A Rookie's Day Is Always Overcast
"O Goddess Solari, what in heaven's name is happening? This humble servant cannot dare to comprehend Your will."
Hangil's face crumpled as if the world itself had caved in. He set the holy relic down with painstaking care, then dropped to his knees and began to pray. But just like the relic that no longer glowed, no sign of any kind descended upon him.
"Ahhh..."
Karen watched with interest as Hangil, looking half-dead, clutched the holy relic to his chest and sank into despair. The sour mood that had come from feeling like he was walking a path the gods had already decided for him began to give way to amusement as he took in the little performance unfolding in front of him.
Should I mess with him a little longer?
Coming back to Earth must have stirred it up — a memory so distant it might as well have belonged to another life. His days as an active-duty soldier. Full-term discharge from the army. Most of his other memories of Earth had gone hazy, but this one was carved into his body, still vivid as ever. His mood had lifted, but a petty streak of mischief had taken its place. Karen sidled up beside Hangil and asked in a low voice.
"So. What are you going to do now?"
"I have to report it. The truth cannot be hidden."
He could have just talked Karen into playing dumb and looking the other way, but instead he was thinking about filing a report. A Holy Warrior through and through. Or maybe this kid was just a special case. Other Holy Warriors aside — would the District Overseer this kid called Grandfather really not have known?
Karen crouched down beside the kneeling Hangil, laid a hand on his shoulder, and put on a sly, insinuating grin.
"Ohh... and you really think that's the answer?"
Anyone who knew Karen would have been stunned to see him like this. But he had already slipped fully into the mode of a veteran sergeant hazing a fresh recruit.
"Of course it is!"
"How, exactly? The Church's holy relic lost its power? So whose fault is that? Goddess Solari's?"
"How could Goddess Solari possibly be at fault? Of course it's because our faith was lacking, and that's why... wait."
As expected — these people had no idea that a holy relic lost its power when something happened to the Saint or the Saintess. Then again, this Church was only thirty years old. How would they know? In Belial, the churches had histories stretching back centuries, so it was common knowledge.
Hangil's bold reply trailed off, unfinished. A look of dawning realization crossed his face.
"Now that's a Holy Warrior for you! Admitting your own fault — I like that. But what about the people upstairs?"
"...."
"Who's in charge?"
The name that sprang reflexively to Hangil's mind made him bow his head and squeeze his eyes shut.
Don't imagine it. If I imagine it...
But despite Hangil's desperate efforts, Karen's whispering kept coming.
"First there's the Bishop who runs this branch. Then who? The one who oversees the entire Seoul branch is the Archbishop, right? And after that?"
With each step Karen climbed up the org chart, Hangil's body began to tremble as if he were having a seizure.
Once you became a member of an organization, rank and hierarchy got carved into your body and your brain whether you liked it or not. The chain of command rose in Hangil's mind with perfect, terrible clarity.
Karen pointed a finger at the ceiling and grinned.
"That would be His Holiness the Pope, wouldn't it?"
"But..."
"Want to try saying it? 'It's because His Holiness the Pope's faith is lacking. What do you intend to do about it?' Think the Pope would go, 'Ah! I see. We shall repent'?"
"Ahhh..."
Not a chance. Would a report from a bottom-rung Holy Warrior even make it that far?
Hangil was inexperienced and a rookie, which made his field of vision narrow — but he wasn't stupid. Even in the Holy Warrior training camp, surrounded by instructors who were practically demons, his heart had never once wavered. Now it tossed like a ship in a storm.
Karen's words landed like a heavy blow to the solar plexus. Hangil's eyes finally welled up, and his body flattened against the floor. He set the holy relic carefully in front of him and, overwhelmed by emotion he could no longer contain, began to pray once more.
"O Solari, lead not this poor servant into temptation... but deliver unto me only such trials as I can bear..."
Squeak-squeak.
"Huh?"
Karen, who had been watching the whole thing, took a small step back at the unexpected appearance of a creature he hadn't counted on.
A mouse? There's a mouse in here?
In this building, of all places — the one with those notoriously hard-to-maintain white exterior walls, kept so spotlessly clean? Sure, mice lived everywhere, but a white mouse like that would have been spotted in no time.
Looks like someone crossed a hamster with a field mouse. And the fur's white, too.
Except in cold, snowy regions, animals almost never had white fur. And yet this one, even crawling across the floor, didn't have a single stain on its coat.
Squeak!
"Huh?"
Karen had been observing the mouse. Hangil, deep in prayer, hadn't noticed it approaching right beside him. When the sudden squeak made him lift his head, he found himself staring into a pair of round black eyes peering at him through white fur.
"...A mouse?"
The mouse gave a little bob, as if greeting Hangil, then flicked its front paws in a tiny wave. It snatched up the cup — no, the holy relic — in its mouth and bolted.
"Aaaah! No!"
A Holy Warrior through and through. In that split second, Hangil threw out his hand with everything he had. But the mouse slipped past even a Holy Warrior's desperately summoned divine power and vanished at an astonishing speed.
"Wow... what kind of mouse is that fast?"
The whole thing had taken only a few seconds. Even Karen had to admire the mouse's speed — especially considering it was carrying a cup the size of its own body, which couldn't have left it much of a view of where it was going.
"O Goddess Solari..."
Hangil's eyes, already worn down to nothing, went half-dead. As if the holy relic losing its power hadn't been enough — now it had vanished right in front of him.
"Ahh... this is a catastrophe. No — this is excommunication..."
Hangil looked so much like a zombie that even Karen felt a twinge of pity. Truth be told, Karen had only meant to tease him a little and then wrap up this tour. If every holy relic had lost its power, he had no way of meeting the goddess anyway, and he had no particular desire to go through the hassle of exposing the fact.
"Uh... hang in there."
Hangil was drowning in despair. Brother Oh Jaemin, standing right beside him, offered words of comfort — but to Hangil's already-shattered ears, it sounded like more mockery.
This brother seemed like a devil trying to drag him down to hell. The man had been perfectly normal in front of the Bishop earlier. Why had he become so infuriating?
I just want to hit him. Just once.
That sly face was so punchable that Hangil nearly forgot every ounce of spiritual discipline he had built as a man of faith. Even the expression he was wearing now looked like a fake put on just to mock him.
"I'm finished."
Being dragged before an inquisitor and excommunicated was the baseline. What punishment awaited him beyond that, he couldn't even begin to see. Even if the holy relic had lost its power and been reduced to an ordinary cafeteria cup, he had no way of proving it.
This kid isn't even thinking about covering it up.
His sense of responsibility was so stubborn it bordered on stupidity, at least from anyone else's point of view. All he had to do was keep Karen's mouth shut, but that option didn't even seem to exist in his head. Feeling a little guilty about the teasing — and finding himself rather fond of this rookie — Karen decided to help him out, just a little.
"What if there was a way?"
"A way? Brother Oh Jaemin, you have a solution for finding the holy chalice?"
Hangil's face lit up like a sunrise. The brother who had been a devil a moment ago now looked like an angel.
I shouldn't mess with him one more time, should I?
A wicked thought flickered through Karen's mind, then vanished. There were lines you didn't cross.
"Look at this."
Karen pulled a potion from the subspace in his necklace and let a single drop fall along the path the mouse had taken.
"Wh... what?"
"Tracker potion. It reveals traces left within the last hour. When you work in monster by-product processing, all kinds of interesting things come through. This is one of them."
Karen had no idea whether a potion like this actually existed. He'd just made something up on the spot. In Hangil's current state, he wouldn't notice anything off anyway. A single lifeline had just been dropped in front of him — did it matter where it came from? If he didn't catch that mouse, he was dead anyway.
"Thank you! Thank you!"
"Right. Let's go."
"Together with you, Brother?"
"What, you want to leave me here alone? The Bishop sent you to stay with me, didn't he?"
"Ah! That's right... of course."
Clumsy as he was, Hangil's unspoiled earnestness was a genuine delight to Karen — though he was careful not to let it show on his face, for fear of hurting the kid's feelings.
"You take the lead. I'll follow behind."
"Yes, sir!"
It wasn't solely for the rookie's sake. There was also the thought that had been occupying a corner of his mind ever since he'd first seen the mouse.
Was that mouse a coincidence too?
The Solari Church had two representative colors. Red, for the sun. And white, the color that served as its foundation. And a white mouse just happened to appear in this room and make off with a holy relic — not food, something cumbersome to carry?
"You know the saying? What a god does is both coincidence and necessity."
"I've never heard that before."
"A priest once told me that. But if this was a god's necessity... if She went so far as to act in person, your Church must have done something She really doesn't like."
"...I suppose we have."
"Hm? What happened? From the outside, everything looked fine."
"The District Overseer I respect was taken away, and the Holy Warriors have already been reduced to a subordinate arm of the priestly ranks. I was told it wasn't always like this..."
"Yeah? Then why don't the Holy Warriors just rise up?"
"We can't. At present, only His Holiness the Pope can hear the Goddess's voice."
Hangil answered diligently even as he went on dripping the potion, drop by drop. But was this really something he should be telling an outsider? He was so focused on the tracking that it probably hadn't occurred to him.
Karen listened, then clapped his hands together. A picture assembled itself in his mind with perfect ease.
"He actually said that? The Pope?"
"Yes. When the Saint went in to pray, the Pope naturally assumed the role of proxy and made the announcement."
"Interesting."
Something's gone wrong with the Saint, and everyone above the priestly line is rotten through. They cooked up a fraud, too — as far as I know, only the Saint and the Saintess can hear the voice of a god.
Still, saying that out loud would only make the already-deflated rookie in front of him shrink even further, so Karen held his tongue. One look was enough to tell that the Church was a complete disaster from top to bottom.
"What's the Saint doing, then?"
Karen was already certain, but he asked to see how much Hangil knew.
"The Saint hasn't made any public appearances in quite some time. I was told he's engaged in a long-term prayer retreat."
"That's a new one."
Karen let out a short, incredulous laugh at the sheer nonsense of it. Didn't you pray in order to receive an answer? A Saint who could hear the voice of a god directly, going on a long-term prayer retreat?
"Is something the matter?"
"No. I was just thinking your Church is a really interesting place."
They talked as they walked, and before long the two of them came to a stop in front of a door. The trail cut off right in front of it — however the mouse had gotten in, the traces ended here.
"Where is this?"
"I'm not entirely sure. I was told it's a basement storage room that was closed off some time ago."
"Is that so?"
Closed off, my ass...
There wasn't a speck of dust on the lock. Someone had been going in and out of here until very recently.
"Got a key?"
"No. I'd have to ask the administration department..."
Click.
"What are you doing, opening that? Wait — how did you even open it?"
The principle was simple. Shape Shield Magic into a key, insert it, and rapidly shift its form until it matched the grooves of the lock. Sooner or later, it would open.
"There's always a way. Come on! We've got a holy relic to find, don't we?"
"But entering without authorization like this..."
Squeak!
While Hangil stood hesitating at the top of the stairs leading down, a white mouse appeared from the bottom of the stairwell, the holy relic in its mouth, and let out a thoroughly irritating squeak.
Squeak?
Then, as if to say come and catch me if you can, it set the relic on the ground and let out a provocative little cry.
"Oh? There's the relic. Aren't you going to grab it? If you don't put that back, it's excommunication, you know?"
"Ex... excommunication! You get over here!"
Caught between the mouse's infuriating little performance and Karen's hand, which had slipped in from the side to give him a gentle shove in the back, Hangil's eyes rolled back and he went tumbling down the stairs as if rolling rather than running.
"If he weren't a Holy Warrior, I'd want to take him with me. He's a real talent."
Karen smiled wickedly and followed Hangil down at a leisurely pace.
"Please! Come here! Come on, please come here!"
Hangil dashed this way and that, trying to catch the mouse, but it kept slipping away by a hair's breadth, infuriatingly out of reach.
"There's no way that's just a regular mouse."
What kind of mouse toyed with someone like that — even a rookie Holy Warrior, even one using divine power?
Squeak! Squeak!
But every path has an end. The mouse was finally cornered at the far end of a dead-end corridor.
"You little—!"
Hangil still had at least a shred of a Holy Warrior's reason left. His eyes flashed, the whites showing, but in the end he scooped the mouse up with surprising gentleness.
Squeak!
"Got you! You little rascal!"
Hangil carefully pried the holy chalice from the mouse's mouth.
"Hhk—! Thank you, Goddess Solari."
But as Hangil was shedding tears of gratitude, a young girl's voice — utterly out of place in this atmosphere — came from nearby.
"Um... who are you?"
"Gah?! A g-ghost?"
"You're a clergyman and you're scared of ghosts?"
Karen stood in front of a thick iron door and looked through the small window at the girl on the other side. The girl's eyes, looking back at him, went wide as if she had seen a ghost herself.
But Karen's shock was greater than the girl's. Every thought in his head stopped as if he had been struck by lightning. And without meaning to, he spoke a name he had buried deep in his memories.
"Adela?"
"...Adela?"
"No... no. That can't be."
That child was gone now. And on Earth, of all places? Impossible. Karen studied the girl's face more carefully. Blonde hair, her features half-hidden by the grime of not having washed, but the resemblance was unmistakable. The decisive difference was the color of her eyes. This child had rare golden irises — the same color as Karen's own hair.
But why had this child been so startled to see him? Like his own, the surprise on her face had already faded.
She composed herself fast. Faster than you'd expect from a child her age.
That made the conversation easier.
"We don't have much time. You're the Saintess, aren't you?"
The playful mischief he'd been pouring into teasing Hangil vanished. Karen's voice turned harder than it had been all day. Was it because the old memories had surfaced? His head throbbed. Not a headache that came from the body — one that came from the heart.
"Why is there a little girl here? This is a storage room, isn't it?"
Hangil asked from behind, looking thoroughly lost. Fortunately, he hadn't caught the title Karen had used — Saintess. If he had, with his soul already halfway out of his body, he would have lost whatever was left of his wits.
"This still look like a storage room to you? It's a prison. An underground prison, at that."
"What?"
"You think this was the only door on the way here? There are dozens more. Turn around."
Just as Karen had said, when Hangil turned around, identical thick iron doors stretched away in a grim, silent row.
"An underground prison in the Yeouido Church? I'm certain the interrogation chambers are somewhere else..."
Every time Karen looked at this child they called a Saintess, something surged up in his chest. But he didn't have time to explain anything to Hangil, who was still standing there in confusion. A glance at his watch told him the transformation had less than an hour left.
Karen waved a hand in front of Hangil's dazed face to catch his attention, then called him forward.
Showing him directly is the best way.
"Come here. Saintess — you, turn your face away for a moment."
Karen pressed Hangil's face up to the window of the cell where the Saintess was imprisoned.
"S-Saintess?"
Only now, hearing the title Saintess, did Hangil's eyes start to lose focus. The sudden flood of information and the psychological shock were producing the symptoms of a man on the verge of passing out.
"Doesn't that look a whole lot more sacred than the cup you're clutching so carefully?"
But Hangil's fading consciousness was seized by the scruff of the neck by something he saw through the narrow window, and it yanked him violently back to reality.
"Good heavens... is that...?"
From a shabby little altar the Saintess-girl had built by stacking stones, a pure, crystalline holy power unlike anything Hangil had ever seen was pouring forth.