Chapter 1. Candidate and Candidate (9)

"Next time, try hiding some canned food too."

Even though I'd shared half of my precious emergency rations, Ria said something that ungrateful.

No, wait.

"Next time?"

When I stared at Ria and asked, the hand moving her chopsticks stopped.

"Uh . . . I mean, there could be another time we end up eating in the middle of the night like this, right? Wouldn't it be nice if there were at least some meat? Or, you know, fruit. Raw meat or raw fruit would spoil, but canned goods would be fine even if you hid them for a while."

What a strange thing to say.

"There won't be a next time, so what next time?"

I said that and slurped up a chopstickful of instant noodles.

Ah, one really isn't enough. Even if I drink all the broth, I don't think I'll feel full.

Tch, now I'm resenting the Hero Candidate in front of me.

". . . What do you mean, there won't be a next time?"

Ria said something incomprehensible again. Or rather, Ria herself looked as though she didn't quite understand what I meant, so I let out a deep sigh and set down the little bit of instant noodles I had left along with my chopsticks.

"Fine. Since it's all out in the open anyway, let me just be honest. It's true that I went on about there being no God in front of you. I did it to make you stay here."

"......."

"To be precise, Mother Superior set a condition. She ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠said that if I could somehow persuade you, I could stay at this convent for another year or two."

"That . . . happened?"

Ria asked in a slightly awkward voice, so I nodded.

The flashlight was fairly bright, but unfortunately there was nowhere to hang it from the ceiling, so I'd set it on the table. Facing away from the door, of course.

It was much easier to see than with no light source at all, but unlike a lantern, a flashlight was designed to shine forward.

An LED was bright enough to make out the surroundings in darkness, but the light source was small enough to hide in a nun's habit, so with the flashlight lying on its side, the surroundings weren't very clearly lit.

Beyond that faint light, Ria's—no, Lee Chae-eun's expression looked strangely guilty, but I just assumed I was seeing things and kept talking.

"But you'd already seen through my scheme, so it became completely useless, didn't it?"

"No, it wasn't completely—"

"And besides, the reason I wanted to stay here disappeared too. I thought there were seven would-be stalkers, but I found out all seven were just people waiting to scout me, right? Thanks to you."

It was only my misunderstanding, so strictly speaking, it wasn't Lee Chae-eun's fault.

But did she really have to shove reality in my face like that? Honestly, if I hadn't had to use Holy Power today, I probably wouldn't have been able to sleep until now and would've just been kicking my blanket.

Seeing Lee Chae-eun's gaze shift slightly to the side, I let out a long breath.

Then I picked up the cup of instant noodles and my slightly unevenly split wooden chopsticks again.

Now that I looked, the wooden chopsticks Lee Chae-eun was holding were perfectly uniform in size and shape. If you trained swordsmanship to the extreme, could you even split wooden chopsticks that cleanly?

"Anyway, so, I have no reason to stay here, and you probably don't have any particular intention of staying either. . . . I don't know what circumstances brought you here, but you'll be an adult this year too."

Even if the convent tried to hold us back by force, both Lee Chae-eun and I would probably only be able to stay until the end of May. Assuming, that is, that we had the will to "leave."

I . . . well, it wasn't like I'd ever really planned to stay here forever.

Contrary to what I'd told her, I did know why Lee Chae-eun was here, but that reason wasn't enough to justify holding Chae-eun back when she was about to come of age.

In the original, even though they bickered and fought, Lee Chae-eun and the Saintess were described as getting along quite well in reality.

Actually, rather than "quite well," the impression was that they fought every day but were a best-friend duo who definitely trusted each other.

I didn't know exactly how they had gotten that close, but judging from the indirect descriptions, Lee Chae-eun actually thought pretty highly of the Saintess. She was kind and worked hard to heal people... Well, she did have a somewhat extreme side when it came to heresy, but apart from that, she was thoroughly good and decent. Unlike me.

Whether I wanted it or not, Mother Superior and the Church had offered me one of two choices.

Either undergo Laicization or live as a Saintess for the rest of my life.

Given those two choices, I intended to pick the former.

"Uh . . . well."

Lee Chae-eun, who had been staring at me blankly after momentarily losing her words, opened her mouth.

"Hey, you thought it through. I mean, you kept saying stuff like that, so, yeah, you don't really seem to fit in with the Church."

"I really don't fit in."

I let out a small sigh.

Yeah, honestly, I didn't like studying Scripture, so I half-assed it, and I dozed off during classes and lectures. In university terms, I was like a student who had chosen completely the wrong major. Not that I'd had much choice.

But that doesn't mean I hate it here.

There was no one I'd openly call a friend, and there were nuns I didn't get along with, but there were also plenty who teased me yet treated me well. Especially the nuns who had seen my Holy Power firsthand treated me a bit more carefully.

And, though it was a little embarrassing to say out loud, Mother Superior had been like a mother to me for fifteen years.

She often scolded me, but she also did her best to look after me, and when I pulled that reckless stunt of sending a letter of protest directly to the Cardinal, she was the one who actively stepped in to protect me. The priest was a good person too.

...Once I underwent Laicization, that relationship would be completely cut off. Even if I came back to visit once in a while, I would no longer be able to enter the place where I'd grown up.

Yeah, maybe I just wasn't emotionally ready. Maybe I wanted to leave, but I was just throwing a tantrum to stay by making all sorts of excuses.

"If you leave, want me to look for a job for you?"

Lee Chae-eun said it in a strangely flustered rush. Whether she'd finished her cup of instant noodles or not, she'd simply set it down.

"A job?"

I asked, picking up my instant noodles again.

"I'm a Hero Candidate, and my dad's a Hero, right? Even if it's not working at the Hunter Association, there are plenty of places that collaborate with it."

Well, that's true. In the novel, Lee Chae-eun's name was actually used like a bit of a cheat code. When the protagonist went to ask someone for help and hit a wall, they'd contact Lee Chae-eun, and then Lee Chae-eun would make the connection.

Because she was at a convent, her network actually grew wider as the novel went on, and later she even introduced people from the Church.

Anyway, popular people are popular.

"Are you telling me to work at the Hunter Association? I don't know how to fight at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all."

The Saintess had learned how to fight, but only enough to swing a mace and barely block attacks with a shield.

Even so, the Saintess's role was extremely important. Her real strength wasn't combat ability but that absurd Holy Power.

"Hey, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You already got scouting offers like that."

Lee Chae-eun said, sounding dumbfounded.

"You don't have to go into combat. Just being at the Association headquarters would rake in money, you know?"

"Oh, really?"

". . . 'Really?' You can do the math on this much."

At my indifferent question, Lee Chae-eun tilted her head as if something was off.

I shrugged and took another bite of instant noodles. That was the last chopstickful. A little reluctant to finish, I stirred my chopsticks through the broth and kept talking.

"But that's not my ability."

". . . What?"

"That's the ability of some being up there that you people call God, not my ability."

Slurp.

After answering, I drank more broth. Mm, savory. Instant noodles at night really shouldn't be too spicy.

"No, no, no. Wait."

Lee Chae-eun waved her hands as if she absolutely couldn't understand what I was saying. I think this was the first time I'd seen her that flustered. Well, we hadn't known each other long.

"If you're not going to eat that, can I?"

Leaving Lee Chae-eun as she was, I pulled toward me the cup of instant noodles that had been sitting neglected in front of her.

Oh, there's quite a lot of noodles left.

"Your ability was given to you by God, right? Then of course it's your ability. It's a gift."

I fished out some noodles and blew on them to cool them, then looked at Lee Chae-eun, who was saying something ridiculous.

"How is that my ability?"

"What?"

"Look, Wizards study Magic, right? Incredibly hard. Magic doesn't just come out because you wave a staff around and chant a spell."

"......."

"Alchemy is said to be almost as complex as quantum mechanics, and even the marksmanship of soldiers guarding Gates is something you can't acquire without working for it. Chae-eun, you know that too. You earned your excellent swordsmanship through years of effort from childhood."

Well, it should be fine to say this much. The novel says Lee Chae-eun, the Hero Candidate and daughter of a Hero, was famous for her skill from a young age.

"But what about Holy Power?"

I asked, staring at Lee Chae-eun.

"My Holy Power is something I got without any of that studying. I put in absolutely no effort in that direction. Ask anyone at the convent sometime. No one has ever seen me seriously studying Scripture."

That was also why there were people in the convent who didn't like me very much.

Even though they studied Scripture and prayed so hard, their Holy Power was weaker than mine, when I did nothing but fall sound asleep while praying.

So was Holy Power something you couldn't gain through effort? No, not at all.

The more someone studied the being up there and the more deeply they understood it, the more their Holy Power gradually grew. I couldn't say talent played no role, but it definitely wasn't an ability you could simply call "luck."

If I were a swordsmanship prodigy or a genius Wizard, I would have understood. I would have worked to develop that ability. If I didn't, I wouldn't even be able to make a living, so wouldn't that be obvious?

But I had never once tried to develop my Holy Power.

And yet I could call forth that much power.

If so, the only conclusion was that it wasn't my power. It was probably just some prank by the being up there.

". . . So, you're saying you won't use it?"

"I'll use it. If someone is dying in front of me, I'll use it. If a plague with a terrifying fatality rate breaks out, I'll use it. If some natural disaster happens and a lot of people get hurt, of course I'll use it."

"But you won't make money with it?"

"You keep making me repeat myself, so let me explain properly one more time."

I said it while holding up a chopstickful of instant noodles and looking straight at Lee Chae-eun.

"That ability is not my ability. It's probably just someone up there using their power through my body. I do have the choice of target, but that's all. How could I take money for a power like that? I'm not even the one using it."

Before even debating whether I was an Atheist, that kind of power could disappear at any time.

The fact that it couldn't wipe out all the evil in the world at once meant that being wasn't omniscient and omnipotent. In the fifteen years I'd lived in this world, I'd seen plenty of news about murders and sexual assaults. It wasn't our Church, but there had even been a case where a church priest used a nun as a sex toy.

Seeing that, it seems it doesn't have the power to strike someone dead with lightning, so the abilities I earned myself can't be taken away. The abilities gained through training or study, I mean.

But that doesn't mean it's so powerless that it couldn't grant me this kind of ability. For one thing, it could at least send a being like me down into this world.

So taking back a power that isn't mine would be just as easy.

"So . . . that's it? Since it's not your power, it could disappear anytime, so you feel weird about selling it for money?"

"Exactly."

How could I trust a power like that and use it for money?

Even if it someday disappears, it's much better to just use it for good causes. Better than taking money and having things go wrong.

After giving a clear answer to Lee Chae-eun, who had finally caught on, I ate the instant noodles that had gone cold on my chopsticks.

"No, there's also the method of raking it in before the ability disappears."

Well, I had heard that some Saints and Saintesses did that. There were even churches that made enormous amounts of money that way.

And within this Church, there are also factions that hate those who don't do that.

"Well, there's a slight matter of conscience too. I told you, it's not my ability. Would you make your own money off someone else's ability, Lee Chae-eun? You don't seem like that kind of person."

"Hey."

"Yes?"

"You keep saying Lee Chae-eun this, Lee Chae-eun that. Why are you talking like that?"

". . . ?"

No, why?

We were both going to be ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out of here ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠soon anyway. She seemed to want me to use that form of address, so I was doing what she wanted. Why was she annoyed?

"If you prefer Ria, I'll call you that."

"Well, until we leave, you and I are both nuns. Let's go with that."

I shrugged and drank the broth. Mm, at least the broth hadn't gone cold.

"So . . . do you have a plan for when you get out?"

"Not yet, but it's not like I'm completely out of time, so I'll figure it out gradually. Work at something . . . hmm, preparing for university wouldn't be bad either."

Society had nearly been wrecked once, and the number of jobs had risen sharply afterward.

And among those jobs, there were far more ways to make good money without necessarily going to university.

Mainly Gate-related work.

So plenty of people didn't go straight to university, and many skipped it entirely. There were far more ways to make a living without obsessing over a degree.

The government still wanted to cultivate highly educated people. Since I had been a nun, if I entered university I would receive a tuition subsidy as well as a living allowance.

There was also an independence subsidy from the Church.

"I can just find a part-time job and get by."

"......."

Lee Chae-eun stared at me with a blank expression.

Why?

Oh, is it because I took her instant noodles?

But what can I do? If she'd wanted it, she should've said so when I took it.

When I, having drained even the broth, set the empty container down with a clack, Lee Chae-eun finally opened her mouth.

". . . Leave it. I'll clean up."

"Really? Then thank you very much!"

I was not one to turn down an offer.

Especially when it was plainly in my own interest, I was endlessly rational.

Before Ria could change her mind, I quickly got up from my seat.