldn't help but retort. Then, he fell silent.
[Isabella! It's all your fault …]
"Fine, fine, fine. It's all Isabella's fault."
As time passed, "It's all Isabella's fault" seemed to become the descenders' favorite excuse.
We didn't have enough food when we went out on a mission? It's all Isabella's fault. She drained all of our food reserves. She must have stolen half of our food because she didn't have enough money to eat!
We ran out of mana in our magic armor's mana pool halfway through the battle? This must be Isabella's fault. She must have secretly used up our mana to play games.
Did we meet a difficult opponent on a mission? I turned around and glared. It's all Isabella's fault. I shouldn't have let this jinx follow me.
Or did we meet a difficult enemy? And this time, Isabella wasn't with us? Yep, it's all Isabella's fault. Why didn't she use her lightning rod special effect?
Eh? Rorschach still couldn't contact the God of Games? Isabella! Did you secretly use your bandwidth to download a short movie again!?
If it was just a joke, you would definitely get tired of it after a few times or dozens of times. But in many cases, if you really looked into it … it really was Isabella's fault.
Using the military's communication bandwidth to play games was already a daily occurrence. Stealing military rations as snacks was nothing out of the ordinary. There were a few times when she really would have secretly sold military supplies and magic armor parts for money if she didn't have a "System Cheat" on her.
This time, Lori's complaint was somewhat reasonable. After all, Isabella had single-handedly insisted on the God of Games' divine title.
But as the number one expert of the Game Church on the surface and the spokesperson of the True God who presided over the creation of doctrines, there were many occasions when she really needed to appear … and then make a mess of things.
Even as Rorschach was busy looking for suitable labor, he couldn't help but look at the city square where sunlight gathered.
It wasn't that Rorschach had any thoughts about the sunlight. It was just that Isabella was attending the celebration as the representative of the God of Games, and Rorschach was really worried that she would pull some tricks again.
But soon, he knew that his worries were meaningless, because …
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