Chapter 56.

It was easier than expected to find the golden goddess statue. It was in a place where people could see it well because it represented the past glory of the temple. However, because it was wrapped with so many protective spells, it took a while to lift it all.

After the 32nd protective spell was lifted and the golden goddess statue was safely in my arms, I placed a card where the statue was originally.

I am taking the history of the temple.

-Lupin

Then, I restored the magic to its original state.

By the way, is this golden goddess statue really completely made of gold?

I decided to check later and tried to put the golden statue in the pocket space.

“Huh? What? Why isn’t it going in?”

Like the meeting of two magnets with the same polarity, the golden goddess statue floated in the air and did not go into the pocket space.

"Get in there, you!"

I tried to push it in with my body weight, but it would not go into the pocket space. I tried my best to put it into the pocket space but failed. It was strange since I couldn’t sense any kind of power from it, let alone magic.

I came here to warm up, no, to screw over an unfriendly civil servant from the treasury, but I ended up finding something interesting. I'll have to study this slowly later.

With the golden statue in my arms, I decided to go out through the vents that I used to enter the Great Temple. Unlike when I came in, because I had to carry something with me, I applied the crawl I learned in my previous life to go through the ventilation shaft.

Hmm?

Below the intersection of the passage going outside and downwards, I felt a small wave of mana. According to my preliminary investigation, this direction was towards a huge prayer room underground.

Is someone practicing magic in the prayer room?

Thinking of catching a glimpse, I turned around and headed towards the basement.

Arriving at the ceiling of the prayer room, the wave of mana was still small but could definitely be felt.

When I arrived at the source of the mana, I heard a small voice. Focusing my ears, I could hear something about heretics having been killed, and that something was located in the northeastern part of the empire.

Even considering I had pretty good ears, I could only hear a buzzing voice. It seemed the mana that I felt was from this magic empowered voice that was leaking out. Even considering that I was a battle race, it was a bit too lax of them to let sound leak out. Still, I got sick of hearing it on and off. I checked to see exactly what magic might have been placed around here.

Hmm...? What kind of magic is this?

Something that seemed like magic but not magic, was blocking the area surrounding the prayer room.

No, is it actually magic?

I was curious about the unfamiliar magic that I was seeing for the first time. The mana operating this magic was quite different from the normal mana. It was similar to martial aura released by a mixture of desire to fight or kill, but was also completely different.

Is this what’s called divine power? It was a temple, so the chances were high.

Very interesting. I'd never felt divine power before.

"Ah!"

Just observing ended up turning into a mistake. I was about to turn around thinking I had to run away, when suddenly mana bullets tore a bunch of holes in the ventilation shaft. Instinctively shielding myself, I was safe, but the ventilation shaft became a beehive.

The beehive ventilation shaft failed to bear my weight and dropped me through a big hole.

"Aaah!"

With the right arm on the floor in a crawl position, and the golden goddess statue in the left, I was unable to grab the ceiling and could only fall. But I was able to land lightly with the Crows' characteristic physical abilities.

"That... that's! How dare you! What do you think you’re touching with your dirty hands!!”

The old man at the highest position was upset and pointed to the golden goddess statue in my arm.

You should consider your age. Isn’t it bad for your health to get so worked up?

By the way, how should I react in a situation like this?

"Dehe! I made a mistake."

"You bastard!!!"

The highest-status looking old man was furious and pointed his ceremonial wand and cast magic at me.

"God, punish the wicked man for insulting you! Heavenly punishment!"

Suddenly, a powerful lightning bolt flew towards me. I cast my hidden defense magic accordingly.

"Friend Shield!"

I pushed the golden statue toward the old man's magic lightning bolt. At my absolute defense spell, the old man hastily canceled his magic.

"Cough!"

Perhaps because he suddenly stopped his magic, it seemed to have rebounded, reversing the flow of mana. The old man knelt, throwing up blood.

"Your Excellency, Cardinal!"

That's why you have to think about your age. You shouldn't overdo it.

Cardinal, you say. The old man was of an even higher status than I thought.

"You bastard!"

When the old man, called the cardinal, fell down, all the people around him pulled out their swords and aimed it at me. I raised the invincible weapon again.

"You...! Have you seen such insolence!"

Seeing me take aim, holding the leg of the golden goddess statue as a handle, one of the men near the old man yelled while turning red.

Looking at him, I drew a cross with one hand.

"God is with me!"

Of course, with me in the form of a statue.

"You bastard!"

Is ‘you bastard’ the only thing you know how to say? Let's escape outside the temple for now.

"God's mace!"

I ran towards the door of the prayer room and swung God's mace at the man who was blocking the door.

"Heek!"

The golden goddess statue and even the sword on it were made very sturdy, but maybe because it was sacrilegious to cross swords with it, the man moved out of the way.

"God's wrath!"

This time, he wielded God's wrath recklessly, forcing back those who were surrounding him, and kicked the door of the prayer room.

Kwang!

Unwittingly, I got too excited. When I saw the completely smashed door of the prayer room, I lowered my head and apologized.

"Ah, sorry."

Come to think of it, even if I wasn’t excited, me kicking the door would likely have broken it anyways. I was going to have to master this thing called strength control somehow. I got out of the prayer room.

"Hurry! Cough! Go after him!"

"Your Excellency, Cardinal! Please preserve your strength! Paladin Mario! Paladin Vibrio! Quickly lead the men and go after that insolent person!"

"Yes! Stop right there!"

There were people in hot pursuit of me.

This brought back memories.

-o-

After a chase, I was safely able to deceive them by creating a dummy with illusion magic outside of the capital. By the time I returned to the boarding house, it was almost dawn. I felt refreshed because it felt like a long time since I did proper exercise.

I wanted to take a short nap. As long as this golden goddess statue wouldn’t go into the pocket space, it had to be hidden somewhere. Underneath the bed was too sloppy, but burying it underground to hide it from view seemed a little much.

Considering the disturbance I caused last night, even if it were discovered, as long as they couldn’t pinpoint it to me, it didn’t matter. Especially since the temple would pressure the treasury to capture me anyways, I would be able to successfully screw over the treasury official.

However, it was a waste to just hide this without doing any research on why it wouldn’t go into the pocket space.

If you want to hide a tree, you hide it in a forest. Should I just hide it by using it as a decoration for my room?

-o-

Cardinal Fernando laid on a luxurious bed in the hospital room in the great temple, controlling the mana backflow.

The divine power, which was created by mixing faith and mana, had a strong healing power and wide effect amongst magic. But there was one flaw.

If a person who used divine power doubted his faith or had acted disrespectfully to God, his divine power would greatly weaken. Like previously, although it was not intentional, he had attacked the statue and felt guilty which affected his divine power.

Despite Lupin surrounding the golden goddess statue with sword aura, the reason why the surrounding Paladins avoided him was due to the same reason.

"Dammit! What the hell is going on before the revolt!"

He tried hard to control and subdue the mana backflow, but due to the temporary weakening of divine power from nearly attacking the golden goddess statue, it was not going well. However, as it was just caused by a guilty conscience, it would not be long before his divine power was restored.

Fernando clenched his jaws then ground his teeth to the point you could hear it.

In the first place, if it were just a normal goddess statue, he would have struck the statue and the thief with the heavenly punishment without any guilt. However, it happened with the golden goddess statue being used as a sword and shield that was a symbol to the Paladins and Fernando who had the great cause of restoring the temples to glory.

He immediately asked the Paladins that returned.

"What happened to the thief?"

Mario, the highest-ranking Paladin among the Paladins that were in pursuit, bowed his head in disgrace. "I'm sorry, Your Excellency the Cardinal. We lost him."

"What?!"

Fernando was shocked. The men who chased the thief were the elite among the temple forces.

How could it be possible to throw these men off the trail?

"Then, how about the goddess statue? What happened to the golden goddess statue?"

Mario shook his head with a stiff face.

"Right now, go retrieve it right now!!”

Fernando threw a glass of water at Mario in anger.

Mario just closed his eyes tightly, not avoiding the glass of water flying towards his head.

Clang!

The glass broke but Mario opened his eyes when there was no pain.

Malive, Mario’s superior, standing in front him had received the hit instead.

Malive said, casually wiping the blood on his forehead from being hit by a glass of water, "Lord Cardo Fernando. Please calm down."

"Calm down? Did you just say calm down?! Paladin Malive!"

Malive was the one who had served him the longest. Fernando was furious at the Malive’s advice, but this time he only gritted his teeth and did not throw anything.

"Are you telling me to calm down even while knowing what kind of object that goddess statue is?!”

Despite the cardinal’s seething rage, Malive answered calmly, "I know. It's our glory, our hope, our goal."

"Even knowing that!"

"But!" Malive raised his voice cutting Fernando off. Then he went on calmly. "But it is of the past. It's not ours who are living in the present, but belongs in the past.”

"What are you talking about?"

Malive continued, looking clearly into Fernando's lost eyes. "Lord Cardo Fernando, no, Your Excellency, the Cardinal. We aren’t following the great cause to simply go back to the past."

Fernando's eyes, which had been stunned by Malive's words, began to come back to life.

"We are following Your Excellency, the Cardinal, to move forward into the glorious future. Of course, we should be angry at the insult of our God. You must bring down the mace of justice to that insolent person. However, should we be obsessed with the past and ruin the things we should be doing now?"

Fernando regained his reason that was temporarily polluted by his anger. At the same time, the divine power that had been shaken by guilt returned. Stronger than before.

"Yes, we did not gather to go back to the past. Myself, and you all are headed for the future. It is to build a monumental tower that will be more brilliant, more glorious than in the past, and will never fall again."

Fernando rose from his seat. Although he had yet to recuperate from the mana backflow, he would soon get better since his divine power had returned. No matter how slow the recovery, he would be active in perfect physical condition for the revolt that was set to happen in a month.

"I will make sure to cut off the head of the ruffian who stole the goddess statue and present it to Cardo Fernando.”

"I'll look forward to it. But for now, the revolt comes first. Where is the place of the revolt?" Fernando flashed a dark smile

Malive replied loyally as usual, "It's the magic school in the capital."