Polymath Redux

Chapter 38: Where were you on the night of Mr. Lazzaro's murder?

As the black knight had anticipated, the erratic movements of the local monster population had been publicized. With this newfound information the Adventurer's Guild had changed the difficulty ratings of their missions. For example, the [Goblin subjugation] mission which was an E5+ rank mission had now been moved to becoming a D2+ rank mission.

By the Guild Master's plea Irina was placed in charge of figuring out what was going on, but other numerous investigations have also gone underway as to the reasons for their erratic movements with so far no new information having turned up. Until the reason was figured out or the entire issue resolved itself the new difficulty ranks were to be placed indefinitely.

As such both Tau and Alice were wandering around town with little to do as most of the low rank missions were being fulfilled by other newcomer adventurers. Since they were also still injured they figured that they would take it easy for the time being and explore the city in detail. With envious eyes they had to pass up the many different shops and merchants as they had little in the way of money but overall seemed to enjoy themselves in this thriving city.

"Oh, we're back here again!"

Alice exclaimed as she pointed towards a large ornate building. They once again found themselves before the Grand Cathedral of Xagon; the center point in the religious sect of this country. When they had visited prior the line was filled with sweaty soldiers but now that line had shrunken down to a bearable amount. Tau turned to Alice only to be returned with anticipating eyes and excitement about the prospects of seeing the holy relic that was the sacred sword.

Rather than having any religious respect for the sword, to Alice it was more akin to a tourist attraction and since they day before Alice had been looking at it with envious eyes. It didn't help that there was a massive line in front of the church which only accentuated the curiosity that she had.

Giving off a small sigh Tau gave into Alice's enthusiasm. There were now also other adventurers and non-military personnel trying to get their turn in removing the sacred sword from the sanctuary. Thus it wasn't going to be awkward if they decided to line up and try their hand at it.

"Alright, we'll just have a quick look then."

"Yay~!"

Thus began their two hour long wait underneath the blazing sun of the sun country. Halfway through their wait Tau could see Alice's prior enthusiasm slip away as she was slouching over and ready to give up. However since they had already waited in line for so long it would be a waste to just give up now so Tau decided to power through the heat.

Now at the center of the cathedral they stood before an ornate shrine decorated and dedicated to the sacred sword of Xagon. To pull out this sword meant to become the hero; which child did not fantasize about becoming some justice serving hero and helping the weak? Even the atmosphere within the sanctuary was a lot different from any other place that Tau had seen, 'holy' would've been the right word for it but it somehow felt that it wasn't enough.

'Calm'. 'Tranquil'. 'Melancholic'. 'Serene'. 'Pure'. 'Clean'.

All those words could apply but again it didn't feel quite accurate to how Tau was feeling as he laid his eyes on the sword. He slowly watched as the people in front of him tried to remove the sword and their muscles bulging out from the strain but none of them could do it properly. 'Why are they doing that? Why can't they see?' he thought to himself.

It was hard to describe in words, but Tau felt as though he knew the right way to pull out the sword. Everyone else was just mistaken and they just didn't know that way so of course it would be impossible to pull it out if they repeated the same mistake over and over. It wasn't a matter of strength nor was it a matter of desire to become the hero.