A Twisted Faith (5)
If she said something like that, the next logical step might be a confession. At least, that’s what most people would assume. But forming that kind of relationship between her and me right now was completely impossible.
Of course I know. Social norms, moral concepts—none of that can truly stop deep love. Forbidden love is such a common trope that new stories keep popping up the moment you forget about it. So no, that’s not what I’m talking about.
What I mean is something even more fundamental. A concept that runs beneath the surface of human society itself.
“Can you feel it?”
“Y-yes, yes. I f-feel it, Lucia. Ah, ugh. Th-this… r-really, h-hot!?”
“Come now, feel it a little deeper. Yes, you’re doing very well. And remember—this is a secret from everyone else for now, alright?”
“O-of course. As if I wouldn’t know that much. Ah! This… this sensation…”
“How is it? It feels new, doesn’t it? Doesn’t a warm sense of satisfaction rise up from deep inside your heart?”
“Y-yes… It really does…”
To be honest, I never intended to take it this far. Somehow things had just ended up like this. Is this really okay? No, I never said it was a love confession. And obviously it wasn’t about physical pleasure either. I’d said fundamental concept, not physical sensation.
“You can’t feel mana anymore?”
“It was always at the level where I could barely light a candle. I only learned it through theory, so I understood it conceptually at best.”
“Then you can feel this now, can’t you?”
“Yes, uhu, y-yes, yehe…”
A warm golden light—characteristic of divine power—rose from her fingertips. It wasn’t me using divine power on her. She was manifesting and wielding it herself.
In reality, this was an extremely rare occurrence, something common sense deemed impossible. Yet here it was, happening to her. A magician awakening divine power. Even if her mana had been weak, a magician was still a magician. For one to gain divine power instead… there were precedents, but you had to skip across centuries to find them.
Even in those cases, the person had lost their mana first. For a magician—who wielded mana, a natural force unrelated to the gods—to possess enough faith to manifest divine power was, quite literally, a miracle.
Yes, a miracle. This world was filled with miracles based on divine power, so it became something people could genuinely accept.
But.
“You don’t have any faith toward the Exalted One, do you?”
“Mm… Honestly, I still don’t understand it well. That’s why I’m asking you, Lucia. They say divine power is a strength gained by believing in God, right? But I still can’t bring myself to believe in Him that much.”
That was the problem.
Normally, divine power manifested through belief in God—the being specifically called the Exalted One in this world. But Yulia was completely different.
Look at me. The original me had been an atheist who wondered where a god could possibly be. Yet after being summoned into this different world in a different body, I had come to believe in that existence without a shred of doubt. Experiencing divine power had only strengthened that faith. There was still much to study regarding doctrine and scripture, but at least my belief was stronger than anyone else’s in this world. That was why I possessed this level of divine power.
“Then who do you believe in?”
But Yulia was different. She openly admitted—with her own mouth—that she couldn’t believe in the church’s god, the one called the Exalted One. It was the classic attitude of a magician. In the distant past, that very mindset had nearly sparked a war. Since it had never been fully corrected, what she said wasn’t all that unusual.
“Well…”
Yet she had still manifested divine power. And not just manifested it—her level was remarkably high. Far beyond the average archbishop’s ability to cleanly heal a broken bone.
That wasn’t something you could achieve by answering “well” when asked what you believed in.
Wait. Is divine power actually not the power of belief after all? But then what was all the divine power emitted by the existing clergy? With the vast majority of samples already available in the form of current priests, if someone was producing not just any divine power but archbishop-level power—one of only forty people in the entire world—then there had to be something she believed in. Something she had faith in.
“Don’t dodge the question. This is really serious. When you pray, when you manifest divine power, who—or what—are you thinking about?”
Depending on the answer, this could become a monumental event: the discovery of a new god. No, that was the most likely outcome. Unless the extremely low-probability result came out that she had unknowingly been believing in the existing god all along.
“I… I mean, so… um…”
“…? Is it embarrassing to say? It’s alright. I’ll keep it a secret. Actually, this must stay a secret. Otherwise you’ll be branded a heretic immediately.”
Why is her face turning so red? She had gone scarlet and couldn’t even speak properly, so I threw in the word “heretic” to snap her out of it.
Yes. Heretic.
This world followed a single religion. If someone possessed powerful divine power yet did not believe in the existing god, the only label that could be slapped on her was heretic—or pagan. No matter that Yulia was the legitimate daughter of the imperial family, not even that status could protect her from such a stigma. Even if I were a saintess—especially because I was a saintess—I wouldn’t be able to help her.
“There… there is someone I think of in those moments.”
“Someone you think of?”
A person? Could a person even be an object of faith? No matter how much people claimed that divine power only required the power of belief, the object of that belief had to be a god. Every new detail that emerged threatened to overturn this world’s entire religious framework.
First a magician wielding this level of divine power. Then the revelation that what she believed in with such faith wasn’t the existing god. And now the object of her faith was a person.
What’s next? I thought, still in the mindset of let’s just hear it first. But when the actual answer came, I could only stare with my mouth hanging open in pure shock.
“I pray and use divine power while thinking of L-Lucia… of you, Lucia…”
“Huh? Me? You think of me?”
“Yes. I pray solely for you, Lucia. That’s what I said back then, too…”
Back then must have been during the theater incident—when black fountains had poured from those three crudely rendered black spheres and I had countered them with a miracle of protection. Yes, I remembered. The crushing pressure that had felt like my head was being squeezed had vanished instantly. Yulia had gripped my hand tightly and said those words.
But I had taken it literally—that she was praying to God for my sake. I never imagined I would be the target of her prayer. Who would think that?
“Does it still work now?”
“Of course. Look—here.”
Her divine power gently enveloped me. It was exactly the same as before. Warm. Rising softly from deep within. Comforting the heart. Yes, this was correct.
But she’s doing this while believing in me?
My head throbbed. Who on earth was I supposed to discuss this with? The church was out of the question. No matter that Yulia was an imperial princess, if the empire learned of this they would pen an elegantly worded letter saying “This matter does not concern us, Your Holiness” and send it straight to the grand cathedral in Romano.
The Brien Kingdom—my own base along with the hero’s—might have been an option, but anything that came from there was unlikely to be good for Yulia. I had to protect her. How could I possibly abandon her? My own apostle, who believed in me and prayed to me.
Yes. Apostle.
“Ha.”
A sigh escaped before I could stop it. Not just a sigh—a lament.
Am I an idiot?
“Wh-what’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing. It’s not because of you, Yulia. It’s because of me. I feel pathetic for not realizing it when you were right here like this.”
“I… I don’t think Lucia is pathetic at all…”
“Thank you, Yulia. You’re all I have.”
“Ah, th-that… ehehe…”
There was one element that could clearly explain this situation. If I recalled what Cardinal Rondel had said when I was first summoned, the answer appeared immediately.
What had he originally been trying to summon? A relatively lower-ranked god recognized by the church. One of the many beings who handled various tasks beneath the Exalted One. Easier to think of as an angel serving God rather than anything from Olympian-style polytheism.
Of course, I was no such being. I had simply been an ordinary adult man living a decent life in South Korea. Goodness, how utterly normal I was—nowhere near a god, and impossibly far from even an angel.
But perhaps during that possession-summoning process, the essence of an angel or lesser god had gotten mixed in. No wonder my divine power had manifested so easily and so powerfully. And there were many thoughts and actions I never would have taken in my original life.
“Am I really someone worthy of such sincere belief?”
“Of course. Lucia is so strong and resilient, yet kind, gentle, and good. There can’t be two people like you in the world.”
I couldn’t be certain. What evidence did I have to be certain? I was only guessing. But for a mere guess, this felt far too plausible. Above all, every single event so far had lined up perfectly. Even the fact that I seemed far smarter and calmer than the person I remembered from my old life supported it. Something had been mixed into me. And that something must have granted me divinity.
In the first place, I wasn’t the kind of person who deserved to hear such things from others. Alright. Time to return to reality.
“Still, Yulia, we can’t hide the fact that you lost your mana and gained divine power forever. It might be discovered much sooner than we expect.”
“It definitely will be. Even I think hiding it won’t last a week.”
Yulia agreed completely. So far we had been too busy investigating the incident and cleaning up the aftermath for anyone to notice, but the moment we had some breathing room, they would realize immediately.
“So here’s what I think. Since it’s going to come out anyway, let’s not hide it. Let’s reveal it ourselves first.”
If something couldn’t be concealed from the start, taking the initiative to reveal it was the best move. At the very least, we could avoid losing complete control of the situation.
“Reveal it? But won’t that change anything? I can’t help thinking of you—thinking of Lucia—every time I pray and use divine power.”
“True. However, if we strike first, we can still deceive them. We’ll say the object of your prayers isn’t me, but the Exalted One.”
And as long as we held even a little initiative, we could hide the root cause. How could they possibly imagine it? That someone could possess divine power by believing in a saintess rather than God.
“What? B-but…”
“Tell them you came to believe after seeing what I did in the theater. I’ll permit it. Not for anyone else—for you and you alone, Yulia.”
“Ah… ah…”
Yulia was moved even by those words. No long persuasion was necessary. The moment we left this place, we would announce that after consulting with me, she had decided to publicly declare her acquisition of divine power.
Immediately afterward, I became the absolutely badass saint who had converted the imperial princess of the empire where the rival church had taken root.