Today.
Pure white snowflakes fell from the sky.
A thin layer of white cotton covered the rocky desert, briefly coloring it white before disappearing as if it had never happened.
Well, it’s a rocky desert because it doesn’t rain much.
I’m out exercising now.
I stopped my running legs and stood on a bumpy rock, quietly looking down.
Even when I say looking down, it’s from an adult male’s eye level. I’m short, so even standing on a rock, this is how it is.
But this is on a hill. If I lower my gaze, I can see the Future Hope Church village below.
This village, which is one of the underground temples, has now grown quite large. Every time I came out, the number of houses increased little by little.
The problem is that as it grew, houses started popping up one by one where my exercise path was.
So these days, instead of flat ground, I’ve been going around the hills that were further away.
What’s interesting is that even if I change like that, the believers all know my exercise route. Moreover, when I look through those who received my blessing, there are many people running on the path I ran during times when I’m not exercising.
It’s probably similar to how people flock to a store a celebrity visited.
“Outer God!”
“Wow, it’s Outer God!”
“Over here, Outer God!”
Children wave their hands at me from quite a distance away.
Yes.
That’s right.
I succeeded.
I can’t handle complex sentences or information yet, but I can make simple words pop up in people’s minds. And it’s not just possible for those who received my blessing, but for most people.
However, I can only do it to mentally very unstable people or children.
In other words, people with little warmth.
I wonder if that’s what the lights close to me are like when looking up from that endless night sky in the cold sea.
But if there’s a problem…
In a place quite far from me.
Hyunkeshuni is hiding in the shadow of a rock, tightly gripping her staff and staring at me. I thought I had gradually gained her favor, but at some point it became like this.
I shouldn’t have used the words ‘outer god’.
It’s obviously strange, isn’t it?
This is my mistake.
If I had used a different word instead of outer god, I could have known right away. But a completely different world’s word would be even stranger, right?
It’s hard to know if it’s possible to pronounce or if the thought will be conveyed properly.
So, outer god.
As a result, the chance to gain Hyunkeshuni’s memories has become more distant.
Hmm.
It’s already in the past.
Rather than obsessing over past events, it’s healthier to think about what to do from now on. Of course, I properly reflected to not make the same mistake again.
Then shall we run one more lap around this area before returning to the room?
I waved to the children waving at me from afar, then started running along the path again.
* * *
A few days later in the evening.
At a time when most people were asleep, someone shook Rebecca Rolfe’s body to wake her up.
So when I opened my eyes, Hyunkeshuni was right in front of me. She was standing over me.
“Hello, Hyunkeshuni.”
“Honestly, that greeting is too artificial. Rebecca.”
Outside the window is full of darkness, and the surroundings are very quiet.
It’s not just quiet, but covered with an ominous aura. Joanna’s ears in the next room can’t hear my and Hyunkeshuni’s voices.
Originally, she can hear. Because Joanna’s ears are extremely sharp.
So even when she’s sleeping, she can hear very small sounds. Occasionally, when I put Rebecca Rolfe to sleep and check the surroundings, I directly felt Joanna gauging my state with her ears.
In other words, the fact that no sound is coming out is due to this ominous aura. Simple logic.
Hyunkeshuni is standing on the bed where Rebecca Rolfe was sleeping, wearing shoes. My old memories are raging furiously for the first time in a long time.
Standing on the bed wearing shoes.
It’s a terrible action, but is it not that strange in this world?
I had a different thought for a moment, but actually, it’s quite a dangerous situation right now.
Because Hyunkeshuni is standing over me, holding her staff and pointing its sharp end at my heart.
“Your complexion doesn’t change at all.”
Well, it’s Rebecca’s body, right? I’m not dying. I’m just returning to my original state. If a game character dies, I might be a little upset, but that’s all.
“Why are you trying to stab me?”
I roughly know what she’s thinking, but I ask first.
“You’re asking because you don’t know? Tell me the word that refers to you in the church now.”
Yes. She’s thinking as I guessed.
“Outer god.”
“That’s a term I coined. Would you like to explain why so many people are calling you that? Hmm? Rebecca.”
She looks somewhat rushed?
As if she’s afraid of something.
No, she’s afraid of me.
But I won’t say anything special. I don’t know how to soothe her anyway, and I don’t think I’m good at speaking.
So just the facts.
“Yes, Hyunkeshuni. Isn’t that the name Hyunkeshuni gave me? So I made them call me that.”
Oh?
It seems Hyunkeshuni’s hair just stood on end. She’s looking down at me with a very chilling expression.
“You made them call you that. But you’ve never said such a thing until now!”
That’s right. I’ve never directly said it even once. How could I speak when someone is watching every time I meet someone?
Let me trim the sentence to make it easier to understand, hmm.
I should say it like this.
“Do I have to say it with words?”
The nuance that I can force it without saying it.
Of course, it’s true.
It’s purely true, and it’s natural that I did it because I could. It’s not that I didn’t include malice to make her misunderstand that there was no need to say it from the beginning!
Hyunkeshuni’s staff is trembling.
Blood vessels are bulging on the hand holding the staff. Are you going to stab me?
I’m fine.
On the first day.
I was able to lick the person who attacked me. Even though they attacked with arrows.
In other words, I can lick the target that attacked me. If it happens again this time, I can get Hyunkeshuni’s memories.
I lie on the bed and look up at Hyunkeshuni looking down at me.
She still has a smile all over her face.
Because she’s scared, really scared.
It’s the expression of someone who only knows how to be scared like that. I wonder how deeply skilled at reading faces the people I licked were.
Or maybe those who fall to the bottom experience all those emotions before falling.
“You.”
Hyunkeshuni stopped speaking.
So I waited. It’s not me who’s in a hurry anyway, but Hyunkeshuni. And I don’t want to do something unnecessarily and have her staff stabbed into my chest.
“You’re an outer god that we can’t understand.”
In the end, Hyunkeshuni abandoned understanding.
And she raised her hand holding the staff and just as she was about to stab my chest.
She stopped right before stabbing.
“People close their eyes when they die.”
“I’m not human, Hyunkeshuni.”
If she gave up understanding, it’s to my advantage if she gave up.
Anyway, it doesn’t seem like I’m going to die. I might be a little disappointed.
Hyunkeshuni got off the bed just like that. Since space opened up, I sat up on the bed.
Looking down, I see Hyunkeshuni’s footprints on the bed.
I pat it with my hand to dust it off.
“What are you doing?”
“Who wears shoes on the bed?”
No.
It came out without me knowing. I thought the sensibilities from when I was human were already gone, but to think I couldn’t bear this.
Maybe it remained until now because it was really nothing?
“So you care about your own nest too.”
Hyunkeshuni sneered. But saying nest is too much of an expression for a beast cub.
Well, it’s not wrong.
Hyunkeshuni turned her body away from the bed and looked at me. She has an expression mixed with various emotions – fear, doubt, reproach, and relief.
And she pointed at me with her small index finger.
“No, if you consider that body your nest, you take extremely good care of your nest. You maintain your body by exercising every day.”
That’s true.
During the time from summer to winter, my very small height grew a tiny bit. Still, my height is still short, but taller than Hyunkeshuni.
I sat on the bed and looked around. The surroundings are dyed pitch black. It’s a wall covered with an ominous aura.
“What is this?”
“Magic. It must look crude to you.”
At those words, I shook my head left and right.
“I don’t know about that kind of thing.”
“Are you saying you have something more amazing?”
Hyunkeshuni flared up. She looks like someone who heard ‘You can’t do it’ in a field she’s good at. But I shake my head left and right again.
“I only learned that I could give blessings to someone or convey my will to someone after coming to this world.”
No, maybe. Perhaps?
“Would you teach me that?”
Hyunkeshuni stared at my face then turned her head away with a whoosh. And the black that dyed the wall disappeared, becoming a dark blue smoke.
“No.”
Is it really a technique of the Luminous Theocratic State?
“Isn’t it what Hyunkeshuni knows best?”
Ah, the wall in her heart has come down a bit strangely now.
But in the end, she didn’t say she would teach me.
Not everything goes as planned. So I should be a little mischievous.
“No, what Hyunkeshuni does best is smiling when scared.”
Hyunkeshuni, who had turned her head away, turned back to look at me. She’s looking at me with a very surprised face.
Hehe.
Yes.
I can read your expression.
I lightly held my cheeks with both hands and pretended to smile. I’m not human, so I won’t close my eyes when I die.
“People should smile when they’re happy.”
Hyunkeshuni glared at me, then immediately left the room.