Chapter 1. Candidate and Candidate (4)
Chapter 1. Candidate and Candidate (4)
Right. In theory, that is.
But theory aside, plans rarely ever actually work out.
The information I had on Lee Chae-eun was that, outwardly, she might resent God, but inwardly, she was actually quite devout.
I, of course, knew and was more certain than anyone that this "God" was not actually a god, but Lee Chae-eun was, no matter what anyone said, a child raised in a Hero's household, wasn't she?
She couldn't completely escape her father's influence, and that fact became the cause that scratched at Lee Chae-eun's insides even more—or so the novel said.
So I had thought.
That I would draw out that faith, the one deep in her heart that would never waver.
And originally, faith like that, from deep in the heart, was the kind of thing that came out when faced with a tremendous crisis, or when confronted with an unbeliever so brazen you couldn't bear to watch with both eyes open.
"Do you see? So, what I'm saying is, the word 'god' isn't actually appropriate for referring to that being. If we're expressing it with this country's word 'god,' then Zeus is a god, ancestral gods are gods, and the god believed in by this religion is also a god, right? What meaning could there possibly be in such an inconsistent word in the first place?"
Breakfast time. I argued like that in front of Ria.
I thought it was a reasonable point, but usually, the people inside the Church would look at me with expressions that said, what nonsense is this, whenever I said things like this.
To those people, the word "God" had long since come to mean that being of this world, so no matter what I said, it seemed to carry no meaning for them.
If they would just broaden their perspective a little, they'd be able to see how valid a point it was.
However, separate from that, this talk was also extremely effective at driving away people who were bothering me.
If you stood next to someone who had received a proper education and knew the common knowledge that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and insisted that actually the Sun revolves around the Earth, and no matter how much evidence and theory you showed them, they wouldn't budge, then normally, that person would shudder and leave.
And they'd be able to reconfirm just how sensible a person they themselves were.
Ah, of course, in this case, I was the normal one and every other human being was abnormal, so the situation was a bit different.
"Yeah, sure."
But the incantation I used whenever I wanted to drive away the girl I shared a room with when she annoyed me simply went in one of Lee Chae-eun's—no, Ria's—ears and out the other.
A Veil was sloppily perched atop Ria's short red hair. She was probably copying the way I usually wore my Veil.
Earlier, as I passed by the table, the Mother Superior had furrowed her brow deeply and stared straight at me, and that look seemed to be one doubting my usefulness, which gave me chills.
A-at this rate, I'll get kicked out of the Church!
I'll get confessed to by seven people!
"So, to explain again—"
"By the way."
Ria, who had been spooning cream soup into her mouth with an extremely sleepy expression, cut me off as if something had just occurred to her.
"Hey, what's this?"
Ria said, pointing her spoon toward me.
A bit of the cream soup on it dripped and fell back into the bowl.
"A spoon."
When I said that, Ria nodded again, saying, "Yeah, sure."
"There are tons of different kinds of spoons, right? But out of all those countless spoons, why does only this one have to be called a spoon?"
"What?"
"The spoon you scoop rice with is a spoon, the spoon you scoop pudding with is a spoon, and the spoon you scoop sugar into a teacup with is a spoon too, right?"
"......."
"Isn't it just that people agreed to call all these kinds of things spoons, so anything similar gets called a spoon? Or you could call it a spoon in English."
"Aaaand so?"
"Then a god is a god too."
Ria said, shrugging her shoulders.
"If there's a being everyone has agreed to call a god, then there's nothing strange about calling it a god, is there?"
"......."
I stared blankly with my mouth open.
"What, has no one ever made this counterargument to you?"
No, well, the thing is.
Usually people didn't approach it from the angle of words; they started by calling me out for committing blasphemy first.
Even if they were forced to learn at the convent, most of the people there lived under the influence of Holy Power. It wasn't as though nobody resented the being above, but far more regarded it as a blessing and were grateful.
Because that was how they could utilize even a little more Holy Power.
And because they were such people, when the word "God" came up, they usually had no choice but to approach it theologically first.
The more learned the person, the more so—someone like the Mother Superior or a Priest, even more so.
Rather, an explanation like "it's a god simply because it's called a god" wouldn't be strange to hear called blasphemy for a different reason than mine. Because that meaning conversely implied that the being might not be worthy of it.
If people stopped calling it a god, wouldn't that mean it wasn't a god?
Whether my mouth was hanging open or not, Ria moved her spoon again and put soup into her mouth, one spoonful at a time.
Just moments ago, her face had been incredibly languid and full of "everything in the world is a bother," but after landing a hit on me, her face somehow brightened.
"And, if you didn't call a god a god, would that make it acceptable? People would still worship that being that isn't a god as something else god-like. Wouldn't they?"
"Grrk......."
How infuriating.
It had been a long time since I'd felt my logic, which I'd upheld for 15 years in this world, be wholly denied.
She was certainly right.
Even if the word "god" used here were changed to "gid," people would worship that "gid" just the same.
The word "faith" would become "faid," and the word "Holy Power" would even just remain "Holy Power" as it was.
"What do you think you gain by denying the word 'god'?"
"......."
Damn it, I'm too logical to refute that argument.
Because the rational, reasonable me can't deny that there is something up there.
If you rode a spaceship out, confirmed the Earth was round, and then denied it, wouldn't you just be an idiot spouting nonsense that doesn't hold together?
In the end, I chose to just shut my mouth and finish my meal.
I could feel gazes watching me roughly tear bread and shove it into the cream soup with eyes that seemed slightly amused, but I didn't feel like responding to them.
For some reason, white light fell onto my head again, and I waved my hand to scatter it.
*
After breakfast, we went out with brooms in hand to clear the snow that had fallen lightly the previous evening. It was now approaching mid-February, and since it hadn't snowed all that much, it wasn't so tiring that we couldn't talk.
"Look, if there really were a God watching over us, wouldn't a God like that spare us annoying chores like this? If such a being loved people, they'd just let us laze around and eat. Maybe Scripture is wrong?"
"That Scripture—that's why they periodically recompile it, you know."
"......."
"The one that came out this year is the fourth edition."
Was it?
No, in just a dozen or so years, that many editions of the Scripture had come out?
Well, I had heard it had been revised before.
"......Don't tell me you said that without knowing?"
"O-of course I learned at least that much."
I puffed out my chest and bluffed.
"Don't they also cut out anything about miracles or anecdotes if it can't be cross-verified?"
"Is that so?"
Yikes.
For a moment, I showed a bit of interest in that.
I didn't much like calling Scripture "Scripture," and back in middle school during my Past Life, when I was still deep in my edgy phase, I once saw a friend reading the Bible and called it "The Collected Myths of the Jewish People," nearly getting myself beaten up. Even so, I was fairly interested in the Bible itself.
I had actually read it a couple of times, too.
Rather than being interested in faith, I liked mythology itself, so I had read quite a lot of related books.
Ironically, that influence was what had made me an Atheist.
"This religion doesn't have that deep a history yet, right? Since it's in the process of a new religion being formed, they have to make sure the foundation is solid before moving on. It's a natural process."
"That's...... reasonable...... Ah!?"
I answered like that without realizing it, then shut my mouth.
Ria was looking at me and grinning, so I huffed and swung my broom to clear the snow off the ground.
"Ow!"
Then, of all things, I pricked my finger on a splinter sticking out of the old wooden broom handle.
It wasn't a huge wound, but a thin cut had formed on my fingertip and a little blood had beaded up.
White light descended over my head, and I deliberately swung the hand that wasn't injured to scatter it.
"With Holy Power, wouldn't a wound like that take less than a second to heal?"
As I held the wounded finger to my mouth, Ria came over and teased me with a sly grin, so I glared at her with a furrowed brow.
Grrr.
Why is she so infuriating?
I thought I was starting to understand why the Saintess had fought with Lee Chae-eun all the time.