Her porcelain skin stood out even more compared to Roni and I, who were now plenty tanned.
The girls weren’t done after just one pair, of course, and proceeded to pick out several more. I didn’t have anything new I needed to buy here. I had previously already bought everything I needed with our trip to the void in mind.
It was almost noon by the time we left the store, so we got the location of a carriage seller and headed back to the temple. You see, we wanted to pick out a carriage for our journey to the void without the cleric accompanying us.
It would have been weird to reject the cleric as our guide for the afternoon, so instead we opted to do research on the demon lord in the temple library.
That said, it was particularly difficult to keep our interest in the desert kingdom under wraps. Clena and Roni had journeyed all the way from Junopolis like this, so I’m sure my problems faded in comparison to theirs.
It’s not like I had any intentions of becoming your garden variety hero, but I sure seemed to have ended up on an alternative path to becoming one.
I didn’t regret it, though. The fact of the matter was that I couldn’t just abandon these two girls in this reckless journey.
And since we all felt compelled to uncover the hidden history, the truth about the demon lord, we decided to head for the desert kingdom together.
Upon our return to the temple, we took out our half-dried clothes and hung them out to dry under the sun. Leaving them in for the full cycle would wear them down faster. Drying clothes under the sun was something that we could only do while staying in one place. Normally, I’d be hanging them to dry inside the Unlimited Bath.
We then ate lunch, and spent the rest of the day scavenging the library.
Both Rulitora and Roni weren’t great at reading, so they were put on book transporting duty, while Clena and I did the actual reading.
Even though I was summoned from another world, I could read in the language of this world thanks to the blessing of the Goddess. That wasn’t the end of it. I could even read the books written in an ancient language that Clena couldn’t decipher. It was convenient, sure, but this goddess blessing just didn’t know where to quit.
“Ugh... not a single lead...”
Despite all our research, we couldn’t find a single article with details on the demon lord.
I drooped my head down on the table after hours of unfruitful work.
The temple library was a smaller room than the name might have implied. We had looked though all the documents that seemed noteworthy, and while we found a mountain of texts on the first sacred king, we barely found anything on the demon lord. Maybe information on the demon lord was erased along with everything pertaining to the desert kingdom.
The legend of the first sacred king defeating the demon lord had been passed down, but knowledge on where that demon king had lived was lost. Part of the legend told of the first sacred king’s party storming the demon lord’s castle, after learning of its location from a sage living in a spring. However, there were no records of the whereabouts of said spring.
And now, 500 years later, the only information we had was that this sage’s spring was located on the continent, but we weren’t able to determine which spring. This might have been another piece of cover-up work they had done.
Looking at a map, Ceresopolis also had a “Sage’s Spring” to the east. Assuming the desert kingdom was where the demon lord had lived, this was likely the one. I was only able to figure that out thanks to the information Clena had given me.
“Hmm, do you think we could stop by this spring since it’s along the way to the gate?” Rulitora asked, inspecting the map.
If this map was correct, we would arrive at the spring if we left Ceresopolis heading directly east. A little more to the south of that stood the gate that was once overflowing with demons—the gate that the Torano’o tribe had destroyed.
“We should check it out just in case. Though I don’t expect to find anything there.”
“Yeah, it’s been well over 500 years since the sage lived there.”
We decided to add the sage’s spring to our itinerary, so we could use it as a landmark for getting to the gate.
During my research, I also tried looking for books on cleric spells to find other ways of utilizing my colossal pool of MP. Unfortunately, those efforts ended in vain as well.
Well, it’s not that I didn’t find any books. There were quite a few, this being a temple and all.
I just wasn’t able to find anything more thorough than the textbook the temple elder at Jupiteropolis had given me. That man had really gone all out for me.
After we concluded our research and returned to our room, I sat down on the sofa and went over the textbook. I put off practical training for now and skimmed through the entire thing, but attacking spells didn’t fall under the domain of clerical magic. The only exception I found was one for purifying impure beings such as the undead, but unfortunately it had no effect against normal opponents.
“Do you think I could learn your spirit spells, Clena?”
“That’d be impossible. You can’t even hear the voices of the spirits, can you, Touya?”
I came up with an idea, but unfortunately, it required some special traits that I didn’t possess. “Cleric spells are very systematized, so anyone who receives a blessing should be able to learn them fairly easily.”
“Is that how it works...?” I drooped my shoulders.
I should’ve been confident in the efficacy of my spells, but as a man, was I wrong in wanting some uniqueness to my spells?
Other than the clerical ones, spells weren’t systematized. So, to learn them, you had to study under one of the various practitioners.
The only people I knew who could use magic outside of cleric spells were Clena, who used spirit magic, the princess of Jupiteropolis, who used holy magic, and Rium, who used crystal magic.
“Is there a way to find other magic users?”
“Some of them take students, but in any case you’d have to meet with them in person first. The only spells you can learn from a textbook are cleric spells... Oh.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You might be able to find some in temples for other goddesses. Textbooks for other spells, I mean.”
“Really?”
“Well, do you think summoning light spirits is a spell that uses the power of the Goddess of Earth?”
“Ohh... Yeah, guess not.”
It would be “summoning earth spirits,” if anything.
They’d still be your run-of-the-mill cleric spells, but if there were any attacking ones, I could start utilizing this crazy MP pool of mine and be more useful during battles.
“Oh, Sir Touya. I think this city also has an earth temple.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, since the Goddess of Earth is worshiped by farmers and hunters.”
I see. That meant that the Goddess of Earth’s followers were here in this agricultural capital of Ceres.
“Come to think of it, I think I saw their symbol today. It was a small building compared to this temple.”
“Of course it would be. The rulers of a country prefer to worship the Goddess of Light.”
In all but a few countries, the temple for the Goddess of Light was the biggest one, thus being their representative temple. But that didn’t mean temples for other goddesses didn’t exist.
According to Rulitora, the Goddess of Earth’s temple was only half the size of this one. To be frank, they probably weren’t getting nearly as many donations from their followers.
“We probably shouldn’t head out now, huh?”
“It’s already getting late. I think the clerics are making dinner for us right now, too.”
“All right, then we’ll head out tomorrow morning.”
I was ready to go, but as Roni pointed out, we couldn’t just ignore our dinner, let alone go visiting other temples so late at night.
“Let’s gather our lu
ggage for now.” Rulitora slowly stood up and jumped right into it.
The heaviest, bulkiest part of our cargo right now was coins. We divvied up the amount we’d need on hand among several pouches, then tucked the rest away in a bag inside the Unlimited Bath. There was no safe more secure than this.
“Touya, let’s go say hi to the temple elder.”
“Would it be okay to tell him about us going to the Goddess of Earth’s temple?”
“It’ll be fine. The temples should be on good terms with each other. You can even tell him that we’re going to look stuff up in their library.”
“All right, I will.”
We left the cargo to Rulitora and Roni, then the two of us went to greet the temple elder. But when we did, the elder urged us to stick around for a bit.
I was taken aback by his hasty demeanor, but Clena remained unaffected and kept a straight face. I guess she had predicted it would come to this. When I asked her about it later, she told me that donations from followers would accumulate just by having a Hero of the Goddess present. As if to say “Allow us to chip in for the hero’s accommodations.”
And just as Clena had suggested earlier, the elder remained silent when I told him that we’d be visiting the library in the Goddess of Earth’s temple, as if he had given up. He probably figured out that we had gained nothing from our research in their library. I felt a little guilty for relying on them so much, but we had at least donated enough fruit and dried meat for everyone in the temple to enjoy. We had only stayed a day, so there shouldn’t be any problems.
As we were heading back to our room after the conversation with the elder, blankly staring ahead of me, I asked Clena in a subdued voice:
“Should we give our donation to the earth temple in coins?”
“We probably will, if we’re going to stay there. Let’s make preparations back in the room.”
On that note, we had gone all the way down to the underground bath to wash up for the night, but we were unable to hold back our curiosity about the new bathroom and opened the door to the Unlimited Bath there.
The girls were enjoying the shower. It was endearing to see them play around in their yuamigi while sharing the handheld shower head.
The tub wasn’t as large as the temple’s, where we could stretch our legs out all the way, but it was still plenty big. It went without saying that all three of us had a relaxing time.
The next day, our party departed from the temple of light and headed for the temple of earth.
I took to the streets fully armed, the attack on the hero Cosmos still fresh in my mind. Without exchanging a word about it, the others had also armed themselves to the teeth. No big whoop, right?
Rulitora led us to the Goddess of Earth temple, which was located between two streets lined with various shops. I hadn’t noticed yesterday, but this was the street we’d taken on our way back from the armor shop. Rulitora was paying extra attention while we walked, so he had noticed the symbol for the Goddess of Earth.
Just like he said, this was about half the size of the temple of light. It had a cozy atmosphere and resembled a large workshop or office more than a temple. It made me recall a small shrine surrounded by houses in my neighborhood back home.
The front gate was similar in design to the temple of light, but you still wouldn’t be able to tell this was a temple were it not for that symbol above the gate.
Incidentally, there was a fruit shop next to the temple. You could hear a lively old man and woman raising their voices at each other. They were probably married.
There were baskets of fruit for donating to the temple lined up in front. They had a good sense of business. In fact, I’d say the baskets stood out more than the symbol on the gate.
We bought a basket while we were there, then walked through the temple gates as we heard the fruit-selling couple yell out “May the Earth bless you!” from behind us.
This temple had a front yard instead of a courtyard, so we left our rickshaw there. The guard already seemed to know that I was a Hero of the Goddess and was staying in the temple of light, so he let us in as soon as I showed him my status card.
It was funny seeing his eyes bug out when he saw the stats shooting off my card.
Interesting, so whenever I handed my status card over as personal identification, I’d also be revealing my stats. Obviously people were going to be shocked, I mean, even I still wasn’t used to seeing them.
We were able to meet the temple elder immediately. He was a middle-aged man with brown hair, a round face, and no facial hair. He had a short, portly figure and stumpy legs. If it weren’t for the cassock he was wearing, I’d have assumed he was a company manager or something.
We gave him the fruit basket and told him we were looking for information on the demon lord and textbooks on the Goddess of Earth’s spells. He promptly led us to the library, excusing himself for its small size. It was the kind of place you’d expect to find information that was once erased and forgotten, though, so I was more than happy with it.
I was quickly given a magic textbook. They apparently had plenty of spares, since most people wanted to become clerics under the temple of light rather than the temple of earth these days.
“If you wish to study these spells, may I suggest you be given a blessing?”
“You mean a goddess blessing? I’ve already gotten that.”
“That is only the Goddess of Light’s blessing. This would be the Goddess of Earth’s blessing.”
“Is that really okay?”
“Why would it not be? A normal person might not be able to handle it, but you should have no issues with your MP levels, Sir Hero.”
It seemed there were no problems with receiving multiple blessings, since the five—no, six goddesses were all sisters. The ceremony itself was also a standard one, conducted whenever someone was to become a cleric.
“The arch-cleric in the first sacred king’s party, San Pilaca, was blessed by all five of the goddesses.”
“That was one of the allies of the past hero, right?”
“Yes, one of the three.”
In other words, even if it wasn’t common, there was at least a precedent. Though that precedent was someone who had achieved legendary status.
I checked with Clena, who said that I should be fine with my MP levels. I trusted Clena and her knowledge about magic, so I agreed to receive the blessing of the Goddess of Earth.
The temple made preparations for a few hours after that, we had lunch, and then the ceremony itself would take another couple of hours. The temple elder had changed from a cassock to a ceremonial robe and looked like a proper elder rather than a salaryman now.
The ceremony involved me sitting down inside a magic circle, similar to the one used to summon me here, and the elder endlessly chanting ritual prayers.
The magic circle beneath me started giving off a warm, soft light. Thoughts floated in and out of my mind as I wondered if it was like this when I was summoned. I just sat there the entire time, but the elder remained standing, chanting those prayers for several hours. That must have been tough. He was gasping for air when it was over.
I didn’t really notice anything particular about being blessed by the Goddess of Earth after the ceremony, but I was told it would come after I’d learned some spells.
We had an early dinner, matching our early lunch, then remained in the temple for the rest of the night. The fruit basket was a donation for perusing their library, so we donated a coin-filled pouch for letting us stay. We felt much obliged as the temple elder himself guided us to our room.
The room’s cramped size reflected the temple’s, and there was no large bath, but at least it had a place for Rulitora to bathe, so we couldn’t complain.
That evening, the three of us went into the Unlimited Bath with our changes of clothes in hand.
“...What?”
The floor of the changing room was now made of wood. The bathtub had changed to a Japanese cedar wood tub.
&n
bsp; I could only trace the cause back to the Goddess of Earth’s blessing.
We had stayed in the Goddess of Earth’s temple for three days now.
I was borrowing the ceremonial grounds and carried a bucket of soil over to practice my spells on.
Learning a new spell in three days might have sounded fast to some. However, taking three days to learn a basic spell when I already knew the fundamentals of clerical magic was actually on the slow side.
Apparently the problem was me trying to use the power of the Goddess of Earth for spells, where I had previously used the power of the Goddess of Light. Using cooking as an example, it’d be like trying to make something salty by adding sugar. Basically, these past three days were me learning to use salt instead of sugar.
It was surprisingly difficult. I could now see why so few people could use spells from multiple goddesses.
And the results were as such...
“Summon spirit!”
I rested my hand on the pile of soil and summoned spirits of the earth. My MP activated. A portion of the soil transformed into the shape of a cone, pointing towards the ceiling. I wasn’t the one shaping it—the earth spirits were.
I successfully pierced through a plank of wood with the cone. I might be able to toughen this up by pouring more MP into it and increasing its density.
Unlike light spirit summoning, which could be done anywhere as long as you had MP and yourself, earth spirit summoning had the disadvantage of requiring soil. On the other hand, it had an advantage over light spirits for being able to create physical offensive power.
I grabbed the pointy end of the cone, channeled my MP into it, and the soil grew more dense and turned black. I pulled my hand out in a swoop, and what was left was a crooked, black knife. It almost looked like a knife made of obsidian.
I tapped the glossy surface with my finger and it made a high-pitched sound, indicating how hard it was. It wasn’t very firm, but it seemed sharp enough to make up for that.
I tested it on the plank I just pierced a hole into. The blade went deep into the wood and then broke. It was definitely sharp, but brittle, too. I probably could’ve cut the plank in two if the MP I had put in was stronger, or if I’d used more dirt.
The Fervent Sand Baths Page 5