The second holy relic (1)

With Amy leading the way, it didn't take long for us to arrive at the church.

Once we were at the church, there was no need for her to hide her identity anymore.

And once her identity as saintess was revealed, it didn't take long for us to be surrounded.

However, there were holy knights that came out that quickly restored order.

With a bow, the leader of this group of holy knights said to Amy, "Your holiness, please follow me. The archbishop is waiting for you."

"The archbishop?" Amy couldn't help repeating in a surprised voice.

After all, it wasn't as if this place was the headquarters of the entire church.

This place was nothing more than a branch that was established in the Abel Kingdom for the church to provide services to the Abel Kingdom and its people. Normally this branch would only be headed by a bishop, not an archbishop.

There were only four archbishops in the entire church in the first place, so their status was just below that of pope. They were the ones that handled the major matters of the church for the pope.

The saintess wasn't that low in status either since there was only one of her, but Amy was a rather young saintess.

She hadn't built up prestige yet like the pope and archbishop had done.

At the same time…

"Little Amy, you're here!"

A friendly old voice called out before we could even be led to meet the archbishop. Instead, it was the archbishop who came out to greet us.

Just like his voice, he was a friendly looking old man with a bald head, glasses, and a white beard. Instead of an archbishop, he looked like the friendly old man from next door.

But for those that were familiar with holy energy, they would be able to tell that there was something different about this friendly looking old man.

After all, anyone that possessed this kind of holy energy definitely wouldn't just be an ordinary old man.

But the moment that Amy heard this, there was an embarrassed look that appeared on her face.

The two of them didn't seem like higher ups of the church, rather they seemed like they were grandfather and granddaughter.

One of the holy knights that came with us explained, "The saintess grew up in the headquarters of the church and was beloved by everyone. Since they went on to become priests, you understand that many of them didn't have children of their own. That's why they treated her like their granddaughter."

I gave a nod to show I understood, but I did have one doubt.

It was the fact that it wasn't required of a priest to remain celibate in this world. 

This was a game world that had freedom for its players, so of course there was no need for this. 

It was strange to hear the holy knight say that most priests remained celibate when there was no need to do so.

But then again, it wasn't as if priests had all that time to chase after women…

Once the two of them had their moment, the kind looking archbishop came over to look at me. When he looked at me, his eyes were narrowed as if he was looking at me carefully, like he was scrutinizing me.

There was a moment of silence before he finally said, "It's good to see you, hero. If you would, could you please show us the…" 

His voice trailed off, but it was clear what he was referring to.

So I raised my hand and pulled out the hero's sword.

This hero's sword was a special relic, so it wasn't as if I was carrying it around all the time. Instead, I could summon it out whenever I wanted with a single thought and put it away just as quickly.

When the hero's sword came out, the archbishop came forward to take a closer look before a smile appeared on his face.

This time, it seemed that he had accepted me as the hero when he looked at me.

This hero's sword did have a special place in the hearts of those from the church, so seeing it was more than enough to prove my identity.

Even if they didn't feel that I was worthy, there was nothing that they could say once the hero's sword came out. Or at least it was clear that this was what some of the holy knights were thinking.

These holy knights made it very clear that they had thought that they would be able to pull the hero's sword one day.

Only it was too late since I had already pulled it out.

It wasn't as if I could stick the hero's sword back in.

"Come in, come in, there's much that we have to talk about. Right now, you're just beginning on your path as a hero." The archbishop turned around and started leading the way into the church.

As we walked along, he added, "You didn't think that this would just make you a hero already, right? There's still plenty of things that you have to do before you can become a full fledged hero."

But as we were walking along, the archbishop suddenly turned back around to look at me.

Or it was better to say that he turned around to look at Amy who had come back to walk beside me.

He raised his staff so that it came between the two of us and then said, "Come and help me walk. It's getting harder and harder in my old age."

He had been walking perfectly fine just earlier, but now he was calling for Amy to come to his side.

It was clear what he meant by this.

So even if she didn't want to do it, she still went over to the archbishop's side.

It seemed that even if I was approved as a hero, I hadn't received approval for something else yet.