Priest's Delusion and the Carriage (1)
Priest's Delusion and the Carriage (1)
#
"It worked! It worked!"
Reni broke into a truly radiant smile. I hadn't guessed she'd be that happy. Somehow, I was starting to feel like a bit of a bastard.
...As if. The real bastard was the author who put these restrictions on me. I wasn't the bad guy. If anything, it was precisely because I was the way I was that I could use such a completely shameless ability in an appropriate, righteous, and just manner.
-Boom!
Thunder boomed from somewhere, but I ignored it.
"As I thought, you really are...."
Reni's eyes grew wet. She looked ready to burst into tears at the slightest touch.
N-no, don't be that moved! You're making me feel like a genuine bastard!
"S-so, then."
"Hm?"
"How much, and for how long... does it last?"
Reni clasped her hands together and craned her neck forward, looking up at me like a baby bird. Her emerald eyes glittered. Her upper body leaned toward me so far that it felt as though she were pressing me against the wall. Uh, your chest was touching me, by the way.
A fluttering breath slipped out from her slightly parted lips. She was so close that I could see her cute pink tongue moving every time she breathed.
A man and woman completely glued together like this in a narrow back alley. W-would just a little be okay? I raised my hand and moved it toward Reni's waist...
"Yoo-jin...?"
"Ahem, no, uh, look, hold on."
...That was dangerous. If I so much as touched her a little more right now, I might not be able to control myself.
And it hadn't been long since we met. If I initiated physical contact without any justification and she ended up wary of me, all of it would be for nothing. With things like this, justification was always crucial.
"You're way too close."
"Ah, ahh..."
"Sorryyy..." Reni mumbled as she pulled back. It was disappointing, but I could not rush her.
First, I opened the skill window.
[Skill: Holy Buff]
[Rank: ▼]
[S: Amplify each stat by 500%. Duration 72 hours. Permanently increase stats by 0.1%.]
[A: Amplify each stat by 400%. Duration 48 hours.]
[B: Amplify each stat by 300%. Duration 36 hours.]
[C: Amplify each stat by 200%. Duration 24 hours.]
[D: Amplify each stat by 100%. Duration 16 hours.]
[E: Amplify each stat by 50%. Duration 8 hours.]
Reni had received a D-grade buff. A 100% increase must have been overwhelming; no wonder she was so happy. Even temporarily, her abilities had effectively doubled.
But Kate and that baldy had gotten an E-grade buff. So why had Reni received a D-grade?
Simple. It came down to the difference in the intensity of the sexual act. With Kate and the baldy, it had stopped at the level of subtly suggesting something lewd, whereas with Reni I'd pushed things a little more explicitly.
Then how far would I have to go to activate the remaining grades? The S-grade probably activated from actual sex. As for the intermediate grades, I had no idea what intensity would trigger them. The system kept oscillating between being helpful and being unhelpful. So I was supposed to figure it out on my own...
"Hm?"
I felt a sensation and looked down to see Reni tugging at my elbow. Her expression was half anticipation, half worry. It seemed I'd been too absorbed in thought.
Hmm, so a D-grade lasted 16 hours, right?
"Ah, sorry. Um, so... about ten..."
...Wait.
I swallowed what I had been about to say. If I honestly told her it lasted sixteen hours, would our next physical contact be postponed until tomorrow? No. Absolutely not.
"Ten hours?!"
Reni looked like she was about to let out a cheer.
"No, two ho..."
"T-two hours...?"
Reni instantly deflated. A look of visible disappointment. She sure switched gears fast. Was two hours too short?
Tch. Fine, four hours. Yes, four hours. Final offer!
"It's four hours."
"Four hours..."
Reni lost a little of her steam. Still, it was better than two hours, right? Right?
"Yeah. Four hours."
That gave me a legitimate excuse to touch Reni every four hours. I put on a shameless expression, as though I alone embodied honesty and righteousness.
"Why does it only last four hours for me...? Am I lacking in some way...?"
Reni's voice grew a little tearful.
Ouch. That struck a nerve. I hadn't thought this through. It felt as though I was using her vulnerability to toy with her. C-come on, don't look like you're about to cry.
"No, no, that's not it. I'm still not used to my ability either. Sorry..."
At that, Reni gave me a dubious look. S-stop looking at me with those eyes.
"B-back at the castle, the Awakened got separate training, right? I never had that chance, so..."
Reni's eyes flashed at that. The eyes of a wolf with prey right in front of it!
"Then how are you supposed to get used to it?"
"W-well. I guess using it a lot would be best?"
"I see..."
Reni cast her eyes down and bit her lip. She seemed to be deep in thought. The slight furrow between her brows was starting to make her resemble Kate. Had they started to look alike because they'd lived together for so long? She'd get wrinkles like that.
"..."
... Damn. I'd dawdled too long. We were still in the back alley. If we set out any later, we'd reach Riverbridge only at night.
"Let's get going now."
"Y-yes..."
We walked toward the city gate for a while.
"Eep."
Suddenly, Reni snatched my hand.
"Wh-what's up?"
"Ah, sorry. Just let me see your hand for a minute..."
Reni apologized with her words, but her expression was unbothered. She wasn't even looking at my face, too busy examining my hand.
"Reni?"
"It is alright because I am holding your hand."
What did that mean? I couldn't understand her. Whatever I said, Reni seemed too focused on my hand to care. There was nothing for it. I'd have to keep walking like this.
"Eeyah!"
She startled me! I turned when she suddenly tickled my palm, and...
"..."
Reni was examining my hand this way and that, touching and prodding it as if observing a specimen. It looked just like what I'd been doing to her earlier.
Cool fingers wandered over my palm. A pleasant chill ran up my arm. I turned around, wondering if she was teasing me, but Reni was muttering something to herself with an utterly serious expression.
"....Divine Power... how to... extract it..."
S-scary. I decided to leave her alone.
Feeling both pleasure and terror at the same time, I quickened my pace.
"...Summoned Person... the Apostle of the Goddess..."
"..."
Reni didn't stop her muttering. An apostle of the goddess, huh. Now that I thought about it, something similar had come up in my conversation with Kate yesterday.
# # #
Around the time Yoo-jin was teasing Reni, Kate was mulling over the conversation from the day before.
...
"I am not refusing to return to the castle simply because I am angry."
"...What do you mean by that?"
"..."
The Summoned Person fell silent. He did not appear unwilling to speak; rather, he seemed to be considering how to explain it.
"...I'd appreciate it if what I'm about to tell you didn't leak elsewhere."
"I can keep a secret."
The Summoned Person took a deep breath, his expression turning serious.
"I awakened the moment I was expelled from the castle. Do you not think the timing was suspiciously convenient?"
"Timing?"
"We... the Summoned People, I mean. You know who grants us our abilities, correct?"
The granting of abilities beyond mortal imagination. The only being capable of such a miracle was a god.
And in this world, there were two goddesses. The Sun Goddess and the Demon Goddess of the Moon.
...No, there was one more. The God of the Ominous Star, whose name had been forgotten.
In any case, the light races—humans, elves, dwarves, and beastfolk—worshipped the Sun Goddess. And the Summoned Ones of Light received their abilities from the Sun Goddess.
'He says he came from another world, but he knows more than I'd expect. How?'
It hadn't even been a week since the heroes were summoned. Were they giving them crash courses at the castle? I hadn't heard any such thing. The education at this city focused on each Awakened's abilities, after all.
"I'm not sure why you're telling me this."
"I believe there's some kind of intent behind the fact that I awakened immediately after being chased out of the castle."
"...Are you saying it's the Goddess's will?"
The Summoned Person nodded. Kate frowned at his words.
That was arrogance.
The will of the Goddess, he said. That wasn't something you could just go spouting casually. The rebuttal shot out of Kate's mouth almost reflexively.
"I doubt the Goddess would exercise her Divine Authority over something so minor."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know how the god of your world intervenes in mortal affairs, but..."
Kate's ensuing explanation was a little complicated.
The Goddess might present a great cause, but the methods for reaching it were left to mortals. Therefore, a god did not appear before a person standing at a crossroads and tell them what to do. The choice was always the mortals’ to make.
Yoo-jin, who had been listening closely to Kate's story, summarized it in his own way.
"So the Goddess doesn't wrap every creation in her skirts, fuss over them, tell them what to do, and coo over them."
"...You phrased it somewhat vulgarly, but it's similar."
'He catches on better than I thought.'
Kate slightly revised her assessment of Yoo-jin upward. Both in looks and otherwise, he was quite different from what she'd heard.
"But I'm not one of your god’s—ah, forgive me. I am not one of the Goddess’s creations, am I? Would that not make the way her authority affects me different?"
"...!"
Kate had overlooked that point. He was right. The Summoned People were not the Goddess's creations. They were anomalous in many ways, and Kate had no answer.
Perhaps her bewilderment showed on her face. Seeing her expression, Yoo-jin grinned.
"In any case, I have a feeling there's something I need to do separately, out west. No, I'm certain of it."
"...Did the Goddess directly tell you this?"
"Who knows. Didn't you say the Goddess doesn't go around microscopically telling people what to do?"
"..."
Kate took a deep breath. The Summoned Person before her wasn't talking completely without basis. After all, there had been a similar existence in history.
"...If you were the Goddess’s Apostle, then perhaps that would be possible."
An Apostle: one said to communicate directly with the One whose name none dared speak. So long had passed since the last descent that people questioned whether such a person had ever existed.
"Who knows. I'm not sure it's anything that grandiose. But it's clear that a being higher than myself wants to send me west. So..."
"...Understood. I will keep your circumstances secret."
If he truly was the Apostle of the Goddess...
After Yoo-jin had left, Kate spoke with Reni separately.
…
'Would Reni be able to handle it?'
Kate needed to know what he would do in Riverbridge. To do that, Reni needed to return at least once.
# # #
'Apostle, my ass. I'm just running away from something troublesome.'
But Kate seemed to have been convinced. She appeared to think I was carrying some kind of immense mission or something. Naturally, there was no such thing as a mission or anything.
'No, there was something I needed to do. Sex!'
Heh. Yoo-jin let out a sleazy laugh and congratulated himself.
Even I had to admit that I had talked my way through that brilliantly. In a world where gods truly existed, invoking the Goddess's name did half the work for me.
Come to think of it, they said the Goddess did grant the Summoned People their abilities. If so, was the author bastard who sent me here the same being as the Sun Goddess?
If so, that bastard—no, that bitch—was incredibly petty, foul-mouthed, and even thoroughly self-justifying...
-Boom! Crash! Crash!
Was it going to rain? More thunder boomed from somewhere. Not my problem.
…
…
...
Reni had delayed us a little, but I managed to find a wagon bound for Riverbridge. We were riding in one corner of a traveling merchant's freight wagon, and Reni and I were the only passengers. Nice and cozy.
Reni kept muttering to herself until we boarded the wagon. She was acting strangely. Was she alright?
"Reni?"
"..."
"Reni?"
"Hyaah?!"
She'd been totally focused, so when I poked her side, Reni practically leaped into the air. She nearly tumbled into a pile of cargo.
"Sorry..."
"Ah, n-no..."
"But what are you thinking about so hard? I called you and you didn't even answer."
Reni stared seriously into my face, as though preparing to say something important. A c-confession...? No. Surely not...
"Yoo-jin... you are..."
"Yeah?"
"Yoo-jin... you really must be the Apostle of the Goddess...!"
What was this now? I had tossed out a little bait, and she had swallowed it whole.
"No, I mean..."
"I can tell. I'm certain of it!"
-Ding!
[Reni Liberit's trait 「Delusion (B)」 has manifested.]
Wh-what? Delusion? The Reni I knew didn't have a weird trait like that. What was going on?
"Awakening the moment you left the castle must also clearly...!"
No, I was the one who had said that. But Reni's eyes were firm, as though she would accept no objections.
"S-so, what I mean is..."
Reni suddenly turned red and began wriggling her body.
"Th-that ability amplification, the buff. You're still not used to it, right?"
"...I guess so?"
What was she laying the groundwork for like this?
"I-I, as a priest of the Goddess, have a duty to help the Apostle manifest his ability!"
What was she saying? I had no idea what she was getting at.
Reni took a deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and shouted.
"S-so you need to keep using the buff o-on m-me and practice!"
"Wh-what did you say?"
"R-right now! This instant!"