The religious faith in this world varied depending on which region you looked at and what race you considered.

There existed many races in this world ranging from your typical elves, dwarves and beastmen to other non-typical ones such as the craggles which were sentient stone like creatures who stood 3 to 5 meters tall and were another 2 to 3 meters wide.

Truly the variety was almost endless.

And because they were all so different, they each had a different interpretation of the world around them which spawned many types of religions ranging from worshiping deities to animalism or spiritual entities.

What made them all the same though was how the main core of this world functioned with the existence of the blessings, different religions all had their own explanation for the blessings the world bestowed to them.

The humans in this case worshiped a being known as the goddess of light Mithra, they teach that it was her who gave life to this planet and bestowed all creatures with a sacred role to fulfill.

The church of light had spread this word for over millennia and while Avian wasn’t averse to the idea of a god considering where he had ended up now, he was also not entirely convinced it to be the truth seeing that there was no proof any of it was real.

For all he knew blessings could be one the same principle as gravity but then again even he didn’t fully believe that theory either.

All the different religions also basically spouted the same thing in different ways only furthering his doubt as they couldn’t be all true, but the one thing he couldn’t deny was the fact that this blessing existed for real as he knelt in front of the pope together with everyone else from his former high school which were his classmates and teachers.

It had been a year since they had arrived, and as heroes summoned from another world they would soon be given their sacred role by their god to fulfil their mission to defeat the demons and bring peace to this world.

For this everyone present wore some expensive looking formal wear which was a combination of white and gold, kneeling in front of the pope, Julius the Fifth inside the cathedral hall which was the base of operation of the church of light located in the capital of this kingdom where the royal castle was too, the atmosphere was more than a bit tense as everyone anticipated with bated breath what kind of blessing they would get.

Even Avian was somewhat excited, but not in a good way as he felt uncomfortable not exactly knowing what was about to happen.

The pope in question on the other was different, for all intents and purposes Julius the Fifth was a middle aged man on the older side, he was neither handsome or ugly, but very thin, he didn’t look warm nor cold as he sat on his chair holding a golden staff while wearing a religious garment befitting a pope in pure white.

Other than the pope and the others no one they were familiar with for the past year was present as this ceremony was something secret and private only the pope had jurisdiction with as it could only be him who would bless the heroes.

They had been waiting inside the huge cathedral for about close to an hour, only being told to kneel no one particular knew what they were waiting for but still waited as they could only listen to the pope.

For a while he sat on his chair unmoving with his eyes closed before finally opening them and standing up as he announced with a loud voice.

-Oh heroes! Time has come for you to be bestowed upon your sacred duty, every one of you stand up and come forward one by one so we can begin unravelling your role.

And with that he waved his golden staff as sudden light appeared in his other hand summoning forth an orb which was presumably the Divine Orb to discern the role of a person.

The person standing closest was the first to go, Avian was familiar with everyone by now knowing them by name having spent a lot of time together for the past year.

The person who went first particularly was called Carl Manson, he was the boy who learned how to swing a sword within a week and defeated someone who had far more experience then himself.

His blessing was thought to be related to be a variation of the [Fighter] blessing and as he stepped up to the pope and kneeled before him, Avian watched as the orb shone over his head and started to reveal characters using the language of the humans in this world, watching the entire process Avian felt it was quite mundane and boring from what he originally imagined and with all this setup, but either way he immediately knew that things were starting to get afloat as he read what was written on the orb.

-The blessing of the [Weapon Master] huh…

Avian muttered and not just only him, everyone else watched with bated breath as they looked at the orb, already almost everyone present could read what was written on the orb after studying for a single year and as soon as they saw what the blessing was Avian could feel the atmosphere heating up as people started to get more and more excited.

All the while Avian kept his cool as he watched his past classmates and teachers go up one by one getting their blessing revealed to them before stepping aside waiting for the others.

[Sage], [Sniper], [Guardian], [Insect Lord], [Cardcaster]…

All kinds of strange or never before seen blessings started to arise in this ceremony, having studied up for the past year, Avian had intimate knowledge regarding most of the blessings that were documented in this world.

Of course he couldn’t know everything there was to know as information regarding blessings above common or rare was held in deep secrecy by every country or noble house that possessed it, even then Avian at least expected a few blessings he read about to appear, but to his shock he had no knowledge of any of the blessings his classmates were revealed to have.

Avian could only infer some basic ideas by reading the name of the blessing itself like [Sniper] which was obviously a blessing focused on long ranged combat or [Guardian] which was likely the tank to soak damage on the front line.

Things were starting to get tricky when it came to [Insect Lord], Avian could only assume that it was maybe similar to a [Beast Master] blessing but specialization in bugs instead, next he shifted his to the next blessing until he finally drew a blank as he had no idea what a [Cardcaster] was supposed to be with many more following the same suit.

Soon it was going to be his own turn, Avian increasingly started to feel unwell as he saw that his turn was coming up, from the very beginning Avian knew that he wasn’t like the others at all, in fact it was them who had turned strange as the transportation circle had completely changed them not only physically but also mentally leaving only Avian with the way he was before mentally.

Avian worried about what that orb may show him this entire time as soon as he came to know about the blessing ceremony, he had devised a lot of ideas to way avoid this such as pretending to be sick, but upon further consideration he quickly scrapped every plan before deciding that he had no other choice but to go through with it.

Avian was sufficiently convinced that there shouldn’t be anything the orb could reveal that would indicate that he was different somehow which is why he kept his calm as he stepped forward before the pope and kneeling before him to reveal his blessing.

Avian had read about this part of the ceremony very well, knowing what was going to happen next eased his mind as he felt something warm wash over him as the light came down upon him.

The orb had more functions then just revealing the person’s blessing, humans in this case had the advantage when it came to understanding their blessing as the orb not only revealed a person’s blessing but also made them conscious and understanding of how it worked.

Avian’s mind in this case felt a brief connection as he started to recognize something that was present in his body, instantly two sentences came to his mind as the orb above him finally started to show what his blessing was.

The pope this entire time, couldn’t stay calm after seeing so many unknown blessings who were all likely above rare, expecting something great once again he looked at the orb above Avian’s head before immediately looking confused as he wasn’t expecting what he saw.

-The blessing of the [Monster Tamer]?

Avian too looked at his blessing also slightly confused, the reason for that was because he had 2 blessings popping up inside his mind when the orb shone upon him, he actually expected to see 2 blessings because of it, but the only one he saw was the first blessing which was indeed the [Monster Tamer].

Finally, he saw a familiar blessing he had studied beforehand and seeing the frowning expression of the pope after witnessing so many rare blessings Avian didn’t blame his confusion as [Monster Tamer] was indeed not the kind of a blessing you would think a hero would have.

In a sense it was one of the worst blessings one could possibly have which made Avian unsure what he should think as he knelt before the pope who frowning deeply.

================================================

Up to 18 more chapters on https://kakemonoko.wordpress.com/