“Those half-beastkin and beastkin have been atoning for their sins in this sinful land for ten thousand years. It is time they returned to the embrace of my God, Pelor.”
“What do you mean, Your Holiness?” asked Guard Captain Laya.
“I will preach on this cursed land and bring those ignorant beastkin and half-beastkin back into the embrace of my God, Pelor!” A frenzied smile appeared on Vina's face.
“If I can unite these beastkin and half-beastkin and make them believers of His Grace...”
“...then the great deity will surely bestow a miracle upon me!”
Guard Captain Laya's expression turned slightly strange. Although she had always known her Saintess's ideas were radical, she had not expected them to be this insane.
Yet, knowing her Saintess well, Laya also knew that once Her Holiness made up her mind, it was nearly impossible to change it. She could only sigh, assemble the team, and prepare to set off again.
But just then...
“Who's there?!”
As if sensing something, Vina suddenly let out a startled cry, warily scanning her surroundings.
But she found nothing.
“Your Holiness, is something wrong?” Guard Captain Laya asked.
“Did you...” Vina's gaze remained vigilant, like a kitten with its fur standing on end. “...did you sense someone watching us just now?”
“Someone watching us?” Laya turned and looked around. In the vast, empty desert, there was not a single soul in sight. She could only turn back, looking at her Saintess with a touch of pity.
“Your Holiness, you must be too tired. We have already left the Great Gana Forest. There won't be any goblins watching us from the shadows anymore.”
“No, I don't mean goblins.” Vina scanned her surroundings. After a moment, confirming that there was indeed no one there, she could only sigh. “Perhaps I am just being too sensitive.”
...
Yellow sand swirled through the air, and the blazing sun hung high in the sky.
After several days of trekking, Vina's group finally reached their destination.
Glancing at the obelisk towering amidst the yellow sands, Vina licked her dry, chapped lips, her gaze falling upon several figures holding wreaths at the base of the monument.
“I didn't expect these savage creatures to mourn their fallen companions,” Vina muttered to herself.
As the Saintess, she had grown up in the church since childhood, and her understanding of the outside world relied almost entirely on hearsay and books.
In her mind, beastkin and half-beastkin were extremely savage and brutal, incomparable to other intelligent life. In times of food scarcity, they would even resort to cannibalism.
Their instincts far overrode their reason.
They were more akin to wild beasts than intelligent races.
At the same time, this was also the view of most humans.
Seeing this scene now, although Vina's opinion of the lives in this savage land did not change much, her determination to proselytize here grew even stronger.
If they could mourn their companions, they could pray to the gods.
She secretly swore that when her mission succeeded, she would tear down this obelisk and replace it with a statue of His Grace, the God of Light.
In the heart of this fanatic Saintess, only the statue of the great God of Light was worthy of standing in this place and receiving the prayers of the people.
...
The Equipment Department.
Department Head Gar was enthusiastically discussing the development plans for the chainsword with Irene, while piles of discarded prototypes lay in a cluttered heap in the corner.
Most of them had broken or worn-out serrated blades.
Some were still emitting black smoke, clearly having just been scrapped not long ago.
Through generation after generation of development, the flaws of the knockoff chainswords had become painfully obvious.
This near-sci-fi melee weapon was highly prone to wear and tear, or even snapping, during slashing because the material of the serrated blades was not strong enough to withstand the high-frequency vibrations.
In their very first experiment, the blade had snapped directly due to insufficient material strength.
Even engraving magical runes on them could not solve the root of the problem.
The original weapon was suspected to have utilized a highly advanced technological method that significantly prevented the wear of the serrated blade.
However, due to the erosion of time, it was completely impossible to replicate it.
After researching this technology, Irene had named it monomolecular blade technology.
According to her hypothesis, if this technology could be realized, probably not even the physical body of a Gold Rank Grand Warrior could withstand a single strike from the serrated blade.
But due to the limitations of their technology tree, Irene and the others could not yet unlock this key technology.
They could only sigh at how absurdly high the technology tree of the ancient beastkin had climbed.
In response, Gar had proposed two more practical solutions to the chainsword's wear-and-tear issue through continuous research over the past few days.
The first was to make the chainsword larger, longer, and wider, and then prepare several spare serrated blades.
In his own words: “I reckon if we make it bigger, we can chop 'em dead in one go. Then we won't need a second strike, and the wear and tear will naturally be lower!”
But because the serrated blades would still eventually wear down and snap—with the disastrous consequence of the broken blade flying off and hitting nearby allies—this proposal was ultimately rejected.
The second solution was to use rarer and more precious metals.
However, due to the excessive cost and its failure to address the root of the problem, it was also scrapped.
Gar had also tried to replicate the suspected special alloys from the ancient beastkin starship. But no matter how he smelted them, he could not achieve the desired effect. Even dismantling the starship to melt and reuse the metal proved difficult, as the alloy used on the ship had extremely high resistance and was almost impossible to melt completely. In the end, he had to give up.
Now, however, with Irene's help, the modification of the chainsword had found a relatively reliable direction.
Although they lacked monomolecular blade technology, they had magic. Irene envisioned replacing molecules with magic particles to achieve magic particle blade technology.
By coating the surface of the serrated blade with a high-speed stream of magic particles, they could achieve both cutting capability and protection for the blade.
If this technology succeeded, it was foreseeable that the offensive power of Irene's army would be significantly enhanced.
Although the magic particle blade would not be as powerful as a true monomolecular blade, cutting through ordinary magical items and mana shields should be child's play.
However, due to her limited experience and the depth of her research into magic, this concept could not yet be fully realized.
It remained purely in the planning stage.
Just as Irene's dragon brain was overheating from calculating magical laws at high speeds, a report of an arriving human envoy interrupted her thoughts.
Rate on N.U.
