Chapter 43
Today’s breakfast was cereal. Ian was spooning it into his mouth while watching TV.
[A recent wave of kidnappings involving both men and women has been sweeping the Seoul metropolitan area. No common link has been found among the victims, and the authorities are intensively investigating the case while working to ensure public safety—]
Ding.
As he watched the news, a message suddenly arrived on his phone. Ian chewed on his cereal as he checked it.
[Sister: Ian, have you been doing well lately?]
“Kheup!”
The nun’s sudden message caught him so off guard that his throat closed up. He coughed again and again, his nose stinging, then washed it down with a gulp of cereal milk before quickly typing out a reply.
[Me: I’m doing fine. How about you, Sister? Are you well?]
He called her Sister, but she wasn’t actually a sister of the same Catholic order.
In the first place, Ian wasn’t religious. He had never truly followed or served a god in his life.
For him, Sister was simply the orphanage teacher from his childhood and a devout Catholic. If anything, she was like a mother figure; dig a little deeper, though, and the relationship wasn’t really even that close.
She wasn’t exactly an awkward person, but she wasn’t someone he was close to either. Even normally, he rarely contacted her except to send greetings on holidays.
That was why he was a little flustered. This was the first time he’d ever received a message from her first, out of nowhere.
It seemed something had happened.
‘Did she get tangled up with something supernatural? Or is this really just a simple greeting? Could one of the other former residents have caused some kind of trouble?’
He couldn’t tell. Ian set aside the cereal he’d been eating and waited quietly for a reply.
[Sister: I’m doing well too, thanks to God’s help. I’m not sick or anything.]
A little later, Sister’s reply came back. Sitting down, he tapped at his phone keyboard.
[Me: That’s good to hear. More importantly, did something happen? You’re suddenly contacting me out of the blue.]
[Sister: Hmm, something did. It’s just not a big deal.]
[Me: What is it? Please feel free to tell me.]
[Sister: Heh, as I thought, you’re the only one who’d say that, Ian. The others all ignored my messages.]
After saying that, Sister paused for a moment before sending another text.
[Sister: Could you come by our orphanage for a bit?]
*
The orphanage where Ian had lived was a tiny church a little way from Incheon Airport. There was a cathedral nearby, so there were quite a few parishioners who came to visit, but it wasn’t an area with much foot traffic.
So life there had been fairly quiet. The church was peaceful, and living there wasn’t bad except for how dull it was.
‘Whenever we fought with the other kids, Sister would always rush over to stop us and scold us.’
Now they were all memories of the past. Ian smiled faintly as he got out of the taxi and walked along the street near the orphanage.
Each familiar sight brought old memories back to the surface. There were good memories and bad ones, but looking back, it seemed he’d lived pretty comfortably for an orphan. He wasn’t treated unfairly, and neither Sister nor the parish priest ever hit him either...
No, was that just how things were supposed to be in the first place?
Ian gave a wry smile and went into a nearby fried chicken restaurant, ordering enough chicken for everyone at the orphanage.
If he’d tried this back then, it would have been an expense he couldn’t even imagine, but now it hardly made a dent.
“Thank you. Your order for 20 chickens has been confirmed, and it’ll be delivered to the address you requested!”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Yes, please come again!”
Jingle.
After finishing the order, he stepped outside. He bought a few packs of cigarettes at a convenience store, then headed toward the church, whose silhouette was just beginning to come into view.
The grounds were small. Children who were seeing the outside of the orphanage and the church building for the first time were running around. Behind them, an elderly nun with deeply wrinkled skin came walking out.
“Kids, you can’t run. Walk slowly.”
“Yes, Sister!”
Following her words, the children stopped running and walked off somewhere. After keeping them under control, the old nun spotted Ian coming up the path and widened her eyes.
“......Ian?”
“Yes.”
Ian smiled and bowed his head to her.
“It’s been a while, Sister. Have you been well?”
“I have. Goodness, you’ve gotten so big. This is the first time I’ve seen you since you moved out on your own, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. I’ve been living separately since high school.”
“Thinking about that time still gives me a headache. You saved up a little money from part-time jobs and then immediately moved out on your own. I worried about you so much.”
Ian smiled awkwardly. The nun assigned the oldest orphan to watch over the other children, then went into the church with Ian.
After passing through the familiar prayer room and entering a small room, the nun asked Ian to sit down. Ian took the empty seat and had a sip of the tea she handed him.
Though calling it tea was a stretch, since it was just a store-bought barley tea.
The two of them exchanged brief pleasantries, then got straight to the point.
“The reason I called you today is because I was hoping you could go to the hospital for a bit.”
“The hospital?”
When Ian asked with a slight frown, the nun nodded.
“There’s a child who was hospitalized after falling very ill a while ago, and today happens to be the day for the progress report. I usually visit every day, but today I have an important religious event, so it’ll be a bit difficult. I was looking for someone to go in my place.”
“Ah... so you sent messages to the other former residents too?”
“That’s right. You know, the only people I know are basically my fellow brothers and sisters in the faith. But they have to attend the event with me too, so there was no one else I could leave it to. Aside from the independent children, whom I can at least call acquaintances, there was no one I could trust and rely on.”
“Hmm...”
“But aside from you, none of them answered my messages. Honestly...”
The nun grumbled as she sipped her barley tea. After thinking for a moment, Ian nodded.
“It doesn’t sound like a difficult request. Am I supposed to stay with them until the event is over, or can I just hear the progress report and leave?”
“It’d be better if you stayed, but it’s fine if you just hear the report and leave. We can’t have it taking up too much time.”
“I don’t have any other plans today, so that’s fine. Then I’ll stay at the hospital until the event is over.”
For now, Ian intended to focus only on magic and take a break from anything related to the supernatural. And now that he had quite a bit of money, he had more than enough room to take it easy for a day.
“Would you? Thank you. I’ll finish as quickly as I can, so please bear with it a little—”
Just as the nun was finishing her response, the door flew open and someone burst inside. Ian turned his head to check the identity of the uninvited guest.
A girl with waist-length blond hair and languid purple eyes. A small girl wearing a thick coat blinked at the two people sitting in the room.
“Who?”
Broken Korean burst from her lips. The nun gave a polite bow to the girl who had appeared so suddenly.
“This is a child I looked after for a short while when she was little. I called her here because I have a small favor to ask.”
This time the nun spoke fluent Italian. Ian widened his eyes; he had never imagined she could speak Italian, while the girl stared at the nun and chewed on her lip.
“What favor is it?”
“There’s a child who was recently hospitalized, and I’d like you to look after them just until our event is over. It’s nothing you need to worry about, Sister.”
“Ah... then I’ll go there too. In order to carry out the Vatican’s mission, I can’t be tied down by an event.”
“What? No, that won’t do. Even if you’re a nun from the Vatican, you have to take part in the event. Even in a foreign country like this, we have to offer prayers to Him.”
“I can do that separately. I’ll also offer prayers later when I do penance, so I’ll skip this event. God will understand. I have a mission that matters more than anything else.”
“......Were you here from the start just to say you’d skip the event?”
“Yes. I’m skipping it.”
She said that, then turned to Ian without waiting for the nun’s reply.
“I’m Cecilia Capone. What’s your name?”
Cecilia asked in awkward Korean. Ian answered with a sheepish expression.
“Shin Ian.”
“Ian. Good name. It means a gift from God. Nice.”
Not knowing what exactly was nice about it, Ian bowed his head in thanks and turned his gaze to the nun.
“......What exactly is she?”
“......She’s a nun sent from the Vatican to investigate Korean churches. I’m not really sure why they’re investigating, but she has the Holy See’s certification, so I’m just letting it go.”
“The Vatican? Why is someone from there at the orphanage?”
“She was originally at the cathedral. But she kept insisting on prayers and making us attend services, so I moved her quarters here. She’s a rather forceful person, but then again, she’s also genuinely faithful, which is... sigh.”
The nun let out a deep sigh and looked at Ian.
“It seems we’ll have to go together after all. Is that okay? Even now, it’s fine if you just leave her here and go take care of your own business.”
“Hmm... I’m fine. It’s been a while since I came all the way out here, and I don’t have anything else scheduled. I’d be happy enough if there’s someone to talk to.”
He said that, but Ian’s mind was already turning cold.
Ian also knew almost nothing about the Vatican. It was mentioned extremely rarely in the online community, and there wasn’t much known about it. He only knew that they opposed the supernatural; beyond that, he didn’t know much.
Maybe this trip would be a good chance to learn more about them. There was also a chance they’d clash someday, so there was no harm in finding out in advance.
‘Let’s keep the fact that I’m a mage hidden and just get whatever I can out of them.’
Ian gave Cecilia a small smile as he thought that.
“Please take care of me, Sister Cecilia.”
“Just leave it to me. I’m strong.”
Cecilia thumped her flat chest with a confident expression.
Clink.
Her cross necklace swayed, making a clear chime.