"Ah, the first stu- volunteer is here," the teacher, a young man that looked somewhat like a stereotypical monk, or well, how they were described to look in most novels I read back in my old world. From him, I could also feel a large amount of mana, not close to Lestul or Rudolpho but maybe around as much as I had.

His head was cleanly shaven, he had a braided greyish beard despite looking young, wore gauntlets made off what looked like hard leather and a brown robe with a leather belt strapped around his waist. For shoes, he also wore something made of leather as well, although it looked more like leather strips had been wrapped around his feet than shoes. His eyes were amber in colour and looked kind, sitting beneath his bushy eyebrows that hung down at the end.

I nodded and immediately steered towards the seat in the back, the equivalent to the one I had sat in when I was in Elsa's lesson. The teacher worked on some documents but looked up to me quite often with this strange, almost piercing gaze. It wasn't the same piercing look people often had, it was different, more like he could really see through me.

'You should be careful with that one,' Ira warned.

'Why? Is he another monster in the form of a disgusting human?' I asked.

'I can feel that there is something special about him, now that I mention that, I felt the same thing on Rudolpho as well,' Ira explained.

'Something special? What do you mean?' I asked.

'I don't know... but I think I have felt this be-' she suddenly grew silent.

'Ira?' I asked, confused by her sudden silence.

She stayed silent.

'Ira? You still there?' I asked, a confused look on my face.

"Is something wrong mister... Altair?" I suddenly heard.

I looked down and saw that the teacher was staring at me. When I shook my head he nodded.

"Just that you looked a little confused there," he added afterwards but I didn't answer.

'Deities', Ira said.

'Ah, now I get it,' I said in the most sarcastic tone I could.

'He and Rudolpho both borrow their powers from deities, like the heroes back in my day... although they don't seem to have borrowed power from the greaters,' Ira explained angrily.

'Sounds dangerous... think I could stand a chance against that one?' I asked, looking towards the teacher currently greeting two volunteers I didn't know.

'Hard to say, deities usually have fairly unique or powerful magic... it would depend on that,' Ira explained.

'Interesting,' I said, unable to hide my smile. 'Truly interesting... if I can overcome them I will know I've made progress.'

At that moment all the remaining volunteers entered, and of course among them were also Ivory, Evergreen, Servil and Nara, and of course, they spotted me immediately. And so the group, led by Ivory, walked up the stairs and sat down around me, Nara and Evergreen in front of me and Servil and Ivory at the table next to mine, the only thing separating us being the stairs, which weren't a lot but at least none of them had decided that it would be a good idea to sit down right beside me.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Once everyone had settled down the teacher positioned himself right in front of the large desk with his hands resting behind his back.

"Alright, let us begin this lesson. My name is Haral Advast, I am a caller of the church. Can someone tell me what that means?" he asked as his first question.

A lot of hands shot up immediately. He picked one person and said that they should say their name.

"Duwal, a caller is a person that has borrowed magic from a minor deity," Duwal said confidently.

"That is correct," our teacher, Haral, said as he turned around, walked up to the board, grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote down minor deities.

"Now, besides minor deities we also have intermediate deities, royal deities and, of course, the greater deities. There are also the devil equivalents, although it is a little different when talking about those. While they are technically called minor, intermediate and royal devils we know them under the names of demon lord, high demon lord, and arch demon lord," our teacher explained.

"It is important that you know things like that since the demon lord council is our greatest enemy, they worship the greater devils who only want to rule the world, which turn it into a place far worse than it already is!" our teacher preached.

I raised one eyebrow.

'That so? Then how come the church was the one destroying an innocent village?' I asked in my head.

Ira chuckled.

"Can someone tell me what our greatest weapons against the demon lord council are?" Haral asked.

This time only one hand shot up, that of Nara.

"Yes mis-s Nara," our teacher said.

"Mister," Nara corrected him, which also earned him a confused look from our teacher. "The greatest weapons against the demon lords are Requiem, the star bomb, Pompei, a vulcanic cannon, the summoning artefact that allows us to summon the royal war deity Hyperion and the pri-" Nara suddenly stopped. "No, that's it," he then said.

The teacher nodded.

"That is right. Although one could arguably say it would rarely be necessary to summon a deity such as Hyperion. There has yet only ever been a single case in which Hyperion had been summoned and that was when the church fought against the former demon king, Galgar the red, and at that time it has resulted in the death of many demon lords and even their demon king," our teacher explained.

'You know this Hyperion?' I asked.

'I do, although he wasn't that big a deal during my time, wonder what happened to Braham...' Ira said.

'Braham?' I asked.

'He was considered the most powerful war deity... a being rivalling the greater easily,' Ira continued.

I stayed silent, continuing to listen to the lesson.

"So, now that we have gone over that-" he wrote caller on the board next to minor deities, then added intermediate, royal and greater deities as well as the devil counterparts as well as their more common names, demon lord, high demon lord and arch demon lord.

I wondered why he talked about the devils so easily, Laura seemed to have a real problem with that...

"-can anyone tell me the other ranks we have?" he asked.

Many hands shot up once again. Haral picked some girl I didn't recognize nor cared for so I didn't catch her name.

"Paladins who borrow power from intermediate deities, high paladins who borrow power from royal deities and the seven saints, who borrow power from the greater deities," the girl said.

Our teacher nodded and wrote down the ranks. The rest of the lesson was rather boring, he talked about tactics on taking down the demon lords and how, while demon lords may be stronger individually due to them being at the same level as deities, for the most part, there was still hope and stuff like that. It was honestly not very interesting and not something I cared about a lot since I had no actual interest in ever fighting against any of the demon lords. The way things were currently going it was much more likely I might actually join them.

When the lesson finally concluded I immediately left, Ivory, Evergreen, Nara and Servil following after me. The last thing on the schedule for today was another tour of some facilities, on the note was written that we were supposed to meet in front of the dining hall so that's where I went. When I arrived I just leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, completely ignoring the chattering of the others.

I already hate everything about this place...