Chapter 3. Faith and Status (1)
Chapter 3. Faith and Status (1)
Chapter 3. Faith and Status
Fortunately, the Cardinal did not react "right away."
It did seem true that the Saintess Candidates who witnessed that situation had gone to the Cardinal, but it meant he had not immediately come looking for me and dragged me off to Myeongdong.
I did not really know the reason. Whether word was still making its way through the bureaucratic system, or whether the Cardinal simply did not believe what those Saintess Candidates said. Or whether the letter I had sent before was still causing problems.
It could have been all of those.
But that did not make me feel like I could breathe easy.
"I feel like a criminal who's been caught at the scene of the crime."
"Huh?"
I was flopped face-down on the bed, limp, and when I muttered that, Ria, who was lying on her own bed flipping through a book, reacted like she was baffled.
At first, she seemed to have tried to let it pass without answering, the way she usually handled the random thoughtless remarks I blurted out, but in the end she apparently could not hold back. She closed her eyes, furrowed her brow, and shut the book with a snap.
Then she got up from her spot, sat cross-legged on the bed, and clasped her hands together.
"Hoooh."
She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath.
"Phew."
Then she let it out long and slow.
"What kind of reaction is that?"
When I turned just my head to look at Ria and asked, Ria opened her eyes and stared at me blankly.
"No, I couldn't figure out where to even start nitpicking, so I cleared my head for a second."
"......."
"What kind of thought process makes you say you feel like a criminal who's been caught?"
"It's just a figure of speech. I am waiting for a ruling, after all."
"A ruling......."
Ria made that face again, the one that said she had no idea where to even start nitpicking.
"Let me just ask. Do you really hate becoming a Saintess that much?"
"Well, yes."
"Why?"
"Why, you ask......."
Well. Because I'm an Atheist? Hmm.
That was part of it, but honestly, by my standards, the position of Saintess was not all that appealing.
I may not look it, but I'm someone who wants to do quite a lot of things. Since I was reborn pretty, I wanted to try dating a girlfriend, and marriage—well, I didn't know whether I could do that or not, but anyway, I wanted to try something like that too.
Naturally, I also wanted to enjoy all the various things that would come along in that process.
But the position of Saintess wasn't one where I could do any of that. This came up in the original story too. The biggest weakness of the Saintess, who had so many points of contact with the protagonist, was exactly that: clergy didn't marry and lived celibate lives.
Huh? No, wait.
"Honestly speaking, you say you don't believe in God, but don't you think there's something up there? Isn't it because that faith of yours is greater than other people's that you can use that kind of power?"
Feeling a strange sense of unease, I sat up from my spot too, and Ria asked me a question.
"That isn't faith."
"Huh?"
"Because it's a fact that someone is up there. It's the same principle as the Earth being round. Didn't we have a similar conversation last time? I just don't think that being is God."
"Uh...... so, there's this omniscient and omnipotent Being Above, and it even directly grants you power and lets you do things other people can't do with that power, but you don't think that being is God?"
"I don't really know if it's omniscient and omnipotent, I don't know what it looks like, and I've never had any kind of conversation with it, so I can't believe in it either, but anyway, I just think it exists."
I corrected Ria's words again.
"In the first place, has there ever been anyone who properly conversed with that being? Has it ever actually said, 'I am God, and you must believe in me'? As far as I know, most people have only ever made guesses."
And that was also the reason I had quickly lost interest in this world's Scripture.
After all, it was just a record written by people who did not understand its meaning, gathering together and deliberating over what would happen if they did this or that.
At least science books wrote down established formulas, but Scripture was a book without even that. Which was why they themselves were constantly revising it even now.
It was praiseworthy that a religion could revise its teachings so flexibly, but since the only settled parts were those borrowed from earlier religions, I couldn't fully trust the system.
"All I know is that the Being Above grants power more eagerly when I help someone—ah, come on!"
Because I was talking about the Being Above, light came down on my head again, and I quickly scattered it away with my hand.
I don't know if it's omniscient or omnipotent, but I do know it really loves hearing about itself.
"......."
Ria, who had been rebutting every single word I said until just a moment ago, was now just quietly watching me with a subtle expression.
"What?"
"Uh, um, no, it's nothing."
After answering like that, Ria scratched her head and lay back down on the bed.
Well, if she understood, that was enough. It wasn't like she would sincerely think that way anyway.
No matter how seriously the being called God was discussed within the Order, and no matter how much a system for that theory had been prepared in its own way, in the end, the image of God that people wanted was different for everyone.
That was why religions ultimately split into countless denominations. No matter how upright the person leading a religion was when it was first established, someone would always come along and twist its theories however they pleased.
If the Being Above had simply not existed at all, or if it had at least said itself that it was not God, I would actually have respected that power. I would not have tried to just use it like I did now.
Rather, it was dangerous precisely because it did not properly reveal its identity.
It would be a problem for someone like me to become an idol while holding this intense power.
Idols become sanctified, and sanctity becomes mystery.
Far away, in places my gaze could not reach, even if evil acts were committed in my name, I would not be able to stop them. If there were even just a few people in the Order's leadership who wanted to use only the value of my name, I would simply be confined.
A mysterious being in a place forever out of reach. A perfect being everyone must follow. The very sanctity that became the justification for all things. This power I have is all there is. If dozens of people rushed at me and tied me up tightly, I could not resist. I would be locked in a tower and remain only as a figure of legend. Alive, or dead.
Even if I resisted somehow while alive, what about after death?
I would rather be treated as a heretic rampaging around on my own. Good deeds were just something I could do according to my own convictions. People only needed to use the sanctity scattered through me.
"......."
No, no, this was not the time to worry about that. The Saintess business had already reached a point where it could not be stopped anyway.
What really mattered was the part of the original story I'd forgotten.
In the original, the incident where the Saintess and the protagonist met was described only very briefly.
It was that "the Saintess saved the protagonist when he almost died."
That incident was probably either what happened when I first met Lee Si-yoon, or it was about the Monstrous Beast incident that occurred after I told the Rank 7 Hunter to move back.
It had been said that Lee Si-yoon first distinguished himself there.
Of course, since the title's abbreviation was [The Weakest Hunter], the protagonist was not overpowered from the very start of the story.
It was also true that that 'coincidental' incident made people in the Association start watching the protagonist closely.
.......
But this time, no such story had come up even once. There was only the story about me and my escort knight, Ria.
I glanced over at Ria.
"What?"
Even while reading her book, Ria answered right away. Her gaze was fixed on the book, but since it wasn't moving, I must have been bothering her a little.
"......It's nothing."
What if, just what if.
What if Lee Si-yoon's performance back then—had actually been thanks to the Saintess?
Just like I had been able to share the sanctity I created with Ria, what if, in that incident before the main story, the Saintess had transferred the power she created to Lee Si-yoon?
And what if that was why Lee Si-yoon had been able to distinguish himself—
"......."
Nah, no way.
I quickly pushed that thought away and flopped down onto the bed.
Right. There was no way such an important incident would not have been mentioned in the main story. Even if the part of the main story I had read was only up to the middle, and even if the Saintess's story was just getting underway in the heroine episodes.
.......
Although I did blow up over that and send a support message. Anyway.
No way, right?
Surely there wasn't a setting where the power I used had actually become the trigger that drew out some talent inside Lee Si-yoon's body.
Or, going by clichés, where the Saintess knew that and deliberately gave that power to Lee Si-yoon.
And so Lee Si-yoon, who had lived thinking it was his own talent, was made to agonize over his power once again—
"......Nah."
I swung my hand at the empty air for no reason and flopped back onto the bed.
There was no way it was like that.
Holy Power was called God's power, but in practice it was used mostly for healing people.
Even if someone became almost invincible the moment that power entered their body, that was a different matter from drawing out their talent.
For some reason, while I was thinking about that, there was again a being shining light at my face, so I waved my hand and brushed it away.
Now it comes out just from thinking about Holy Power?
"......."
Ria was watching me mutter to myself from the next bed with an expression that was half worry and half bafflement, but I did my best to ignore it.