Prologue – Chapter 6

Chapter 06 Invitation to the Grand Temple

(...How did this happen?)
Louis had vague doubts about the scene that spread out before his eyes.
In front of Louis, a white cathedral stood tall.
A cathedral filled with a majestic atmosphere, with white walls that shine in the sunlight.
Colorful flowers bloom around it, and the plants sway in the gentle breeze.
The road leading to the large front door was paved with bricks.
And then the figures of the knights holding up their swords beside them...
 
(Seriously, how did this happen?)
Faced with such a surreal sight, Louis couldn't help but think that.
The clothes he was wearing now weren't the old, worn-out clothes he usually wears, but pure white ceremonial clothes without even a trace of mud.
In a bad way, Louis felt restless because it was too comfortable to wear.
 
--The trigger was a week ago.
 
On that day, Louis was still defending the village with Claire.
Especially since the number of monsters has been increasing recently, the two of them went deep into the mountains to subjugate the monsters.
The mountain hunt continued until the sun began to set -- it was only after the two returned from the mountains that they noticed something was wrong with the village.
At first, the two thought that someone had been attacked by a monster.
 
However, the situation was strange, and rather than resentment over the damage caused by monsters, I could sense a somewhat bewildered atmosphere.
And the cause was found out as soon as the two entered the village.
 
A luxurious carriage was parked in the square in the center of the village.
Two horse-drawn carriages with carriages intended to carry people that you would never see even if you were peddling to the village.
Also, around the carriage, they could see a number of people in armor who seemed to be knights.
Among them, a man wearing something like a priest's uniform is probably the leader of that group, and is talking to the village chief about something.
"What happened?"
For the time being, Louis decides to ask one of the villagers surrounding them from afar in order to find out the circumstances.
 
When the villager who was asked by Louis, the man who had been interacting with him on a regular basis, saw Louis' face, he had a surprised expression on his face, and then he shouted with a somewhat relieved expression.
 
"Oo~ii! That Louis is back!"
"Really!?"
"So he’s finally back?"
"Oh, good, that’s good"
 
At that moment, the villagers suddenly burst out, and Louis couldn't help but lost in breath.
A man in a priest's uniform accompanied by the village chief walked towards him when Louis was perplexed by the excitement of the villagers.
 
"Are you Louis-sama?"
"Eh, yeah... that's right..."
 
Louis's bewilderment deepened as he was called respectably by a man he had just met for the first time.
In front of him who frowned suspiciously, the man who heard Louis' answer smiled with delight.
 
"Oh, oh! The hero is really here...! Saint-sama, it was just as you predicted...!"
 
The man's voice began to tremble with joy.
In front of the man who suddenly began to shed tears, Louis became a bit scared.
However, it seemed that this man was the head of the group, as expected, and it was only after he wiped his tears and regained his composure that Louis found out about the situation.
 
"Am I a hero?"
The man who claimed to be the bishop of the Grand Sacred nodded at Louis who said so.
The place moved from the village square to the village chief's house.
In the village, Louis and the male bishop were sitting across a relatively decent desk.
The bishop's said the following.
 
he said
The battle with the demons is intensifying.
The human race continues to lose to the demons and is gradually losing their living space.
Two countries were destroyed by demons.
At present, there are few measures against demons, and they are almost always defeated in battle.
People's hopes have been lost and they are turning into despair.
Meanwhile, the saint-sama prophesize the existence of a hero.
The hero resides in a village at the foot of a mountain infested with monsters, west of the Satasha Kingdom, and spends his days fighting monsters day in and day out.
His name is Louis.
It is said that he will wield the holy sword and repel all demons.
 
When Louis first heard about it, he thought it was a joke.
However, the bishop's eyes were serious when he said that, and after discovering the symbols of the Holy Church on the clothes and shields worn by the bishop and the knights, he did not doubt his story.
 
But it was still un unbelievable store that he could not believe it right away.
The hero――that's the apostle who appears in the mythology of the Holy God Admis, the chief deity of the Great Holy Church.
It is said that the person who descended carrying a fragment of the Holy God destroyed most of the demons with that power.
Even though it was small, there was a church of the Great Holy Sect in the village as well.
For that reason, he had been taught about the myth since he was a child--he could not accept being told that he was the same as that person.
"Yes, that's right Hero-sama――no, Louis-sama. The Saint has declared that you are the hero."
The bishop's face must have been showing his emotions.
In contrast to his distraught appearance just now, his eyes harbored the solid intelligence of a believer, and he looked straight at Louis.
 
 
 
“…Couldn’t it be a mistake?”
"Impossible. I searched other villages in the southwest of the kingdom, but there was no one named Louis. In addition, your ability to slay monsters without receiving a single injury. I am convinced that Louis-sama is the hero!”
 
I had told him beforehand that I had cleaned up the monsters in the mountains.
Seeing his gaze with his absolute conviction, Louis lowered his gaze as if worried.
Seeing him like that, the male bishop smiled pleasantly.
 
“There’s nothing to worry about. Right, how about this, what do you think about meeting the Saintess-sama once at our place-----"
 
I just don't want to lose people in front of me. Louis, who kept swinging his sword for that reason, keep telling the bishop while he persuaded him patiently to change his mind.
As a result, Louis followed his words, "I want you to meet the Saintess-sama even just once."
 
(... It should have been a story to meet the saintess-sama once.)
 
Looking for the bishop who had guided Louis up to this point, he found himself in a group of church-related people in front of the cathedral.
With a smile on his face, this warm welcome was probably within the scope of his expectations, as he blended into the group without panicking.
His smile, which I've seen so much in the past week that I've grown tired of it, has hurt Louis...and he lets out a wry smile inside.
During the week, Louis who was born and raised in the southwestern part of the kingdom, the bishop had taught him many things about this world that he had no way of knowing about in the small village, and what was happening in the world today. 
First, the continent where Louis and the others live is called Alstoria.
In this continent, which is divided into east and west by rows of high mountains, Louis and the human race belonged to the west side.
 
It is said that a long time ago, here on the continent of Alstoria, there was a great conflict between the two races of the western and eastern races.
The races of the West -- the races said to have been created by the Holy Gods, and the races of the East --  the races said to have been created by the Demon Gods, fought against each other for the right to give life and death to each other in the Great War "Holy Demon War".
In this great war, many races died out on both sides.
Speaking of heroes, they were the ones who played an active role in this great war, but now they are put aside, and it is said that the mountain range that divides the continent in two was created by the demon gods to protect the eastern tribes who were in trouble due to the hero's tremendous success. 
In fact, dragons, also created by demon gods, live at the top of the mountain range and monitor the western races trying to escape to the east.
This is the content of fairy tales read to me when I was a child.
And here is the story taught by the bishop.
 
The Satasha Kingdom, where Louis and the others live, is located in the southwestern part of the central western part of the continent, where the humans mainly live.
With that empire, a truce agreement was signed, and it was a country that could be called peaceful, which was rare among the human race, where skirmishes frequently occurred.
The human race as a whole lived a relatively peaceful life.
However, it was around five years ago when Louis' mother died that dark clouds began to gather over the human race.
From that time on, the damage caused by monsters, which had rarely been seen on the western side of the continent, began to increase.
At first, the country's upper echelons decided to ignore it, saying that it was only temporary. However, the damage continued to rise steadily for three years, and the strength of the monster itself, which was able to be defeated by a single large man, began to rise exponentially when it began to bite and kill a large man.
At the same time, the cause of the increase in monsters began to be explored.
A monster that had never been seen before.
There must be some reason why it has grown so much and even strengthened.
It was the cause of the increase in monsters that began to be pursued, but judging from the conclusion, the pursuit ended quickly.
The cause appeared from the other side.
A demon that should live in the east of the continent.
It appeared in the human territory in the west of the continent.
The appearance of the demons caused a sudden uproar in the countries.
Monsters and demons differ in their generation method.
While monsters arise from pools of magical power that exist in the natural world, among them stagnant pools of magical power, demons increase through breeding.
In other words, it meant that demons had invaded the western side through the sacred peaks of the Central Mountain Range, which until then had been thought to be impenetrable from the other side.
 
However, many countries that received the report were only temporarily panic, but quickly regained their composure, and then - their movements slowed down.
They noticed.
If the cause lies in the demons, it is only the countries located in the east among the human nations that have territories that touch the mountains that need to be dealt with.
And most of the major powers began to focus only on monster damage within their own countries.
 
――As a result, most of the human nations were late in noticing the full-scale invasion of the demons.
 
It was autumn, just before the harvest, one year after the demons were confirmed for the first time.
The Norwich Merchant State, which was the fourth largest human nation to the east of the empire, fell to the demons.
It only took a month.
The fact that a single merchant, who was also known as the gold coin king, established a nation and had military power based on that financial power, which lasted for only one month and fell, shook the shoulders of countries that had been optimistic until then. 
However, the move was too slow.
Upon receiving the news of the fall of the Norwich merchant state, the surrounding countries sent their own demon subjugation forces.
In order to save the ruined people, an army was sent under various motives to target the stolen land, but all of them were defeated before the demons.
The reason for this is the existence of a species called the “Demonic tribes." [Devil]
Even among the demons, they were considered to be in the commanding ranks, and their attacks did not go through, and on the contrary, their attacks devastated the human army.
And then, the demons, who broke through all the sent troops head-on, continued to invade west.
In ancient times, there was a country that preached reconciliation with the demonic tribes—the historic townscape was trampled by giants.
There was a country that sang divine punishment and challenged the demons head-on--with the cynicism of the demons, they were destroyed.
Those who stood in their way to stop them from advancing were all overrun, and the country that united its citizens and resisted was destroyed along with its people.
The territories were being taken away from the human nations without being able to retaliate properly.
However, the humans were not just defeated.
The holy magic possessed by the saints of the Great Holy Church, and the sacred magic tools bestowed by them.
They stopped the marching demons.
It was said that holy magic was effective against demons, even from the ancient great war literature.
And that was actually the case, as the human nation defeated the invasion of the demons, which had been undefeated until then, in the Battle of the Shenwitz Plain in front of the Soltaire Empire, the largest nation of the Prussian nation.
In addition to that, the devil, who had been considered invincible until then, was buried by the holy maiden of the Great Holy Church.
At this point, the humanity’s counterattack will finally begin――just as everyone thought so, it appeared in front of the people.
 
 --Demon Lord
 
Calling himself the King of the Demons, when he appeared on the battlefield where the humans were gaining the upper hand, he single-handedly wiped out the main force, including the Temple Knights of the Great Holy Church.
Its power is so terrifying that even the saint who slaughtered the demons could only protect a small area, including herself was on the brink of destruction.
Fortunately, the demon lord has not appeared on the battlefield since then, but the previous incident caused the Great Holy Church's military strength to drop sharply, and the human race continues to be pushed back.
With the appearance of something who personifies destruction itself, the people were once again in despair, and the saint announced the existence of a hero.
(But as expected, this is...)
I know I'll be welcomed, but... Louis's face twitches at the spectacle that spreads out in front of him.
There were so many people in front of the cathedral that I thought everyone involved had come out.
With this huge number of gazes, do I have to go through this? Louis was a little tired, but there was a voice behind him.
“You’re getting a lot of attention, aren’t you, Louis?”
"Claire..."
 
When Louis turned around, he was greeted by the mischievous smile on his childhood friend's face.
She, who is Louis's partner, also came to this place in a way that seemed to attract Louis.
Although it’s also troubling if she's here, but Louis felt relieved and calm when he saw a familiar face apart from the crowd.
 
(...Saintess, huh. What kind of person is she?)
 
He doesn't feel like he's a hero.
However, she is the saint who prophesied that he would be a hero.
Being able to meet her, who was also called the beloved child of the goddess, gave Louis a sense of elation.

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