Ishtar Langbard

Ishtar Langbard (イシュタル・ランゴバルド) was one of the antagonists from the "Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest" series.

He was the pope of the Holy Church, the most prominent religion in Tortus, when the students from Earth with summoned by Ehit. He was killed by Tio Klarus when she and Aiko destroyed the church's main cathedral.

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

Ishtar wore very brilliant white religious robes and a white headdress resembling a mitre cap of about 30 cm tall with gold trimmings.

Personality
Ishtar was 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 looked at the scene calmly, while also with contempt for their apparent lack acknowledging the honor to be invoked by Ehit in person. Furthermore Hajime noticed how manipulative he was by leveraging his classmate 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 both he and rest of the church's high ranking members abandoned the Heiligh Kingdom during the demons’ 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 heroes, 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 the 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 held the view of humans being the chosen race under their god, while viewing Demons as evil beings, as well as Beastmen being filthy mongrels.

Chronology
When the heroes from Earth were first summoned to Tortus by Ehit, Ishtar and the chuch's bishops greeted them after they first appeared inside the Main Cathedral. 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 help. This convinced one of the students, Kouki Amanogawa, to offer his aid, which soon inspired the other students to help as well.

After one of the students, Hajime Nagumo, was believed to have died while exploring the Great Orcus Labyrinth, most of the other students were traumatized by the event. Even so, Ishtar 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. In addition, 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 doing so.

When envoys from the Hoelscher Empire arrived to meet Ehit's chosen heroes, 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.

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 labled him a heretic due to his refusal to rejoin and cooperate with them in the war against the rest of the demons, while also in possession of tremendous 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. Soon after Aiko's audience with the church, she myseriously dissapeared without a trace. The church's templar knights that previously acted as her guards wished to visit her, but Ishtar denied their request. The knights then tried looking for Aiko on their own, but Ishtar soon ordered them back to the capital and confined them to a church prison while calling it their standby orders.

Ishtar and the bishops of the church aided the apostle Noint while she was fighting Hajime during the latter's mission to rescue Aiko after she had been imprisoned inside the Main Cathedral. 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 retaliated against them with an attack from his rocket launcher "Orkan", but the barrier surrounding the church saved them. When Hajime ordered his companion Tio to destroy the church' catherderal, Ishtar and his bishops were killed by getting crushed from the rubble when it was destroyed by an explosion caused by the combined efforts of Aiko and Tio.

Eliheid S. B. Heiligh
Eliheid treats Ishtar as if he is of a higher standing than him, despite being a king. He usually did not take action unless he gained Ishtar's approval.

Magical Abilities

 * Immense Mana - As the leader of the Holy Church, Ishtar had to have been 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. "O look up at the distant seat of God. O look up at our sanctuary. Evildoers, sinners, hear the song of God strike you. The purity of your bind you and your sins. The melody resonates in the skies and is poison to all evil."

Weapons & Equipment

 * Staff - Ishtar had a staff that was engraved with magic circles.

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

 * "" is the name of an ancient goddess that is associated with love, beauty, sex, war, justice and political power. This may be allusion to the Holy Church overseeing the latter three categories throughout humanity's history in Tortus.