Chapter 00011: A Battle of Wits with the Air
# A Battle of Wits with the Air
Chapter 11
Novel: AFK Game: Portal to Another World
Chapter 11: A Battle of Wits with the Air
The capital had fallen.
The King and the Crown Prince were slain on the battlefield.
Viola, leading the Royal Guards and the remnants of the army, barely carved out a bloody path of escape from the encirclement and fled all the way to the remotest region of the Leon Territory.
But hardly after they arrived, they were besieged by bandits composed of routed troops and refugees.
If the Demon God hadn’t intervened, the meager strength still held by Viola wouldn't have stood a chance.
After that, Viola no longer concerned herself with the bandits.
She believed that the divine power granted by the Demon God had not only crushed the bandits but frightened them so completely that they wouldn’t dare strike again.
But take note—it was a rout, not a complete annihilation.
Viola also overlooked the fact that the fleeing bandits could end up wreaking havoc in the surrounding villages.
And more so, even if she wanted to deal with them, she didn’t have enough troops on hand, nor did she know where those bandits were hiding.
This Leon Territory was surrounded on three sides by mountains—hiding a bandit gang in them was just too easy.
The incident with the wooden plate, however, instantly made Viola prioritize the issue of the bandits.
What she needed to consider now wasn’t gathering forces to retake the kingdom, but how to firmly plant her footing and make adequate preparations for a later comeback.
Though she was a Princess of a kingdom, in the remote mountainous Leon Territory, she had no fame, and the local people didn’t recognize her at all.
Even if she had enough supplies in the future and wanted to recruit soldiers, it wouldn’t be easy.
But if she could get rid of the bandits, she would leave a strong enough impression in the hearts of the local people—this would serve as a foundational base of support among the masses.
From then on, anything she did would produce twice the results with half the effort.
Looking even deeper—once she established a foundation among the locals, it would become much easier to spread the faith of the Demon God.
In the future, even recruiting soldiers in the name of the God would become more feasible.
As for the lack of soldiers?
It wasn’t that Viola had none; it’s just that most of them were wounded and needed rest.
Originally, Viola believed the powers granted by the Demon God should not be used lightly.
So aside from the day she received Divine Arts and used them once on the Royal Guards, she hadn’t used them again.
But combined with the wooden plate incident, Viola had every reason to believe that all of this had been orchestrated by the Demon God Himself—to quickly heal the soldiers with divine power, then muster the army to deal with the threat of the bandits, laying the foundation for the future.
There might be deeper meanings to the Demon God's mission as well, but just realizing this made Viola brim with reverence.
The wisdom of God was so deep.
So great.
Praise be to the Lord!
Thank You for guiding me in my confusion!
Praise to the Demon God!
You are truly the King among all Demon Kings, the King of Kings!
At the thought of this, Viola said to Lilia:
"Leave the matter of the bandits to us. We’ll wipe them all out soon."
“Really? But I want to go too!”
Viola suddenly thought that perhaps the Divine Oracle had more than one meaning.
Since the Demon God had guided her to find Lilia, this little girl might possess some extraordinary qualities as well.
So she nodded and said:
“You may, but you’re still too young. Once you’ve grown up a bit, I’ll teach you how to use a sword.”
“I can be a knight too?”
“Of course you can.”
Lilia immediately cheered loudly.
To a child, it all just seemed exciting—she hadn’t thought too deeply about it.
But Lilia’s grandmother, naturally, knew it was far from that simple and looked quite worried.
Noticing this, Viola said:
"You don’t need to worry. My Lord guided me to find Lilia—He would never harm her."
Noticing that Lilia’s grandmother had some difficulty with her legs, Viola reached out her hand.
A ball of radiant divine light hovered over her palm and radiated gentle, warm beams in all directions.
Some villagers who had noticed knights entering the village began to gather to watch and saw the glow of Divine Arts.
“This will ease your pain,” Viola said.
Then she looked at the gathered villagers and raised her voice:
"I, Viola Avarus, will carry out the will of my Lord in this world. From now on, if you face any hardship, you may come to Leon Stronghold to seek me out—I will do whatever I can to help."
She looked again at Lilia, who was staring wide-eyed at the holy light, took a necklace from her pocket, and placed it in Lilia’s hands.
The pendant was made of silver and shaped like an open hand with slightly spread fingers.
"This is the Holy Emblem of the Demon God. Pray to it, and the Demon God will watch over you."
Around them, the villagers fell to their knees and bowed toward the divine radiance, as though witnessing a miracle…
———
Li Chengxi was utterly unaware that his Archbishop had suddenly crowned him with the title of a Wise God, nor did he know about Viola’s valiant battle of wits with the air.
All he saw was that Viola had brought people to return the wooden plate to Lilia, and then had activated Holy Light publicly in front of the villagers.
As a result, many villagers of Hain Village suddenly had their Devotion raised from 0 to between 5 and 10.
In Li Chengxi’s eyes, his plan to kill two birds with one stone had been accomplished: the plate was returned to the child, and Hain Village now had its first batch of mildly devoted believers.
The NPCs in this game had very high autonomy, so even though the playable sections were limited, certain outcomes could still be achieved through indirect influence.
After that, he watched as Viola, with her Royal Guards, bid farewell to Lilia, rode all the way back to Leon Stronghold, and hurried straight into the Chapel to kneel beneath the Holy Emblem and offer prayers.
This reminded Li Chengxi of how people prayed to gods and then returned to fulfill their vows.
Truly worthy of being the Number One devotee with maxed-out Devotion.
Li Chengxi moved his mouse and clicked on Viola, who was kneeling before the Holy Emblem, to see what she was praying about.
The dialogue box next to her character artwork displayed: “Please, O Lord Demon God, grant us our Doctrine.”
Li Chengxi smacked his forehead.
“Oh right, I forgot about that…”
The player was acting as the Demon God here, and since it was a godhood role, it had to come with a Church and a Doctrine.
Church construction couldn’t be rushed.
Li Chengxi knew that with Viola’s current situation, she couldn’t spare people or effort to build a Temple.
At most, the Chapel had just been renovated a bit.
But the issue of a Doctrine couldn't be taken lightly.
Every religion on Earth had its own myths and stories that illustrated the greatness of their god—otherwise, who’d bother to have faith?
It made perfect sense for Viola to ask the God for a Doctrine.
It just meant that now Li Chengxi had to write one.
But what the heck was he supposed to write?
He had absolutely no idea how to do this.
Was he supposed to find a translated Bible online and read it out?
But that didn’t match with the Demon God at all.
Or maybe…
Li Chengxi bolted upstairs, and after a moment came back down holding a copy of Das Kapital.
Compared to vague mythologies, how about reading some Marx and Lenin to Viola?
"Dear comrade Davaarish, come with me to destroy the decaying capitalist system!"
Emmmm…
But thinking carefully, the world in the game was still in a feudal monarchy stage, and Viola was a princess.
Asking her to incite revolution against herself...
Even ignoring whether Viola had the ideological strength to do it, the Demon God’s title was 'King of all Demon Kings'—He himself was the reactionary class.
This tonal dissonance was just getting weirder.
As he fretted over how to respond to Viola, Li Chengxi saw on-screen that a few careful knights were pushing a food trolley into the Chapel.
They looked like they were performing some kind of solemn ritual, placing a covered dish on the altar and then reverently kneeling to pray.
What is this supposed to be?
An offering?
(End of Chapter)