The World I Was Supporting Was Real - Chapter 84



84: This Sister Will Tell You Everything.

“Karen… Noona?”

“Yes, Your Highness. Did you call for me?”

“Noona? Is it really Noona…?”

Ares pinched his cheek, wondering if this was a dream.

The sharp sting told him, this was no dream.

The one he’d wanted to see again, even in his dreams… was standing before him.

“You’ve gotten so thin, Your Highness…”

“No, th-that, that’s… no! I, I’m fine! So, um—”

“It seems like you both have a lot to say, why don’t we go inside and talk calmly?”

Only after hearing that did he realize he’d been stammering, unable to even form a proper sentence –

His head hung low, his face flushed red as he quietly answered.

“…Okay.”

Just.

Just, after such a short time together.

The time apart was double, no, even more than the time they had spent together.

Why is it, that just seeing her face again- is enough to turn my mind into such a mess?

In a situation where even thinking straight was difficult, Ares somehow began to grasp the situation.

Karen noona coming here means- was it proof that the gods had heard his prayers?

Or maybe… Did the Saint have some hidden agenda in sending his sister to him at this exact moment?

Actually, whatever the reason might be.

At least for this moment right now- he didn’t care about any of it.

* * *

Shudder.

His hand held the tray shook uncontrollably, and at the same time, the teapot rested on top rattled and clattered as if an earthquake had struck.

Karen didn’t laugh, nor did she look worried- she simply waited.

“I… here you go, Noona.”

Ares carefully served the tea.

He’d never been this nervous with anyone…

If people saw the prince so flustered in front of a mere nun, they’d surely be unable to hide their surprise.

From noble mtl dot com

“So, um… this, it’s… um… Assam mixed with Darjeeling–”

“Isn’t it Cal Bayan Breakfast?”

“Huh? Ah… yes, it is.”

“It’s a black tea blended with Assam and Darjeeling in a 6 to 4 ratio. And it has dried orange peels from Cal Bayan added. It’s a good tea; “It helps calm the mind!”

Ridiculously, seeing Karen say exactly what he was about to, Ares relaxed once more and finally smiled.

“You knew, too, Sister! You’re right. I don’t have a lot of the orange peels left, so it’s a tea I’m saving… but you were here, so I made it! If I’d known you were so knowledgeable about tea, I would have offered it to you sooner.”

Ares playfully said that she really knew everything –

Karen, though she was certainly smiling – spoke with a voice that felt slightly cold.

“That’s right. I… know everything that the Prince likes.”

“…!”

To Ares, she used rather blunt language.

“Sister…”

“For now, would you please sit down?”

Ares did as he was told, sitting across from her.

The tremors in his body had calmed somewhat from drinking the tea… but her last words were still nagging at him.

Truthfully.

The biggest reason it was bothering him was because, though he’t dared say it out loud first, he felt like he knew the context of why she’d said those words –

“Your Highness.”

“Yes.”

Ares was, carefully, preparing to face the truth.

“First, I’m sorry for deceiving you, Your Highness. I’m not an ordinary nun. Perhaps you’ve heard the story from the Saint, so you roughly know, don’t you?”

“……I know.”

The reason Sister Karen was here—because the Saint sent her.

In other words, he’d already realized quite some time ago that she was someone sent for the purpose of persuading him to believe in religion.

Even so, he just wanted to see her again.

“The board games, the tea… I know everything you like, everything you’re interested in. Do you know the reason?”

So, here—

Even if she were to say things like, ‘I’m a commoner sent by the Saint, not a nun, and I’ve been ordered to persuade you by thoroughly learning your tastes,’ or, ‘As a nun directly serving the Saint , I came to you this time for persuasion,’ he wouldn’t think of scolding her, not at all.

It’s okay. Even so, the fact that she was kind to him, that she didn’t disregard his hobbies and spent time with him—that wouldn’t disappear.

Rather, he wanted to say that he was truly sorry, that he didn’t need to treat her so coldly at the end—that’s what he wanted to say.

“I am.”

Ares, blinded by Karen, had temporarily forgotten something.

Religious people, starting with their divine power pouches—

“This is a straightforward fact, that God Iggogodeon sent to Prince Ares.”

“……Pardon?”

“God’s love for Ares… a straightforward fact. And I am the embodiment of that.”

—That they were people who only spouted completely incomprehensible things.

* * *

“So, then…”

Ares, re-organized the explanation he’d just heard from Karen once again.

“Karen-noona, is a being made of the God’s ‘plain facts’… and the reason you vanished for a while wasn’t because of orders from the Saintess or whatever, but because those plain facts were all used up?”

“That’s right.”

It was exactly the same, word for word, as what the Saintess Erin had told him.

Not some figurative meaning… but literally, the plain facts of God itself.

Then what is she?

The person breathing right in front of my eyes… what the hell is she?

“Then… sister, I mean, Karen-noona… what is your identity?”

“So, first of all… a person, right…?”

“…”

Karen carefully confessed her true identity to Ares.

“If I had to put it into words… I’m a messenger of God. Although, I can’t say that’s completely accurate.”

“If you’re a messenger of God, does that mean you were sent by the One who resides in the heavens, Igwogwon?”

“I suppose so. Of course, if you were to ask whether that’s a person, the shell may be called a person—”

—but in the end, I am a fabricated being.

To persuade Prince Ares, I gained a shell that the Prince would be inclined to like, a being programmed with the Prince’s preferences.

Ares didn’t answer and stared at his already cold teacup for a long time.

Now that he knew Karen’s true identity, what he felt was… even a feeling of tranquility, almost.

Initially, the fact she’d tricked him held no further resentment.

Simply.

His head was slightly numb, faced with a reality a normal human couldn’t even conceive.

“…….”

Ares, who had always observed the miracles displayed by the religious world—

He thought that even showing hallucinations to others could somehow be accomplished through the wonders of white magic.

He also considered that the demon king, who had appeared in the process of cooperating with demons, could easily be something the church had prepared.

Records about demonic energy were also last made 200 years ago. That ‘demonic energy had changed’ was something that couldn’t be 100% guaranteed unless one went back in time.

Therefore, even in the face of countless miracles, he fundamentally did not believe in the existence of a god.

The saying, ‘Saint Erin is likely God,’ was closer to a sarcasm, a roundabout way of saying that God does not exist.

He merely estimated that Erin’s ‘divine power’ was incredibly high even compared to past saints, and that everything was a miracle she had achieved – part of the white magic she used.

But.

After listening to Karen’s story… now, he couldn’t possibly doubt the existence of a god.

God existed. The Iguoguo-deon that the religious people, the saint, his mother cried out for so desperately, truly existed.

If it had been the usual Ares, he would have naturally thought, ‘Karen-noona is lying to me’, but…

Despite the unbelievable story, Ares could tell that she wasn’t lying to him.

Anyway.

If all of that wasn’t a lie, if she was truly a messenger of God who had concretized the ‘unvarnished facts’ of God—there was a question he couldn’t ask.

“Then, did God hear my prayers?”

“When you say prayers…”

“I prayed… I prayed to be able to see Sister, Karen-noona, again, to have you share some plain facts with me. And, you came to me like this…”

“……”

Karen paused, lost in thought.

“Actually, God was going to answer that prayer.”

“……Huh?”

“You see, the reason I first came to see Ares-nim was to tame Ares-nim. If Ares-nim had a change of heart and prayed to believe in God, even now, He was going to grant it.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t really understand. Isn’t the fact that Karen-noona is here proof that God answered my prayer?”

“It’s not necessarily that simple.”

Karen shook her head, a slightly forlorn look on her face—

“I’ll be honest with you, Your Highness. This is the last time I will see you.”

“……Huh?”

“Once the period given to me to deliver God’s true will to you passes… I will part with you and I won’t appear before you again.”

—She confessed that their meeting was temporary.

“Karen-noona…?”

“Your Highness. Why do you think I appeared here again?”

“Well… I thought it was because you answered my prayer, but you’re saying it’s not that.”

“That’s right. But I am a messenger of God. A being who cannot exist in the world without the plain facts infused with God’s love. I probably would have disappeared again.”

“You, Your Highness, would have been beside yourself and prayed to God again to see me, and God would have answered… that kind of scenario would have unfolded. You might have been so consumed by me that you could have fallen into “a state that others might find foolish.”

“……!”

“But, in the very, very end—God, having witnessed you desperately praying to see me, did not do that.”

That moment.

Karen reached out, and with a *thud*, grasped Ares’s pale white hand.

Ares flinched slightly, but didn’t pull away from Karen’s touch.

…Warm.

To touch a hand, to feel this much body heat.

The sensation of his pale sister’s hand, even the clear feeling of her soul just beyond her skin.

Are you really… really not a human, sister?

“The reason I told you everything, including my true nature and that I will leave someday. The true will of the only god, Yguguodon. It is—”

* * *

[ Yguguodon: (Donation / ₩10,000 / Pre-charged three sets of ₩3,000, ₩1,000 is a bonus ) ]

[ Yguguodon: I’ll tell you what to do from now on ]

[ Yguguodon: Let’s graduate Ares from his own closed-off world ]

[ Yguguodon: So he can live well without needing a suppressor like Karen ]

* * *

“—to graduate Ares-nim!”

“Graduate…you say?”

“Yes!”

Unlike Ares, who tilted his head, puzzled by the sudden, unexpected word, Karen once again wore a smile like sunshine.

She plunged her existence deep into the prince’s eyes, like a blue ocean.

“Graduating from a revolutionary who doesn’t love humans, and becoming a revolutionary who does!”

“!!!”

At the words that he didn’t love humans, Ares’ eyes went wide, pupils rolling back.

Me?

I don’t love humans?

I, who wouldn’t even hesitate to sacrifice myself for a path for everyone…?

Honestly, I don’t really know on what basis they’re saying that…

But right now, thinking deeply about that is impossible, because Karen’s smiling face, filling Ares’ vision, is too beautiful.

“So that Your Highness can graduate safely according to God’s will, this big sister will teach you everything by your side!”

* * *

From that day on.

For Ares, days as bright as starlight, perhaps the most glittering in his life, began.