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Once the summit meeting ended, I accompanied Sofia who parted ways with Bernard to buy ingredients for dinner.

Even if the public order was good, I couldn’t let a weak girl who just arrived here walk alone in the city.

“So Luneville has grocery stores like everywhere else.”

As we were heading to the church with our hands full of vegetables, wheat flour, and such, Sofia suddenly brought that up.

“Because everyone still eats normally.”
“Indeed. I heard that the guild branch’s cafeteria was controlling all meals, so I misunderstood it.”

Sofia smiled wryly.

It stung me a bit that I couldn’t deny it, but that was only when it came to meals outside. At home, people ate their own cooking like normal. But well… despite the indirect labor involved, I admit that eating with us can be cheaper than cooking on your own.

“Fish is still expensive compared to Acradist here, but the vegetables are so cheap I couldn’t believe it!”
“River fish and such are pretty cheap, though. There is a ban on catching now, so they don’t appear on the market.”
“Oh, I’ve heard about salted grilling! I was actually looking forward to it!”

As we walked while chatting about such peaceful things, Sofia suddenly stopped in her tracks.

“…Sorry, big sister!”

And bowed to me.

I didn’t understand why she was apologizing, and all the eyes around were on us so I asked her to raise her head.

Her expression was serious, so I decided to listen to her after sitting on a nearby bench at the central plaza. The surroundings was soo noisy it’d be hard for anyone overhear us, and it would also be easier to spot if someone was listening in on us.

“Err… what happened all of a sudden?”
“Yes, well… Actually, I overheard the pastor…”

I didn’t show it, but I was actually quite agitated on the inside. If this was related to an evil god, she could be in danger. Depending on the situation, I might have to start a premature decisive battle.

Sofia gripped her hem stronger, then eventually raised her face and stared at me straight.

“The pastor… suspected you to be a God’s Vessel…”
“…Huh?”

I have an Inherent Skill God’s Vessel but… I don’t think it’s about that, right? I tilted my head reflexively and Sofia continued with a serious expression.

“He had a talk with the church… and they said they would make you a pope if it turns out to be true.”
“…That would be a little…”

Not just the skill, but even an evil god seemed unrelated to this, so I felt both relieved and also dejected at the new trouble.

Isn’t the pope the highest rank in the Lathovester Religion? No way in hell.

“But why are you apologizing about it?”

She flinched at that question and bowed her head with force.

“I’m sorry!! It seems the pastor found out what you did at the village for us…!”

Geh.

I was about to exclaim but that would sound like I was blaming her so I quickly pushed the voice down.

If what I did in that village got found out, it meant he found out I was someone who could twist an evil god to death.

…Huh?

How did they arrive at me being “god’s vessel” from that?

Did they misunderstand my cheats in a positive direction like the great spirits do?

“As you asked, no one said anything about that incident to the others. So I think it wasn’t revealed directly… but more like, he overheard the villagers talking about it…”

So he heard it fragmentarily and misunderstood it as me possibly being a god’s vessel?

I see… So that’s why he didn’t even question it when I brought up the teaching materials.

This is bad… I can’t do anything carelessly now.

Well, it’s better than things turning bothersome without knowing about it.

Let’s just think about it positively like that.

We continued talking a bit after that and carried our luggage to the church, after which I returned to the branch and did my tasks for the night.

From tomorrow, I will be going back to the regular work I used to do before the arena was finished.

It seemed like school matters would turn out okay, so I decided to work on an additional attempt against demons and evil god.

“Illya, can you register this on us?”
“Understood.”

I was given their registration card along with the commission paper which I proceeded to register.

At the same time, I confirmed the status of the woman standing before me.

“Miss Clara, I have one suggestion, but would you be willing to listen?”
“Of course. What is it?”
“Actually, the branch and the arms workshops have decided to form a partnership.”

This was true.

To provide the arms to the arena, we’ve formed partnership contracts with several smithing workshops. With that, we could get them to make weapons we wanted, and they will also be blessed with an opportunity to show off the weapons they crafted in the arena.

It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that weapons were the life of the guild members.

As such, Clara naturally took an interest in my words.

“We received prototype swords the other day, and I would like to request you to help us test them.”

As I spoke, I took out a sword that was smaller than a large sword… a Japanese sword.

Even if you carried it on the waist, a normal person without the Appraisal skill wouldn’t be able to tell what made it a trial product.

“Test, huh… It seems like it’s something better than what’s on the market, but I don’t see anything particularly special about it.”
“I can’t share this publicly yet, but it has a crystal fragment embedded in it, and infusing magic power activates support magic. The effect is weak since it’s still in the trial stage.”
“Ohh…”

The reason it’s weak is that I restricted what I shared on this technology, ehehe.

Though I described its flaw, the look on her face confirmed that things were proceeding as I planned.

“Even if I say test, I’m not asking for anything complex. I just wish you could tell me how it feels in practice.”
“Just that?”
“Yes. It seems that it lacks practical verification. I will provide a reward separately for it.”

My sales speech was blocking all her paths of retreat.

It was pretty crooked even if I say so myself, but eventually, Clara put the katana back into its sheath and put it on her waist.

“Got it. I’ll help with the testing.”
“Thank you very much.”

I then returned the commission and registration card back to her which I had already finished processing some time ago and was waiting for the right time to do it.

“Please keep in mind that subjugations done outside of the designated region will not be counted. I wish you luck.”
“Got it, I’ll be back.”

I saw Clara and her comrades leave the branch and felt relieved that the first step of my attempt had been cleared.

What I mean by attempt is to grow the weapons skills of people together with the aptitudes that they hold.

Weapons that allow you to activate magic even if one isn’t a magician exist solely to get the wielder familiar with the weapon. They had no other purpose.

After all, unless it was something made of Orihalcum (Telepathic Metal), the weapon’s endurance wouldn’t be enough to activate the original effect of the spell.

Clara was a whip user, and was polishing her Chain Technique skill, but her actual affinity was for a katana belonging to the Swordsmanship skill.

When it came to aptitude holders, unless it was due to their strong interests and preferences, their skill would naturally grow the moment they would try using the weapon they had an affinity with. So most likely she had never used anything but the whip.

You wouldn’t know what affinity you had until you tried it, which was quite similar to what we called talent in my previous world. I laughed dryly at that thought.

I had no talent back then!

Every day, I diligently carried out my routine tasks while continuing my efforts to develop people’s aptitudes in a subtle way. As for the new facilities, in place of not getting very involved with the arena, I would instead periodically check the church.

Personally, I didn’t want to get close to Bernard in both senses of the word, but since I was the one who brought up the school matter, I couldn’t just leave everything to him, so I was headed there even now.