No, How Can an Atheist Become a Saintess!?

No, How Can an Atheist Become a Saintess!? – 33

EP.33

Chapter 3

Faith and Status (7)

Under normal circumstances, there would have been no reason for anyone else to enter the room where only the defense attorney and the Saintess candidate were present.

If anyone had to enter, it would have been just one person, someone to guard the Saintess candidate, Anna—though in reality, there was no rule against others entering.

If either of the two had requested that no one overhear their conversation, the Church would have respected that request. But there had been no such request.

So, it was inevitable that another Saintess candidate, Sophie, who had come to fetch Anna, overheard the conversation. And it was equally unavoidable that she had listened to the entire thing in a daze.

The defense attorney, Choi Soo-bin, had originally been someone who should have been Anna’s reliable ally.

The role of the defense attorney was to scrutinize the qualifications of the Saintess candidate, and thus their job was to find and present even the smallest flaw in the candidate.

In Anna’s case, it was particularly unusual because she openly claimed that she had no faith and did not believe in God. So, the verification process was supposed to be easier this time, quite different from the usual cases.

But—

At least the current atmosphere did not follow that simplicity.

“Alright, let’s think about it this way, Anna.”

For some reason, Choi Soo-bin was trying to convince Anna. Meanwhile, Anna was stiff-faced, countering every argument with a rebuttal.

“Anna, your abilities might not actually be yours.”

“Well, they’re not really my abilities to begin with…”

Upon hearing Choi Soo-bin’s words, Anna reluctantly agreed, but her expression remained stiff.

“Uh… so, essentially, whenever you try to heal people, that power is being channeled through you…”

“Yeah, that’s right. The entity above is using me as a vessel to exert that power.”

“Hold on, Anna. Are you saying that, in the end, what you really mean is that there’s a god-like existence up there?”

“No, I just can’t be sure that the entity above is really a god.”

Anna denied the word “god,” but still didn’t deny the existence of the entity above. In fact, she seemed confused as to why they were even having this discussion. She frowned as though it was strange that anyone would question such a fundamental concept.

Sophie found Anna’s words interesting.

Anna had already told Sophie something similar before. In fact, Sophie had once seriously considered whether she should report Anna to the Inquisition. She even found it strange that the Cardinal hadn’t immediately referred Anna for trial after receiving the letter.

But strangely enough, this unique nun who denied the very concept of God was speaking with an air of confidence, as if she had nothing to be ashamed of in what she was saying.

“The concept of God varies for everyone, doesn’t it?”

Choi Soo-bin spoke cautiously. Noticing that Anna’s demeanor was somewhat rigid, she was careful, but she didn’t back down from her argument.

“So, even though it’s not omnipotent, under the concept of ‘god,’ there are many different kinds of beings. The gods of Greek and Roman mythology are gods, and the gods of Egyptian mythology are gods. Even the spirits referred to in Eastern cultures are considered gods.”

“Yeah, that’s true. So, I believe the word ‘god’ itself is meaningless. What’s the point of calling the entity above a god?”

“Uh…”

“For example, if that entity above is real… and if many people accept it, then all the previous gods become ‘non-gods,’ right? Even if you try to get people to believe that gods from other mythologies are real and should be worshiped, no one would really believe it. There might be some who believe that the god they worshiped has finally come down in that form, but…”

For some reason, Maria—whom Anna called “Ria,” presumably a nickname—had been standing with her arms crossed, silently observing the conversation, until she let out a small laugh.

Anna shot Maria a somewhat irritated glance, but calmly continued to assert her point.

“So, the concept of God, isn’t it a word that could be completely denied? Right now, I’m helping many people, but what if, in the distant future, a situation arises where this concept could be refuted? If the meaning of the word ‘god’ were to be lowered, would we place it back in the realm of spirits, or would we just discard the word ‘god’ entirely?”

Sophie blinked in confusion.

Back then, she had been enraged by Anna’s words, which seemed to deny everything Sophie had believed in. Before that, she had even looked down on the fact that a Saintess candidate would openly reject the existence of God.

But now, as she listened to Anna’s arguments, Sophie started to feel that perhaps Anna had been talking about something entirely different from the beginning.

“In my view, the concept of God isn’t a universal concept to begin with. It’s like the concept of vegetables and fruits. In some countries, a tomato is classified as a vegetable, in others as a fruit, and in some places, neither of those categories fits. If we were to define something above, I think we should do so with a much more objective term than ‘god.’”

“Mm… but Anna, from what you’re saying, it doesn’t seem like you’re denying that entity’s existence. Isn’t this just another way of professing your faith?”

“Well, now I’m curious. What exactly is it that I’m supposed to ‘believe’ in?”

“So, you mean the divine being above, right? According to you, it might not be a god, though.”

“That’s a bit different. I don’t ‘believe’ in the entity above. But I ‘know’ it’s there.”

Sophie blinked again.

With a slightly dazed expression, Sophie’s gaze was briefly drawn to Maria, who was sitting a little further away. Their eyes met, and Maria shrugged, as if silently saying, “See? I told you.”

“Imagine walking down a road and finding a stone in your path. We don’t say we ‘believe’ there’s a stone there. It’s just there. Or when we see a lightning strike, we don’t say we believe lightning struck—we just know it did.”

In other words, Anna was saying that the entity above definitely existed.

She simply didn’t want to call it “God.”

The reason?

The term “God” was far too unstable—a word that could vanish into irrelevance at any moment.

“Hmm.”

At that sound, Sophie turned quickly, startled, and saw the Cardinal had entered the room. It was only then that Sophie realized she hadn’t fully closed the door. Had sound leaked out through the crack?

Several priests had followed the Cardinal into the room, observing the discussion with interest.

The topic had subtly shifted from the earlier focus.

“When you’re in that place, good and evil become irrelevant. To begin with, is healing someone with power considered a good act? Even before healing with divine power, we already knew that ‘healing power’ wasn’t inherently good or evil. In nature, flies and maggots can spread disease, and although they were once considered filthy, their properties were also used for medical purposes.”

“……”

“So, divine power is no different. It’s just the power to heal people. It was never my power to begin with.”

“So, Anna, are you saying… you’re denying all the accomplishments you may have made up until now?”

“At least we agreed on that from the start, didn’t we? I haven’t really done anything significant myself. I just wandered around, unable to control this power, staying by people’s sides. Calling that an accomplishment doesn’t seem right. There are people out there truly risking their lives for the safety of others.”

Anna spoke without a flicker of hesitation in her expression.

“If we’re talking about who took the real risks, Ria would be far more deserving of recognition than me. She’s the one who wielded a sword and fought, and thanks to her, I was able to survive.”

“W-what?!”

At those words, Maria finally showed a rare expression of surprise but quickly masked it when she noticed the surrounding people. Even so, her face turned slightly red, as though embarrassed by the attention now directed at her.

“Well, I can understand why people might want to call it God. If someone who couldn’t be saved by medicine is healed, or someone who might have lost an arm or leg can live without disability, it’s easy to think the entity above is purely good and will always help us—and so, call it God.”

Anna’s voice was calm as she continued.

“But in the end, isn’t that just believing in the power itself? If you call someone who helps you a god, would you also call someone who can harm you a god? Come to think of it, people used to believe smallpox was a god. They feared it, calling it ‘Mama.’ The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, in a way, were also akin to gods.”

The room fell completely silent, though Anna didn’t seem to notice.

“So yes, to be honest, I’m not even sure what people these days mean when they talk about ‘God.’ Are they referring to the white light that heals their wounds? Or to the entity above that simply exists? If you want to argue that God exists, shouldn’t we first establish what exactly that entity is? That’s what I think.”

At this point, Sophie scanned the room and made a realization.

The Cardinal was looking at Anna—the same nun he had met before—but now with entirely different eyes.

It seemed clear that Anna had spent a long time contemplating the concept of God. Perhaps, at the end of her reflections, she had reached some kind of certainty about that entity.

And because of that, maybe she understood God better than anyone else, enabling her to draw on such power.

“…Very well.”

Choi Soo-bin finally spoke, her expression somewhat stiff.

“At the very least, it’s clear we’re not looking at the same thing from the same perspective. In that case…”

Soo-bin exhaled lightly and said, “In that case, what should we call that entity? According to Anna, if we assume its existence, we’ll need some way to refer to it, won’t we?”

At this, Anna broke into a radiant smile.

The room’s attention was entirely on her, and everyone held their breath, waiting for her response.

Finally, Anna spoke.

“Well, we’d need to come up with a proper scientific name first.”

As she spoke, she casually brushed away the faint light that had been falling over her head for some time.

Ah.

If only she hadn’t added that last line, it would have been perfect.

*

“We’d need to come up with a proper scientific name first. Of course, all we know right now is that it exists, but scientists often name hypothetical entities in advance, don’t they?”

That’s right.

When scientists realized there were thirty fundamental particles, they speculated there must be a single particle that constituted them all. Though they had no way of observing it yet, they preemptively named it the prion. Whether or not it truly exists is still unknown, but they made an assumption and proceeded accordingly.

If that’s the case, shouldn’t it be possible to assign a more definitive name to the entity ‘above’ that does exist?

Just as humans are categorized as animals under the name Homo sapiens sapiens, couldn’t the entity people call God be given a scientific name and studied accordingly?

I was quite pleased with my own thoughts as I turned toward Ria, only to belatedly notice there were far more people in the room than I had remembered.

“…Oh.”

And then I felt the oppressively cold atmosphere.

Only Ria, sitting far away, seemed to be barely holding back her laughter.