Providence: Raising a Cleric (2)

Nine missions had appeared under the banner of Today's Daily Missions!

And every single one of them was strange.

They can actually count these? How?

Thankfully, none of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them asked for money — but that didn't mean the suspicious air around them had lifted.

Do I have to take a photo as proof?

The missions themselves were wholesome enough, but each and every one of them seemed perfectly cheatable.

Or is this their way of leaving it up to our conscience?

Kim Dae-hoon stared blankly at the Providence app.

Everyone's looking at Providence too. Their reactions are... more or less the same as mine.

He glanced around, and sure enough, the other non-believers had all pulled up the app without anyone telling them to.

This app is less than it appears. So why can't I stop looking at it?

If it had been any ordinary app, he would've thought what the hell is this?, closed it immediately, and deleted it right off his phone without a second thought.

But Providence was different.

Just like this gathering itself, some inexplicable mystery, an odd sense of comfort, and a strange addictiveness kept drawing his eyes back to the screen.

The doctrine seems similar to what was said in the sermon earlier. And what's this "Canon" section? "In preparation"... So they really are a brand-new religion. Counseling? Ah, this is an AI chatbot.

Dae-hoon backed out of the mission list and started tapping through the other menus.

"As Providence wills it."

"As Providence wills it."

Ahead of him, the baptisms were still going on.

There's quite a lot left.

With so many people in line, it looked like the ceremony wouldn't wrap up for a while yet.

He did say I was free to leave whenever, right?

Under normal circumstances, being in that place had made him feel at ease, and he would have wanted to stay longer. But the moment he'd opened the app, his priorities had shifted.

Somehow, he wanted to focus on this app instead.

—Ma'am, I'll be heading out now. Thank you for inviting me today.

Dae-hoon sent a text to the old man Hong and stepped out of the hall.

Starting with Kim Dae-hoon, the other non-believers began to make their way out as well.

In each of their hands was a phone with the Providence app already active.

On his way home, Kim Dae-hoon suddenly noticed a piece of trash lying on the street.

A half-finished Americano.

Hmm...

Ordinarily, he would've walked right past it — but the daily mission popped into his head unbidden.

He picked up the disposable plastic cup holding the dregs of the coffee.

Then he checked his phone.

Is there no photo verification feature?

He'd thought he might need to snap a picture after picking up the trash, but no matter how he looked, no such function existed.

And yet the counter hadn't budged.

So the app really is that flimsy after all?

He was about to write it off with a shrug — figures — when something shifted in him.

Well, I've already picked it up. I might as well sort it for recycling properly.

The thought came to him: do it right, if you're going to do it at all.

What on earth am I even doing right now, honestly.

He dumped the leftover coffee carelessly down a drain and tossed the cup into the recycling station in front of his apartment building.

And then —

Astonishingly, the number had counted down.

"!!!!"

A twitch ran across Kim Dae-hoon's eyes.

Even if only a little, the experience gauge on his status window had gone up.

"...Unbelievable."

He had no idea how the rest of the time passed after that.

"Well, that's a relief. If anything's ever weighing on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you, call me anytime. I won't be much help, but I'll at least listen to you vent."

Kim Dae-hoon had made a check-in call to one of his few remaining friends, and the conversation was brief.

The moment it ended, he pulled up the app's mission screen.

He stayed up late into the night working through every daily mission he could manage on the spot.

When he checked the app's status window, the experience gained through his daily missions was plainly visible.

How on earth? What principle is it using to track these?

Kim Dae-hoon felt something beyond fascination now — something closer to fear.

Does it really exist? The Mother of All Things??

With awe in his eyes, he looked up at the night sky.

Ding!

That was when it happened.

An alarm sounded from the app.

The counseling bot?

The notification had come from Providence's counseling chatbot.

As if the counseling bot knew the exact state of Kim Dae-hoon's heart, the messages kept coming, one after another.

"!!!!"

Goosebumps rose across his skin as he read them.

That thrill reserved for the chosen few — the feeling of being the only one who knows.

Dopamine that stroked the ego of the elect flooded Kim Dae-hoon's brain.

"You are... no, who might you be?"

He spoke the question aloud rather than typing it.

He — that would be the Mother of All Things, the Weaver of Providence, the name he'd heard countless times during the service earlier.

"Then what should I do?"

It was an answer strikingly similar to what Seop had preached earlier that day.

And yet, impossibly, Kim Dae-hoon found himself leaning on it.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"What should I call you?"

"What is your name?"

The more they talked, the clearer it became to him.

The true value of the Providence app wasn't the missions at all — it was this counseling bot.

It felt more human than most AI he'd ever spoken with, and genuinely comforting to lean on.

"You're Providence Church's counseling bot, so how about Seopseop?"

"Is that strange?"

"Well, no, it's not that..."

Providence had become Prov, and then somehow Love when it came time to actually use it.

Presumably, it was all down to how the syllables rolled off the tongue.

"Understood, Mr. Prov."

"How could I ever be so presumptuous, with an angel sent by the Mother herself?"

Talking with Prov made Kim Dae-hoon's heart race.

He wanted to raise that experience bar as fast as he could and become a full-fledged believer.

He wanted to be baptized by Mr. Seop as a true member of the flock.

Once I'm baptized, an even greater miracle will be waiting.

The sight of the believers during the service earlier had been proof of that.

So this is what a life of faith is like? This much fun?

It was the first religious life of his existence, yet not once had it felt tedious or burdensome.

It felt like playing an RPG.

No matter that I'd majored in programming.

No matter that awakening had sharpened my abilities.

I still wasn't skilled enough to build an AI from scratch.

If I'd been capable of that, I wouldn't have suffered through that living hell as a fresh graduate hunting for work.

But divine power changed everything.

Something once made of nothing but data and algorithms became a sacred relic the moment I channeled a Pardner's Relic Crafting skill alongside a Priest's baptism and blessing.

Good grief — even data can become a holy relic!

And on top of that, fortune had struck twice in a row.

The result was now something far beyond a simple sacred relic.

Something the science of this Earth could never explain — an AI app imbued with an inexplicable, transcendent nature had come into being.

And so a month passed after the first service and the launch of the Providence app.

I opened my status window and checked the relevant entries.

The number of believers had grown enormously in a single month.

Most of the original ordinary believers have become devout believers. And the previous devout believers have all turned zealot.

The power of that first official service and the Providence app's release had been remarkable.

While other religions ground out their expansion through endless charity work, doctrinal study, and good old-fashioned gaslighting —

I had gotten this far with a few casual clicks of divine power.

That said, openly advertising divine power still felt like a burden, so I hadn't pursued aggressive proselytization.

That was precisely why the number of ordinary believers remained modest.

My gaze drifted next to the Stigmata Granting skill entry.

Stigmata Granting — exactly as it sounded, the power to bestow a class upon a believer of devout rank or higher.

It was a skill that had never existed for the priests of my past life; I had it only thanks to the perks of my rebirth.

Tapping into the details revealed far more granular rules.

So right now, devout believers and zealots alike count the same — one per hundred.

What bothered me was how stingy the Stigmata Granting algorithm turned out to be.

Devout believers were far harder to make than ordinary ones, and zealots harder still — and yet each tier still yielded only a single Cleric per hundred believers.

But it's too early to be disappointed.

For now, being a Priest limited my stigmata to Clerics —

but once I advanced to the Priest's higher-tier classes — the A and S ranks — I would be able to grant stigmata for Priests, Pardners, Chaplains, Monks, and more.

At that point, the numbers of devout believers and zealots would truly start to matter.

Which means I need to expand the flock. Quietly but surely, deep and fast.

For safely growing the ordinary believer base, nothing beats handing out money, plus modest healing and cosmetic effects.

And I happen to know the single most effective method for winning over ordinary believers with divine power.

"Mr. Seop, everything is ready."

Right on cue, the old man Heo appeared at the door of the hall's prayer room to report.

"Faster than I expected."

"Yeonok-dong has always been home to a large elderly population, so the public bathhouse there had been in operation until quite recently."

"Until recently, you say?"

"It closed down a month ago."

"Ah, dear."

"In any case, thanks to that, we were able to finish preparations without any major repairs."

"And what became of the OEM contractor?"

"As it happens, there was a small-to-midsize company in Paju on the verge of shutting down, so we were able to acquire it."

"Even for a failing company, surely the Foundation's funds alone wouldn't have covered it."

"I took out a loan using my land and buildings in Yeonok-dong as collateral. however rundown the neighborhood may be, it's still Seoul, so the loan came out larger than expected. Hahahaha."

"Elder Heo Jae-soo."

"Yes, Mr. Seop."

"Both the Foundation's money and the loan that went into this acquisition — I will repay every won of it, as quickly as possible."

"There's no need! Please, you mustn't!"

"You won't have a choice, whether you like it or not."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Let's go. We have a business to run."

Waving off the old man Heo's protests, I headed for the Yeonok-dong bathhouse the Providence Foundation had recently acquired.