wavenovel Chapter 13 "God, the Saintess is Pregnant! Who Did It?"
Chapter 13 "God, the Saintess is Pregnant! Who Did It?"
Terra and Andrea followed the lizardman Ragon to a table in the far corner of the hall. Terra didn't sit in a chair but instead stood and walked around on the table. Ragon politely ordered a few glasses of fruit wine.
As soon as the wine was served, Terra, without saying a word, pulled out her pickaxe and dug the entire contents, including the wine, into her inventory with a few "bangs".
The dwarf Balin gripped his suddenly empty hand, his face darkening: "You…"
"Cube Man is right, minors shouldn't drink alcohol," Mana joked.
"I'll settle the score with you later!" Balin glared at Mana.
Ragon patted Bahrain on the shoulder to smooth things over: "It's better not to drink. Let's talk business and stay sober."
"Just protect her then~" Balin said, crossing his arms.
Terra thought to herself, "So this NPC isn't the giant rock after all."
Ragon rubbed his scale-covered palms together. "Let's talk about the 'Painter Incident' in the city first. You don't know about it, so you must be strangers, or at least from outside Hispania."
Terra: "I came here to defeat the Moon Lord and save the world."
"The Lord of the Moon?" Lagon didn't understand, but quickly waved his paws. "Never mind, you all know about the Crescent Moon Church of mankind, right? The Holy See recently appointed a new saint. The previous saint was revealed to be a man in disguise, and the plaything of a female cardinal in Avignon."
"The Papacy had to convene a new ecumenical council on short notice and select a new saint."
"What about the old one?" Andrea asked.
Lagon shrugged. "I don't know. But after the new saintess was chosen, everyone joked that she might also be a man, since this new saintess is a bit..." Lagon patted his chest.
Mana chimed in, "Artists love this kind of subject matter. After all, when a saint takes office, she wears a wedding ring and calls herself the 'Bride of the Moon Goddess.' There's always a lot of inspiration for her in this area." She almost said it was as abundant as that of elves.
Andrea frowned: "The Church is doing nothing? Allowing the saintess to be humiliated like this?"
"The Crescent Moon Church doesn't seem to care, since it's not a scandal within the church..." Mana drawled, "So you guys didn't see the 'cutting the knife' event at the church? Since you're going to stay here for a while, you'll understand eventually."
Ragon lowered his voice: "Later, to show their approachability, the priests of this parish organized an event, calling on novelists and painters to submit works on the theme of 'religion, love, and mystery.' One painter submitted a book of paintings, a huge roll of oil paintings. A few of us even went to see it. The painting was quite good, but there wasn't much content. The painting was roughly of a saint and a messenger chatting, with several commoners around looking at the saint's skirt. But the title was 'God, the saint is pregnant! Who did it?' It was clearly satirical."
There was silence at the table for a few seconds.
"And then?" Andrea asked.
"And then? The saintess was touring the diocese and came here. The saintess herself saw this album. The saintess was not very magnanimous and was furious. She arrested all the painters in this area and took all the albums to her palace."
"The really extreme ones were cut off on the spot, but the more normal ones were just cut off by you." Ragon looked at Terra.
"So?" Andrea asked, puzzled. "What does this have to do with the mission we accepted?"
"There was a painter who escaped the massacre. I heard that he had hidden a small treasury in the Moon Gazing Forest and was very rich. Later, I heard that he was killed by the rampaging goblins, and the treasury was also occupied by the goblins."
"No one knows exactly how much treasure is inside, but rumors say it's enough to buy a large plot of land, and you might also find some decent equipment there."
Andrea raised an eyebrow: "I'm not short of money, and I don't really need human equipment."
Equipment? Terra is in dire need of these right now.
"How about a 50/50 split?" Lagon suggested.
Andrea thought to herself that she didn't really care about these things. She was new here and wanted to do a task first to get used to the environment: "I don't care."
Terra suddenly spoke up: "Shouldn't all the rewards from teaming up with an NPC be mine? Why do we have to split them?"
Ragon choked, while Bahrain frowned beside him.
"Brother, you're really domineering," Lagon said helplessly. "How about this, we'll split the treasure in the vault fifty-fifty, but all the materials we find along the way are yours, okay?"
Terra didn't say anything.
"Then it's settled." Ragon made the decision.
Bahrain interjected, "Not following the union's procedures? You're not planning to claim insurance this time?"
Lagon laughed: "Don't worry, I submitted it a long time ago."
They discussed some more details, and Lagon said he needed time to prepare his equipment, agreeing to meet up later. The two teams then separated for the time being.
Upon leaving the Adventurers' Guild, Andrea saw Terra placing blocks on the guild's wall—it was that familiar area of buildings again. They were pasted onto the guild building's wall like a 1D painting.
Terra removed the guide from the spawn point house and moved it here, so that even if the guide dies during the adventure, it will revive here.
The problem now is what Terra should do. Although he is certain that he is in the softcore infinite life Graveyard mode, he doesn't have a bed and can't set respawn coordinates other than the spawn point.
Making a bed requires a loom and silk, and synthesizing silk requires spider webs.
Terra is currently lacking spider webs, iron, and health.
He thought to himself that he should be more cautious when taking risks, otherwise if he died during an adventure and had to respawn at the spawn point, it would be a real 365-mile journey.
*
On the way back to the inn, Balin said in a deep voice, "I don't like those two. The elves are fine, but that blocky guy definitely has something wrong with his head; he's a bit too extreme."
Lagon: "They're strong. They made such a big show of things as soon as they arrived. If we don't try to win them over, others will. It's always better to have one more friend than one more enemy. Even if we suffer a loss this time, it's nothing."
Bahrain sneered: "That blocky guy even said he wanted to save the world. I hope you're not trying to recruit a demon that will destroy the world."
"I actually think they're nice people," Mana said.
"Is it because they call you 'Mom'?"
"Get lost!" Mana threw a punch at Ragon, but it was dodged and she missed.
Lagon chuckled. "I heard that the location of that vault was originally the ruins of an abandoned underground city, and who knows what dangers it might hide inside. Isn't it a good thing to have them scout ahead? If they can fight, we'll be fine; if they can't hold out, we can clean up the mess."
Bahrain looked at him with disdain: "Forget the blocky people, those are elves, are you sure?"
Mana suddenly looked up: "By the way, did anyone ask their names?"
Lagun and Bahrain remained silent.
"...I forgot."
*
Meanwhile, Terra and Andrea were walking down the street. Terra clicked on every NPC and found that many of them didn't have a shop, only an equipment slot and a few lines of dialogue. Even those that did had one were blank. Her plan to buy a bed directly was dashed.
Terra felt that this superfluous design must have a purpose; they must be selling something, but how could she unlock it?
"Never mind that." Andrea tugged at him and pointed to the street corner. "There's a strange little shop over there. The guy there asked me for some kind of 'copper disc,' saying he'd give me a few headless corpses and a jar of yellow liquid."
Terra looked in the direction she pointed and saw a mysterious old man with white hair and a long beard on the shop sign.
Terra walked over, and under the shop owner's puzzled gaze, looked down at the bowl of stew on display. Then, she solemnly concluded, "I think this is food."
Andrea 1: "Why didn't you say so earlier?!"
Terra opened the shopkeeper's shop and found that he was selling stewed rabbit, which could provide a satiety buff. Good stuff.
Stewed Rabbit
[Provides the "Eat Well" buff, slightly increasing all attributes]
Defense +2, Damage +5%
Critical Hit Chance +2%, Melee Speed +5%
[Summoned creature knockback +0.5]
Movement speed +20%, mining speed +5%
Bunnies are so cute, how can I eat them!
Price: 20 silver coins
Terra bought 20 of them. She'd need them for her adventures later, and she also sold the short-duration fruits and other miscellaneous items in her inventory to this NPC to free up some space.
After looking at the menu, Andrea 1 told the owner that she wanted to order two stews, one vegetable and one meat stew for the blocky guy, and then told Terra in a grand manner that it was her treat.
The owner was delighted by the visit of the elves and was just thinking about whether to add the phrase "Noble elf certification, authentic taste" to the future store sign when he saw the elves excrete a few seashells.
The owner was a bit stumped: "I thought elves were all vegetarians. I don't know how to cook this kind of seafood."
Andrea 1: "Aren't you taking any money?"
The shopkeeper didn't understand at first, but after a while he suddenly realized: "Noble elf lady, we humans don't use seashells with other races; we use coins to trade." Then he took out a few copper coins and handed them to the elf.
Andrea 1 took the copper coin with the lord's portrait on it, looked it up and down, and then returned it to the shopkeeper.
Seeing that the elf was a little embarrassed, the boss quickly smoothed things over: "But I'll give you two bowls first, consider it my treat. Just come and support my business more often in the future. After all, you are an elf, and just standing in the shop is enough to increase my business."
Andrea silently entered the shop, sat down, looked at the vegetable soup the waiter brought over, and took a sip. Then she covered her face, her ears turning red with embarrassment.
It turns out she was penniless.
*
Outside the shop, the owner suddenly noticed something heavy under his feet. Looking down, he discovered dozens of silver coins, a pile of fresh fruit, and some acorns had appeared at his feet.
Did those two guests give it to me?