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FICTION

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Chapter 13: Churchly Revelations

This whole 'Carolingian Empire' surprise sure caught me off-guard. As we started to explore the abandoned church, I just couldn't stop thinking of the many questions this whole development raised.

How did a small churchtown end up in this realm? How long has it been there? What happened to its citizens? And, lastly, are there other settlements like this one and were there survivors from these small cities? The entire matter just puzzled me as I hadn't considered the possibility that other humans from my world could have been Isekai'd in this dimension. And while I was musing over this discovery, Georg and his entourage seemed lost in the haze of exploring this peculiar place. One of his assistants was busy scribbling down notes about his comments over some of the church's details.

Sometimes he was right with his assumptions, such as this being a religious site and that it practiced monotheism, but he wrongly assigned the deity to this place straight to Millis. Something that Zenith huffed about, causing a few gazes to be aimed at her at that reaction.

"Something's wrong, lady?" Georg inquired, surprised by the annoyance displayed by the blonde's face.

"This is not a Church of Millis. There is a lack of symbols known to Him and... there are several here I don't recognize," She admitted without hesitation. "In fact, I would dare to say this doesn't even fit the standard heretic strain to His Church."

I nodded at that, confusion settling with the others at this revelation. Still, Georg hummed and gave a proper look to the building's interior design and shrugged. "Well, some of the details are unique to Millis' faith and can't be seen on other known pantheons."

At this Zenith actually conceded with a slow nod and, due to how silly the debate was getting, I dropped a small truth bomb.

"That's because the religion which warranted this site is similar to Millis, yet not tied to it," I remarked, my eyes a bit nostalgic as this church in particular reminded me of the one where I grew up.

I don't exactly have important memories of this place beyond the fact that my mother used to 'drag' us to see the morning's function every Sunday up until my sister and I began our years in high school. The excuse was that the workload was just too much to handle that sort of commitment, and, while mom was disappointed in this, she couldn't blame us for it. School was just plain hell back then, giving no chance for hobbies and other activities due to the homework.

Still, my comment did stir some interest from the entire group, with Elinalise humming as she seemed to catch more than the rest a bit quicker than Zenith.

"Is this church affiliated to your old religion, John?"

The new question raised even more fascination, with the Ranoa School's entourage quick to capitalize on the novelty.

"Mr. Bukharin, is your party's member saying the truth? Is this site affiliated with your... religion?"

I slowly nodded, the confirmation finalizing the interest from everyone at this notion. "This is a Christian Church, yes."

"Christian?" Roxy repeated, writing the name down. "This is a Church of... Christ?"

My lips twitched as I was still wrapping my head around this whole circumstance. "Something like that, yes. Christ is the one that bestowed his name to it, but is not the God of said religion."

"If he isn't, then why did he get that privilege?" Zenith asked with accurate legitimacy. I mean, since she was born in a religion that was named after their God, it had to feel odd that another just didn't do that.

"Because by the second of the ten rules this Church has is that 'you shall not take the Lord's name in vain'."

"And Christ is?" Georg inquired, quite fascinated by this topic yet still skeptical about it.

"To consolidate a new peaceful age, God created a son to wander the land as a mortal. His name was Christ," I started to reply, deciding to be concise and yet curt with this response. I could go on and on about what I knew on the subject, but I saw no genuine reason to bore people with this. Religion did help me build morals, but, at the same time, it lost my respect years ago for personal reasons. "As the messiah and son of God, he worked as a preacher of goodwill and one that absolved men and women's sins by genuinely helping them. He was a source of resolution and redemption, but eventually became the ultimate conversion from a period of internal strife to one of religious pacification."

Or that was the plan before the popes decided violence was a question and the answer was yes for the sake of Jerusalem.

"That sounds similar to Millis but... minus the son of God part," Zenith remarked and the researchers nodded in agreement.

"Millis was always a merciful deity, with those rare moments of conquest and expansion moved mostly by defensive wars blessing them with new faithful land."

And I suppose that part of history was known and detailed by Millis-sponsored historians since the other side stopped existing and had a voice on the matter. It wasn't that odd of a circumstance considering the sort of individuals medieval rulers were, always keen to elevate their victories to be as good and just as they could through propaganda and lies.

Still, my explanation seemed to be a good reason for Georg to use me as a guide for the place. It was the ultimate test, and I was quite sure I passed it. Especially when I mentioned that all Churches had copies of the bible behind the altar. The area where the bible, some wine and the eucharist were sealed off was actually closed through some magical seals. I was surprised by this notion, especially since Christianity would have been outraged in the use of proper magic. Maybe something happened that made it a necessity, or perhaps the church here adapted to consider magic as some form of special miracle-making that more people could create. Still, the seals were all tied to a riddle, one that easily confused the students from Ranoa Academy and had me perplexed for some time too.

I am the sharp reason why hope still exists. A blade, not to harm those not due to their demise but to forward the Lord's Plan, to ensue the end of the first sin, and the beginning of a new alliance by His flesh and His blood.

I was the one that translated the piece as it was in Latin, and while I was a bit rusty about the language, I was glad that the style used for the phrasing was actually less strict than it was meant to be by Roman Latin. I was somewhat glad that high school had mandatory Latin classes and that one of my teachers had been a philologist, giving me the edge in understanding what could be the potential clues and possible answers to this puzzle. At first nothing came to mind, and I looked around for any other hints. That's when I looked up to the statue of Christ crucified, the one I had spotted and the others didn't due to the foliage covering it. It was as I looked at it that the answer to the question came up.

"Longinus," I muttered loudly enough, my voice breaking the silence. "The Holy Lance that Christ blessed with his demise and returned to his Father."

That definitely raised some shocked looks at the news, with Zenith being the only one that didn't react outright for a while even as the container finally opened and allowed the researchers to see what was inside. The bible was the first thing they found but, to the chagrin and the slight dismay of the researchers, the book had incomplete pages, those having been ruined by mold or outright yanked out of the book itself. I was a bit stunned by this concept, but perhaps the priests that once held this church had used some of the religious pages to ward off some sections of the settlement against monsters.

Other relics were inside, but the one thing that stood out from the rest was what I could see was a lance. It was... it. The blade that slain the Messiah while he was put to the cross. Longinus and... it was emanating energy. One of the students reached for it but the blade rejected the young woman by zapping back at her hand. Nothing too intense, but enough to push her away from trying again.

I decided to test it out myself, wondering if something was actively preventing others but a rare few to pick it up. I managed to lift the lance and... I could instantly say something about it was off. It was clear that it was the real Longinus, but the weapon was... 'dormant'. It allowed me to pick it up and move it around, but I just could feel that it didn't want to bestow me with its power. Quite the odd discovery, but nothing worthy of grimaces as it was still a good finding to bring back home and study some more.

Also, during that quick 'tour' all over the main room, I ended up stumbling on something that wasn't meant to be there. Within the altar, right behind the large marble table where the mass would begin from through the priest, I spotted a small blue crystal pushed into its surface. It wasn't just a simple gem, not even when I could perceive it had magical properties. On seeing this, I just warned the group to back away, with only Roxy keeping by and acting as my 'assistant defuser' in case the gem went boom. And, as I tried to check its functions, I realized that it was more receptive than it looked. The small amount of mana I pushed into the crystal was drained by it and used to fuel its purpose.

It activated with just a soft pulse. Dammit!

Roxy and I backed away as soon as I saw the crystal starting to glow softly. Still, rather than explode like how I and a few others were worrying about, it just projected a large shape of blue light and... finalized it into making it appear like a proper human being. An hologram, with magic. I was just surprised even more when said 'fake priest' started to speak.

"Pater Nobis, qui es in caelis-"

The rest was a correct Latin version of the Pater Nobis prayer, one of the most common ones in Christian functions. The crystal continued to go on with the prayers for a while and it became clear it was going to produce a whole mass before turning off. Which was impressive considering the insignificant amount of mana I pushed into it.

"So you would just sit down by one of those benches and just... listen to that?" Ghislaine asked, sporting a slightly uneasy look at the thought of being subjected to that sort of treatment. In response to that, Geese huffed and shook his head at her crude comment.

"Well, that's how most religions work, Ghis. People listen to prayers and are blessed by those by being good followers of a deity," The brunet argued, getting a scoff from the beast woman. "Still, this is... fascinating. Never knew you had your own religion, John."

"That's because I don't exactly go around to flaunt it," I remarked calmly. "There isn't exactly a push from the religious chief in charge of Christianity to be too zealous about it. Mercy and comprehension are some of the main focuses of its current message."

The rest of the trip was pretty much: 'retrieve the items that could be retrieved for study' and possibly 'send someone to guard the place and turn it into a potential outpost for further studies'. There were enough artifacts lying around to warrant this sort of operation and I knew that more about Christianity was going to be brought up through this.

Was this going to have a good effect? I couldn't tell. The Religion of Millis was definitely going to be the biggest game-changer depending on their take on this discovery. Some could try to pin it as some 'pre-Millis' church, while I could tell that the most would still either see it as an independent religion or a heresy of the Millis one.

With the group back home, things were expected to mostly go back to normal. Zenith finally recovered from her shock and decided to interrogate me some more about what happened in the Church about the 'son of God being crucified' and this being actually 'fine' by me. It took me a while to explain what the point of that situation was, but, much to my dismay and yet relief, Zenith wasn't fully convinced by this religion, but seemed to be relieved to hear I wasn't an active practitioner of it.

All was good and great beyond that... except when later that night someone decided to visit. It was raining a fair bit when Geese went to check at the door, and then, as the unexpected guest was allowed inside, I was surprised to walk by the living room and see a gloomy-looking Roxy pout a fair bit at the notion her outfit was drenched and wet.

The point of her visit. "Are you still hiring new party members?"

...What?

AN

Longinus... get? Not yet. The weapon is currently dormant and unusable. It can still be used as a normal but indestructible lance, but it will not be able to use its full potential until much later in the story.

The balance has been broken! Roxy Get? But why? Next time will expand on that notion and- Dear Lord we hit more than 1k followers in Fanfiction dot net! And it's the most followed Mushoku Tensei story there. Thousands of thanks to my good readers and I hope to keep on providing ideas most of you like.

Finally, the tale of how the church ended up in this world will be explained the more the bible that has been retrieved is analyzed and translated. Some pages are actual journal pieces which will explain the truth and... it's quite an interesting one. And it will mix with why John has been sent to this world too.

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