Chapter 73

“Chapter 73: Lynn! What on earth have you done?!”

Orlen City has a belief system that’s as mixed up as a salad bar—lots of deities and doctrines running around.

Sure, their teachings clash like a bunch of toddler wrestlers, and the churches are constantly bumping heads.

But one thing is for sure: every deity, when spinning their holy books, tells followers to just be good and generous folks.

It’s a positive nudge toward humanity, you know?

Only by doing this can order keep chugging along, and their faith power stays nice and pure.

Looking at the last banner hanging from the Augusta family’s guards, everyone just fell silent.

Even now, they didn’t quite grasp why these people had to hustle for donations in broad daylight, yet plenty of devoted peeps felt a little urge rising in their chests.

After a long pause, a wobbling old man slowly approached.

He fished out a handful of scrappy copper coins, trying to toss them into the glass box of the Church of Heavenly Justice.

“May the Lord bless you.”

As he looked at the banner above, he trembled in prayer.

But just as the old dude was about to tiptoe and drop in his savings, a guard strolled over.

“Sorry, sir,” the guard said politely, “but we can’t accept donations from regular folks.”

The old man blinked a few times: “W-why?”

“Because young Master Lynn said he won’t profit off the poor.”

The guard explained briefly.

After sending the old man away, the guard, probably worried the crowd would misunderstand, announced loudly again.

“If anyone wants to donate, you’d better cough up at least three property deeds from Orlen City or financial proof of an annual income over five thousand gold coins!”

This left everyone absolutely stunned.

Usually, charity drives were all about emptying their pockets, but now? It was flipped on its head.

Not only were their donations not accepted, but they actually had to prove their wealth? That’s wild.

A strange feeling started bubbling up inside the crowd.

But then they looked around at the other onlookers, and the herd mentality kicked in.

After figuring out what was up in the City Square, their curiosity was somewhat satisfied.

The brief excitement came to an end.

Even though it was a day off, many had to hurry off for their bread and milk for their wives and kids.

Before long, the folks who had gathered in the City Square scattered.

Just a few remained, hanging around.

And just like that, half a day flew by.

In the meantime, here and there, some devout church members saw those banners and thought about donating.

But most of them were poor, so they got shut out.

By evening, those twelve glass boxes in the City Square stood there quietly, completely empty.

As if they hadn’t stirred any waves in the city.

Yet, what happened today spread like wildfire.

By the end of the night, nearly everyone knew that the Augusta family and Duke Tilius had teamed up to raise funds for disabled soldiers.

And the intended donors? The local nobles and churches.

“You’re saying they pulled off another donation drive right in public?”

Inside the Church of Heavenly Justice, Bishop Mozer was stunned upon hearing the report from his subordinate.

“That’s right! And they even hung up several banners.”

The subordinate repeated the content on those banners.

Bishop Mozer instinctively stood up, pacing around the room, deep in thought.

After a while, he suddenly smirked coldly: “I was wondering what the fuss was about, but turns out I worried over nothing.”

“Ha! Tilius, you and your crew don’t actually think these petty tricks will yank money out of our pockets, do you?”

“Fools!”

“Notify the nearby churches: if they want to keep splitting the pie, now’s the time to bury the hatchet and stop the squabbling.”

“This is Duke Tilius’s offensive. We need to push back perfectly, even make him hurt, so we can grab more benefits in the future.”

“Tell them this is my request—no, my demand.”

“Any church or noble that dares to donate in this farce will be our dead enemy from now on!”

Time flew by.

Just like that, four days passed in a blink.

During those four days, the buzz around the donation event in the City Square didn’t die down.

In fact, it exploded into daily hot gossip among the town folks.

Every day, loads of people passed by the City Square, stopping to stare for ages.

Just to catch a glimpse of the situation with those boxes.

Because it was just so odd.

Four days in, and not a single coin had found its way into those glass boxes marked for the churches.

As if all the churches had suddenly decided to keep quiet.

For the few ordinary folks without faith, this didn’t seem all that bizarre—even felt like Duke Tilius was shooting himself in the foot.

But for most believers, this quiet move felt like it hinted at something much deeper.

“Let’s see which religion is the kindest and most generous.”

Yet, ironically, the donation boxes were completely empty.

This stark contrast was quite unforgettable.

Every time the believers saw the words on that banner, they fell into a bit of an anxious mood.

Then, as if they were fleeing, they hurriedly left.

When they went to their churches to pray and confess, they’d casually bring this up, but the clergy would all wear expressions of deep secrecy.

Unbeknownst to them, a current began to stir beneath the surface in Orlen City.

Meanwhile, the mastermind behind all this was lounging in the garden, sipping afternoon tea.

Lynn was sipping hot black tea while soaking up the sun.

These last few days had been pretty chill, all thanks to that woman Ivyst.

She didn’t seem to have any outstanding leadership qualities; the one thing worth praising was her bold delegation of power.

At least to fulfill her agreement with Duke Tilius, Ivyst generously opened up all the manor’s permissions to him.

Yet lately, she seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth.

Since their late-night chat in Duke Tilius’s study, Ivyst seemed to have heard something, and suddenly got super busy.

Not only was she rarely seen around the manor, but whenever she did pop back for a breather, she looked totally worn out, tired as a dog.

Once, Lynn even spotted her with dried blood still on her face!

No idea who those poor folks were that bore the brunt of it.

Even Afia and Morris were often MIA.

Only Greya, the slacker, stuck around to keep him company.

“Up next, I’m gonna pull off a magic trick that’ll puzzle the guys.”

“What kind of magic trick?”

“Successful performance.”

Seeing Greya’s dark expression, Lynn burst into laughter.

Just then, butler Kesha approached from behind and whispered, “Young Master Lynn, Duke Tilius is here for a visit.”

“Tell him I’m not free right now.”

“No way!”

Before Lynn could react, he heard Duke Tilius’s roar from behind.

A burly middle-aged man strode straight toward him, his face grim as if he was in a bad mood.

Uh-oh.

Got caught slacking.

Lynn quickly set down his fine china tea cup: “Good afternoon, my lord.”

“Good? What the heck does ‘good’ even mean?!” Duke Tilius launched into a tirade, “Come on, spill it—what shenanigans have you been up to these past couple of days?!”