Shaking off the impaled sacrifice from his tentacle, Carol, the Wise Man of Sedah, frowned as he watched the Church Apprentice dash into the alley.
Why hadn’t the child fallen for the trap?
The illusion had been crafted using the visages of people close to them in their minds; while one child took the bait, the other did not seem to be deceived at all.
However, he had already sent a Drownghoul named Karl to pursue him. Although it was merely a lowly minion at the ninth tier of the Undead Sequence, using it to chase down a whelp was overkill.
With this thought in mind, Carol glanced around, and once he confirmed that no one was present, the tentacles on his left arm began transforming back into a normal arm.
The guards in the camp were far too lax in their vigilance. If he hadn’t discovered these two Apprentices, they would likely have already relayed messages outward.
But Carol couldn’t reprimand them, for his sect, the ’Master of Wisdom,’ had suffered heavy losses in the Parol City conflict two years prior, losing all of the Church’s high ranks. Carol himself had been hastily promoted to the rank of Wise Man, and this time his objective was to develop the Church’s grassroots. Yet, the current rate at which the camp was converting the refugees, especially the children, was unsatisfactory—they seemed to have access to food outside of the camp. Without children as a burden, the key factor in converting the refugees was missing—when fed, they were less likely to let their children go hungry, resulting in more stable moods than Carol had anticipated.
Carol had made inquiries and discovered that several organizations were responsible for feeding those children.
The prime suspect was the Church of the Goddess of Harvest, which had been consistently gathering food for the children among the refugees. They managed to collect enough food for about a thousand people each day, and some refugees had even entrusted their children to this church. Curse these false god churches—if it were the past, he wouldn’t have thought much of the Church of the Goddess of Harvest in Carterburg, but now, he was forced to avoid these churches.
Then there was the Gaiate-Mowish Group—an oddity that Carol detested, mainly because its chairman, Malin Gaiate, was an infuriatingly lucky man. Carol vividly remembered how, in his younger days, his confessions of love were cruelly rejected by the girls he admired.
Yet this detestable pretty boy had five girls hopelessly in love with him. If jealousy could kill, Malin would’ve died from a thousand arrows to the heart, and Carol certainly wasn’t the only one who wished him dead.
Well, back to the matter at hand, the Gaiate-Mowish Group’s food processing plant produced a large amount of canned goods every day. These cans were divided into three quality tiers, with the cheapest costing just a few pennies. An adult could earn more than one dollar after a hard day’s work at the port, and moreover, the factory employed a large number of refugees with agricultural skills, willing to exchange work for food to cultivate the land.
To be honest, Carol would have liked to kill the head of this group, but he was aware that, with his power, he couldn’t lay a finger on Malin, let alone his girls—Jessica the Werewolf, with her awakened bloodline power, was agile beyond measure, and Carol realized after comparing their strengths that he couldn’t catch up to her at all.
The Mowish lady named Faye was a sixth-ring Mage, and by the time mages reach the sixth ring, killing them would be as easy as slaughtering chickens for Carol. With his speed, he probably wouldn’t even catch a glimpse of her shoes.
And that Clovis was a fifth-ring Mage. Though it might seem that she would be easier to deal with than a sixth-ring Mage, Carol had checked both ladies’ preferred Spell Formations and found that the former was adept at support, protection, and curses, while the latter excelled at energy shaping and curses. In other words, facing Clovis would only mean dying even quicker at her hands.
The remaining two girls, one had just become an apprentice to the Divine Master, a Shaman who, although an easier target to deal with, basically never left the side of her mentor or her brother, Carol felt that the only difference he faced facing these two was in how he would die.
The last one, named Lillim, was a little lamb, rumored to be on the Priest’s side, extremely skilled at various support and protection spells, which sounded like the easiest target. However, she essentially clung to Malin like a shadow—in fact, Carol really did not wish to confront a youngster who could receive a spell that granted her a 30-point boost in strength, because he would already lose just by comparison of strength. Based on his understanding of the Church of the Goddess of Harvest, such a once-in-a-century genius would definitely be equipped with all kinds of extraordinary items, probably rendering her immune to his best illusions.
Money really can do anything, the bastard!
Well, besides these two households, Carol also knew of an organization, seemingly composed of Spirits from Thainan, a small group that gathered food through all sorts of deceptive means to feed those language-barriered refugee orphans—Carol had thought about ambushing them, but gave up after only one attempt because the group harbored two cat-shaped Spirits. Ambush them?
He’d be lucky if they didn’t ambush him instead.
"Sir, welcome back to the camp," said the guard at the entrance to the camp, greeting Carol. The wise man nodded, then glanced at one of them, "What happened to your face?" He had a bruised face.
"Yesterday, a group came to our camp to recruit workers, we tried to stop them... then we got beaten up," the guard said with a look of grievance, because Carol had instructed them not to use force unless absolutely necessary.
"...Hard work indeed." Suddenly, Carol felt a hint of weariness—it was too difficult, he began to miss his past life, a time when the sect was incredibly strong, with Bishops who were at least on the fifth rung of the hierarchy, and the Chief Bishop who was almost like his second creator. It was just unfortunate they were all dead.
Oh, how nice it would be if everything could start over, Carol would give his all to change the fate of the sect.
Alas, Fate was not so generous, but at least some of the troublemakers were dead as well.
With such complex emotions, Carol noticed the guards looking up; he turned around, raised his head, and saw a signal flare rising into the sky.
"It’s a signal flare from the Church of False Gods, what’s going on?" the beaten guard asked his friend, who shook his head in confusion: "I have no idea."
Before Carol could figure out what the situation was, he suddenly realized he had lost control over Karl.
...Had he been assassinated?
With that thought, Carol furrowed his brows—It seemed like things were racing towards a direction he could no longer control.