I don't like the looks of that container. Bet it's a fancy knife.
My money is on some kind of anti-spirit wand that will either keep her from summoning out her spirit or cause it to go crazy and attack everyone, making her fail the test and look incompetent
...
Wow just fucking wow. I am convinced we're not going to get any romantic development from the 2 leads until we're like 50-60 chapters in because honestly how long are they planning to tiptoe around this? And of course the church is involved! when is the church not involved!? I genuinely want to see a story where the church isn't bad or morally corrupt.
Also I don't really fully trust the inspector guy not yet.
I will take this as some kind of development as The Guy seems to actually understand that she’s talking about him and just doesn’t want to admit it. If he has realized her feelings, that’s pretty good.
As for less evil churches
There Was a Cute Girl in the Hero's Party, so I Tried Confessing to Her. The church there seems fairly OK and have yet to cause any major issues, despite main girl being a saint.
I Was Reincarnated as a Poor Farmer in a Different World, so I Decided to Make Bricks to Build a Castle. Has a complicated church system where they distribute magic, but the main priest is a definite Ally for the MC
So I’m a spider so what? Has a more morally grey church, where they are in no way, corrupt and actually function kind of flawlessly, but they still sacrifice a lot of people to stop the world from being destroyed.
Possibly the Greatest Alchemist of All Time. Has two churches and one of them is evil and dedicated to a fake God, but the other is dedicated to the real God and it is pretty chill.