Ishtar Langbard

Ishtar Langbard (イシュタル・ランゴバルド) was one of the antagonists from the "Arifureta Shokugyō de Sekai Saikyō" series.

He was the pope of the Holy Church, the most prominent religion in Tortus, when the students from Earth with summoned by Ehit.

Appearance
Ishtar is a man over 70 years old with with many wrinkles and long white hair. If it were not for his wrinkled face, one could say it was over 50 years.

Ishtar wearing very brilliant white robes and a monk's cap about 30 cm tall.

Personality
He is a calm and religious fanatic of the God Ehit. When the students were in panic after they knew they could not go back home, he looks at the scene calmly and with a look of contempt as he considers it a true honor to be invoked by Ehit in person. Besides this, Hajime notices how manipulative he is by leveraging Kouki's sense of justice by emphasizing on what happening to humanity in Tortus. His blind devotion towards Ehit also made him hypocrite, as he (along with with rest of the high ranking members of the church) abandoned the Heiligh Kingdom during the demon invasion despite condescendingly trying to get the students to fight in their war against the demons.

In addition to his blind religious worship of Ehit, like his fellow bishops, Ishtar is also totalitarian and power hungry, seeking to monopolize any great power under the Holy Church's control in order to ensure the domination and influence of his master Ehit in Tortus, such as Ehit's chosen heroes whom they kept under their strict control via excessive hero worship of their leader Kouki. When Hajime had managed to conquer the Orcus Dungeon and gain immense power as well as Age of God's Magic to create extremely powerful technomagical artifacts that allow him to singlehandedly destroyed the Demons and their armies of monsters, Ishtar and his fellow Bishops developed a greater interest in Hajime and his artifacts than Kouki himself and was extremely displeased when Hajime refused to rejoined his fellow heroes and support them in their religious war against Demons.

Biography
Ishtar greeted the students that were summoned from Earth. He explained that they were to be Tortus' heroes and that humanity would be doomed in their war against the demons without the heroes aid. This convinced Kouki Amanogawa, who was given the vocation "Hero", to agree to help and that also caused the other students to agree.

After Hajime Nagumo was believed to be dead while exploring the Great Orcus Labyrinth, most of the other students were traumatized by the turn of events. Ishtar, however, tried to convince them to keep fighting. This caused their teacher, Aiko Hatayama, to confront the pope and threatened to cease using her skills as a farmer for the Heiligh Kingdom. Ishtar compromised with Aiko and agreed to let the students continue to fight if it was their choice. Furthermore, Captain Meld Loggins wanted to interrogate the students to determine who fired the spell that caused Hajime to fall to his apparent death, but both Ishtar and King Eliheid S. B. Heiligh forbad him from asking them.

When envoys from the Hoelscher Empire arrived to meet the heroes from Earth, one of them challenged Kouki to a duel to test his strength. During the duel, Kouki's opponent criticized him for his lack of resolve while fighting and called him weak, to which King Eliheid became offended and started yelling at him. It was then discovered by Ishtar that the opponent was actually Emperor Gahard D. Hoelscher in disguise.

When Aiko was abducted by Noint for knowing the truth about Ehit, and imprisoned inside the Holy Church’s main temple, Hajime arrived to rescue her and subsequently fought against Noint. They were evenly matched until Ishtar and the bishops of the church were using a powerful spell to weaken Hajime but only for him to broke free due to his power to be too much and attacked by the latter. When Hajime ordered Tio to demolished the temple, the severely injured Ishtar and his bishops were killed by getting crushed from the rubble when the temple was destroyed by an explosion due to the combined efforts of Aiko and Tio.

Relationships

 * Eliheid S. B. Heiligh - Eliheid treats Ishtar as if he is of a higher standing than him, despite being a king. He frequently does not take action unless he gains Ishtar's approval.

Magical Abilities

 * Immense Mana - As the leader of the Holy Church, Ishtar would have to be in possession of a high quantity of mana.

Spells

 * Hymn of Ruin - A powerful spell that dulls the target’s movements and saps their strength. Unlike most spells that required a magic circle, it can only be activated by multiple bishops singing in tandem. However, this spell is not powerful enough to handle Hajime as his power is too much as he broke free and ruthlessly attacked the pope and his bishop.

Quotes

 * (To the Hero Party): "The one who summoned you all here was the blessed lord, Ehit. He is the guardian deity of us humans, and the one true god of the Holy Church. The supreme ruler who created the world itself. I suspect Lord Ehit grew aware of our plight. He realized that humanity was doomed to annihilation, so he summoned you here in order to prevent such a disaster. You heroes are humans from a world greater than ours, and therefore carry within you strength that surpasses the humans of this world."

Trivia

 * "" was an ancient Mesopotamian goddess associated with love, beauty, sex, war, justice and political power. This may be allusion to the Holy Church overseeing the later three categories throughout all of human history in Tortus.