No, How Can an Atheist Become a Saintess!?

No, How Can an Atheist Become a Saintess!? – 19

EP.19

Chapter 2

Encounters and Opportunities (6)

In truth, I had my own plan.

I knew that Lee Si-yoon would visit the cathedral at some point. After being healed by the saintess, he would set a flag, and that flag would continue far into the future.

Despite this, I decided to stay for about one to two years because I believed I could avoid that flag.

And I managed to avoid it quite elegantly.

Isn’t that right? I wasn’t the saintess to begin with. While I was still a candidate, I hadn’t risen to the position of saintess as in the main story, nor did I have the privileges of a saintess.

Roaming freely outside the convent? Impossible. Entering gates with weapons? Absolutely impossible. Institutional barriers meant that my means of getting involved with the protagonist were somewhat blocked.

And since I didn’t go to meet Lee Si-yoon, Ria, who usually followed me as the saintess’s guard, couldn’t follow him either. This meant one heroine’s flag was uprooted, and another was half-broken.

It’s a pity I couldn’t completely break all the flags beside him, but at least the most dangerous flag, which some irrational readers who ignored literary devices insisted was the closest to the saintess, was broken.

As long as we wouldn’t get entangled with each other for good, there wouldn’t be a significant problem for me. In the story, the most fiercely clashing heroines were five in total: the saintess, Lee Chae-eun, the childhood friend, the daughter of the Hunter Association’s president, and the artisan who processed monster materials. However, among these, the most threatening ones were only the saintess and Lee Chae-eun.

The president’s daughter was just a rather half-hearted heroine who popped up claiming she wanted the handsome Lee Si-yoon. She did help the protagonist become a hunter at the start, but that was about it; her overall dialogue was quite off-putting, so she wasn’t very popular.

As for the artisan… one could say she was just filling a quota. She had originally held the significance of mere air.

Of course, there were many other women the protagonist would save, and there were often mentions of him having fallen for them, but they were all just extras appearing in a single episode.

“Heh, heh heh heh…”

Indeed.

The beginning was slightly tangled up more than I expected, and I hadn’t encountered the right timing, but overall, the situation was rolling along according to my wishes.

“Did you eat something bad?”

I let out a laugh while having breakfast. Ria, who was sitting right in front of me, asked with an incredulous expression, prompting me to quickly clear my throat.

I looked at Ria with a bit of pity.

Seeing her like this, did she look a bit pitiful?

It was clear that she had developed some interest in Lee Si-yoon, even if it wasn’t a case of falling in love at first sight, given how often she asked me for my opinion about him.

Wasn’t this a bit late for a crush? It was typical for such interest to be expressed in that way during that time.

But what could I do?

As a nun, she had to be here. Moreover, Ria was here because she was following me, so if I didn’t go out, she would have to stay by my side.

Ugh, thinking about it like this made my conscience hurt a little.

But what could I do? Just imagining Lee Si-yoon standing next to Ria put me in a foul mood.

…..

Ah, that’s not what I meant.

As she changed her expressions while looking at me, Ria quietly raised her right index finger.

“Eek.”

I flinched at that and pressed my elbows tightly against my sides, and only then did Ria, with a satisfied expression, dip her bread into the cream soup again.

This was a bit infuriating.

Seeing Ria eat her bread elegantly with a relaxed expression, I also dipped my bread into the soup somewhat roughly, causing my plate to shake and soup to splatter all over my nun’s attire.

“Ugh.”

I gritted my teeth while glaring at Ria, who couldn’t hold back her laughter at my state.

Fine.

Today, I was going to make sure to win in training—

*

—I lost again.

Yes, that’s right. It was as expected.

Thinking I could defeat someone who had swung a sword their entire life with just a month of training was a ridiculous thought.

While divine power was something I could loosely use since it was connected to entity above, the skill earned through lifelong training belonged entirely to oneself. If one could catch up with just a little bit of training, it wouldn’t even be called ‘skill.’

Ugh, as I thought about divine power, a light entered my face, and I waved my hands to scatter it away.

“Alright, that’s enough for today.”

Ria said this as she returned the practice sword to its sheath at her waist.

“Um, that’s it?”

I blinked in surprise at her unexpected words, and Ria nodded.

“Yeah. Let’s just leave it at that for today.”

“I feel like we’ve only trained about half as much as yesterday.”

“Well, even so, we’ve been working hard for about two weeks now. Your stamina has improved a lot compared to the beginning, and you’ve also gotten the hang of holding the shield.”

But even so, I could still only manage to hold the shield’s grip with both hands and brace myself. Ria hadn’t been using all her strength to swing the sword at me either.

I narrowed my eyes and looked at Ria.

“…Are you trying to be considerate?”

“Considerate?”

“Is it because of the time I fainted after using divine power at the end of training?”

“…You’re quite perceptive at times.”

Ria shrugged her shoulders and sighed deeply as she responded.

“If I were being considerate, there wouldn’t be a need for it, right? After all, the patients who come here don’t even number a few each year.”

“But one more came after almost a month.”

“Well, even so, it’s not like patients come regularly, right? And even if something similar to last time happened, it wouldn’t be a big deal for me—”

However, seeing Ria frown at my words made me quickly close my mouth.

“What if you suddenly fall over and no one is there to catch you? If you hit your head first, it could be serious!”

“Well, Ria would be right next to me at that time, wouldn’t you?”

“…Huh.”

Ria looked a bit dazed at my words.

Oh no, was my logic too sound?

But it wasn’t that I was saying something I didn’t mean. After all, Ria was really here because of me—acting as my guard.

If a guard is right next to me, and the saintess candidate trips and hits her head, isn’t that a problem for the guard?

Feeling that Ria had gone a bit silent, I shrugged my shoulders and walked over to lean the shield against the convent wall.

“Whew.”

Then I wiped the sweat from my forehead.

Having entered the army training center in midwinter in my previous life, I knew very well that no matter how cold the weather was, one could end up drenched in sweat if they moved around vigorously.

However, it wasn’t midwinter anymore; it was slowly approaching April. The sun was beginning to warm up, so I could get even more tired than last month.

“Well, fine. I should listen to the expert.”

Only after I said that did Ria nod her head.

The two of us took a short break before picking up our training weapons and heading to the storage room.

“By the way, you.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t you really want to become a saintess?”

“…Why are you asking that all of a sudden?”

I answered, deadpan, and Ria rolled her eyes.

“Well, if you become a saintess, you could go outside more often.”

“I’m planning to stay here for another year to avoid the outside world. If I become a nun, I might not be able to leave the convent ever again.”

There was the stalker issue, but once that problem was resolved, I would give up the position without regret. I hadn’t decided what to do afterward, though.

“If you go outside now, you could meet that Lee Si-yoon guy, right? He’s a hunter, after all.”

“…”

At that remark, my eyes naturally narrowed.

Ah, now I understood for some reason.

She was testing the waters.

It didn’t seem like she had completely fallen for him yet, but if she had developed some interest in a guy, it would make sense that she would want to see his face often. I too… well, it wasn’t quite my first love, but I had been interested in someone in a similar way before.

In the end, I hadn’t managed to say a word to that person.

…But that wasn’t what was important right now.

“I don’t plan on becoming a saintess, you know? If you want to go out, you can go alone. A nun can quit anytime.”

“Hey, when did I say I wanted to quit?”

Taking it as a suggestion to stop her bodyguard duty, Ria replied in a somewhat hurt voice. It was true; once a nun quit, there was no coming back. Such standards made children from the convent seriously contemplate whether they wanted to remain nuns for life.

Well, did she at least think of me as a friend?

“I was just saying.”

After I said that, Ria sighed deeply.

Seeing her look was like watching a childish little kid, which didn’t make me feel great, but I decided to let it go this time.

*

Then, a few days later, about a week after Lee Si-yoon was discharged—

“A notice has arrived from the National Hunter Association.”

Ria and I were suddenly summoned to the counseling room.

Not the counseling room in the convent, but the one in the church headquarters.

In other words, it was a meeting with the priest.

In that counseling room were not only the priest and the Mother Superior but also several unfamiliar faces. Most of them were dressed in proper suits, but their expressions were all very distinctive.

There were many people with large scars on their faces.

…Now that I think about it, hunters often leave their scars untreated because they consider them badges of honor.

“Apparently, the hunters who have been treated at this church have recommended Sister Anna.”

As the Mother Superior summarized the official notice she had pushed towards me—

[There is an urgent gate that needs to be dealt with in the middle of Seoul. However, this gate has not disappeared for over six weeks. Inside, there seems to lurk a monster more vicious than any we have seen before.]

And that monster was likely the very one that had caused Lee Si-yoon’s condition about a week ago.

“They don’t mean for you to enter the gate.”

The Mother Superior said with a serious expression.

“It means that you want me to treat the hunters near the gate.”

I finished her sentence and closed my eyes.

“Anna.”

Ria called my name from beside me.

Was she trying to say it was dangerous?

But—

“…If I don’t go, many people will probably be put in danger, right?”

…Right.

It appeared that the incident involving Lee Si-yoon and the saintess was far from over.  And it seemed that the one who owed their life to the saintess at that time was not just Lee Si-yoon.