Shrine of Crusaders

The morning prayers went by pretty quickly, especially when Astra was too drowsy to make a fuss for every time I remotely praise the appearance of the Goddess in a line of a hymn or a poem.

After that, Owen brought us on a walk to the nearest horse stable. Because he usually borrows only one horse for a ride, this time, we all chipped in for a carriage. More like, I chipped in because Owen said he forgot his money pouch and the girls are currently penniless.

Oh well, again, it's not my money, to begin with.

The Shrine of Crusaders is apparently in the sixth ring near the west gate. Even though it's located in the slums, Owen says that it's in its own fenced-off area, and it's actually pretty nice, since people from the second ring often go there, as well.

Cruel, isn't it? To place a nice building where people make a lot of money in the middle of an area where the population literally can't feed themselves, but I guess as the single biggest capitalist on Earth, I am not the one to talk.

On the way, Owen explained that the shrine has a ranking system, which reminds me a little of the cults, but it is what it is.

The crusaders are divided into five main ranks: D, C, B, A, and S, with each one having a -, none, and + sub-rank. Climbing these ranks means that the crusader can take on missions of higher difficulties, and the shrine personnel decide the difficulty ratings of each mission and give the clients an estimate of the cost.

There are also the normal ogre killing missions, but Owen said that because of how overpopulated the Pitted Woods is with them, killing simple ogres doesn't bring any rewards. The higher levels are where the money is at, but we will still have to deal with the simple ogres because they are always in the way.

Plus, apparently, the organs of the strong ogres can be used as material or something, so they can also be sold off for money. The crusaders rid the forest of threats while the shrine makes profits.

A well-oiled business, I must admit, but even in the most efficient systems, there will be exploits, and it will be up to me to identify and take advantage of them. It shouldn't be that hard because it was essentially my job since I was twelve, and I was pretty fucking good at it.

Owen also told us about Holy Weapons, which Astra, of course, already knew about. They are weapons imbued with divine energy by a special group of smiths and bishops. They embody the affinities Astra talked about and can… create magic or something, I didn't really understand.

What I understood very clearly was that these Holy Weapons are not particularly uncommon but supposedly extremely pricey. These are often used by the nobles to complete tasks with much higher efficiency than the lower class.

One needs money to buy these tools, and one needs these tools to make money. Such traps can't be escaped no matter which world I'm in, it looks like.

We take the hoop between the sixth and the fifth ring to reach the west side with speed, even then, it took a good while. The Holy Capital is no small city.

Before we left the hoop to enter the slums, I can already see the shrine.

Now, the only shrines that I am familiar with are the Eastern shrines, which are not remotely what the one in the distance resembles. It's more of a church than a shrine, a huge one, at that.

It's not much less than half of the Grand Cathedral. It's made of white bricks and has complicated patterns built into the walls, just like the Cathedral. I have never seen more extensive use of colored glass panes than this monstrosity. I almost thought my eyes were playing a trick on me or something. It looks like a kaleidoscope from over here.

Pieces of gold accent the building and bring out even more of its grandness, at the same time making the slums around it more… slums-like.

A cross shape sticks out the tip of the pointy roof of the shrine. For a second I thought it was the Christian Cross, but upon a closer look, it's a statue of a sword embedded into the top of the shrine.

Subtle.

The traffic of horses and carriages is getting denser as we approach. Like Owen had said, the shrine is literally fenced off from the slums. A metal fence surrounds it on all sides, dividing it from the poor.

It's not just the shrine that's segregated. A large chunk of land around it is also within the perimeter. In there, there is a training ground of some sort, a stable, a detached semi-mansion, and their own gate leading into the Pitted Woods.

Quite a privilege to work here.

Soon, we ride through the gate and stop at the stable. There are people hanging around the main entrance, their classes range from the malnourished to lavish.

Owen tells us to get off, and he leads us up the tall stairs and into the shrine. People give us passing looks, probably because of our hair again.

Through the high gates, we enter the entrance hall. It's is massive, even bigger than the one at my tower. The ceiling goes all the way up to the roof, which has got to be over a hundred feet tall. There are paintings up there, beautiful ones, even. How in the world they got up there is out of my mind.

Chandeliers hang all the way down to a few meters above our heads and illuminate this incredibly luxurious and classy lobby. People are chatting in groups armed with more weapons than a middle-ages soldier should ever need, their voices echo around in this spacious chamber.

Some of them have armor in gold, while others have none at all.

Faye expresses her awe by exclaiming, "Whoa," while glancing around this shrine.

There are a few elves around, as well, but none of them have more than loose fabric as clothes. Maybe the people were looking at Faye because she is the only elf with a dress.

Just like the lobby at the Kaplan tower, there is a reception desk, a few actually, all the way on the other side, but unlike my tower, there are huge stairs leading up all over the place behind the desks. I can't even track how many floors there are.

"Follow me," Owen says, "We need to get you guys registered."

"Okay."

We walk up to the line waiting at one of the reception desks. There are wide boards around us, each having a wall of paper pinned on them. The boards are categorized by a letter and a sign above them. Each of the ranks has its own mission boards.

Other than the S boards and D boards, people crowd around the mission posts, pointing and yelling. There is a clearly visible increase in the quality of the crusaders' gears as the level goes up.

A few women stand beside the S- board. They are clad in thick and embellished white armor up to their teeth. Their weapons are luxurious, as well. The glaive one of them is holding looks more like an art piece than a polearm.

While waiting in line, Owen walks up to the one labeled as D and scans the board. A piece of paper catches his attention.

He runs back into line toward us with a wide smile on his face.