“It is the might of Dragon God that has allowed me to live a life that can be called human. You blasphemous woman, you are simply a devil from the Abyss.”
“This woman is a blasphemer who dared to assassinate the lord in public. She has violated the law.”
“O my Lord, my son Alan has just been chosen to enter the magic tower to learn knowledge and become a noble mage in the future. This is all a gift from the lord. But you, you are a devil who tried to deprive mine and my child’s life. Even if I die, I will not let you take one step closer to the lord.”
A middle-aged woman shouter in a shrill voice like a mad man, but the fervent faith in her gaze and her hope for the future made her madness rather sacred.
“Tell her to get out of the city. Dragon City does not welcome such evil demons.”
“No, we can’t let her get away with this. We have to tie her up and send her to the inquisition. We will tie her up in the middle of the square and make her repent for her sins in the fire.”
“Go to hell, you devil from Hell.”
“I have seen a devil from Hell before. Even those devils are more polite than this blasphemer. At the very least, those devils know how to respect our lord, while this woman is even worse than them.”
The people were in a frenzy. They hissed and roared as they threw countless charges at Roselia.
They pinned blame, both justified and unjustified on her, saying that the decreased yield of food for the day was her fault, that the cows weren’t producing enough milk was also her fault, that old John losing his dog was also her fault.
These passers-by took out vegetables from their baskets, picked up stones from the ground, and threw them at Roselia. People were always itching to join in liveliness. When they found out what was going on here, more and more people joined in.
After hearing what the woman had done, hearing that she dared assassinate the lord, they all began to act as if they were crazy. A priest in robes looked at Louie’s figure with tears and sobs and took out a knife from his pocket. If he wasn’t stopped by the people around, this priest, who had no fighting experience, would probably have been beaten by Roselia.
After being treated like this by the residents, Roselia was indignant. She activated [Detect Evil] and found that there was only a faint red light on these people. This meant that they had not committed any heavy crimes at all. All of them were law-abiding citizens and some of them even only had specks of red light. This meant that these people normally performed good deeds.
‘Why, why would these people, who could be called good, treat me, a paladin, like this? The city created by an evil god is really the capital of sin. Because of luxury, decay and corruption must have broken many families already. He drained them like vampires, like those greedy nobles who would only use the people of the lower class, and used their lives to exchange for glory. Although the evil god hasn’t shown how cruel he is just yet, when he changes his doctrine and has these people take pleasure in doing evil, they will end up abandoning goodness and will fall into evil.’
This was what worried Roselia the most. As a high-ranking paladin, she had read many ancient documents. She knew that before the Era of Disaster, many evil gods displayed their evils like this.
Those evil gods would exploit ordinary people and make them fall from goodness to vice. Then they would be taught the doctrines of their gods to become crazy cultists.
This logic wasn’t hard to understand. In fact, many people believed in gods due to the goodness in their hearts, but when their faith became deep enough, they would be influenced by the doctrine. The deeper the faith, the more chances they would fall into corruption. On the other hand, those who had weaker faiths were more likely to maintain goodness.
Pseudo-believers were dependent on their own will to choose their faith. Whereas true believers had lost the ability to choose and lived only to follow the teachings of their gods.
Looking at the crazed crowd nearby, Roselia believed that they were already true believers of the evil god. These people would do good when told to do good and would do evil without hesitation when told to do evil. This was the most terrible part of faith, it could distort the ego!
Roselia was surrounded by people. She was at a loss as she shook her head and said, “No, I am not. This had nothing to do with me. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
She was a little confused as she did not know what she did wrong. She really had no selfishness and just wanted to destroy evil and have the world be wrapped in goodness.
Roselia did not resist as stones were thrown at her. She was afraid that those stones would hurt other innocent people because of her. She could only suffer silence and let these stones bruise her beautiful face and skin.
A paladin could not hurt innocent people. The people who surrounded her were all innocent people and did not go overboard against her, so Roselia could only endure the abuse and stones being thrown at her.
Louie watched with cold eyes. Let alone a backward civilization like San Soliel, even modern society had many foolish people.
These followers of his were fools in a way. They didn’t think much for themselves. They hadn’t studied philosophy and refined their logical thinking. In their simple life and thoughts, being able to live like a human being, being clothed and fed, was the greatest happiness. The God who provided this was a good God, while the paladin who wanted to break their livelihood was the greatest evil.
These poor faithless people would follow Louie’s words because he had given them the dignity of life. Even if Louie deprived them of their lives today, they would no longer resent god but would consider their suffering as a punishment brought by their rebellion against the god.
Those who could get angry at the gods for their suffering were not true believers. True believers had an almost unshakable faith. This was why making people believe in the gods was the most difficult step. As long as the believers held faith in a deity, they would try to please them. They would treat all hardships as the whip of love from the god and would never pour out their anger on them.
On modern Earth, even if there were no true gods, there were many people placed under the brainwashing of cults. In San Soliel, a world with true gods, gods could give feedback and reward the people who followed them. This only made people crazier.
A world with a god and a world without a god had their pros and cons.
In a world with gods, evil people could exercise evil at will because evil gods would shelter them. The good could also perform good deeds because of the gods behind them. Once a mortal believed in a god, their wills would begin distorting. The dogma of the gods would replace their own, and they would lose their original selves.
Louie looked with pleasure at the pain and bewildered expression of the paladin. He wondered if she would have her heartbroken by the misunderstanding and abuse of these people who were equally good people.
The best way to deal with paladins was to defeat them with goodness. Once a paladin went against their creed, they would have already lost. This fall was even more horrible than death.