The Priest of Corruption - Chapter 3

THIRTY SILVER COINS FOR TWO PARTIES

Neatly tied red hair and freckles set shyly against white skin, Guise’s mercenary guild receptionist was a young girl. Was this because this world came from a game? Or was it because Guise’s security was stable enough? Or was it because the mercenary guild was in a position of absolute superiority to the mercenaries?

“What’s your name, priest?”

I cleared my mind. What should I say? Writing the name I had been using until now would bring too much attention, telling everyone I was here and alive.

“Marnak. My name is Marnak.”

Marnak. That was the name I wanted to give to this character when I first created him.

The receptionist went through the paperwork with a pen in hand. It was mainly a description of my appearance and information about the god I worshipped. After a while, the receptionist looked up with a friendly smile, and she looked pretty beautiful like this.

“Yes, Priest Marnak. Can you wait here for a moment? It will take some time to make the bronze mercenary plaque.”

I smiled brightly.

“I can wait as long as you need.”

The receptionist got up from her seat and walked upstairs with the documents. No matter how you looked at it, she was a beauty. There were many strangely beautiful people in this world. Was it because this was a game world?

‘Kill!’

“I’m not in love with her, Mother of Corruption. I just thought she was beautiful.”

‘Kill!’

I patted the wriggling hand of the goddess and asked in a low voice.

“By the way, how many fingers was the receptionist just now?”

In my chest pocket, a dry hand stretched out two fingers. Two fingers.

“Then I’m sure she’s a bit of a pushover. Or a fairly high-ranking person.”

What the Mother of Corruption’s outstretched fingers meant was very simple. One finger was ten divinity. Two fingers was a hundred. Three fingers was a thousand, and four fingers was a ten thousand divinity. Five fingers meant a hundred thousand divinity.

As the Priest of Corruption, the way I obtained divinity was very simple and intuitive. It was to reap the soul from the corpse of an intelligent being. For example, if I killed that two-finger receptionist now and sent her to the Mother of Corruption, I could get a hundred divinity right away.

But it would be quite annoying to take care of the aftermath. However, this simple divinity acquisition system was quite generous, as I didn’t have to kill the opponent myself. As long as they hadn’t been dead for a long time, it could be sent back to the Mother of Corruption for divinity.

When I first found out about this, I found work near the cemetery for a while. But unfortunately, I wasn’t a necromancer, and the bodies coming to the cemetery had been dead for too long for me to harvest.

“Priest Marnak. Here’s your ID.”

Before I knew it, the red-haired receptionist smiled kindly and gave me a bronze plaque as she returned. I carefully accepted the card and smiled as reverently as possible.

“Thank you. Do you have any suitable work for me?”

Yes. Since I was impersonating a priest, there were many ways for me to obtain an ID. Nevertheless, there was only one reason I came to the Mercenary Guild. It was because I didn’t have a penny now. No matter how bad the taste was and how long I could starve myself, it wasn’t okay to starve forever.

“Wait a minute.”

The receptionist rummaged through the pile of papers.

“There was something that a priest who serves the Goddess of Maintenance could do.”

The receptionist scrambled through the documents with deft hands.

“We don’t have much work in the mercenary guild these days because it’s the middle of winter. Did you run out of money during your pilgrimage to find a mercenary job?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

A pilgrimage. This game was made under the motto of having the freedom to choose, so many gods were involved in the continent. Thanks to this, each religion always struggled with missionary work, and the representative action to solve that was the pilgrimage.

The pilgrimage meant that priests with a certain level of skill traveled around the world, giving people the power of God and carrying out missionary work. Of course, since priests were also humans, it was quite a common sight to help mercenaries to earn some coins when they ran out of money.

“Oh, here it is! This is it, priest Marnak.”

I took the paper and quickly read the text. The receptionist smiled broadly.

“As expected, it’s convenient that you’re a priest. It’s common to read them word by word for other mercenaries.”

It was an announcement from the lord of Guise. The goal was to defeat bandits and monsters, a mission that had come down due to a subtle increase in the number of missing peasants on the way to Guise. If the success pay was as written on this paper, after reconnaissance, if we succeeded in eradicating the cause, it was about thirty silver coins for two parties. Even if I couldn’t find anything and returned empty-handed, they would give me a silver coin.

The conditions weren’t bad. I quickly thumbed through the documents to get a rough idea of ​​the situation and humbly answered the receptionist.

“Not being able to read is probably because not everyone gets the chance to learn. It’s not really a special talent.”

I was already able to read and write the letters of this world the moment I fell in. There was no need to study separately.

“By the way, when does this job start?”

“You came just at the right time. They are leaving tomorrow.”

The reason this receptionist was strangely friendly towards me was that I was a priest. In this world, priests were an intellectual class, and since they were priests, a minimum level of education was guaranteed. They all had different kinds of powers. Because of that, people were usually as polite as they could be in dealing with priests. A class of both strength and knowledge, that was the priest.

The problem was that I was a priest of corruption that the entirety of priests hated.

I smiled as friendly as possible to the receptionist and spoke carefully.

“Would I be able to receive a portion of the reward in advance?”

I really didn’t have a penny to my name right now. I was finally able to get a silver coin in advance after hearing from the receptionist that even the priest should pay the penalty if he were late for his departure tomorrow.

“She was a pretty talkative receptionist, Mother.”

‘Kill!’

“I’m not going to kill her, Mother. She might be a bit talkative, but why would you want to kill her?”

‘Kill!’

“I’m not in love with her! If you keep pushing me like that, I’ll get mad.”

Waddling Rabbit. That name was to the cheap inn I was staying at. After paying the room price, including meals, for ten coppers, I now had only ninety coppers left in my pockets.

I’m poor…

I ate the stew with a spoon, not knowing what was in it. There was also no taste whatsoever, and I stared at the liquid. It didn’t look very appetizing to see all the ingredients floating around…yeah, if I had my sense of taste, I might not have been able to swallow this stew because it was so bad.

I looked around over the stew. Groups of people gathered here and there, talking. On the other hand, I was alone.

The moment I was about to cry a little.

‘Kill!’

As if to say I wasn’t alone, a voice resounded in my head.

“Don’t worry, Mother, your son, has a strong heart. I was thinking about getting a decent weapon if I got paid this time.”

After finishing the stew, I left the bowl and went to the room. Since I paid more, my room was a private one. Lying on the hard bed, I tried to sleep.

In the morning, I arrived at the borders of Guise, the place that the receptionist lady repeatedly emphasized. Maybe it was because the sun wasn’t up yet, but I was the first to arrive at our gathering place. It was also thanks to my body that I didn’t need to sleep that much.

‘Kill!’

“I came early, Mother. Isn’t it too early to kill everyone?”

As I was talking with the Mother of Corruption, people gathered one by one. An official from the castle called each person’s name to check his or her mercenary plaque and attendance. As I saw my name being crossed with a line, I slowly stepped back and looked at the person in charge of this mission.

The name of the middle-aged man, a silver-plate mercenary, was Galad. He was wearing thick fur over his armor. His old-fashioned look went well with the fur coat, and by the way he was conversing with the official in a friendly manner; he seemed to have worked for a long time. When the official left, Galad was the first to come up to me and smile.

“Aren’t you cold, Priest?”

My outfit was just a white priest’s suit. For me, who was a reinforced human being, this cold was nothing. And I didn’t have the money to buy fur clothes.

“I’m fine.”

“It seems that even the cold cannot penetrate the noble spirits of a priest.”

Galad seemed very satisfied with the word noble after he used it. Then, he cautiously asked.

“I heard you serve the Goddess of Maintenance. Do you mind if I ask what power you can use?”

What he expected from me was very simple.

“I can maintain the condition of an injury to prevent it from deteriorating.”

Galad laughed with satisfaction, a brief look of relief crossing his face that his expectation was right.

“As expected, you have the power of a priest who serves the maintenance goddess.”

To be precise, it was a simple ability to delay the decay and deterioration of wounds. Still, the results were similar anyway, so there would be no difference for Galad.

Galad spoke to each and every member of his party in turn. The total number of people gathered was ten. I spoke with the Mother of Corruption while Galad was catching up with people.

“How many fingers does everyone have?”

The result was normal. That Galad was a finger and a half; the rest were from half to one. Half a finger meant the probability of growing to the next number. There was no additional divinity payment at the time of harvest, however. In other words, the amount of divinity to be gained by killing and harvesting a finger and a half or a finger immediately was the same.

There was no one special.

After carefully checking all the personnel, Galad sent the signal to depart. That was how the two parties’ thirty-silver mission started.