Breakfast that morning was cereal. Ian ate spoonfuls of cereal as he watched TV.
[Recently, kidnapping incidents targeting both men and women have been rampant in the capital region. No commonalities have been found among the victims, and authorities are intensively investigating the incidents and working to ensure the safety of citizens—]
*Ding.*
As he was watching the news, a message suddenly arrived on his phone. Ian checked it while chewing his cereal.
[Sister: Ian, how have you been lately?]
“Kuh—!”
At the Sister’s out-of-the-blue message, his throat slammed shut. Coughs burst from his windpipe as he choked, and his nostrils stung. He gulped down the cereal milk to wet his throat, then immediately tapped away at the keyboard to send a reply.
[Me: I’ve been doing fine. What about you, Sister? Are you well?]
He called her Sister, but she wasn’t exactly a fellow Catholic nun.
To begin with, Ian had no religion. He had never sincerely followed or served a god in his life.
To him, the Sister was simply a teacher from the orphanage where he had spent his childhood and a devout Catholic. If pressed, she was something like a mother, but if one dug any deeper, an ambiguous relationship not quite at that level.
She wasn’t particularly awkward, but she wasn’t close, either. Normally, aside from holiday greetings, he rarely reached out to her.
So he was rather flustered. It was the first time she had contacted him first on such an ordinary day.
It seemed something had happened.
*Did she get involved with the supernatural? Or is it really just a greeting? Did one of the other graduates cause some trouble?*
He couldn’t tell. Ian left the cereal he had been eating as it was and waited quietly for her reply.
[Sister: Thanks to the Lord, I’m doing well too. Nothing particularly hurts.]
Shortly after, the Sister’s answer came back. He sat down and tapped on his phone keyboard.
[Me: That’s a relief. But what happened? You suddenly reached out.]
[Sister: Hmm, something did come up. It’s just not a big deal.]
[Me: What is it? Please tell me comfortably.]
[Sister: Hehe, as expected, you’re the only one who says that. The other children all ignored my messages.]
The Sister said that, paused for a moment, then sent another message.
[Sister: Could you perhaps come by our orphanage for a moment?]
*
The orphanage where Ian had lived was a small church located slightly far from Incheon Airport. There was a cathedral nearby, so quite a few believers came to visit, but it wasn’t an area with heavy foot traffic.
So it had been fairly quiet. The church was peaceful, and life there hadn’t been bad, save for the monotony.
*Whenever I fought with the other orphans, the Sister would always rush over to break it up and scold us.*
Now they were all memories of the past. Ian smiled faintly, got out of the taxi, and walked the streets near the orphanage.
Each familiar scenery he passed revived old memories. There were good ones and bad ones, but looking back now, he felt he had lived in relative abundance for an orphan. He hadn’t faced any discrimination, nor had he been beaten by the Sister or the head priest…
No, come to think of it, wasn’t that only natural?
Ian smiled bitterly, entered a nearby fried chicken restaurant, and ordered enough chicken for everyone at the orphanage.
It was an expense he couldn’t have dreamed of before, but now it was nothing.
“Thank you. That’s twenty chickens confirmed, and we’ll deliver them to the requested address!”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Yes, please come again next time!”
*Jingle.*
After placing the order, he stepped outside. He bought a few packs of cigarettes at a convenience store and began walking toward the church, its silhouette slowly coming into view.
It was a small plot of land. Children ran around outside the orphanage-cum-church building, which was flanked by a garden, looking like they were seeing it all for the first time. Behind them, an old nun wrinkled with age walked out.
“Children, you mustn’t run. Walk slowly.”
“Yes, Sister!”
Following her words, the children stopped running and walked off somewhere. As the old nun was keeping them in line, she spotted Ian coming up the path and her eyes went wide.
“…Ian?”
“Yes.”
Ian smiled and bowed his head toward her.
“It’s been a while, Sister. Have you been well?”
“I’ve been well. Oh my, you’ve grown so much. Isn’t this the first time I’ve seen your face since you moved out?”
“That’s right. I’ve lived on my own since high school.”
“My, just thinking about that time gives me a headache. To think you’d move out right away just because you’d saved some money from part-time jobs. I worried so much about you.”
Ian smiled awkwardly. The nun entrusted the remaining children to the oldest orphan and entered the church with him.
Passing the familiar chapel, they entered a small room, where she offered him a seat. Ian sat in the empty spot and took a sip of the tea she handed him.
Not that it was anything more than a store-bought barley tea bag.
The two exchanged brief pleasantries and quickly got to the main point.
“The reason I called you today is that I need you to go to the hospital for a bit.”
“The hospital?”
Ian asked, slightly furrowing his brow, and the nun shook her head.
“There’s a child who was hospitalized not long ago after falling very ill, and today happens to be the day for the progress report. I usually visit every day, but there’s an important religious event today, so it seems difficult. That’s why I was looking for someone to go in my stead.”
“Ah… so that’s why you sent messages to the other graduates too?”
“That’s right. You know that the only people I know are my fellow brothers and sisters. But they have to participate in the event with me, so I had no one to leave it with. Other than the children who’d moved out, whom I could say I have some connection with, there was no one else I could trust or rely on.”
“Hmm…”
“But aside from you, no one answered. Honestly…”
The nun grumbled and sipped her barley tea. Ian thought for a moment, then nodded.
“It’s not a difficult request. Do I have to stay with the child until the event ends, or can I just hear the progress report and leave?”
“If possible, it would be nice if you stayed, but it’s fine if you just hear the report and leave. I can’t take up too much of your time.”
“I don’t have any plans today anyway, so it’s fine. Then I’ll stay at the hospital until the event ends.”
Ian had been planning to focus solely on magic for the time being and take a break from matters related to the supernatural. He had made quite a bit of money, so he could easily afford to spend a day lightly.
“Will you? Thank you. I’ll finish up as quickly as I can, so just bear with it a litt—”
Just as the nun’s response to Ian’s answer was continuing, the door burst open and someone came in. Ian turned his head to check the identity of the intruder.
Waist-length blonde hair and listlessly relaxed violet eyes. A girl of petite build wearing a thick coat blinked at the two people sitting in the room.
“Who?”
Clumsy Korean tumbled from her lips. The nun politely bowed her head at the girl who had appeared so suddenly.
“This is a child I looked after briefly when he was young. I called him here to ask something of him.”
This time, the nun spoke in fluent Italian. Ian, who hadn’t known the nun could speak Italian, opened his eyes wide, while the girl stared back, chewing her lips.
“What is the request?”
“There is a child who was recently hospitalized. The request is to look after him briefly until our event ends. It is nothing you need to concern yourself with, Sister.”
“Ah… then I’ll go that way too. To carry out the Vatican’s mission, I cannot be tied down by an event.”
“Huh? No, that won’t do. No matter what, if you are a nun from the Vatican, you must attend the event. Even in a foreign country, you must offer prayers to the Lord.”
“I can do that separately. I will offer prayers while repenting later, so I will skip this event. God will understand. I have a mission more important than anything else.”
“…Could it be that you came here intending to skip the event from the very beginning?”
“Yes. I’ll skip it?”
Having said so, without waiting for the nun’s answer, she turned to look at Ian.
“I am Cecilia Capone. Name, what is it?”
Cecilia asked in awkward Korean. Ian gave her his name with a reluctant expression.
“I’m Sin Ian.”
“Ian. Good name. It means God’s gift. Nice.”
He wasn’t sure what was nice about it, but Ian bowed his head in thanks and shifted his gaze to the nun.
“…What does she do?”
“…They say she’s a nun sent by the Vatican to investigate Korean churches. I don’t know why they insist on investigating, but she’s been certified by the Holy See, so I’m just going along with it.”
“The Vatican? Why would someone from there be at an orphanage?”
“She was originally at the cathedral. But she kept urging prayers and demanding attendance at Mass, so I moved her here. She’s an obstinate person, yet she does have faith, which is… *sigh*.”
The nun let out a deep sigh and looked at Ian.
“It seems you’ll have to go together. Is that alright? Even now, you can leave it to her and go about your own business if you’d like.”
“Hmm… I’m fine. It’s been a while since I came all the way here, and I don’t have any other plans. If there’s someone to talk to, all the better for me.”
Though he spoke thus, Ian’s mind was turning coldly.
Ian knew almost nothing about what kind of place the Vatican was. It had been mentioned extremely rarely on the forums, and there wasn’t much known information. He only knew that they opposed the supernatural; beyond that, he didn’t know much.
Perhaps this excursion would be a good opportunity to find out more about them. There was no guarantee they wouldn’t clash someday, so there was no harm in gathering information in advance.
*I’ll hide the fact that I’m a magician and just take what I can get.*
Ian thought so and beamed a bright smile toward Cecilia.
“I’m counting on you, Sister Cecilia.”
“Just trust me. I strong.”
*Jingle.*
Her cross necklace shook with a clear sound.