"So we've been had, huh?"
After finishing the conversation with the head of Academy City, Aleister Crowley, Archbishop Laura Stuart of the Anglican Church, who had many subordinates at her command, sighed. It had been hours since the two of them had contacted each other, and since there was a 9 hour difference between Japan and London, it should be noon in Japan now. Surrounding the St. George Cathedral were the darkness and silence of the night, and the cold air of the ground.
She was sitting on a chair in front of the altar, and as her blond hair, which was more than twice her height, lay on the floor, she puffed out some air and extended both her arms backwards. With both hands, she grabbed the roots of her hair that was too long, and swung it forcefully like she was swinging a rod. She cleanly grabbed the front of her wavy hair that moved like a slithering snake, and used a silver hairpin to clip her hair with one hand. In an instant, she reverted back to her normal hairstyle that looked like her hair was cut in half.
Though it looked a bit crude, as she was already skilled in doing this, her movements had a beautiful sense of refinement and grace. Especially when the blond hair created ripples under the moonlight, this light was like a piece of art with beauty that could fill the entire hall.
One of the Twelve Apostles, John, once prohibited women from keeping long hair, and forced nuns to keep their hair short and keep it within their hoods.
The reason was that the long hair of a woman would attract a man and cause him to fall. In modern times, it may seem like a laughable, twisted reason…but Laura's hair was so shiny that it could make anyone change their mind.
"So these are all true?"
Laura grabbed the bundle of documents that was on her thigh with one hand and waved it. It was a twenty-page report by the British Museum regarding the 'Stab Sword'.
On first glance, it was just a random action, but there were hidden emotions inside it.
The emotion was called anger, and the temperature was extremely cold.
Hearing Laura speak, who seemed to be talking to herself, the other party paused for a breath, and responded.
It was the voice of a middle-aged man.
"I'm really sorry. You've appointed us to manage this for a long time, but till today, we didn't find it at all. In the end, we've continued to give the wrong instructions…"
"It's alright, you don't have to panic. I'm not angry with you. Besides, it's tough on you, to continue to work till this time."
Laura sensed that under the light that was shining into the interior of the Cathedral—near the entrance—that man was cowering in fear. Seeing that, it seemed that the other person was rather fearful for being under the same moonlight as Laura.
His name was Charles Conder.
He was the highest authority of archaeology, and the 'keeper' of the British Museum.
Compared to the 'investigators' who were running around the world, looking for artifacts and collecting them, his job was to manage and restore the items inside the Museum. For one to enter the bureau that had lasted for 1,000 years and maintained individual historical items that were up till 3,000 years old, one had to have the 'brain of a scholar' and 'hands of an artist' that was of the highest order in the world.
Right now, he was at the level where he was considered to have the capability, but his experience was unrecognized.
Among the items that they processed through, there were quite a few magical items…though the people working at the British Museum were ordinary people who had nothing to do with magic, even the head wasn't exempted. The Anglican Church provided support by giving advice on the items through Theological, Religious, and ethical point of views.
The British Museum was already famous itself, and only did general recruitment. If they were to set up a magic department brazenly, the idea of magic would quickly spread around the world.
Charles himself didn't know anything about the Anglican Church being involved in magic, and didn't know that the item that he had researched and compiled a report on was a magical item. The respect that he had for Laura wasn't that of being threatened by her real 'power', but just about sincere faith.
"Oh yeah, Conder. I have something that I would really like to ask you…"
Yes.
The other person who was in the darkness gave such a reply.
It was not an immediate answer, but rather, one that came after a pause. Only those who could immediately sense the atmosphere in this situation could tell that this was an opportune time.
Un, Laura seemed satisfied as she looked at the darkness in front.
"…Conder, you've heard my choice of words, so have you ever laughed at me before?"
"What?"
"Are you hiding in the dark corner in order to hide it?"
"No…no…I would never do such a thing as…"
"Then why must your voice be trembling, you idiot!? Everyone's laughing at my choice of words! Basically, this is all that Tsuchimikado Motoharu's fault for teaching me this odd choice of words…"
"Dear Archbishop, I've heard that you seem rather uncomfortable speaking in Japanese."
"DON'T TELL ME THAT THE ENTIRETY OF LONDON HAS HEARD ABOUT THIS!!??"
"Please calm down. Right now, we're communicating in English. Even if you really can't speak Japanese fluently, it has nothing to do with this situation."
"…"
Ahem. Laura purposely coughed to conceal her embarrassment.
Seemed like Charles Conder had tried his best to calm her down, but why was Laura still feeling so bitter?
"Excuse me…may we get down to the proper issue at hand?"
"Of course."
Laura tried hard to concentrate, and intended to continue on with the topic.
Charles smoothly proceeded on,
"In the report, it is also written that though we have a duplicate of the 'Stab Sword' in our museum, we can deduce that the actual item doesn't exist. This is something that may occur during archaeology, and thus a mistake in the heritage."
"So what's this mistake about?"
Laura slowly asked.
The British Museum had an archaeological point of view that could give the Anglican Church, who were magical based, completely different input, so it was considered an extremely valuable mind.
"Yes, you've received this kind of report before, right? Like say…yes, the Nazca Lines ( Note: the Nazca lines are located 250 miles south of Lima, Peru's capital. There's a variety of about 300 of them, and they're built during the Nazca culture that's from B.C. 509 to A.D. 1500. Some pictures are inexplicable, while others are obviously shaped like plants and animals, like hummingbird, monkey, heron, whale, spider and flowers etc.), the Moai figures on Easter Island, and a local example would be the Stonehenge…there are numerous things in history that we discover, yet we don't know their purpose."
Charles bent his body in the darkness.
"After this, strange things begin to happen, people will randomly add in reasons as to why these things are made. Legends and stories without evidence that are passed down will accumulate like a snowball. One example that's easy to understand would be the portrait of the Virgin."
"Um."
Laura replied.
The portrait of the Virgin Mary (though a restraint order was issued during a monotheistic Christian occasion, it was rather popular) was hailed by her worshipers to be a 'miracle item'. At first, there was the rumor that 'the Virgin in the portrait would weep.' After a while, it became 'whoever touched it could heal their wounds,' 'whoever hung it could dispel evil spirits,' as new 'heritages' continued to be formed, such that it was on a scale that even the Idol Theory couldn't explain it. Notwithstanding religious issues, just based on facts alone, it was unbelievable.
"So, it's like this? The Roman Catholic Church does have a magical sword that's made of marble. But the Roman Catholic Church doesn't know for what reason it was created, so they added their own 'definite reason' anyway, and thus it continued to spread around, and it ended up being part of their heritage?"
"Yes. But from an archaeological viewpoint, this isn't of ill intentions. Besides using theory, humans are creatures who'll use their imagination. Besides the 'Stab Sword' this time, there are similar reports around the world. So we can't blame the Roman Catholic Church entirely…"
Laura thought, what Charles said was true.
Actually, Christianity itself was like that. At first, the content of the Son of God was recorded through the hands of the apostles, and compiled into the Bible. And because of different interpretations, people had disagreements over their view of the Bible. In the end, this ended up meeting the tastes of the countries and their people, creating new religions in the process. This was the actual situation of today's Christianity, no matter whether it was Catholicism, Protestantism, Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, Russian Orthodox etc, the center of their faith was definitely the 'Bible'. The language would differ according to different countries, and 'a Bible which had content that suited the Anglican Church' didn't exist at all.
Even so, it led to a generation of different ideas, which led to the differentiation of faith.
So, such a thing wasn't abnormal in history.
(…Or maybe, the Roman Catholic Church intended to hide the truth about how the 'Stab Sword' was passed down. No, maybe this is just pure speculation?)
Laura shook her head to both sides.
Anyway, she could confirm that the legend of this spiritual weapon called the 'Stab Sword' was just a rumor that people had passed around, and that it didn't exist in the first place.
She didn't know why the marble sword had been made, but at least it didn't have the ridiculous effect of 'killing all the Saints by pointing the tip of the blade at them.'
Thus, the importance of the deal that was to be done in Academy City was lessened. This made Laura heave a sigh of relief.
"Then, did you manage to find out the original heritage behind this marble sword?"
"Yes madam. As this heritage continued to snowball, we don't have enough evidence to support this. But I'm afraid that this record seems to be correct."
Eh? Laura tilted her head sideways. That was information that was not in the report.
It seems that I really can't just rely on magic's point of view. An 'ordinary' viewpoint from archaeology is important as well. Laura's thoughts went wild.
"To be honest, this item isn't a 'sword'?"
"What?"
Laura suspiciously frowned. She saw the keeper of the British Museum holding the duplicate 'Stab Sword' in the dark. In the darkness, he turned the white marble sword around.
"It's a cross. The locals seem to call it the Croce di Pietro."
"ST PET…!?"
At that moment, Laura Stuart nearly stopped breathing.
"You're saying that that's the Cross of St Peter?"
Pietro was another name for Peter, one of the Twelve Apostles. Even for those who weren't familiar with Christianity, they should have at least heard of the 'St Peter's Basilica' that was inside the Vatican. It was truly famed for being the largest Church in the heart of Roman Catholicism, the largest religious sect in the world.
St Peter's cross had a huge historical link with the St Peter's Basilica, and even all of Rome and Vatican. It was the highest level of a spiritual weapon of all Christianity.
Its danger was such that even the 'Stab Sword'—a spiritual weapon that could kill any Saints no matter the obstacles or distance—couldn't match up to this.
Hearing the Archbishop exclaim loudly, the keeper of the British Museum must have been shocked. This wasn't surprising, as Charles was just the authority on archaeology, and had absolutely no idea about magic. So if he didn't know how dangerous the name of this item that he said was, it couldn't be helped.
However, Laura was different.
Because she knew all about the magical world and the Christian world, she could understand the seriousness of the issue. She was not looking at Charles, who was standing in the darkness, as she was immersed in her own thoughts.
(This is bad. If so, then the meaning of this 'deal' that those people are planning is completely different now. If they really want to carry out this 'deal' in 'Academy City'—)
The Croce di Pietro.
It truly existed in history, but up till now, the Roman Catholic Church had never revealed it. It could be said to be the highest level of spiritual item in historical 'legends' that could be compared to the holy items that the Son of God left behind. If it really had the effect that the book recorded…
(With the end of this 'deal', Academy City will collapse. No, something worse than that will happen.)
Laura murmured, swallowing her own saliva.
Her face revealed a heroic smile.
Laura thought, in this extremely complicated situation, what should she do to get the best benefits?