Chapter 73: The Divine Secret Only God Knows
Her drill-like twintails swaying, she proudly crossed her arms and continued her explanation in a refined manner.
“The gods are always watching over us, their blessed children, wherever we are. Like a father and mother cherishing their child, like a grandfather and grandmother rejoicing in their grandchild’s growth. And sometimes, like a friend learning and playing together. It seems that in your local church, the god is worshiped as a male deity, but it’s only natural that the form of the god changes depending on the region!”
“I see… By the way, you are…?”
When I asked, the girl’s eyes widened, and she bowed her head, saying, “My apologies!”
“I am Rosalie Saint. Just a humble nun, you see.”
“A humble nun…”
Her hairstyle seems a bit too assertive for that… Well, we should introduce ourselves too.
“I’m Hugh Pnosis. This is Rogue Vect.”
“Nice to meet you, Rosalie-san.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you as well. From what I can see, you two are students of the Royal Academy, are you not? I have always admired the Royal Academy! Due to various circumstances, I was unable to enroll, but I would love to hear about it! If you don’t mind, would you allow me to guide you through this Grand Cathedral?”
“Well, let’s see…”
What should we do? I asked Rogue with a look.
“I think it’s rare to have a nun guide us through the Grand Cathedral. It might be good for Hugh’s studies too, so why not?”
“I guess so. Then, Rosalie, please take care of us.”
“Understood!”
I’ll keep it a secret that I was secretly hoping we could have some alone time since it’s supposed to be a date.
“Then, first, I will explain the reason why this Grand Cathedral was built.”
In the year 610 of the Divine Blessing Calendar, an agreement was made between the then King Leese and the Divine Blessing Church Pope… Rosalie began to explain, as if reading from a textbook, without looking at anything, as she guided us around.
As expected of a nun, it seems Rosalie has memorized all the information about this Grand Cathedral.
A little while ago, I wouldn’t have understood a word of what she was saying. But recently, I’ve been focusing on studying history, especially with Rogue’s help. Thanks to that, I can understand about 40% of Rosalie’s explanation.
“I see.”
“Hugh, are you really understanding Rosalie-san’s explanation?”
“Yeah, of course. I get it, I get it.”
“Really?”
I quickly averted my gaze from Rogue, who was looking at me with suspicion. What I saw was a decorative relief engraved on the wall. Each one seemed to depict a scene. It somehow looked familiar, like I knew it…
“Those are reliefs depicting scenes from the Sacred Scripture, where the gods bestow Skills upon people,” Rosalie immediately explained to me, who had stopped out of curiosity.
“Oh, I see. That’s why it looked familiar.”
“Well, it seems that Hugh-sama has read the Sacred Scripture! What a wonderful mindset!”
“No, I just read it a little to kill time.”
“Even so. Recently, many people come here just for sightseeing without reading the Sacred Scripture. Well, it’s not that it’s bad…”
Rosalie muttered, as if she had various thoughts. This is probably a case where religion has become too ingrained in daily life, and conversely, the number of devout believers has decreased.
“Even so, the gods don’t look the same in any of them, do they? I thought it was normal, but it’s strange when you actually see them side by side,” Rogue said, putting a hand to her chin while comparing the reliefs.
Indeed, since they are all scenes of people receiving Skills from the gods, there are gods and kneeling people, but the people who are not kneeling… that is, the appearance of the gods, was completely different in each relief.
As Rosalie said earlier, some reliefs depicted a male figure, while others depicted an old woman. This is quite interesting.
“Come to think of it, the voice of the god I heard when I received my Skill was a male voice. Was it the same for you two?”
“Hmm, for me, it was the voice of a little girl.”
“In my case, it was the voice of a dandy old man.”
“So, the voices people hear are completely different. That’s kind of…”
“Kind of what? What’s wrong, Hugh?”
“Ah, no… It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“?”
Rogue and Rosalie tilted their heads at me, who had hesitated and then brushed it off. That was close. I almost said, “It’s like there are multiple gods?” I’m really glad I’ve been careful about my words after everything that’s happened lately.
Is it because my previous life was Japanese that I have such thoughts…?
The Divine Blessing Church is a monotheistic religion. If I were to mention a polytheistic suspicion in their Grand Cathedral, I might be burned at the stake in a religious trial. …Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but at the very least, I would be looked at with disdain.
If that were to happen, I would feel bad for Rosalie, who had kindly offered to guide us… I should seal this thought away.
According to my current plan, the main heroines will be fixed at three until the end.
Rosalie is in the same sub-heroine category as Alissa and Merry…!