Chapter 88: Why Believe

Wang Yu’s small wooden outpost remained as it had been, perched at the end of Black Street Number Seven, overlooking the sheer cliffs below. Yet, while the structure itself had undergone no change in size, it had been entirely renovated; the more profound transformation, however, lay upon the precipice itself.

There, one could find a variety of races Wang Yu had previously only encountered in books: elves, dark elves, kobolds, dwarves, and even a vampire.

Wang Yu blinked. If he was not mistaken, the handsome man in the dark evening suit, flapping his leathery bat wings, was indeed a vampire—though his current occupation had little to do with the elegance typical of the night-born.

The pale, handsome man was handing a thick, I-shaped metal beam to a burly orc who was hammering steel spikes into the cliffside to lay tracks. Wang Yu found the orc strangely familiar. Emon?

It made sense; he had previously commissioned them to help build the alchemy workshop.

"Since when did we acquire so many non-human believers?" Wang Yu asked, hesitating as he looked toward the Lady of the Night, who sat rocking in the same chair by the outpost door as when he had left.

"Ah, they came after seeing that board of yours. Once I paid them their due wages, they naturally turned their faith toward me. Not many humans came, but many of these other races did. But then, you did not exclude them on that sign, did you?"

"Well, of course not. As long as they are sentient, what does it matter? If you can accept their faith, then it is fine. In fact, their unique talents might be better suited for building our church grounds than those of ordinary humans."

Wang Yu had never truly entertained the notion of racial discrimination. This was not because of some lofty moral standing, but simply because he was a man from Earth.

He lacked the inherent prejudices of this world; environment shapes the man, and since Wang Yu had not been influenced by this particular social climate, those biases simply did not take root.

"Come, Nomian, Kaia, pay your respects to His Excellency the Archbishop." Before Wang Yu could ponder why the church had suddenly swelled with so many people, Holo’s voice drifted from behind.

Turning, Wang Yu saw Holo standing there with an apologetic smile. Behind him stood two dark elf children, a boy and a girl, clutching their grandfather’s legs and peeking out at Wang Yu with timid expressions.

"My apologies, Your Excellency. They are a bit shy," Holo said, gently nudging the two little ones. The children possessed the natural charm and agility of the elven race, and they offered a clumsy, standard human greeting.

Wang Yu, however, was not particularly fond of children, nor was he adept at handling such scenes. After a moment’s thought, he channeled a pulse of power to poke Charles, who was standing nearby, and gave him a meaningful look.

It was unclear how the man understood, but he did. Charles pulled a tarot card from his pocket and tapped it, releasing a brilliant golden butterfly that drifted into the air, instantly capturing the children’s attention.

With a word to Holo, Charles used the excuse of taking the children for a tour to lead them away.

"Is that your friend, Your Excellency?" Holo asked.

"Yes, a good friend of mine."

"Ah, one can feel the favor of nature upon him. He must be a good man, yes?"

"I… suppose?" Wang Yu recalled Charles’s various reliable and unreliable antics, and after careful comparison, decided that he was reliable more often than not.

The topic of Charles ended there, and Holo continued to recount how he had come to join the Church of the Nightfall.

Upon arriving in the Shadow of the Royal City, the first problem Holo’s family faced was food. Without money or anything of value to humans, it was nearly impossible to secure sustenance in this chaotic, profit-driven underground city.

Fortunately, as a druid, Holo could easily conjure edible plants outside the Corrupted Lands. Along the banks of the underground river, he used the seeds he carried and the native mushrooms to keep his family from starvation.

But that was not enough. The greed and chaos of this city did not target humans alone. Dark elves, despite their poor reputation, were no different from other elves save for their skin tone.

Elven women, and even men, were highly sought-after commodities in certain black markets.

Compared to high elves, who were powerful and usually had protectors, dark elves—lacking both reputation and significant strength—were even more popular in these markets.

Inevitably, a local gang discovered Holo’s family. Their greed made the family an immediate target for capture.

Facing the threat of abduction once more, Holo was forced to flee with his family, much like he had when escaping the fanatical followers of the Nature God.

The chaos within the city was actually a good way to evade capture; entering a lawless zone could confuse pursuers, but this was only true for humans.

For non-humans, it was a poor strategy. They struggled to integrate into a city dominated by humanity; wherever they went, they were met with suspicion and wariness.

The weak would only flee from them, while those with power saw only greed and covetousness. It was not that the city lacked good people, but in such a chaotic place, the chance of encountering them was slim.

Yet, by a stroke of luck, Holo was one of the fortunate. He met a kind soul—or rather, a kind goddess.

One day, to lead his pursuers away, Holo hid his family and transformed into a black panther, darting through alleys and streets, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with the gang members.

But as a druid unfamiliar with the city's layout, even the agility of his panther form could not save him from being cornered.

Driven step by step, the panther’s body was pierced by several poisoned arrows. The toxin slowly drained the druid’s strength. Ahead lay the end of Black Street Number Seven—a dead end with a sheer cliff.

Feeling his body lose the capacity to flee, the druid finally chose to lie down before a small house at the end of the street, closing his eyes to await his fate.

He would use the panther’s sharp claws and teeth to take the first gang member who dared approach him.

He waited for a long time, until the toxin was slowly purged by the panther’s robust physique, yet Holo did not sense a single gang member.

He lifted his head in confusion, and what he saw were the calm, profound eyes of the Lady of the Night’s avatar.

"Are you alright? I concealed your presence; those chasing you cannot find you. By the way, would you like to believe in the Lady of the Night? I am Darkness, the saintess of the church." While Holo was still dazed, the Lady of the Night began to introduce herself.

"This is our church, the Church of the Nightfall. This is the scripture, written by my Archbishop, Wang Yu. And here is the job posting; if you are interested, you can come work. Well, the board doesn't say dark elves are forbidden, so that means it is allowed."

The Lady of the Night’s recruitment of her first believer could not be called a disaster, but it was certainly bizarre. Yet, having endured so much hardship, Holo was deeply moved by the calm, ripple-free, yet undeniably sincere words of the Lady.

Especially the invitation to believe in a deity again. As an apostate of the Nature God, he had never dared to contemplate faith in another, yet here was someone inviting him to do just that.

"I… I am an apostate. May I still join?" Holo’s voice trembled.

"Apostate? Have you committed the evil deeds mentioned here? One or two might be fine, but anything too excessive is truly not allowed." The Lady of the Night handed Holo the scripture Wang Yu had written, which mostly promoted truth, kindness, and beauty, alongside some mystical musings.

Holo, in his exhausted human form, read through it and found that his past actions had no connection to any of the evils listed.

The intellectual depth of the book also shocked the aging elven druid. The breadth of its tolerance was entirely different from the Nature Scriptures he had read, which were almost entirely devoted to praising the Nature God.

Holo nodded hesitantly.

"Then there is no problem. Are you interested in believing in the Lady of the Night?" The Lady of the Night nodded. The druid did not realize that this woman calling herself Darkness was the Lady of the Night herself.

"I have a small question. Why does the scripture of the Church of the Nightfall contain almost no words of praise for the Lady of the Night?"

Indeed, this was a massive flaw in Wang Yu’s scripture. While it borrowed some laudatory language from the Church of Light, most of it consisted of instructions and calls to action for the believers. Content praising the Lady of the Night was sparse.

The closest it came was something like, "Man acts, and the Lady of the Night watches."

To the Lady of the Night and Wang Yu, this was fine, but to everyone else in this world—even believers of other churches—it was utterly absurd.

"The Lady of the Night does not care for such things. She probably just thinks that as long as the believers live well and remember their god, that is enough."

Darkness said this—or rather, the Lady of the Night herself said this—and perhaps this was the true thought of the deity.

"Is… is that so? Then please, let me believe in the Lady of the Night, this great deity. I am willing to swear my faith and follow Her scripture."

The shock in Holo’s heart lingered. As a former believer of the Nature God, he knew that deities were always positioned as supreme.

A god like the one this lady described had never existed in his experience. Even the most unique Church of Light was fundamentally different from the Church of the Nightfall. To use Wang Yu’s words: one was human-centered, the other god-centered.

"Welcome to the fold." The Lady of the Night pulled Holo up, her pupils flickering with darkness. She was a god; naturally, she could see if Holo was lying or harbored malice. She was pleased; this believer had no ulterior motives.

"I salute you, respected Saintess. I am honored to bathe in the… darkness of the Lady of the Night."

Memories from his years as a believer of the Nature God resurfaced; those rituals were etched into his bones. He had wanted to say "glory," but remembering the nature of the Lady of the Night, he cleverly changed his phrasing.

"I am glad the Goddess has gained a new believer. By the way, one more question: are you interested in working here? These are the wages." Darkness, the goddess herself, responded to Holo’s salute and asked again if he wanted to work.

Holo turned to look at the requirements on the board and was stunned once more. This was unimaginable to him.

In the Shadow of the Royal City, without power or influence, it was impossible to earn money from others. Being given a meal for one’s labor was considered good; more often, one was forced to work with a blade at one’s back.

The compensation listed on Wang Yu’s board refreshed Holo’s understanding once again. He finally grasped that the Goddess, as Darkness had said, simply hoped her believers could live well.

"So merciful, so… benevolent…" Holo whispered to himself. Recognition and reverence grew within him, and his spiritual energy slowly transformed into a faint power of faith, forming a bond between him and the Lady of the Night.

"I am willing! May my family come as well?"

"Of course."

……

"I see." Wang Yu stroked his chin. After hearing Holo’s story, he finally understood why the Church of the Nightfall had attracted so many non-humans. In the Shadow of the Royal City, their lives were miserable. To have an existence that offered no discrimination and provided protection—faith, it seemed, was merely a natural consequence.

Take that vampire, for instance, a poor wretch transformed into a creature of the night by a passing viscountess simply because of his youthful, handsome face, only for her to be struck down by a paladin of the Church of Light after some reckless feeding frenzy.

Ever since, the unfortunate soul has been forced into hiding, constantly dodging vampire hunters who would just as soon kill him for a bounty as look at him, until he stumbled upon a missionary of the Church of Night and, left with no other choice, joined their ranks, thus finding a new beginning.

"Hmm, that is quite good," Wang Yu nodded, finding the reality here even more astonishing than the visions the Lady of Night had shared with him; it was a place of burgeoning growth and vitality, where every non-human soul brimmed with hope—not perfect, perhaps, but at least decent, and maybe that was the true meaning of faith after all.

But what of the orthodox gods? At times, when their churches commit such grievous wrongs, why do they remain silent? Are they shackled by the very chains of the faith they inspire, or is it that the true architects of deceit—those who fabricate creeds to rule and profit—were never the gods themselves, but these so-called believers?

Wang Yu could not say, yet he finally understood what it was that truly drew the faithful to the Church of Night.