The Holy Maiden's Secret Curiosity
Shin Yuna.
After the Gates appeared, countless professions vanished just as new ones sprang up in their place. But no group underwent a greater transformation than the clergy. Christianity, Buddhism, Protestantism—the established faiths had no choice but to lose their standing to the religion that had newly emerged.
People blessed with the power of Divine Power had appeared, and as they healed the sick with that very power, belief became impossible to resist. Where the other religions were intangible illusions, this faith employed people who healed and restored others directly through divine power.
And so the Cheonshin Church was born into the world.
Shin Yuna, a Holy Maiden Candidate of Cheonshin Church, went about her duties today as she did every day.
"The Lord watches over us..."
The influence of Cheonshin Church was spreading with each passing day. Everyone who had been treated by the church came to believe, without exception. As a Holy Maiden Candidate, Shin Yuna's power far outstripped that of her fellow candidates. Dozens of people walked away with new leases on life every single day. Unless an illness was truly terminal, Shin Yuna could heal it.
Because of this, conventional hospitals found themselves on the verge of shutting down one after another. Why take the difficult road when a simple burst of divine power would mend the body? What was the point of days of treatment and a regime of medication when a single visit to Shin Yuna was all it took?
"Thank you so much, Holy Maiden!"
"It's quite all right. This, too, must be the will of the Heavenly God."
Shin Yuna greeted the faithful with a radiant smile. Spending six hours of every day in worship was taxing from her perspective, but she had grown accustomed to it. Her appointments were always fully booked. Some people even traveled all the way from distant provinces just to see her.
"She truly is a saint..."
"In my eyes, there's no one as remarkable and sacred as Holy Maiden Candidate Shin Yuna."
The affection of the worshippers gazing at Shin Yuna was at its absolute peak. Once you experienced this miracle firsthand, it was impossible to view her poorly. It was only natural.
"Thank you for your hard work today, Holy Maiden."
With her day's schedule complete, Shin Yuna returned to her own room. As a Holy Maiden Candidate, the church assigned her no grueling tasks. All the difficult, dirty work was handled by those beneath her. Shin Yuna was still a bit green around the edges. She was twenty years old now, but she had been attending school when she first manifested divine power, dropped out, and joined the church.
And as her divine power grew more immense by the day, she'd become a rising star among the holy maidens—a fate, she supposed. Shin Yuna flopped back onto her bed, legs splayed wide. If the Bishop had seen her, she'd have gotten an earful about proper decorum. But this was her room. There was no one here to scold her. She wanted to be a free woman, at least within these walls.
She pulled out her phone. With the day's work done, it was time to give herself a well-earned break.
She browsed into an investment gallery. An investment gallery, and yet, curiously, it was a place brimming with all sorts of information about men—a gallery Shin Yuna herself had stumbled upon only recently.
Having never been with a man, Shin Yuna had no choice but to get her information from the internet. After all, she was the ultimate of hopeless singletons—her whole body locked up whenever she so much as stood next to one. But it was far too embarrassing to ask the people around her to teach her about men. She was sure they'd oblige if she asked, but still.
"Ooh..."
Shin Yuna scrolled straight through the gallery, which was packed to the brim with information about men. Listening to the people here talk about them, it might have seemed strange—but nowhere else was so full of talk about men. Without even realizing it, Shin Yuna was developing a rather warped view of the male sex.
"The truth really was on the internet all along..."
Now she understood why the Bishop and the other female clergy never let her meet men. If they were truly this wicked and selfish, thinking only of themselves, living side by side with one would put anyone in a foul mood.
Perhaps that was why only women ever came to her for blessings.
Shin Yuna could feel herself becoming an 'adult' in vivid detail. Confront truths this dangerous, and adulthood was simply inevitable. Men really were dangerous, scheming creatures after all.
But as she pored over all this information about men, a question began to nag at her. Did men really all live their lives thinking this way? To Shin Yuna, who had barely ever exchanged words with the species known as 'man,' it was all rather murky.
And if men really were such creatures, why did women spend their lives clinging to them? She couldn't help but notice the contradiction. If every man was lecherous and dangerous, there'd be no reason for women to spend their days clutching at men's trouser hems.
It was with that thought that Shin Yuna decided to take the plunge. It was absolutely, positively not because she had lost to her own carnal desires.
Heart pounding, Shin Yuna waited at the meeting spot, thick sunglasses and a mask hiding her face from prying eyes. It was the middle of summer, yet anyone who caught sight of her outfit would have felt suffocated on her behalf.
'F-five... five minutes to go!'
Her heart felt ready to burst as the appointed hour drew near. Even that time she'd sneaked around behind the Bishop's back and shattered a prized porcelain vase hadn't made her this nervous. This was the first time in her life she'd ever been alone, face to face, one-on-one with a member of the male species. It wasn't that she had no interest in men. She had her desires like anyone else, and she was a young woman in the full flush of youth, longing for romance.
But her chosen profession made things complicated. To be fair, no one thought badly of a holy maiden for meeting men—there were certainly no objections from the public. It was simply that, in Shin Yuna's own mind, there was something a little embarrassing about it. And so she had hired a Rental Boyfriend to resolve exactly that.
She'd heard that romantic feelings were for rental boyfriends like this one, while the darker, seedier affairs that were hard for her to put into words happened in the shadows, off the books. The government didn't ban it. If anything, it actively encouraged the practice. With so few men to go around, satisfying the unfulfilled desires of the surplus women was a service industry that had no choice but to flourish.
"Whew..."
Shin Yuna had made a special request of the rental boyfriend agency. Since she was a complete beginner, she'd asked them to assign her a beginner as well. The normal thing would have been to request an experienced man, but Shin Yuna didn't want her first date to be with someone who'd had many firsts before.
Just then, a pleasant male voice rang out from behind her.
"Shin Yuna-ssi, I presume?"
"Y-yes...?"
Shin Yuna turned to look at the man who had called her name. He wasn't quite celebrity material, but he had the kind of face that would make you do a double take if he passed you on the street. She hurried into a bow.
"I... um... I..."
But no words came out. It had simply been far, far too long since she'd spoken with a man. Watching her flounder, the man smiled with an ease that suggested he'd seen this before, and spoke.
"Hello. My name is Kim Hyunsoo. I'll be in your care for the day."
"L-likewise! Please treat me well!"
Watching him bow politely in return, Shin Yuna's thoughts began to race. So men were this kind, this fresh and pleasant-smelling...? While she was still trying to calm her dizzy head, the introductions had somehow already wrapped themselves up without her noticing.
"Alright! Then let's go get something delicious, Noona!"
The moment Kim Hyunsoo boldly took her hand, a panorama flashed through Shin Yuna's mind.
They went on the date... and then Shin Yuna confessed her feelings to Kim Hyunsoo. And after that, the image painted itself in vivid color: Shin Yuna standing at a wedding altar, showered with blessings from a crowd of well-wishers.
How many children would be nice? One boy and one girl seemed just about perfect. But since far more girls were born than boys, it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep trying until they had a boy...
Every last scrap of her hard-won information about men had long since vanished from Shin Yuna's head. There was only one image remaining now: herself, married to this man, children and all.