Ominous Premonitions
In creative works, the sudden breaking or shattering of an otherwise perfectly fine object usually serves as foreshadowing for someone's misfortune. Just like how the camera would dramatically zoom in on the plate a housewife drops while humming and doing the dishes at the sink—implying that her husband has already been sentenced to death in the very next scene. The fact that such a trivial mishap can be imbued with the weight of death speaks to how uniquely advanced humanity's imagination has become. Yet that same imagination doesn't always work in our favor. It can sprout unnecessary worries like weeds, or turn into a quagmire of hesitation that drags us down. Perhaps this byproduct of imagination isn't entirely beneficial to humankind after all.
Crack! That was the fifth fork to break. A bent tip or a missing head, I could understand. But a perfectly intact fork splitting cleanly down the middle? That was just wrong. Ominous. I hadn't felt this level of foreboding since my party members lied about going on a picnic and dove into an unregistered dungeon instead. The shock and betrayal I'd felt back then still felt fresh. They lied. How awful. Humans are such ugly creatures. My elven companion had scolded me for repeating the same words like a broken doll, asking if it wasn't time I got over it. At the time, it had felt unbearably cold. For a while after, I'd developed such a severe neurosis that my body would automatically go on the defensive whenever my companions suggested going anywhere.
"Oh dear! Another fork has broken! I'll fetch a new one right away!"
"No, there's no need for that..."
Before I could even finish, the familiar yet unfamiliar man had already dashed off. I couldn't bring myself to watch his retreating figure to the end. His name was Lobel Wright. Once known as the flower-like handsome priest, he had shaved his golden hair into a gleaming bald head and now served as my attendant. Even I, the person directly involved, still hadn't found a clear answer as to why he was now radiating such a different kind of brilliance while playing servant.
The day I'd been tricked by the nun and ended up pulling him from the brink of death, all I'd seen in Priest Ranobel was the dazed expression of someone just waking from anesthesia—blinking repeatedly and clenching and unclenching his fists while buried under his tearful fiancée's embraces. But roughly a week later, during the weekend mass when all priests gathered in one place, he had boldly climbed onto the podium and declared:
I had decided then and there that he was an enemy I must eliminate from my life at all costs. "Haha... that son of a bitch..." It was also the first time in this life that I'd uttered a curse from my homeland—a curse that hadn't escaped my lips even when I'd had a hole punched through my stomach or when poison had spread through my body at lethal levels.
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At first, I'd simply thought it was a new, more elaborate form of harassment. So that insufferable man had finally resorted to such a three-dimensional method to torment me. This was how he repaid the debt of having his life saved. I shouldn't have saved him. As expected. Back then, I'd completely misunderstood the gravity of the situation. It couldn't be helped—my mind had been too occupied adjusting to the dramatic changes that had swept through my previously dull work environment like a sudden downpour on a calm lake. I hadn't had the luxury to spare any attention for a madman who'd suddenly switched from priest to monk.
Let me start with the positive changes. The meal situation, which had been my biggest complaint, had improved to an excellent degree. As someone responsible for the Saintess's meals and even her whims, it had been practically impossible to receive my own meals on the monastery's strict schedule without having two bodies. Apparently, the nuns had already suggested improvements to my meal situation several times before I'd even voiced my complaints. Thanks to my recent achievements, I'd been granted a special meal pass that allowed me to receive as much food as I wanted, whenever I wanted.
The legendary unlimited meal ticket we'd joked about with classmates back in school actually existed. The thrill that surged up from my core was comparable to hearing that the legendary news heralding the start of the Great Pirate Era was real. With an outing pass in my left hand and an unlimited meal ticket in my right, I felt an inexplicable sense of omnipotence, as if I were now a completely different being from who I'd been before. Ah, so this is what power feels like. The edible wild greens blooming in the cathedral's flower beds now looked like nothing more than weeds. They say power changes how you see the world, but I hadn't expected the transformation to be so immediate. It was clear proof that a black hand called desire had taken root even in my narrow heart. Would that hand one day try to swallow me whole? A faint fear brushed through my thoughts.
But if good changes came, bad changes were bound to follow as well. Just as the pocket monsters said to live in a distant country called Japan must sacrifice one of their four existing moves to learn a more powerful technique, the price I had to pay for obtaining ten outing permits along with the unlimited meal ticket was by no means light. To explain this, I first need to address the absurd rumor currently stirring up the entire capital.
The Saintess's exclusive guardian priest can even revive the dead. This was the rumor, the gossip, the false information that had spread throughout the capital after Lobel's fiancées witnessed me saving him. Even after several weeks, the excitement from that rumor showed no signs of dying down, and I was certain the root cause was the machinations of the higher-ups in the Holy See—people who would hide any truth that damaged their reputation while spreading any lie that elevated it as far as possible. Those who knew the full circumstances might understand, but to the fiancées who didn't and couldn't even visually confirm the concept of holy power, it wouldn't have been strange for me to appear as a miraculous clergyman who had revived someone whose heart and pulse had both stopped. Moreover, most of the people gathered there had been nobles with connections to the upper echelons of politics. It hadn't taken long for the hollow rumor to take root as credible information.
Whenever someone asked me about the rumor's veracity, whenever an opportunity arose to correct the misconception, I'd denied it with the most sincere voice I could muster—it's not true, it's a misunderstanding. But my unnecessarily high position had become an obstacle. When the highest-ranking priest in the capital, the Saintess's exclusive guardian priest, denied his own achievements, it only appeared as false modesty to his subordinates. Eventually, several elder priests even gently rebuked me, saying that excessive humility only lowered one's own standing.
Lord above. But what troubled me most was this:
"Oh my, if it isn't Guardian Priest Regis! What a coincidence to run into you here!"
Lobel's group of fiancées. Several of them had begun openly clinging to me, making no effort to hide the black hand of desire writhing in their eyes.