LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 149
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Saintess Lizbel realized the strangeness of her powers at a very young age. It was around the time she was reporting her ability as Clairvoyance.
To be precise, it wasn’t her intention for her powers to be labeled as Clairvoyance.
“Look here. What is this?”
“…Spade A.”
“And this?”
“Heart 8.”
“Clairvoyance.”
The examiner checking her powers was quite the embodiment of monotony and showed little interest in the ability of what appeared to be an ordinary little girl.
So, after hastily stamping Lizbel’s ability as Clairvoyance, he just registered it.
Of course, Lizbel was puzzled by that.
‘Clairvoyance? It’s not Clairvoyance…’
Lizbel thought so as she casually glanced up at the sky. Not just the ceiling, but beyond that. She was gazing at something so far away it couldn’t be expressed merely as up or down.
There lay a big, cute puppy sleeping. To be exact, it definitely wasn’t a puppy, but at least Lizbel’s brain recognized it as one.
As if thinking to borrow the puppy’s eyes, she genuinely did just that. She could see the world from an angle that was neither above nor below, but something indescribable.
Not only that, she could borrow the puppy’s strength, its barks, or even enough fur to make a coat. Really, she borrowed an awful lot of things. Every time, that being, visible only to her, wagged its tail as if it was annoyed, but didn’t push her away.
It was like a slightly annoying uncle who doesn’t want to play but keeps giving you an allowance. Lizbel spent her life playing with the power of this being.
“Go die—! You brat!”
“Huh, huh?!”
One day, she was ambushed by a classmate. The reason was that the boy she liked liked her because she was always gazing at strange places and giggling.
As she watched the girl charging at her with murderous intent while unleashing her powers, Lizbel inadvertently used her abilities, realizing for the first time that her powers could significantly affect reality.
The female student, who had been charging at her with the intent to kill, suddenly stopped and wrapped her arms around Lizbel with a lovely expression.
“Lizbel—! What are you doing? We promised to go play together!”
“Uh, yeah…?”
“Huh? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
She realized that this was the result of a change in reality according to her wish.
In other words, the being looking down on her from a higher space-time had brought about this ‘worldline’ change.
It took her a long time to understand that.
Of course, the sudden change in the girl made the other students suspicious and led to a report to the Hero Association… but Lizbel wasn’t arrested over this incident.
The ability registered in the database was merely Clairvoyance, and there were no signs of hypnotic or brainwashing reactions from the transformed female student.
“─No problem. Be careful on your way back.”
“Yes, yes…”
From this point on, Lizbel began to change little by little. She used her powers for personal gain, to make her friends’ loves come true, and to save people.
However, there were limitations to using them for personal reasons. Being so young, she didn’t know how to make money like crazy. More than anything, if she caught multiple strokes of luck in that manner, people would misunderstand it as her abusing her superpower.
Of course, she solved that by applying a worldline that wouldn’t raise suspicions… but she realized the weakness of her powers.
Unlikely success leads to great risk. If she dreamed of winning the lottery without buying a ticket, even if she did win, it would lead to finding a winning lottery ticket that someone else dropped on the street.
“Uh… I found this…”
“Huh? Ah, yes. It’s a lottery ticket?”
“Yes. But… it’s the winning one…”
Of course, she returned that found ticket to its rightful owner, and that incident made the news. People dressed her up as a good student, a high school girl with an angel’s heart.
[How on earth did you come up with such an idea? There were no CCTV cameras, and if you had just kept quiet, that ticket could have been yours without anyone finding out.]
“Ah, I just did what I had to do.”
[I see! Amazing! It’s rare to find a high school girl like an angel in today’s world!]
After finishing the interview, Lizbel returned home and skimmed through the countless stories and comments about herself online. People dressed her up as a good student, a high school girl with an angel’s heart.
Reading those comments, Lizbel realized the path she should take.
That’s right.
She wanted to become—someone who helps others and has a rewarding job, even if it means touching a lot of money.
In other words, she dreamt of becoming a Saintess!
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“Shouldn’t we just kill her once?”
“…Huh?”
I let out a chuckle at Six, who casually suggested murder. When I looked at her as if asking if she was serious, Six shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “What’s the problem?”
“If you’re looking at her, she’s a dangerous individual, right? Much scarier than those S-Class villains who caused the universal apocalypse or the ice age, or terrorized the city?”
“Wait, do you remember all that?”
“Huh? Didn’t you leave it on purpose?”
Listening to Six, I belatedly realized that our members had taken drugs to recognize Six, thus each acquiring their unique ‘world.’
Even if I changed the perception of the world, those with their firm worlds wouldn’t be affected by it. Specifically, their perception would change, but they would remember the original world.
‘Now that I think about it, our members would all remember that world of destruction…’
Now I understood why Six had become so desensitized to human life. While I hadn’t experienced it, it was a world where people had lost their morals and ethics, running rampant. If someone had seen that world, it would be understandable for them to become a bit malevolent.
Of course, understanding and empathy were entirely different issues.
“But killing isn’t the answer…”
“Why not? It seems the safest option— if we’d just left that satellite laser from earlier, she would’ve died, right?”
“We can’t be sure if it would have killed her, and why would we mercilessly kill someone who’s being calm?”
If we were to take it seriously, if we killed the Saintess just because we thought she seemed dangerous…
Even if we succeeded, it would still be a problem. What if the being we thought was an extraordinary entity stopped managing their cult or suddenly went on a rampage? And if it caused irreparable damage to this world?
Someone might erase the fact that someone died, but no one could bring the dead back to life. It would be an incredibly unethical act. Surely, if Boss found out, we’d be in big trouble.
And what if we succeeded? That would be a problem too.
‘We have to maintain the line…’
I don’t want to become someone who just kills others because I think they seem dangerous. Even if the Saintess is a villain brainwashing people into donating. That kind of crime isn’t enough to deserve death. Not in this world, nor on Earth.
There are so many reasons not to kill, but the only reason to do so is my worry. Not killing her is more rational and more reasonable.
“So what will you do? Just shiver in here forever?”
“First of all, this isn’t a room; it’s my laboratory, and I’m not shivering…”
“Oh, I thought it smelled like an old man, so I thought it was a room.”
As I watched Six holding her nose while saying that, I casually lifted my sleeve to sniff. It didn’t really smell like anything…
But as a delicate man in my twenties, I couldn’t just sit quietly after being told that by a woman. I naturally stood up, sprayed some fabric odor eliminator around, and sat down again.
“If only your powers worked properly, we wouldn’t have to worry about this.”
“…Are you saying that I did something wrong?”
“Ah, I didn’t mean that. Just that it’s a bit disappointing.”
“Right, since I got called in during my vacation, I guess it’s my fault for not doing it right?”
“…No, that wasn’t the intention.”
As I was calming Six down, the door to the laboratory suddenly swung open. I thought it was Galm, but it was a woman I had never met before.
Well, to be precise, she wasn’t someone I had never seen before.
With shining pink hair and distinctive religious attire.
“Ah, this is the right place.”
“─How?”
“I followed the guidance of that person.”
And with her enormous chest that made all those characteristics fade away.
The Saintess had come.
“Nice to meet you, intruders.”
She greeted us with gleaming eyes and a friendly wave.
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