No longer paying attention to the Undying's nonsense, it was dinnertime. Linde, the nine soldiers, and Ailuna Momo ate in shifts.
The players didn't get this treatment. They didn't seem to care much themselves, either. If they were hungry, they were hungry, no big deal.
It seemed the Undying were planning to go exploring tonight.
They'd been delayed before because they had to build houses, but now was a good time.
Linde casually gave them a patrol mission. They might have an unexpected harvest at night. He knew that those Calamities could "drop" materials, which were good stuff for making potions.
He could give the players a mission to collect them later. The players would get a new mission, and he would get potion ingredients. It was a win-win!
The main reason he wasn't giving out the mission now was that the players couldn't beat the Calamities yet. It would just be a suicide mission.
As the fragrant meat broth bubbled in the hanging pot, filling the air with meaty aromas, Ailuna Momo couldn't help but swallow her saliva.
She controlled her expression very well, which was why Linde trusted her acting skills so much.
She always strained with her protruding eyes, looking at others very intently. Her wrinkled face was expressionless, only showing piety and the pride of a believer when she spoke of the Solar Church.
But Linde knew very well, and Ailuna Momo also knew very well, that there would be no more gods. All prayers were just for getting a meal.
Ailuna Momo wanted to get a meal from Linde by using her "believer" identity. Linde wanted to get a meal from the players by using Ailuna Momo's "believer" identity.
The spoon stirred in the hanging pot. Old Pete picked up his bowl and scooped it in a swift motion.
A heaping spoonful of meat!
Ailuna Momo was excited. How many rat nests would you have to wipe out to get that much meat?
But the next moment, she felt the chef's power of "the shake."
Old Pete shook the spoon, and what crashed back into the pot wasn't wolf meat, but Ailuna Momo's bleeding, broken heart.
"Give Ailuna Momo a little more meat!" Linde was also very respectful of the elderly.
Due to Lord Linde's orders, Old Pete reluctantly scooped out a small half-spoonful of meat. He felt that his dignity as a chef had been challenged. Food that wasn't shaken onto the plate had no soul and didn't taste good.
But after Linde spoke, he resolutely chose the former between "loyalty" and "dignity."
Ailuna Momo took the meat soup, and the dried rat meat in her pocket suddenly didn't smell so good anymore.
Her wrinkled lips approached the soup bowl, and she slurped a mouthful, not caring about the heat scalding her face.
Hot! Burns the tongue.
But it was fragrant, fragrant enough to bring tears to her eyes.
"Lord, what you said is spot-on. Seeing them today, they truly deserve to be called the Knights of God."
Linde watched the old nun, whose eyes were full of tears from the hot soup and whose tongue couldn't even speak straight, still spouting phrases, and felt a myriad of emotions in his heart.
This talent was worth recruiting!
Linde asked, "What made you see that?"
Of course, he knew very well that the players were either Knights of God, enemies of God, or perhaps even God themselves.
Players, their backstories were bound to be impressive.
Ailuna Momo: "..."
Did it have to be like this? I just ate a mouthful of your meat. Don't insult my dignity as a nun. Did she really have to praise them? Was she really going to have to praise them? It was going to be difficult!
Even the soldiers next to them, holding bowls and waiting for food, turned to look.
As natives of this world, Old Pete and the nine soldiers had once truly believed in the Solar Church. They had all, to varying degrees, heard the whispers of God, seen the Pope's tours, and heard the choir's hymns.
But when the Elden Ring shattered and God no longer responded, the desperate soldiers chose to go from devoted fans to haters, from staunch believers to staunch atheists. (used pop culture reference here to localize)
Now that they had heard both Linde and Ailuna Momo say that the Undying were Knights of God, they didn't think anything was wrong at all. On the contrary, they thought, "Like God, like Knight." It was so true!
They all wanted to hear Ailuna Momo's profound insights.
Linde was the same. Because he sincerely recognized the Undying's identity, he wanted to get more secrets and information from Ailuna Momo, which he might be able to use to fool the players in the future.
Linde, who positioned himself as the "core," "village chief," and "righteous" NPC, would never allow his lines to be lacking.
The performance in front of the players was very important.
"I swear by my faith in God, by the honor of a clergy member," Ailuna Momo lowered her head, took a sip of the soup, and chewed on the meat, saying indistinctly, "Nothing, no one, can make me lie!"
Gotta eat quickly, lest what she says later isn't satisfactory and she doesn't get any more meat broth.
As for swearing oaths? Heh, faith isn't such an inconvenient thing!
"As you said, if they can be resurrected after death, there really were legends of them in history," Ailuna Momo looked eagerly at the soup pot. She had already finished her bowl.
"Fill it up!" Linde wasn't bothered.
This time, without Linde's order, Old Pete fully utilized the supreme chef skill of "the shake," shaking all the meat out of the spoon while Ailuna Momo watched expectantly, and pouring the broth into the bowl.
Ailuna Momo was very mournful, staring at the clear broth in her hand that reflected her image, speaking in the tone of an old nun telling a story from the past, "Knights who are resurrected after death... believers of Zazza, the 'Death God,' one of the three Gods in legend. Records say they once helped a kingdom lost to time in history. However, that Death Knight was very powerful, said to possess the power to destroy a city with a single sword."
Her meaning was simple: those perverts who wanted to lift her skirt could never be Knights of the Death God. They weren't even worthy to lick the Death Knight's toenails!
With their strength, forget destroying a city with a sword, they probably couldn't even beat the soldiers in Star Dragon Outpost.
But Linde didn't think so. Players could level up by killing monsters. Destroying a city with a single sword in the future might be a bit difficult, but a group of players destroying a city should be no problem.
He really felt that Ailuna Momo's explanation was quite reasonable. Although he knew that the Undying players were here because of the game, not gods, he liked this angle.
Gonna steal that idea.
Of course, he knew about the "gods" of this world, and he knew them very well. After all, before the apocalypse, the gods of mainstream faiths were unavoidable.
According to legend, in the beginning, there was no death and no life until that flame appeared.
Three people obtained power from the flame and used the fire of life as a base to create the Magic Ring.
Under the light of the Magic Ring, people could draw power from it and improve themselves.
The most famous of these was Leo Lionheart, the 'Solar Witness,' God of knights, warriors, and merchants, representing fairness, courage, and fearlessness, and was the most mainstream god.
The "Storm Knight" sculpture that Linde had seen in the Solar Church of Pre Town, the one with its head on the greatsword about to be guillotined, was one of the legendary Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse under the 'Solar Witness.'
Yuni, the 'Lunar Witch,' was the God of magic, the God of wisdom, and also the God of mages, witches, spellcasters, and thieves, representing mystery, wisdom, and trickery. It was a god with a barrier to entry; fools could not believe in her.
Zazza, the 'Death God,' was the most mysterious, with few believers. No one could escape Him, no one wanted to approach Him, but eventually, everyone would run towards Him.
There was also a saying that there were actually four gods, and it was the fourth god who used lightning to temper the fire of life and successfully created the Magic Ring. In the end, He even shouldered the Magic Ring, so that the whole world was shrouded in the power of the Magic Ring.
As for credibility... not high. Because there are also legends that there are actually five, six, seven, or eight gods in the trinity. Various sects are eager to stuff their own "god" in, hoping to get them associated with the "God Squad" to ride their coattails and get the big three to boost their profile.
Linde felt that the mythology part could also be mined for information, to be used to tell stories to the players in the future. He believed that no player could refuse "a piece of forgotten history," or as the average player would call it, "hidden lore."