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
Ishtar is a calm and religious fanatic of the God Ehit. When the students from Earth were in panic after they knew they could not go back home, he looks at the scene calmly, while also with contempt for their apparent lack acknowledging the 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 has also made him hypocrite, as he both he and rest of the chuurch' high ranking member abandoned the Heiligh Kingdom during the Demon invasion, despite his past efforts trying to get the students to fight in their war against the Demons for the sake of humanity.

In addition to his blind religious worship of Ehit, Ishtar is also totalitarian and power hungry. He seeks to monopolize any source of 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 h,eroes whom they kept under their strict control via excessive hero worship of their leader Kouki. When Hajime manages 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 the rest of the church's leader develop a greater interest in Hajime than he rest of his classmates, and was extremely displeased when Hajime refused to rejoin them in their war against the Demons.

As the leader of the Holy Church, Ishtar holds the view of Humans being the chosen race under their god, while viewing Demons as evil beings, as well as Beastmen as filthy mongrels.

Biography
In Volume 1, Ishtar greeted the students that were gathered inside the Holy Church's Main Cathederal after they were magically summoned from Earth by Ehit. He explained to them that they were to be Tortus' heroes and that humanity would be doomed in their war against the demons without their. This convinced Kouki Amanogawa, who was given the Job of "Hero", to agree to help. It also inspired students to help them.

After Hajime Nagumo was believed to be dead while exploring the Great Orcus Labyrinth, most of the other students were traumatized by the event. Ishtar, however, tried to convince them to keep fighting for the sake of Ehit. 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.

In Volume 4, after Hajime was revealed to be alive and had rescued his classmates in the Great Orcus Labyrinth from the Demon Cattleya, Ishtar and the rest of the church declared him to be a heretic due to his refusal to rejoin and cooperate with them in the war against Demons, while also in posession of tremensous power. Aiko tried to persuade them to not make Hajime their enemy, but they refused her pleas in spite of her growing popularity amongst the people. After Aiko's failed plea towards the church, she dissapeared without a trace. The church's templar knights that previously acted as her guards wished to visit her, but Ishtar denied their request. When the knights tried looking for Aiko on their own soon after, Ishtar then ordered them back to the capital and confined them to a church prison in the capital while calling it tandby orders.

In Volume 6, Ishtar and the bishops of the church aided the Apostle Noint while she was fighting Hajime during the latter's attempt to rescue Aiko after she had been imprisoned inside the Holy Church’s main temple when he dissapeared. They 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 his companion Tio to destroy the church' catherderal, 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.

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.