Chapter 1. Candidate and Candidate (5)
Chapter 1. Candidate and Candidate (5)
No, wait.
Now that I think about it again, this seems right.
So, that father who put Ria in here wants to revive Ria's faith, right? Conversely, the more I get refuted, the more Ria's faith gradually revives—couldn't you say that?
...Well, it does piss me off a bit to get refuted, but what can I do. I was planning to stay here a while longer anyway, so I could endure that much.
"Hey, you, that belt under your chest."
"Huh?"
"Do you have any spares of that?"
At Ria's sudden question, I tilted my head.
"Why this belt?"
"If you have a spare, lend it to me. Let me use one too."
"......."
Without realizing it, I ended up looking at Ria's chest.
Because of her fierce-looking impression and short hair, I'd thought she wasn't the type to care much about that sort of thing—but, hmm, looking again, she does have a figure worth being proud of.
If we're just talking size, I'd say she's even more impressive than me.
As expected of a heroine. Just like a character with the author's desires applied directly.
Not that I could ever be called small, either.
"You're already visible enough that you don't need to wear one, though?"
"No, so you've been wearing one because it doesn't show on you?"
At my answer, Ria snorted as if dumbfounded.
Well, hmm, strictly speaking, I'd set it up to make things 'more visible.'
Because of some bullshit I'd heard before.
"Well... if you ask me to lend it, I can lend it."
I answered, slightly lifting one corner of my lips.
"Can you handle it? The pouring stares from people. You'll probably get them even more persistently than I do."
"Well, I've been famous since I was little anyway."
"......."
A somewhat infuriating answer came back.
No, of course, to say it again, I'm definitely not small either. Rather, in some sense, my proportions are more balanced, so you could even say my side is better. Ria was never a long-range attacker in the original work, either. Position-wise, I guess you could call her a front-line tank. Though it wasn't a game fantasy, so that kind of thing wasn't clearly defined.
For all that, though, that's an unreasonable chest. As expected, the being who wrote this novel is irrational. Well, from the moment they wrote a novel featuring a religious order that worships them, there's no way they could be a rational being.
"No, I can tell what you're thinking, but that's not what I meant, okay? I meant I was famous as the Hero's daughter."
As if she'd noticed my gaze, Ria thrust her chest out and said.
"I wasn't thinking that either!?"
I protested, but Ria just smirked.
Ria's words were right, though.
Even in the original work, there was a scene where people were shocked, going 'No way, that Lee Chae-eun!?'
She wasn't famous solely because of her father's name. Although she hadn't begun full-fledged Hunter work, she already had achievements at her age: several records of cleanly defeating Monsters that had crossed through Gates, and a record of never losing even once in sparring against adults.
That was despite the fact that many of those adults openly envied Lee Chae-eun, the talented child of a Hero, and hadn't held back against her.
She did feel ambivalent about being famous because of her father, but she wasn't lacking confidence in her own abilities, either.
"......."
But even if I protested now that I'd known that fact, Ria already seemed convinced that I'd said it because of her figure, so I decided not to argue further.
I opened the wardrobe door attached to the side of the bed, took out a spare belt, and tossed it toward Ria.
Ria caught it deftly, looked it over this way and that, then immediately put it on under her chest.
Her figure, which had been slightly hidden by the somewhat baggy clothes, was now fully revealed, and from a spectator's standpoint, it became incredibly embarrassing.
"Huh? What, even if I do it like this, it doesn't work like it does on you?"
But no matter how much you cinch the upper part of baggy clothes, the lower part doesn't suddenly cling to the body.
"That's probably because your clothes weren't originally made for a slender person to wear."
With men's clothing, even if a fat person wears a large size, it rarely looks extremely strange. Large-sized clothes are made to fit the shoulders of large-framed people too, so while the shoulder line on a pot-bellied person's clothes might droop down a bit, it's rare for only one part to be strangely tight.
But with women's clothing, chest size matters too.
Well, generally speaking, for people around average, just wearing roughly similar-sized off-the-rack clothes will roughly fit... but if that size deviates overwhelmingly from the average, then unless you pay special attention to your clothes, they end up either excessively baggy or excessively tight—one of the two.
In reality, they say if your chest is too big, your style ends up looking bad. Well, that's the story.
Since a nun's habit couldn't possibly be tailored like that, the habit Ria wore was naturally close to a 'plus size.' Meaning only the chest area roughly fit, and below that, the size was left very generously.
If you cinch the top, the bottom gets massively wrinkled, and there's so much leftover fabric that it becomes a somewhat different style from mine.
"For me, the chest area is just barely tight. The rest is a size that fits reasonably well."
"Hmm."
Ria's eyes narrowed.
"Is that right? You didn't actually deliberately size it down?"
"......."
"Uh, what, why are you avoiding my eyes? Don't tell me you really did size it down?"
"Ah, ah, ah, ah, no, I didn't!? I absolutely did not size it down!?"
"Don't tell me the belt-wearing thing isn't just to emphasize your chest, but to trick people into thinking it looks that way because of the belt?"
"......."
"Pfft."
Seeing her point out a fact that no one had even suspected until now, that eye for detail of hers is the real deal.
"Pfft, heh heh..."
"What are you laughing at?"
"Uh, what, are you talking back to me right now? Should I run straight to the Mother Superior's office this instant? Tell them what you did to your habit?"
"...I said I didn't do anything."
"Hey, you, you really can't lie."
Her saying that while holding back laughter is incredibly infuriating.
Ria undid the belt she'd put under her chest and tossed it back toward me carelessly. I caught it and tossed it back into the wardrobe carelessly.
"Well, putting that aside."
Ria shrugged her shoulders. Ugh, that attitude pisses me off too. Like she's above me.
Though I have nothing to say now that my weakness has been caught.
"There's something I've noticed while spending the last few days with you."
"What."
"I overheard some of the other girls whispering."
"You have good ears."
"You don't usually go around preaching that stuff in front of the other girls, right?"
"......."
"Well, there are some girls who changed rooms after hearing your nonsense, but usually those were the ones who picked a fight with you first."
"You can hear all that just from whispering?"
More surprised than annoyed, I asked, and Ria smirked.
"How could I hear all that just from whispering? I heard it from friends I made after coming here."
"Friends...?"
Do people make friends in a convent?
I haven't had any friends until now?
"The convent rules say not to talk to others carelessly, don't they?"
It's a rule written in blood.
If it were just a girls' school or boys' school, it might not matter. Even if sexual desire builds up, you can go home and watch videos or comics... there are plenty of outlets, aren't there.
If you're capable, you can get a lover. Anyway, there are many means to resolve your urges.
But a convent isn't like that. No matter how much it has inherited some social functions, a religious facility is a religious facility. There are bound to be parts that are excessively repressed compared to the secular world.
They couldn't go outside or see much of the opposite sex, so what would happen if you put teenagers boiling with sexual desire together in one place? Whether they were all boys or all girls, something was bound to happen sooner or later.
So they minimize contact between each other entirely. By strengthening the rules.
...Though if that's the case, I don't know why double rooms exist in the first place.
"......."
But even after hearing my story, Ria just stared at me with a dumbfounded expression.
"That, what. Are you in a position to talk about rules?"
.......
No, well, that's true, but.
This is a bit unfair to me too, because I have my own way of being considerate about this.
My mind wasn't going through puberty, but my body still was. Naturally, well... there were days like that.
But the problem is, I still perceive women as sexual objects. And my surroundings are full of women.
And on top of that, all those girls are minors. No matter how I am, I have at least minimal morality.
So I just decided to live ascetically. At least in that regard, I think I followed the rules quite well. If someone spoke to me first, I answered, and if they pissed me off, I got angry and argued back, but at least there was no trouble of that kind.
"The rules were about not seducing people and not making unnecessary physical contact—they weren't about not talking to people, you know?"
"......."
I have nothing to say.
"Anyway, you don't usually go around bringing that stuff up first, right? You've said things to Mother Superior and the priest, and when you became a Saintess Candidate, you caused a huge commotion by writing to the Cardinal, but that was also because they approached you first."
Seeing my expression, Ria quickly steered the conversation back to the main point.
Damn, I got consideration! From a verbal sparring opponent!
"Anyway, so why do you keep starting conversations with me and expressing religious doubts?"
"Uh."
"Do you have some ulterior motive? Hmm, even so, I don't think someone who's a Saintess Candidate would be trying to lead me into Apostasy."
"Uh, uh, wait a minute."
I jumped up from my seat and tried to stop her, but Ria, who had been making a thoughtful expression with her finger on her chin—whether deliberately or not—grinned at me and said.
"Or is it actually the opposite? Are you deliberately provoking me with what you say to make me turn church-friendly? Did the Mother Superior tell you something?"
"Ah."
...What?
The plan should have been perfect.
Is she using mind-reading or something? An esper?