Chapter 17
-Heehee.
By then, a rich scent of flowers was wafting through the chapel.
At that point, no matter how much I denied it, there was only one being that could come to mind.
“The Goddess of Flowers…”
-Correct!
“…or something impersonating the Goddess of Flowers.”
-Huh?
Common sense told me there was no way a goddess would appear.
It was more plausible to assume it was something impersonating the Goddess of Flowers, or that I was hearing a hallucinated voice.
‘If I can't even detect or dispel it, it must be at least A rank.’
To make matters worse, my rank had currently fallen to roughly B rank from maintaining the Gallery.
Considering that it didn't register on my senses, it was only reasonable to assume it was at least A rank.
-But I'm the real thing, though?
The voice reacted as though my negative conclusion were absurd.
“Then do you have any proof that you're real?”
-Uh, the flower scent..?
There certainly was a strong scent of flowers filling the chapel.
But a scent couldn't serve as proof.
“With a single bottle of perfume, I could create plenty of evidence.”
-It's not evidence you can't believe, is it?
“That doesn't mean it's evidence I can believe, either.”
-…
At my firm reply, the voice fell silent for a moment as though at a loss for words.
-Then how about this?
At that moment, the voice spoke as though it had just thought of a brilliant idea.
-Since it's unpleasant to look at a statue modeled after me lying broken..
Then something sprouted from the remains of the goddess statue sprawled across the floor.
‘A sprout?’
The thing I had thought was a sprout grew in an instant, transformed into a vine, and bloomed with yellow and white flowers.
The flower-covered vine wrapped around the broken statue in an instant.
The vines burrowed into the cracks and tightly intertwined with one another, joining the broken statue back into one piece.
-Ta-da!
…
Unlike the voice's playful exclamation, I couldn't bring myself to laugh.
‘..The energy is similar to Priest Margaret's, though the density and texture are different.’
But if Margaret's energy was a small ember, what I sensed from the flowers was something far deeper and denser.
After silently staring at the goddess statue for a while, I leaned back against a pew.
I was craving a cigarette, even though I had quit.
“I had my suspicions, but..”
-Hmm?
“The day I finally receive divine punishment has come.”
-Huh?
I closed my eyes and voiced my true feelings.
“If possible, I'd appreciate it if you killed me in one painless blow.”
Yet no bolt of lightning fell, no matter how long I waited.
-Puhahaha!
Instead, only a clear, childlike laugh echoed throughout the chapel.
-That's so funny, really!
With those words, the voice could no longer be heard.
‘Is it leaving me alone?’
If so, that was a relief.
When I opened the eyes I had closed in relief, the goddess statue wrapped in vines came into view.
It was still lying down, but at least its separated upper and lower halves had been joined together.
“..If you were going to do it anyway, it would've been nicer if you'd stood it up before leaving.”
In the end, I had to buff myself again and stand the statue upright.
Unlike before, the weight I had to lift had nearly doubled now that the upper and lower halves were joined, but the effort required wasn't much different since I only had to stand it up and didn't need to worry about the person trapped beneath it.
“The workers might faint when they come.”
I muttered as I looked at the goddess statue standing once more.
These were people who had been terrified of even touching a single broken goddess statue.
If they saw that same statue restored and wrapped in flower vines overnight, it was obvious what their reaction would be.
“Wow.”
Just then, an exclamation of wonder came from behind me.
“It's truly a beautiful statue of Lady Iris.”
It was Priest Malja.
Priest Malja seemed to have come looking for me because I had been gone for so long.
Priest Malja had entered the chapel and was looking up at the standing goddess statue.
The priest's eyes were sparkling, so the statue seemed to be quite appealing.
“But when I was handing out the stew earlier, I don't think it was wearing a dress like this. How fascinating. It looks like real flowers..”
Because they were real flowers.
But I didn't bother saying so.
There was no point; it would only make explaining things more difficult.
‘By the way, can't Priest Malja sense the energy clinging to the goddess statue?’
I was puzzled by Priest Malja's perfectly ordinary reaction, but soon understood.
Come to think of it, even in this sprawling city, Margaret was the only priest who could use miracles directly.
So it wasn't unusual that the priest couldn't sense the energy.
“But where did the workers go?”
“..They seemed to have worked hard, so I sent them home early.”
There was no need to tell Priest Malja that the goddess statue had been shattered, so I made up a suitable excuse.
As expected, Priest Malja hadn't suspected that I might be lying; the priest simply nodded in understanding.
“It looks like all the work will be finished by tomorrow.”
In the meantime, I looked around the chapel.
A few things still needed to be tidied up, but most of the major construction was already complete.
Once the workers came tomorrow and finished up, the church would effectively be complete.
“Then we'll be able to hold services with the believers soon!”
I nodded, though I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about Priest Malja's excited remark.
‘I wonder if anyone will bother coming here when they have the familiar Earth Church, but I should prepare anyway.’
I briefly calculated the possible time slots in my head.
‘Considering my commute to and from the clinic, is dawn or evening the only option?’
Neither time was appealing, but if I had to choose, early dawn seemed the more suitable option.
It was then that the voice spoke again.
-If possible, I prefer early evening to dawn or morning.
…
After being quiet for a while, the voice casually butted in.
-Dawn makes me sleepy.
I glanced at Priest Malja.
Apparently, the priest hadn't heard anything and was still grinning as the goddess statue was admired.
It seemed that I was the only one who could hear the voice.
“..Now that I think about it, evening would be better for worship. I have work at the clinic, after all.”
-Heehee.
I absolutely hadn't chosen the service time based on someone else's preferences.
...
Before I knew it, evening was almost upon us as I passed the time in a daze.
‘I did say I'd do the cooking.’
But now that I was actually about to start cooking, I couldn't think of what to make.
‘There are plenty of ingredients, but I still don't know what to do with them.’
I stared at the ingredients spread across the table.
Thanks to the market merchants' goodwill, there were more than enough ingredients.
The problem was that there were so many ingredients that I couldn't figure out what to make.
Once I sorted out what I did and didn't have, a rough list of dishes came to mind, and I was finally able to settle on a menu.
‘Since there's butter, I can mince the meat and make something like tteokgalbi, then fry a few eggs in the leftover fat.’
Of course, the tteokgalbi would be for Priest Malja.
A fried egg or two and some bread would be enough for me.
Once I had decided on the dishes, my hands began moving at once.
-You seem pretty practiced.
Perhaps it had been watching me, because the voice spoke again.
“I've watched people cook quite a lot.”
-Hee.
-But why is there so little meat? There's only enough for one person.
“Because I don't eat meat.”
-Why?
The question came back immediately.
“I just stopped eating it.”
-Why did you stop eating it?
“It's just a matter of preference. Not everyone likes meat.”
-So did you dislike it from the beginning?
“Something like that.”
-Really?
The voice clung to each answer like a child.
-Is that really the reason?
My hands paused as I cooked.
“If you keep badgering me with questions, I'll run away just like this and convert.”
The voice didn't seem inclined to strike me with divine punishment anyway.
So I decided to take a slightly bolder gamble.
-Ah, you can't do that!
It worked perfectly.
The voice backed off immediately.
“Then stop asking. It's annoying.”
-Okay..
-But even so, I'm the Goddess of Flowers you believe in..
Ignoring the dejected voice, I placed the completed tteokgalbi mixture into the frying pan.
Sizzle-
An appetizing sizzle spread from the pan coated in butter.
After covering it to keep the oil from splattering, I lowered the heat a little.
-That looks delicious..
The voice that had sounded dejected moments ago revived as if nothing had happened.
“..Don't you eat food where you are?”
-I do eat.
“Then why are you reacting like this?”
-It's just nectar and ambrosia over here. I eat the same thing every day..
‘That place isn't easy either.’
Even delicious food would become tiresome if you ate it every day.
Whether it was even all right to call divine food ordinary food was another matter.
-At least when I lived with my mom, lots of tasty offerings were brought up, so that was nice.
“Even gods become independent.”
-Yeah, though it's only been about a thousand years.
I clicked my tongue at the staggering number.
-Compared to that, flowers are completely useless as offerings since you can't eat them.
The goddess continued listing her complaints about offerings, but by now I had grown accustomed to it and let it go in one ear and out the other.
Just as one side of the tteokgalbi was probably turning golden brown, I was about to flip it and cook the other side.
Along with the sound of someone swallowing, the goddess suddenly made a proposal.
-So you should give me some food as an offering.
-Then I'll make you my true priest.