Providence Relic (2)

A world where you no longer know what to believe.

A world awash in uncertainty on every side.

Shorts, Reels, tweets, and the like.

These days, there was so much information flooding in that people were becoming fools because of it.

Paolo Romano was no exception.

He was an artist who specialized in sculpture.

And precisely because of that, he was all the more vulnerable to the uncertainty of the present age.

Where on earth is it? The people and the writing around them look Korean, but still.

Paolo's wandering finally came to an end recently, thanks to a dream he'd begun having every night.

Ever since the dreams started, each of his days had been peaceful.

The dream was like a drug.

Could it be a revelation? I don't even go to church.

In the dream, Paolo found himself in some Eastern neighborhood in the middle of massive construction.

There, he was carving a statue of a goddess.

The moment he finished the sculpture, people with faintly glowing halos above their heads praised him.

Among them, a young man with a particularly radiant halo gazed at him with eyes full of joy.

It was only a dream, but it was so happy, so deeply fulfilling.

A soft halo glowed above Paolo's own head as well.

In his dreams, Paolo was happier than he had ever been in waking life.

How long has it been since I last felt peace like this?

Every time he woke, a quiet lingering warmth and tears of longing dampened his pillow.

I want to feel what I felt in that dream, here in the real world!

So Paolo had taken to researching a country called South Korea almost obsessively of late.

He had already resolved to go. The problem was pinpointing where in Korea that neighborhood from his dreams actually was.

Huh?

On the fourth day since the dreams began, a certain video appeared on his feed.

That man! That's the man from my dream!

On InXta Reels, an exceptionally kind-faced, handsome young East Asian man had appeared.

The young man, it seemed, was a religious figure.

In the Reels video, he was performing volunteer work.

Mostly, he washed elderly people's feet and gave them massages.

At other times, he tutored children in their studies.

Providence... Seop...?

Paolo searched for information about the man from the video as if in a trance.

InXta's algorithm answered his longing all too generously.

Before long, a flood of related content filled his feed.

What religion is this? Some kind of Christianity?

The young man called Seop was delivering a speech from a pulpit.

Should have studied more English.

In the video, Seop was speaking in Korean, with English and Japanese subtitles translating his words below.

The problem was that Paolo was Italian, and his English wasn't exactly fluent.

I can't understand a word, but I can't stop watching. Why is that?

The strange thing was the ineffable sense of peace that radiated from the video.

In fact, the comments were full of opinions much like Paolo's own.

The view count was substantial, too.

Seoul... Yeonok-dong, Seoul...

Surfing the endless waves of Reels, Paolo finally confirmed both the man and the place from his dream.

Just then, an intriguing comment caught his eye.

It was written in English, but thanks to the real-time translation feature, Paolo could read it right away.

Surprisingly, the comment had gathered a lot of likes.

So there's an app.

Paolo immediately searched for Providence in the app store.

The app's ratings and reviews were overwhelmingly positive.

Having read the reviews, Paolo felt a surge of curiosity and a flutter of excitement as he pressed Install.

The installation finished, and a loading screen appeared.

First the Korean text had appeared —

— then it was automatically translated into Italian.

Benvenuto tra le braccia di tua madre.

Two weeks later.

Paolo boarded a flight bound for Korea.

Lee Jin-han, a leather craftsman renowned not just in Korea but across the world, had been having a joyful dream of late.

In it, the daughter who had cut ties with him ten years ago came to see him, smiling.

Back then, after their bitter fight, he had resented her terribly — but ten years on, he missed her, and he was sorry.

In the dream, his daughter took Lee Jin-han's hand and, her face a mixture of tears and smiles, told him she was sorry.

Lee Jin-han, weeping in turn, told her that he was the one who should apologize.

Afterward, the two of them got into a car heading for Seoul.

Her last words before he woke were that she and her husband had come to believe in a certain religion — one that needed him.

Cult or not, I just pray she really does come.

That day, too, Lee Jin-han set his work aside and stared out at the courtyard, lost in thought.

Huh?!

How many hours had passed like that?

A car pulled to a stop right in front of the courtyard, and the person he longed most to see stepped out.

It was his daughter, now in her thirties.

She matched the dream perfectly, down to the last detail.

It felt like a revelation.

Lee Jin-han rushed out of the house, weeping, without even pausing to put on his shoes.

Beginning with Paolo Romano and Lee Jin-han,

the world's master artisans and artists began, one by one, to receive revelations.

Jean Petit, a metalsmith who had devoted his life to the craft, had lately been dreaming of...

Rowan Bank, the painter famous for his revolutionary expressiveness, was...

Ellis Harper, an architect with a superb sense but no fame to speak of, dreamed of...

Fujimoto, a man of outstanding talent in woodworking whose left arm had been paralyzed in a car accident, was...

Some were already artists of resounding renown.

Some were yet-unknown masters of their fields.

And some were gifted souls forced to abandon their talents by tragedy.

What they shared in common was this: they dreamed, they received a revelation, they were happy — and before long, they boarded flights bound for Korea.

Religion and art are, in truth, so deeply intertwined that one might call them two halves of a single body.

The ChurchState of my previous life, where divine power truly existed, was obsessed with art as well.

As for the religions of Earth, where no divine power existed, that goes without saying.

"Right now, we are writing history alongside our Firstborn Son, Lord Seop. Together, we are becoming the living scripture of the Providence Church."

Yeonok-dong, in the full swing of redevelopment.

A fervent proclamation brushed past my ears.

It was a Cleric of the Providence Church — newly ordained, no less — strolling through Yeonok-dong with ordinary believers, saying these ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠very words.

Considering that I was the one destined to become Pope someday, I let a bit of flattery like that slide without a second thought.

Well, we certainly are making history.

I was beginning to understand the backdrop against which the Cleric had said it.

Right now, Yeonok-dong ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was undergoing the foundational work required to become a Holy Site.

Relatively clean houses and commercial buildings were being left standing to preserve the Korean character of the place, while among the old and dilapidated structures, only a handful of historically significant sites had been spared demolition.

Chief among the survivors of the redevelopment tide were the studio apartment where I lived, the senior citizens' hall where our first service had been held, the empty lot that hosted the first Day of Proof, and Elder Heo's house, where Heo Yumi had been healed.

Every other building was simply too old, so we had taken the opportunity to raze them all.

Yeonok-dong will become a world-class Holy Site. A living city where art and divinity breathe together — a city of worship in its own right, surpassing Mecca and Jerusalem.

On the cleared ground, new buildings would rise.

But not in the style of Korea's existing new-town developments.

Take the apartment complex going up over there — it was being planned as housing that could comfortably last a hundred, two hundred years.

No expense had been spared on materials, and the plumbing had been routed outside so it could be swapped out easily at any time.

The apartment buildings themselves had been designed personally by a celebrated American architect who had received a revelation.

While other cults are busy building themselves palaces, I'm doing urban redevelopment.

A smile crept onto my face despite myself.

My tour of Yeonok-dong continued on toward its center.

At the heart of Yeonok-dong, construction on a site the size of a World Cup stadium had only just begun.

This was where the Providence Central Temple would stand.

Nearby, an artist stood alternating his gaze between the construction site and the temple's concept renderings.

"Paolo, stai ricevendo bene l'ispirazione?"

I approached him quietly and asked. Roughly translated: Are you receiving good inspiration?

"Firstborn Son."

I had clearly asked in Italian, but Paolo answered in Korean.

So granting stigmata accelerates language acquisition ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠too.

Until barely a month ago, this Italian hadn't even mastered English — yet after transitioning into a Pardner, he had become conversational in Korean within a single week.

"Thanks to the stigma you have bestowed upon me, Firstborn Son, I feel the joy of creation every single day. Speaking of which, the statue of the Weaver of Providence that I carved—"

Paolo launched into one explanation after another as if he'd been waiting for the chance.

I listened to him in patient silence.

The number of Pardner classes I had granted stigmata to recently totaled thirty.

Considering that only fifty B-class jobs were currently eligible for stigmata, that was a staggering expenditure.

For the sake of Holy Relics and Holy Sites, though, this much is necessary.

I thought to myself as I listened to Paolo explain.

Our conversation concluded, I moved on.

Along the way, I noticed a painter working on a mural on the streets of Yeonok-dong.

Above the painter's head glowed a halo — the mark of a Pardner.

Still, I did push myself too hard.

Seeing the Pardner painter brought to mind how I'd run myself ragged not long ago.

It wasn't from granting too many stigmata.

I really did nearly die.

What had exhausted me was casting Revelation, the Oracle skill, far too many times.

Because of that, I'd been forced to appoint more Clerics than originally planned.

I needed more clergy to shoulder the duties that would otherwise have fallen on me.

But I have no regrets.

I had clearly overextended myself — yet I felt not a shred of reluctance about it.

Every bit of it had been worth the cost.

It's not as if the Pardners I recruited are a money-losing proposition, either.

Having finished my rough tour of Yeonok-dong, I got in a car and headed for Paju.

Providence believers from the National Intelligence Service, now transitioned into Monks, escorted me.

The Peace Industrial Complex, located in Paju.

This complex, home to the Providence Anima Beauty factory, had recently received government investment for a major expansion.

At the center of that investment stood the Providence Foundation.

For that reason, it would hardly be an exaggeration to call the Peace Industrial Complex the Providence Industrial Complex.

The residents living near the complex were baffled.

"What even is this complex supposed to be?"

"A prayer center? Something about it reeks of a cult."

"I keep seeing foreigners around here too. What on earth is going on?"

"You know those rental apartment units nobody wanted — the ones that were giving everyone headaches over vacancy? Word is a whole wave of Seoul folks has moved in there. Doesn't that strike you as a little off?"

"Why fuss over that? What matters is that the local economy is coming back to life."

Recently, mysterious prayer-center buildings had begun springing up all over the complex.

And not long after that, several small buildings appeared, each bearing a sign that read Providence Relic.

Where Providence Anima Beauty at least resembled a factory, Providence Relic bore no resemblance to one at all.

It was far closer to an artisan's workshop.

It was around this time that videos of Providence Relic began appearing across the internet — on YouXube, InXta, and beyond.