Free Web Novel“Time to go home!”
Once the exam results were out, everyone set off on the road back home. By now, they had already returned to the Gedlan Kingdom.
During the time Loren and the others had been away, quite a bit of dust had settled in the house.
Since Loren didn’t want outsiders entering his home, he hadn’t asked the King to send anyone to clean for him.
Loren first led the group in tidying up the house. After resting for a few days, they set out on their journey to the sea.
“Goodbye, Master.”
Led by Seraphina, several maids stood at the door, bidding Loren farewell. This time, Loren hadn’t brought them along.
“Goodbye.”
After saying goodbye to them, Loren and the others boarded a carriage prepared by the Church, heading straight for the train station.
“This train will take you directly to the Kingdom of Anselm, your destination. It will pass through the God of Plague’s territory along the way.”
At the train station, the Bishop of the Gedlan Kingdom introduced the train’s route to Loren. Bishops from various regions had practically become Loren’s servants—wherever Loren went, the local bishop would come to serve him.
“Alright, I appreciate your hard work.”
Loren was quite familiar with the Bishop of Gedlan’s Royal Capital, having met him many times before.
Loren still held a strong disdain for Plague Believers, preferring to avoid contact with them whenever possible. However, this was indeed the most direct route, and since Loren had his own private compartment, no one else would affect him.
As Loren stepped into the compartment, the train officially started. Along the way, Anna was a bit excited—she really enjoyed traveling.
Every new place meant new delicacies to savor.
Watching the rapidly shifting scenery outside the window, Loren felt a twinge of melancholy. Before his transmigration, he had only left his home province once in his entire life—and that had been the time he went to meet his death.
Now, however, Loren could take his children traveling everywhere—to big cities, out to sea, and even to another continent.
The Eastern Continent was much smaller than the Western Continent, and the vast majority of its territory belonged to the God of Light and Fire. The God of Dreams’ territory was the smallest, barely the size of a small nation.
His true territory wasn’t in the physical world.
Paqina had been staring out the window the whole time, everything outside seeming novel to her.
“Have you never taken a train before?”
Loren walked over to Paqina and asked.
“No. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been in the royal capital of the Nofica Theocracy. I’ve never even left the city. I don’t even know what the outside world looks like…”
“Is that so…”
Paqina’s experience was similar to Loren’s before his transmigration, though Loren hadn’t been as hardworking as she was.
“Well, this trip will be a good chance for you to see the outside world. We can even stop by the God of Light and Fire’s territory to have a look…”
Loren had discussed this with Naclis earlier. She was afraid he might run into danger and didn’t want him to take action against the God of Light and Fire’s Angel, but Loren could still plant a few landmines.
There was no shortage of conflicts within the God of Light and Fire’s territory, but the Church had ways to shift internal contradictions outward—which was why they were constantly at war.
This very situation made it convenient for Loren to make his moves, much like what he had done in the Gedlan Kingdom before.
“Aside from the God of Light and Fire’s domain, there isn’t much worth visiting on the Eastern Continent. In the God of Dreams’ territory, you’ll hardly find anyone fully awake. The God of Confusion’s territory is extremely xenophobic—we won’t be able to get in.
“As for the last one, the God of Freedom—that place is a pure no-man’s land. It’s become a gathering spot for many pirates.”
The God of Freedom had the lowest presence. When the Divine War began, he was also the first god to fall—smashed into by the God of Light and Fire like a speed bump.
However, the God of Freedom’s territory was quite large, second only to the God of Light and Fire’s. Most of the time, battles were fought between the followers of the God of Light and Fire and the followers of the God of Freedom.
The God of Freedom placed no restrictions on his followers. In fact, many of his believers also worshipped the Sea God simultaneously.
This wasn’t without its benefits, though. Because of the lack of oversight, no one bothered to brainwash people. It was also one of the relatively friendlier places for witches.
Although they still killed witches, they didn’t go out of their way to hunt them down.
Loren still remembered once hiding out there with the witches for a long time without being discovered.
If it hadn’t been for the Divine War—when the God of Freedom was killed by the God of Light and Fire—he could have kept hiding forever.
“Freedom isn’t necessarily a good thing. Without any governance, this place has become a breeding ground for evil. Some bad things, everyone does, but at least others try to dress them up a bit. Here, they don’t even bother pretending.
“Hell, they haven’t even abolished slavery.”
As the train chugged along, Loren gave the group a rundown on the situation in the God of Freedom’s territory.
He just needed them to have a general understanding—this trip wasn’t heading to the God of Freedom’s domain anyway.
“So, among the gods, who’s the strongest?”
Anna suddenly felt a spark of curiosity and asked.
“Since Anna brought it up and we’ve got nothing better to do, I might as well rank the gods from strongest to lamest.”
Loren took out a pen and paper, drawing several boxes on the sheet while writing down the gods’ authorities on slips of paper.
“First, let’s assess the God of Bountiful Harvest. His authority is the least suited for combat, but damn, the number of believers he has is terrifying. Not enough mechanics? Just brute force it with numbers. Left hook, high damage—right hook, also high damage. We’ll put him at top-tier…”
As he spoke, Paqina suddenly timidly raised her hand.
“What’s the matter, Paqina?”
“Are we… committing blasphemy by doing this?”
Seeing Loren so casually evaluating the Orthodox Gods, the usually well-behaved Paqina was a little frightened.
The academy’s curriculum had covered the law, so Paqina was very aware of what Loren was doing right now.
The Orthodox Gods were not to be discussed. Although it wasn’t explicitly written down, it had long become an unspoken consensus.
If anyone dared to speak of the gods, that was undoubtedly blasphemy. The gods could only be praised—even an impartial evaluation was unacceptable.
They had to remain aloof, flawless, and perfect.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve already activated a Shielding Spell. Even if I shout the gods’ true names out loud, nothing will happen.”
“T-true names?”
Paqina could hardly believe her ears. Discussing the gods was already a capital offense, but actually saying their true names… Paqina dared not even think about the consequences.
Seeing Paqina’s reaction, Loren knew that doing this was meaningful. He wasn’t really so bored that he needed to rank the gods by combat power.
He was doing this to desensitize the witches—to make them stop treating the gods like gods, even to view them with the same attitude as one might have watching crickets fight.
“Do you all usually treat the Orthodox Gods like this…?”
Paqina noticed that it wasn’t just Loren—everyone else was acting perfectly normal too. Committing blasphemy really didn’t seem like a big deal.
Such a beheading-worthy statement, coming out of Loren’s mouth, sounded as casual as asking what they were having for dinner.
