83 – The Unholy Believer
The Unholy Believer
There are many gods in the world.
Including Etelius, the god who created the world, God’s touch touched every corner of the life of the intelligent body, and a religion was created by gathering believers who believed in each god in charge.
Because it was the concept that all gods were subordinate to the main god, people were able to choose their religion according to their beliefs as they were not suppressed unless they were evil gods.
Therefore, there were prosperous religions that even had a divine nation, such as the Church of Etel, which believed in the god Etelius, while there were also places where the lifeline of religion was cut off due to a lack of believers.
The church Rai chose was a small place that lacked believers and influence.
Ruthera is a goddess who filled the world’s shortcomings by being endowed with power by her god, Etelius.
After the world was completed, she took over her original work and became a god in charge of sharing and rest. Believers established the Lutheran Church to praise and serve the goddess.
There are many religions that regard giving to others as a virtue, but among them, Ruthera is a god who presides over the act of sharing with the needy.
Because he was poor and took the lead in helping people, many people liked him, but because he gave back what he received, the church continued to be poor.
And Abigail, dressed in an unsuitable Rutheria nun’s uniform, looks at Rai with a puzzled expression.
“Ahahahahaha, it’s an honor to have someone like you take an interest in Lutheranism.”
“Oh my, it’s an honor to meet such a highly religious person as you.”
“Oh, my body is still lacking. I don’t know where to put this terrible body when a great person like the academy instructor praises it.”
Lai and the church director are talking excitedly.
Obviously, when he first appeared, he was a stern grandfather.
A typical priest with a wrinkled face that shows the age, white hair that remains like a band around the middle of his head, and a trimmed white beard, you would think he was a priest just walking around the streets.
But after talking with Lai for about an hour, now we’ve only been shoulder to shoulder.
Abigail, who is getting sick from sitting still in their endless chatter, complains of her discomfort by changing her stretching posture and sitting down.
“Oh, look at my mind. You’ll be late for your midday prayer at this rate. Come here.”
Abigail barely escapes the two men’s chatter and follows them into the chapel.
It is shabby to say that it is a church where people continue to donate.
Abigail looks around her at a different look from the religions she has seen so far.
There is not a speck of dust as it is continuously maintained, but the chairs and sacred objects for believers are quite worn out.
Sitting on a long chair walking across the floor without even a carpet adorning the floor, she looks down at her chair, frowning her eyebrows as if she is bothered by the creaking sound.
“Today, there are two people from the academy who came to experience our church with interest. Although they did not become priests, there are none who are not brothers and sisters under the leadership of Rutera, so please welcome them with an open mind.”
The director, who had been making a lot of noise until now, stands at the church and introduces Lai and Abigail with a benevolent smile.
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Abigail didn’t like the priests who looked at her with innocent faces, so she didn’t like it, but Rai stood up and greeted them one by one.
“Then let’s offer a prayer of thanks to Ruterra.”
At the words of the director, all the priests put their hands together and start praying.
Abigail, who has never prayed before, follows them and bows her head, secretly speaking to Rai.
“What should I do?”
“I don’t know, it’s my first time.”
Having never prayed before, she thought it was unusual, but when there was another one of the same person, Abigail looked at Rai with blank eyes.
“Just pretend. Or pray for what you want. I’ll have to ask for some holy power.”
“……”
The words are irreverent, but Rai prays like a devout believer.
The light coming through the window shines on him, making him look holy, but he only mumbles the word divine power over and over again.
Abigail raises her head slightly to see the priests silently praying.
Luterianism respects individual prayers and does not recite prayers on behalf of someone else.
After scanning the quiet chapel, Abigail pathetically looks at Rai, who is still muttering his divine power, then bows his head and prays.
But she doesn’t know what to do.
God exists. He has divine power, and sometimes a messenger from God comes down and delivers the word of God.
But she had nothing to do with her.
There were times when she escaped from the pain in front of her and searched for herself, but God was always silent.
She cried so much for help, but God did not appear, and in the end she had to go through her hardships on her own.
Abigail, who has never had help, she doesn’t believe in God.
Gods say they love everyone, but in reality they are just like selfish nobles.
He only gives strength to those who believe in him, boasts, and pretends to be everything.
I love everyone. It is everyone’s hope. Makes everyone happy
Abigail grinds her teeth at the disgusting words that make her vomit.
The sound is so loud that it echoes through the quiet chapel.
Embarrassed, Abigail puts her head down pretending not to know anything. After a while, as the prayer ends, I feel the priests staring at me from afar.
“You can hear the sound of bones breaking when you pray so vigorously. Why don’t you take refuge in Luthera at all?”
The priests laugh as Rai jokes.
The director also accepts Rai’s jokes and says that Rutera-sama listens to everyone’s prayers even if she doesn’t try so hard.
She didn’t like the hahahaha hoho vibe, but she knew Rai that she deliberately lightened her mood with her jokes and she didn’t break the mood.
After the prayer, the director guides the church, but since it is a very poor place, the tour of the small church is over soon, and soon he gets along with the other priests.
“Hello, my name is Marge. Sister Abigail… Huh?! Isn’t it? Shouldn’t she be called Sister?”
Confused between a greeting or a question, Abigail looks down at the little girl tilting her head in front of her.
The child who was troubled with an innocent face that did not know at all that she was a worldly street soon smiled and greeted again.
“Hello, I’m Marge. I’m still an apprentice, but I’m going to work with Rutera by Abigail’s side.”
“Yes… Yes. Please take care of me.”
Abigail tries to speak casually as usual, but changes her words.
She must learn her divine power, so Abigail had to pretend to be calm when Rai asked her not to get into trouble.
You have to experience the life of a priest for a few days. Seeing that she said that she was engaged, it seemed that this little boy would teach him.
She thought Abigail was too young, but she wasn’t interested in religion anyway, so she didn’t care who was around.
“Marge, have you seen Instructor Rai?”
“No, you’re not here.”
Still, as an academy instructor, the church gave Rai the deputy director, but he disappeared.
Worried she might be lost, her deputy heads off to the other side, but Abigail assures her that he must have run away.
The omen already existed.
After the church tour, we ate together with the priests.
Lai, who said he was hungry and had high expectations, was downcast when he received food that was too thin to be called soup.
Whether it was the abbot, the high priest, or the apprentice, Lai sat down to eat just one bowl of thin soup, looking down at the soup with one dead eye.
He must have left the church by now and went to a nearby restaurant.
‘Damn… Take me too.’
I don’t care if you ran away. It wasn’t just Lai who was dissatisfied with the meal.
Academy academy students who use their bodies often eat a lot. A bowl of soup with few ingredients doesn’t even tell the liver.
“Abigail? Are you worried about something?”
“No… No. It’s okay.”
“Please let me know if you have any concerns!”
Marge, who has always been treated as the youngest because she is an apprentice and is young, proudly sticks out her chest and says that she is excited to be able to teach her Abigail.
It’s good to speak with a confident expression, but he’s taking a precarious step as if he wants to look taller.
She giggles as her Abigail catches Marge, who soon loses her balance.
“Abigail is kind.”
This is the first time I’ve heard of it.
When she hears something she has never heard even in her childhood living among mercenaries, Abigail feels strange and separates from Marge.
Even though her face is cold, she doesn’t care or doesn’t notice. Marge guides her Abigail inside with her bright expression.
The two of them are responsible for cleaning.
After collecting the items used for the religious ceremony, Marge rolls up her arms and vigorously wipes off the dust.
Abigail stares at Marge as she wipes her old copper goblet up high, as if to watch closely.
It would be convenient if she just put it on her table and wipe it, but she bothers to put her head up and it looks uncomfortable.
“It’s… Well done.”
“Right? hehehehe- I learned hard from the teacher, no, from Sister Elshara.”
Her compliments were the answer, but Marge smiles brightly and moves her hand faster as she polishes her copper cup.
Judging by the fact that she called the priest her teacher, Marge, who runs her church, is from an orphanage.
Marge misses her copper cup.
She leaves Marge with her eyes wide open in surprise, and Abigail moves her foot to catch the copper goblet that falls to her floor and launch it back into the air.
Abigail snatches her copper cup with ease and hands it to Marge, who accepts her cup with her dazed face and says,
“Lutera-sama is the cup that touches her mouth, but you must not touch it with her feet.”
I got scolded.
Abigail, still upset over her help, frowns at her.
Carefully placing her copper goblet on her table, Marge wipes the area where her feet have touched then turns to Abigail and bends her over.
“Thank you, Abigail.”
After bowing politely, Marge looks up at her Abigail, her round eyes twinkling.
“I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t even say hello. I would have been scolded by the teacher if the glass had fallen. Abigail is my lifesaver.”
She is docile, but when she sees the priests who are too docile, Abigail thinks that it is not enough to save her life.
But Marge keeps clinging to Abigail for saving her life.
Even when she finishes cleaning and goes to another place, she always holds her hand and moves around and chatters constantly.
Abigail, who is annoying but has no excuse to put her down, is led by Marge’s hand and sees Rai getting scolded by her deputy director outside her.
“Instructor! What if you smoke!”
“Uh- wouldn’t it be cool to smoke cigarettes while wearing a priest’s uniform? A scythe and a crossbow would fit perfectly.”
“Where are you going to war? No, you can’t keep smoking things that are bad for you.”
“But when I saw it earlier, everyone was smoking.”
“They are just believers. Now that they are priests, smoking is prohibited as long as they are wearing priestly clothes.”
The deputy director confiscates Lai’s cigarettes and says that he will give them to him when he returns.
As the deputy director, who told her to wait for a while because she will leave her cigarettes, disappears, Abigail and Rai’s eyes meet from a distance.
“Hey- you’ve got a chewing gum.”
Rye laughs as he sees Marge clinging to Abigail.
Then, as if thinking of something, he takes an apple from her arms and gives it to Abigail and Marge.
“Heo Eok- This is the ultimate honey apple!”
“No, I just bought it from a newsstand.”
How innocently she lives. Rai looks on with pity as her Maji’s eyes light up at the apples in her hands.
“Uh- no. I can’t eat something like this by myself.”
“No, isn’t this a gift from Ruterra-sama? Abigail eats, and I eat too. Then we all eat together, right?”
Marge, enchanted by Rai’s words, eats the apple with a happy expression.
Abigail, who was dissatisfied with the amount of food, puts her mouth to the apple without saying a word, and the three of them sit down and eat.
“It’s free.”
Lai said with a tired face as if he was tired already.
He hadn’t been to church for half a day yet, but Abigail was like him.
A life that repeats cleaning, praying, cleaning, and praying cannot be fun.
Instead of finding out about the divine power, something catches Rai’s eyes as if he is about to die of boredom.
The chapel can be seen through the window.
Surprised by Rai’s curious eyes, Abigail follows his gaze into the chapel.
In the corner is a small room barely fit for one or two people.
Rai is watching the confession for the sake of confession with interest.
Abigail, with an ominous smile on her face, looks at him and quietly shakes her head.
“Aren’t you curious about what’s inside?”
“Yes? What is it?”
“I told you inside~”
At Maji’s question, Lai pulls out another apple from her arms and gives it to her.
As Marge, dazzled by the apology, turns her gaze away, Rai climbs over the window and enters the confessional room, saying that she has been away for a while.
Abigail sighs and takes her Marge, who is tapping her belly with a happy expression, and heads off to another place.
Starting from this day, rumors circulated that if you go to confession at Ruteria Church, things will work out, but it is unknown now.