Chapter 59: Side Story 8: The Church’s Magic is Amazing!

“Tatsuya, do you think you guys will be ok?”

I shrugged, looking over at the girl walking to my left. “Aiko, I said it already, we probably will. I’m pretty sure we’ll argue a lot, but Mikami isn’t some idiot. He’s a booklicker, so he won’t do anything stupid with a holy knight around. Although, I’m more worried if Elrick can make Hanazawa do her job as a healer…”

“That girl can’t be serious… It’s been four months already.” Aiko shook her head, sounding irritated. “Hana— Tsk, haaaa… Why can’t she understand how important it is for her to start getting on the bishops’ and cardinals’ trust? We oughta work together. Idiot.”

Well, it’s not like I can’t understand her. I sighed internally, feeling like I shouldn’t throw more fuel into the fire.

At the end of the day, time cannot change the fact that the church, its pope, and their goddess had kidnapped us into their world. Why should we care for Peolynca? Being homesick was normal, and maybe Hanazawa was just dealing with the situation in her own ridiculous way? Then again, it wasn’t like her attitude changed one bit since our days on Earth.

On the other hand, the other saintess candidate, Aiko, was conforming pretty well into her new life. Almost made me think she forgot all the suspicion and talk we had three months ago. Then again, with how the clergy was treating and worshiping her like almost like royalty around here, maybe it made sense she would try to take advantage of it.

Of course, I had enough tact to not say this to her face. She could take a joke but being this blunt would insult anybody. Safer to stay silent.

"Yeah, don't worry Aiko-san. I made a promise, so I won't let anything happen to Sakamoto-san," Kyouya, my best friend, said with a smile and thumbs up, in my stead.

Hearing that, I turned my gaze to the person walking beside Aiko — Sakamoto. The shorter girl was pouting with a deep frown, muttering, “Ishigami-san, I'm here if you haven't noticed. I know I’m not anywhere close to a proper fighter, but it still feel weird for you to treat me like a deadweight.”

"Huh?! Wha-Wait, that's not what I meant—!" Kyouya tried to apologize but was shushed by Aiko.

To be honest, combat-wise, Sakamoto was pretty much a liability for us. Four months of training was nowhere enough for people to get trained to fight, in my opinion, especially for people who had never had martial arts training before. We had a few classmates who had archery and boxing backgrounds, but the majority were just normal teenagers.

Although I had received formal training from the church’s Knights of Aurena, I wouldn’t exactly say I was anywhere close to being competent enough. This was even worse for Sakamoto, as she wasn’t just physically frail but almost had a pacifist attitude. I even overheard our trainers calling her a lost cause, despite not even allowing her in the magic courses.

We’ve been told we had the potential to become even stronger than trained knights in a short amount of time with our skill points. If we trained enough and went hunting monsters enough, we could reach peak fighting form in about two or three years. At least, that was what our instructors suggested.

Jeez, three more years of this, and that seems more like an optimistic guess.

To be honest, I wanted to believe their propaganda. I was pretty scrawny before I was teleported to this world with one of the worst Stamina amongst our classmates. However, I’d been able to build some muscles, all for my goal to survive and become strong enough to buy those coffee leaves.

As such, I did think those combat instructors were maybe underestimating Sakamoto a bit. She was a smart girl and she probably could become strong if she put her mind into it. It wasn’t as if she was neglecting her training.