God's Curse

Ina went to send Lizard some fish food and casually asked, "What's it like deep in the Midnight Swamp?"

Lizard shook his head, "We'd rather fight over the land outside than approach the depths of the Midnight Swamp."

"It's uncomfortable," Lizard didn't know how to describe the feeling, "It's hot, and it makes you irritable."

Ina frowned, feeling the surging power in her veins. She was now deep in the Midnight Swamp, and this place should be very close to the ancient god's relics.

There were no animals or plants here, and in the midst of dead silence, Ina hovered in the thick fog that obscured the sky, feeling an immense sense of oppression. This oppression didn't come from the desolate environment, but rather from the body's instinctive sense of danger, sending a signal to the brain to escape quickly.

The system also chimed in [The concentration of magical power here is too high. You shouldn't stay here for long.] Just as a high concentration of oxygen can suffocate a person, an excessive concentration of magical power can easily cause a practitioner's internal magical power to go haywire.

Ina didn't want to leave, "I haven't figured out the source of the fog yet."

[Perhaps the races within the divine realm are trying to reopen the passage to the Moro Continent.] Worried about Ina's safety in this place, the system directly provided the most likely answer.

"Will they succeed?" Ina asked softly.

[I don't know, but they've persisted for 300 years. Perhaps in another 100 years or 1,000 years, they will eventually succeed.] The system's voice was somewhat cold.

[If that day comes, which side will you stand on?]

Ina suddenly flapped her wings, turning around and flying towards the Foggy Town.

"Don't ask me that question. I don't want to take sides."

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Ina returned to the Dragonflame Restaurant with a cold air about her. It was not yet noon, and there were only a few scattered customers in the restaurant. Before leaving, Lusen left gifts for both her and Dusì. The gift for Dusì was a magic pen that could sense whether there were powerful practitioners nearby, changing color according to the surrounding magical power concentration. Of course, since it was just a simple magic trinket, its sensing power was limited and would only change color when the practitioner was quite powerful.

Lusen whispered to Dusì, "Black means the boss is not at home. Red means the boss is at home. Blue means the boss is about to arrive."

Lusen's gift for Ina was an exquisite stone carving in the shape of the World Tree. The carving was not large, but it presented a transparent golden color, shimmering under the illumination of the shining stone. It was just to Ina's taste.

It was time to find someone to replace Lusen.

Ina casually pushed open the door of an empty room and chose to teleport to the Polar Icefield branch. Surprisingly, there was someone in the wooden house - a young man from the Rize race who, upon seeing her appear, pushed open the door and shouted towards the outside, "The Saintess has arrived! Quickly, inform the chieftain and the priest!"

Ina looked at the young man full of reverence and said dryly, "Thank you." There was really no need for such fuss.

The young man blushed with shyness, "I don't mind at all. I'm not cold waiting inside the house, but the people outside delivering the message have a harder time."

"Please wait a moment, Saintess. The chieftain and the priest will be here soon."

Ina decided to take the initiative to find the chieftain and the priest herself. There was a distance between the village and the wooden house, and both of them were quite old, so there was no need to bother them like this. Ina pushed open the door to go outside, only to hear the young man exclaim in surprise, "Why is there a black cat?"

Meeting Ina's puzzled gaze, he hurriedly corrected himself, "I must have been mistaken. This must be your mount, Nightmare, right? It must have changed into this form to avoid scaring us, right?"

Ina didn't have time to correct the young man's wild imagination. She grabbed the hind leg of the black cat that was trying to escape.

"How did it come here?" Ina asked the system.

[It caught your skirt when you teleported.]

Ina pressed the struggling black cat into her arms. "Don't run around. If you get lost here, you might freeze to death."

The black cat finally settled down a bit.

Ina walked towards the village and saw the chieftain and the priest from afar, sitting on a makeshift scaffold made of tree branches and wooden boards, being carried by many young and strong villagers, running madly towards her.

Ina observed carefully and noticed that for six seconds out of every ten, the chieftain's buttocks couldn't even touch the wooden board beneath him. How was he not shaken to pieces?

She simply spread her wings and flew over.

The chieftain and the priest of the Rize race hurried down from the simple "palanquin" that was worse than a stretcher and invited Ina to sit on it. Ina couldn't enjoy such a treat, so in the end, it turned into a bizarre scene with the chieftain and the priest leading the way in front, Ina following closely behind, and a lazy black cat sitting on the palanquin.

The priest handed Ina the employee contract filled with names, and Ina glanced over it, seeing at least dozens of names.

The priest whispered a reminder, "There are more on the back."

Ina flipped it over and saw that the back was also densely packed with names.

"The entire Rize race is willing to serve the Saintess wholeheartedly."

Ina put away the employee contract, "I'd like to take a look around the village, and there's no need for so many people to follow."

After sending away the numerous followers behind her, Ina spoke to the chieftain, "Let's go to the house of that little girl named Anty ."

Little Anty was making smoked meat with her parents. The last time they went hunting, besides the game offered to the Saintess, they were able to get a quarter of a short-legged deer. Most of it was cut and hung outside to freeze, while the rest was to be made into smoked meat to eat during the food-scarce spring. In spring, people rarely hunt, partly because the animals that have been hungry all winter become more ferocious, and partly because it is the breeding season for most animals. The Rize people also understand the principle of not overfishing.

Anty's mother sprinkled a handful of pine needles on the fire, which would give the smoked meat a hint of pine aroma. They used to have a room specifically for smoking meat, with smoked meat hanging on racks all over the room. Now there were only a few scattered pieces, looking rather pitiful.

Anty added firewood to the fire and heard someone calling her name outside, "Little Anty, the Saintess has come to see you! Come out quickly!"

She paused, her hand holding the firewood, and immediately dropped it and ran out. "I-I'm here!"

Little Anty stood in front of Ina. The Saintess was still so beautiful, wearing a cloud-like skirt in such cold weather. She looked down at Anty, "It's nice to see you again, Little Anty. How have you been these past few days?"

After being questioned by the Saintess last time, Little Anty had imagined more than once that she could talk to the Saintess again, but no matter how many times she had simulated it in her mind, she still felt nervous when she spoke, "Good afternoon, Saintess. I-I've been doing well."

She regretted it after saying it, as her words sounded dry and empty. So she quickly added, "My parents have come back, and I don't have to worry about their safety every day. We have fresh deer meat to eat, and this morning I ate the red bread you gave me."

Red bread? Ina thought for a moment and realized that it might be the brown sugar steamed buns from the vending machine.

She smiled and said, "Would you like to work for me then, from morning till sunset? Your daily pay would be enough to exchange for about five boxes of red bread." Ina thought that Little Anty might not understand the concept of a 10-point daily wage, so she used a more intuitive quantity of food.

Little Anty's eyes sparkled, "Of course, Saintess! But, can I do it?" The chieftain had asked before if anyone was willing to serve the Saintess, and although Little Anty had registered her name, she was considered too young and not strong enough, so her name was listed at the back. She thought it wouldn't be her turn.

The Saintess looked at her and nodded, "Of course, it's a separate job that doesn't require much strength but may require running around."

Little Anty was afraid that Ina would change her mind, "I'm very agile and run fast!"

Ina laughed, "But I still need to ask your parents' permission. Are they inside?" Little Anty's parents, of course, knew about Ina's arrival, but they had just been smoking meat, covered in soot, and didn't dare to appear in front of Ina.

Now they had changed their clothes and came out hesitantly. Hearing that their daughter would work for the Saintess, they couldn't help but be overjoyed, "Thank you, Saintess, for your favor!" They looked at their daughter, "Our Little Anty is so lucky!"

Ina explained to them that the workplace was in a faraway place, and she would pick up and drop off Little Anty every day. "If you're worried, I can take you to see where she'll be working."

Little Anty's parents hurriedly refused, afraid of causing trouble for the Saintess. They knew that Ina always appeared in a cabin outside the village and suggested that they could pick up and drop off Little Anty at the cabin every day without bothering the Saintess.

That was fine too. Ina nodded in agreement and asked Little Anty's parents, "What do you eat during the winter?"

They looked troubled, "Mainly potatoes and meat. If the merchants can come, we can exchange fur for turnips, beets, and flour. This year, the merchants couldn't make it through the snowstorm, and we're running out of potatoes."

Ina asked again, "If I hadn't appeared, how would you have survived this cold winter?"

Fearing that Ina would think they were not proactive enough, Little Anty's parents quickly explained, "We would go hunting like last time. If we don't encounter wolf packs, the harvest is actually not bad. Many animals are hibernating, like polar fire snakes, which are easier to catch in winter. If we can't catch anyone, there is a big river to the west where we can fish by breaking through the ice."

The Rize people seemed to be in a rather primitive state, but since they could grow potatoes, which are relatively high-yielding crops, and Ina had heard that the land here was quite fertile, why would they often face a shortage of food?

Upon careful inquiry, she found out that the Rize people planted potatoes on the cultivated land, but after planting them a few times, they noticed that the yield of potatoes decreased year by year. The potato tubers were gnawed by insects, and the leaves turned yellow and withered. The Rize people thought it was because the goddess was condemning them for their excessive demands on the land. So they had to expend energy to cultivate new land and repeat the process of declining potato yields.

Potatoes should not be planted continuously. The soil where potatoes have been grown is prone to the residue of harmful fungi, and pests and diseases spread through the soil, making potatoes susceptible to diseases and pests, resulting in a significant reduction in yield. Ina sighed, with her shallow agricultural knowledge gained from studying farming and breeding books overnight to build a greenhouse, the people here might still be puzzled after countless hungry winters, fearing that they had done something wrong and angered the gods.