A Sacred Tradition Revived

There were rumors that Tae-hyun was greedy and wicked, but they were undoubtedly baseless. How could a hero who threw his entire being into defending the continent possibly be such a man?

'They must be malicious rumors spread by wicked people jealous of that hero!' The chamberlain nodded to himself. His Majesty the King's eye for people was certainly unerring.

"Go in there, explain the situation, and borrow everything you can—from paladins to priests."

"Why should I do that?!"

"Da-bi. If I beat him, he might die, so could you do it for me?"

"Yes!"

Lee Da-bi did not hesitate. She pulled out a heavy sack of coins and began swinging it. With a satisfying thud, a scream burst from the 4th Prince's mouth.

"Urgh! Ack! Argh!"

"T-Tae-hyun!"

"Why? Does your heart ache too much to watch?"

Tae-hyun wondered if he should ask someone else. However, Lee Da-bi shook her head.

"My stats are rising so fast, though?"

"!"

Even though his level was low, hitting the 4th Prince granted a bonus simply because he was royalty! Tae-hyun felt incredibly envious.

'Damn it! I want to do it too!'

"I-I get it! I'll do it! I'll do it!"

The 4th Prince groaned and cried out. Naturally, Tae-hyun and Lee Da-bi pretended not to hear.

"Ji-su. Come over here and raise your stats too. You too, Su-hyeok."

"Yes!"

"Understood!"

Cain asked quietly.

"Can I..."

"No, you idiot. Your damage is too high."

Cain backed away, looking dejected.

"I said I'll do it! I'll do it, you bastard! Can't you hear me?!"

Even after suffering like this, the 4th Prince still hadn't figured out what kind of person Tae-hyun was. This, too, was a talent. A talent for getting beaten up!

"That guy's got talent."

"Yeah. A talent similar to the demons."

The party whispered among themselves. After a long while, when hitting him no longer raised their stats, Tae-hyun finally stopped the assault.

"Are you willing to do it now?"

"I've been saying... I'll do it... since earlier..."

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"Now, get in there."

Tae-hyun shoved the 4th Prince. The prince stumbled into the temple of the Tyran Church.

"But Tae-hyun, what if the 4th Prince uses his royal status to borrow paladins and tries to capture us?"

"Then we run, obviously."

"...F-For real?"

"I'm joking. I have so many Contribution Points and completed quests that it would just be a minor annoyance, not a real problem."

His accumulated Contribution Points were so astronomical that even if he slapped the 4th Prince, he could somehow clean up the mess. It would just be a waste of points!

'If you make me waste my Contribution Points on something like that, I will sentence you to the Archisus punishment.'

Fortunately, no such thing happened. Overwhelmed by Tae-hyun's triple threat of stats—Terror, Reputation, and Infamy—and utterly dominated by his Speech skill, the 4th Prince meekly did exactly as he was told.

"I... I borrowed them."

A good start! Tae-hyun was satisfied with this surprisingly clean beginning. He had been worried that the Tyran Church might say, "We don't play with Archisus!" and refuse to cooperate.

"Though the Archisus Church is hard to trust, King Kim Tae-hyun is undoubtedly a hero of the continent. His desire to prevent Nevuchadnezzar's resurrection must be genuine."

The paladins and priests murmured as they filed out. All his hard work slaying various demons had finally paid off! Despite their deep-seated grievances against the Archisus Church, they believed Tae-hyun's words to be true.

Of course, they had absolutely no idea. They didn't know that Tae-hyun's actual plan was to let Nevuchadnezzar resurrect first, and then slay him!

"Great. If we keep going like this and gather the church paladins, the priesthoods, and the noble knight orders..."

Tae-hyun folded his fingers as he calculated his plan. The most powerful military force in the Erangs Kingdom was the noble knight orders. A charge of knights whose levels exceeded 400 or 500 possessed a destructive power that players simply couldn't match.

If they deployed the knights on a wide plain, backed them up with paladins and priests, and launched a coordinated assault... even Nevuchadnezzar would struggle to survive!

Of course, for this plan to succeed, they first had to borrow the noble knight orders.

"No, that's impossible."

The 4th Prince shook his head the moment he heard it.

"Why?"

"Why on earth would the nobles lend you their knights? They aren't crazy."

"Even if royalty commands it?"

"Even if you command them, they won't. If anything, they'll band together and rebel."

'The Erangs Kingdom and the Atali Kingdom are pretty much the same.'

Thinking that nobles would just shout, "Yes! We shall obey!" just because a king ordered them to was incredibly naive. Any noble with land and power would inevitably respond with, "Let me think about it..." first.

Besides, there was absolutely nothing in it for them this time. They were being asked to send their knights to stop Nevuchadnezzar, who might not even show up. Unless they were zealots like the paladins, they had zero reason to participate!

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"Then we'll forget about the noble knights and just focus on the churches... By the way, do you not have a single noble you're close with?"

Tae-hyun asked as the thought suddenly occurred to him. The holy knights had knelt before Tae-hyun of their own accord, pledging to follow him. Of course, that was only possible because they were a specialized order that did nothing but hunt down and crush demons and undead.

But still, if the 4th Prince had a friendly noble or a knight commander, couldn't they come to help?

The 4th Prince stammered, hesitating.

"I... don't really have anyone I'm close with..."

"Hey. I think we picked the wrong one. Can't we just swap him out for a different prince?"

Cain whispered from behind. The 4th Prince flared up at his words.

"How dare a lowly peasant speak to me like that!"

"W-What? I might be a slave, but I have no reason to take that from you!"

"What? A slave? How dare a slave?!"

"...Both of you look pathetic, so cut it out. Let's move on to the next church."

Every church on the continent had long pondered how to defeat powerful demons. In the midst of this, rumors of the Archisus Church's dungeon made them doubt their own ears.

A dungeon capable of sealing a powerful Archdemon was one of a religious order's most potent weapons. Naturally, every church would desperately want to uncover its secrets.

'Huh?' Tae-hyun was taken aback. Was the Archisus Dungeon of Hunger really that amazing? Well, yes, it was impressive since Lalgrgal was currently sealed inside, but... he had assumed other churches had at least one similar dungeon of their own.

"Ahem, cough..."

"?"

As Tae-hyun arrived in front of the temple, a crowd of high priests emerged, clearing their throats.

"Your Majesty... um... that is to say..."

It was the complicated expression of someone who desperately wanted to avoid a conversation but had no choice but to speak! The priests of the Phytos Church were terrible at hiding their feelings.

'They're far below the Archisus Church.'

The priests of the Archisus Church were all masters of poker faces!

After muttering among themselves for a long while, the high priests of the Phytos Church seemed to make up their minds and called out.

"Your Majesty! Please, come inside! We have been waiting for you!"

The approach the Phytos Church had chosen was to treat Tae-hyun as if absolutely nothing had ever happened between them.

-Nothing ever happened between us!

Since Tae-hyun had kicked the Phytos Church out of the Atali Kingdom and established the Archisus Church in its place, there was no way they could be on good terms. But right now, they had to play dumb! Otherwise, no conversation could even begin.

'They must really covet that dungeon.'

Seeing the priests pretend all of Tae-hyun's past misdeeds never happened and enthusiastically welcome him as the "Hero of the Continent" and "Great Majesty" made him feel a bit pity for them.

'...Stop hitting me with facts...'

Hearing it from Carbanog made him feel strangely sorrowful. No matter how much Tae-hyun supported and nurtured the Archisus Church, there was a fundamental gap they couldn't bridge! It was an astronomical difference that a church starting from absolute zero after going bankrupt simply couldn't catch up to.

Funds, number of knights, number of priests, number of buildings, and so on... If there was anything the Archisus Church excelled in, it was their current continent-wide fame and their wicked schemes.

'What?'

Was there something strange? Carbanog harbored doubts, but Tae-hyun ignored it and turned his gaze back to the priests of the Phytos Church.

"What you all want is..."

"Your Majesty! Why didn't you visit our church first?!"

"??"

Just as he was about to start the conversation, a booming shout echoed from behind! It was priests emerging from the other churches situated right next to the Phytos Church temple.

These were the churches that had been beaten up relatively less by Tae-hyun—or rather, those that had relatively decent relations with him! Because of that, they had no hesitation in their actions.

"Why bother entering the Phytos Church? You two don't even get along."

"Come, come. Please visit our Podse Church first. Lord Podse would be delighted."

The priests quickly succeeded in grabbing Tae-hyun's left and right arms! From the Phytos Church's perspective, this was utterly preposterous. These bastards have absolutely no business ethics!

"What do you think you are doing?! Can you not see we are in the middle of a conversation?!"

"You were just about to talk, but it didn't look like you actually started..."

"Ahem. We shall speak with him first and then send him your way."

Once they extracted the secret of the dungeon first, they wouldn't care less! The priests of each church made their blatant intentions clear as they bickered.

"You dare?!"

"Where are you grabbing?! You want a piece of me?!"

Collar-grabbing! A high-class brawl between dignified high priests! It was a relief the paladins weren't here. If they were, they would have drawn swords.

Fortunately, being priests, they merely grabbed each other's collars and flailed around, trying to yank out whatever few strands of hair they had left.

Tae-hyun, who was thoroughly enjoying the spectacle, suddenly snapped out of it. This was no time to just watch!

"Wait!"

"?"

"???"

"From this moment on, the auction for the Demon Sealing Dungeon begins!"

"...????"

"A-A one-year lease of our High Priesthood!"

One of the quickest and most agile priests raised his hand and shouted. The other priests gasped in shock. Y-You underhanded bastard!

"The privilege of taking one random treasure from our church's Advanced Treasury...!"

"The Secret skill of our Paladin Commander...!"

The jaws of Tae-hyun's party members dropped behind him. Rewards that a church-affiliated player would have to grind for years to obtain were being showered upon them!

Did such a tradition even exist?

"We... We will construct an Advanced Phytos Church building for you...!"

"Do you really think that would work?!"

"Exactly! The Archisus Church already has its own buildings, why on earth would they need a Phytos Church building?!"

The priests of the other churches mocked the Phytos Church in unison. Caught up in the heat of competition, they had completely forgotten their usual camaraderie and immediately began undermining each other.

An Advanced Church building was certainly a powerful structure and a massive gift, but would Tae-hyun ever need such a thing? He was the Pope of the Archisus Church, after all.

"Talk about casting pearls before swine..."

"Sounds good to me."

"?!"

"Y-Your Majesty?! What could you possibly use that building for?!"

"What do you mean, what would I use it for...?"

To permanently lift the [Penalty]!