"Lord Priest, my family truly has no grain left. Could the Lord grant us some food?"
Keiko stood before Simu. The once pristine and holy church had gradually begun to take on a layer of grayish-white grime.
No matter how excessive the request, Simu would maintain that perfect smile. The people of the town had long since come to view him as the earthly vessel of the Great Lord.
As long as you believe in the Great Lord, this kind Priest will grant you everything you desire.
Following his usual routine, Simu asked calmly, "And what can you offer the Lord?"
Keiko immediately beamed. As expected, it was the same question again.
"I can offer my heart!"
Simu shook his head. "Your heart no longer belongs to you."
Faced with such hair-raising words, Keiko didn't care at all. She simply said casually, "Then my liver? My kidneys? My soul works too. I can give anything to the Great Lord!"
A small boy followed beside Keiko, also speaking with a smile, "Lord Priest, I am also a follower of the Lord. Can I offer my soul in exchange for a lollipop?"
Simu laughed.
"Of course you can."
He flipped his hand to produce a lollipop and leaned down to hand it to the boy, patting his cute head in the process. Then, he had Jugo bring a large bag of grain to Keiko.
Just as Keiko was happily preparing to leave, Simu offered a reminder: "Miss Keiko, your soul no longer belongs to you."
"Hehehe, that's fine. I am willing to give everything to the Lord."
Simu nodded and said nothing more.
Once Keiko had left, Jugo spoke with a complex expression, "Lord Kamizuki, I went out for a walk yesterday. In the entire town, almost no one is working anymore."
"The grain in the fields is completely wasted. The men are all making merry in the casinos, and the women are just lying at home doing nothing..."
He found it difficult to understand why, in just one month, a previously peaceful village had turned into this.
"This is the weakness of humanity, Jugo."
Simu adjusted his glasses and gently pulled the church doors shut.
"When you fulfill a wish unconditionally, what follows is endless greed. The more a gift lacks a price, the easier it causes people to fall."
"When you can get something for nothing, how could you still think of working hard?"
"It's a pity. They don't know—or rather, they don't believe, or are unwilling to believe—one thing: all gifts are marked with a price in secret."
Jugo could clearly see a cold glint flash across Simu's lenses.
He was doing this on purpose.
Jugo knew this for a fact.
However, the desires of those people were real too. Perhaps some sensed the hidden danger, but under the tide of fanaticism, everyone chose to selectively forget the aspects that were disadvantageous to them.
Just like Keiko.
Initially, she came to the church out of desperation. After Simu cured her son, she spent several days in fear, terrified she would wake up to find her arm gone.
But after several days, nothing unusual happened.
Coupled with the fact that other residents were receiving huge benefits from the church, she finally couldn't help herself. She made her first request to the church for grain.
Originally, she intended to ask only once to get through her hardships and pay it back once the harvest came in.
But when she got up early and saw not a single soul in the fields, she wavered.
Since everyone could get enough grain from the church, why should she farm?
After all, she only had to praise the Lord's name, right?
Then came the heart, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, the brain, the entire body, and even the soul...
"You really have a twisted sense of humor."
Hidan looked at Simu with disgust. At most, he would just kill these people and sacrifice them to Lord Jashin, but this guy actually wanted to toy with the human heart.
Simu shook his head, his face devoid of any expression. "Is it not better to enjoy oneself before dying, rather than facing a blunt and simple death?"
Recalling the events of the past month, Jugo's unformed worldview suffered a massive impact.
So... this is what humans are like?
Dozens of kilometers away from the church, deep underground, a massive humanoid statue stood in a cross-legged position.
Behind it were countless thick wooden roots. The ten eyes on its face were tightly shut, and its raised hands formed a massive platform in mid-air, with each finger easily capable of supporting a standing person.
Suddenly, the air atop one finger distorted violently, and a black-robed man wearing a tiger-patterned, single-eyed mask appeared.
Two other black-robed figures, a man and a woman, also appeared on the fingers. Their black robes, long enough to cover their entire bodies, were adorned with vivid red clouds.
"Why have you called us here?"
The man with orange hair and three black rods piercing his nose spoke.
"Don't be in such a hurry, Pain."
The tiger-masked man replied in a flippant tone, "That fellow White Zetsu recently discovered an interesting character within the borders of the Land of Rain."
The man called Pain finally opened his eyes. In the darkness, his purple pupils suddenly lit up, radiating a vast, world-encompassing pressure like the cycle of reincarnation itself.
Heh, as expected of the Rinnegan...
The tiger-masked man thought to himself. Although it wasn't the first time he had felt this aura, he was still struck by its power.
"Who?"
Pain spoke, his voice cold and steady.
The blue-haired woman standing next to him also cast a curious gaze. She was eager to see who could be called "interesting" by that eccentric White Zetsu.
The tiger-masked man did not speak, because a man enveloped in a pitcher plant suddenly grew out of the finger next to him.
To call him a man was slightly inaccurate; he looked like a patchwork creation—half white and half black, with green hair. He looked quite eerie.
White Zetsu spoke first: "That fellow seems to have come from the Jashin Religion in the Land of Rivers. His strength should be decent. Recently, he established a church in a small town on the border of the Land of Rain, became a Priest, and seems to be helping people fulfill their wishes."
He looked at Pain with green pupils. "Want to go test his strength? He might make a good partner."
Pain's face showed no expression.
However, Konan frowned. "Jashin Religion?"
White Zetsu, who was in charge of the organization's intelligence system, immediately explained, "A low-tier sect entrenched in the Land of Rivers that worships an evil god. It was wiped out recently. The people who destroyed the Jashin Religion seem to be those two fellows calling themselves the Divine Sons."
Pain looked at the four people present and said indifferently, "Four people is indeed too few. It is time to recruit some new members."
"Konan, come with me."
"Understood."