They say a human's nature never changes.
Olivia Lanze was quite the quirky senior who liked to tease me, but in the end, her base nature hadn't changed.
She still seemed to feel a certain obligation to help others, and it looked like she thought that would be a given to help the one that saved her like that.
When I seriously asked for her help, I immediately knew from the look in her eyes that she would do whatever she could.
Someone who was usually light-hearted, but would always try to help out if needed.
—That was who Olivia Lanze was.
Most students might not be aware of it, but Temple was thrown into chaos at the moment, so I wanted to discuss that rather delicate story outside of Temple. However, it wouldn't be possible for me to take the corrupted Tiamata outside of Temple. Even if I try to disguise it as a training sword, I would obviously get caught at the exit.
Because a possible demon god's divine Relic in the shape of a sword had disappeared, it would just look suspicious if I went around wearing a sword at my waist for no good reason.
So I gave her a brief explanation in the park in front of the dormitory.
I talked about what happened in the Darklands, the cursed sword, what occurred after I brought it to Temple, and what we found out through the ritual Dettomolian performed.
The cursed sword was presumed to be a demon god's divine Relic.
—And my predicament where it suddenly kept coming back to me no matter what I did.
At that rate, I might get suspected of being a demon god's apostle.
If Olivia Lanze went to a teacher or the church accusing me of something like that, I would be dead.
However, I believed that she wouldn't do something like that.
Olivia furrowed her brows after hearing the whole story.
"This is all really hard to believe…"
Quite some time passed. It was a very long story, after all. Olivia was silent for a bit as if she was trying to retell my story in her head.
"Yeah… you couldn't have just told these things to just anyone. If the church finds out, they would kill you, no matter if you had the sword on you or not. They wouldn't even grant you a heresy trial."
She served Towan, so she would know best what the priests and heresy inquisitors of Towan were like.
I, who was chosen as the owner of the god of corruption, Kier's, divine Relic, the god diametrically opposed to Towan, would face extreme prejudice.
"They are going to think that you were chosen by the divine Relic because you were a corrupted being to begin with."
No matter what the truth was, if a person was chosen by such an unholy power, then they would have had to be evil to start with. Olivia Lanze knew that they would kill me with that kind of logic as a basis because she once served Towan.
"However… I don't know how I should help you with this…"
Although she was shocked to hear that it was a demon god's divine Relic, Olivia didn't seem to know how to help me, who was chosen by that thing, no matter how much she thought about it.
However, I already planned out what I was going to say.
"Senior, although this is just my guess, I don't think this is actually a Relic of a demon god to begin with."
"…What?"
Olivia Lanze was taken aback when I told her that it wasn't actually a demon god's divine Relic after stating that it was one without a doubt.
"Then… you think… it isn't a divine Relic but just some ominous object?"
I shook my head.
"I don't think there are such things as divine Relics of demon gods in the first place."
These words seemed even more confusing to her.
"…divine Relics of demon gods don't exist?"
"At least, that's what I think."
There were no such things as divine Relics of demon gods.
"Then what do you think it is?"
"My guess is that it's Towan's Holy Sword, Tiamata. I think it's like this as the result of getting corrupted."
"…That's ridiculous."
Olivia, of course, completely denied my ridiculous reasoning. It might have been any other divine Relic, but its characteristics were the exact opposite of the Holy Sword Tiamata.
"I don't have any hard evidence. However, after hearing that assumption that it's a divine Relic of a demon god, I looked into the divine Relics of the five great gods. From what I could tell, the relics of the five great gods have appeared continuously over thousands of years. There were people who used them, and their history is clearly written down."
"…Yes. I know that better than anyone."
Olivia Lanze knew more about the five gods than I, who only did some brief research the day before, so she should have known a lot more about the divine Relics of the great gods and what they achieved in this world.
Not all divine Relics of the five great gods had appeared in history all the time.
However, recounts of people doing great things with them had continued to appear.
"However, in all of human history, there had never been any recounts of a demon god's Relic overturning humanity."
"That's true…"
Nothing was known about the divine Relics of the demon gods, not even their existence was confirmed.
Dettomolian's testimony…
An unknown but incredibly strong power of the cursed sword…
Its power that could bring the dead back to life…
The fact that it had been discovered in the Darklands…
Based on that, one might be able to speculate that it might be the divine Relic of a demon god. They only assumed that it was a Relic belonging to Kier, the god of Corruption, to begin with. Temple didn't immediately guarantee its veracity, either.
Olivia was convinced that the cursed sword I had was a divine Relic.
However, I refuted that there was no way that it could be something like a demon god's divine Relic which had never appeared in history before.
"It has been said that the last time Tiamata had appeared was 300 years ago, and believers of the Church of the demon gods who killed the last champion of Towan stole Tiamata and fled to the Darklands."
Olivia nodded at my words.
"That's right. After Towan's last champion, Reigorn, was murdered by the church of the demon gods, their believers… stole Towan's Holy Sword… and took it to the Darklands…"
Olivia went over the story she knew of, but gradually slowed down when she realized that I had found that sword in the Darklands as well.
"No way, could it be that the cultists cursed Tiamata to be the way it is now?"
"Something like that."
"That's far too speculative. I can't believe that a Holy Sword could become something like that. I just can't."
Well, it was very hard to convince Olivia. No matter how much she abandoned her faith, she couldn't turn away from Towan completely. It was just too much a guess that it was possible to corrupt a Relic of Purity to hold the exact opposite power.
It would just be conjecture if I couldn't convince her that the demon god Kier and the god Towan were the same entity. And I couldn't explain to her why it was like that.
For me to know the fact that there weren't any demon gods would mean that I knew about the actual belief system of the demons, and that would be really strange for me to know.
It would actually make no sense for me to know such things, so I couldn't tell her the truth of the church of the demon gods.
Tiamata, the Holy Sword that had the power to smite the undead, could become a demonic sword that ruled over the undead. To be honest, that wouldn't make sense to anyone. Even Eleris, who knew about the demons' belief system, wouldn't believe me if I told her.
Olivia claimed that the Holy Sword had disappeared somewhere in the Darklands and that cursed Relic was also found there, so she simply couldn't trust my claim that it was Towan's Holy Sword.
"Couldn't it be that no demon god's Relics had been found because the Darklands haven't been fully explored yet? They might have only appeared among the demon tribes who served the demon gods."
Olivia's guess was reasonable.
Just as there were Relics of the five great gods in the human realm, wouldn't there be Relics of the five demon gods in the Darklands and the humans just don't know about them? And by chance, I had found one.
There was one point I could refute here.
"…The Demon World War. If they had items like that, the demons would have used them in the war. However, the Demon King ended up killed and all his treasures were taken away, but among them, I don't think they found anything like a demon god's divine Relic. If they had, there would have been rumors spreading about it everywhere."
"…That's true. You're right. I volunteered to participate in the Demon World War, although I didn't actually fight in it. I never heard about anything like a demon god's Relic being sighted."
* * *
If there were such thing as demon god's divine Relics, there was no way the demons wouldn't have used them in the final war against the humans. Olivia actually participated in the Demon World War with the purpose to treat and support wounded soldiers.
She knew better than anyone what information they had back then. She hadn't heard about demons using powerful items such as divine Relics of the demon gods or something.
They had plundered the Demon King's Castle of all its treasures and magical items, but there hasn't been a word about them finding Relics of demon gods there.
Olivia would know better about those things than I.
If they had such powerful items like the demon gods' divine Relics in the Darklands, why weren't they used in the Demon World War?
So Olivia seemed increasingly unsure about my words that there weren't any demon gods' divine Relics to begin with.
It was an inference that started out with its conclusion.
—There were no such things as demon gods' divine Relics.
If that was the case, the cursed sword could absolutely not be a demon god's Relic. If so, there was only one conclusion one could get to: It was a divine Relic of one of the great gods.
But why had a divine Relic of a great god turned into something like that?
Tiamata disappeared along with the demon god worshippers who took it to the Darklands. Along the way, the worshippers did something to the divine Relic.
—That had been my guess so far.
"First, here's what I think. There are no such things as divine Relics of demon gods that could just suddenly appear out of nowhere. However, it's impossible for an item to be so old and hold such power if it wasn't a divine Relic. So that's why I think that this divine Relic of one of the five gods had been corrupted to become like that."
If what I said was true, I might end up being mistaken as the owner of a demon god's divine Relic that didn't even exist—it actually was Tiamata that got slightly corrupted.
"Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Before, I would have never believed a thing you said…"
If I had told her that when she was still a faithful believer in Towan, she would have treated it as a gigantic act of blasphemy against her goddess.
"If what you said is true, I would be just a little bit more disappointed in the gods."
However, she no longer served Towan, so she didn't get angry at my words, no matter if it was possible to corrupt the divine Relic of Towan or not.
None of the other priests of Towan would believe me, so they wouldn't have any reason to try restoring it, either.
One had to firmly believe that the cursed sword was Tiamata and that one had to restore its original form.
"I'll take a look at it. I don't know if I can purify it, but I can try, at least."
However, Olivia was willing to try without much resistance.
* * *
The demon god's divine Relic had disappeared.
It had left Reinhardt's and her hands, so she thought that it was a matter for the teachers to take care of.
However, she also felt a little anxious.
In such situations, Reinhardt would usually try to do something. Maybe he was doing something reckless on his own, causing even bigger trouble.
Ellen was worried, so that was why she tried holding him in the training room to prevent him from doing anything useless.
However, Reinhardt went off somewhere in a hurry after breakfast.
He surely was off doing something reckless again. Thinking that she would drag him away if she found him, Ellen waited in the lobby for Reinhardt, who had gone off to who-knows-where.
-And you really just want to look around my room?
-Why, of course. What? Do you think I'll eat you up?
-Please… Don't say things like that.
The scene that was approaching her completely destroyed Ellen's anxiety.
Olivia Lanze, a fifth-year Ellen also encountered in passing from time to time, was just entering the first-year Class A dorm while clinging to Reinhardt's arm.
She was practically sticking to his arm.
They didn't see each other often, but as soon as she was together with Reinhardt, she would act overly intimate with him—that was what she knew.
-Is there a specific reason why you try to get into my room like that?
-I wonder. Hehe. Why?
-If you try anything weird, I'll scream.
-Ooh~ What were you thinking? So you're also a man, huh~?
Reinhardt wore a disgusted expression while the female senior hanging from his arm was smiling brightly.
"…"
She was worried for nothing. That female senior wanted to enter Reinhardt's room, and he seemed to have reluctantly agreed.
Reinhardt made eye contact with Ellen but just passed by her pretending not to know her.
-Don't you have any snacks or tea?
-No. What are you even expecting of me?
Ellen felt a bit anxious as she watched Reinhardt's back as he got dragged away.
She was worried that he would cause trouble, but he wasn't up to anything. He was just normally spending his weekend.
Anyway…
"…"
There seemed to be an unknown emotion wiggling in her heart.
It was a strange feeling she had never felt in her life.
-Get off of me!
-Why? You like it too though.
-I'm not! I don't like this?!
-So now you're talking informally to me, huh? Do you want to get in trouble?
-Ah…This is annoying…
It felt like something was crushing her heart or tightening around it.
It was like a bug was crawling around on her heart and in her head.
It was really… unpleasant.
What a strange feeling it was.