Chapter 22: Surprise Worship (2)

‘Let’s stay calm for now.’

I pressed my hand against my wildly beating heart, trying to soothe myself.

I was momentarily flustered, but rationally speaking, it wasn’t a very dangerous situation.

The person before me was still a frail-looking girl, and ST was just outside the door, ready to burst in if I just yelled.

Considering her reaction speed, the possibility of direct harm to me was almost nonexistent, even if something were to happen.

Thinking so, my racing heart seemed to calm down a bit.

Above all, the child hadn’t directly harmed me yet.

I was just momentarily startled by the utterly unexpected situation.

So, for now…. let’s try to talk.

I cleared my throat with a slight cough.

Then, I asked the girl, who was still staring at me with an uncomfortably intense gaze.

“Why do you say I am your god, Yoanna? And how did you know my name in the first place?”

At my question, the girl smiled brightly.

Behind that seemingly innocent smile, I felt an inexplicable chill.

It couldn’t have been solely due to this dreadful place.

Yoanna tilted her head as if confirming my question.

“Is that what you’re curious about?”

And then, so readily, as if she had been waiting for this moment, she nodded.

“Yes. If you wish, I’ll tell you everything from the beginning. From the very, very beginning.”

===========

My body started to hurt around when I was six.

The doctors mentioned a difficult-to-pronounce illness, but no one could tell me how to get better.

At first, it was just a little weakness in my legs, but it quickly spread throughout my body.

Joseph oppa tried everything for me, but in the end, he couldn’t find a solution anywhere.

So, like a last hope, oppa left me at this church.

There was a place there that looked after children who were sick or had nowhere else to go.

Oppa would leave early every morning and come back when it was dark, and I was looked after by the church sisters all day.

It was a little lonely…. but I never resented it.

Even at such a young age, I knew our siblings had no other choice.

I knew oppa endured everything for me, so I was truly, truly grateful.

But that doesn’t mean church life was enjoyable.

To live here, I absolutely had to listen to the Leader’s teachings and Bible study taught by the sisters.

At first, I really didn’t want to listen to any of it.

I didn’t understand it well either.

God loves everyone, so why am I so sick? If you do bad things, you get punished, so am I a bad child to have gotten this illness?

Only strange thoughts came to mind.

But I couldn’t refuse Bible study just because I disliked it.

The sisters helped me with everything, from eating to going to the bathroom, and if I said I didn’t want to listen, sometimes they wouldn’t give me food.

I couldn’t even cover my ears with my immobile hands.

Listening to it every day like that, my thoughts started to change a bit at some point.

Inwardly, I scoffed, ‘Aish, who would believe this?’, but still, I gradually came to think that there really must be a true God somewhere, or rather, there absolutely had to be.

That was the only way I could live.

The God in the Bible performed miracles and saved good people, especially sick people like me.

But if there was no God in this world…. then I, whom even doctors couldn’t cure, would just have to live my whole life sick like this and then die, right?

Trapped helplessly in this log-like body until my life ended.

I absolutely hated that.

Yes. That’s why God absolutely had to exist in this world.
From that day on, I developed faith in God, but actually, the kind of God I was waiting for wasn’t the kind they talked about at that church.

Even a child can figure it out with a little thought and observation.

The faith the pastors talked about every day, they didn’t even keep it themselves; it was all bad lies for money.

From then on, I didn’t pay any attention to the foolish things the Leader said.

Instead, I decided to search for the ‘true God.’

A savior who could perform real miracles, who could free me from this frustrating prison of flesh.

No, how could I search when I couldn’t even move?

This is the information age!

There’s a place much faster than physically going around to find something.

Cyberspace. There, thankfully, even if you can’t lift a finger, as long as you have a mind that can think freely, you can fly around more freely than anyone.

From that day on, I started net-diving.

Unlike my body, which had to lie motionless in bed, my thoughts could swim freely in the sea of the internet.

And above all, I guess I was pretty good at it.

Once I got into it, I lost track of time.

At first, I just searched for anything and everything I saw.

But the slightly more important stories were all secret or locked by security.

So, I started studying to find out about them.

I learned how to handle systems and how to crack difficult codes.

I don’t know how many years I did that without eating or sleeping.

After all, for me, who couldn’t move, time was all I had.

As I did that…. I became able to secretly access the Leader’s slush fund account and ‘persuade’ a few of the sisters.

Thanks to that, I didn’t have to do annoying Bible study anymore, and I got better dive equipment.

I spent much more time navigating cyberspace.

Now I could even open up some of the city management system’s security.

I was able to find out a few hidden secrets too.

But none of that was fun.

It was all about making money, boring adult stuff.

There was nothing about the ‘God’ I was looking for. So I quit.

Yes, honestly, my goal was a bit far-fetched.

Even I couldn’t just randomly check all the information on the net.

So from then on, I focused on creating a smart program that filtered out only things like ‘real miracles.’

Once I completed that, I could verify this city’s information in a new way.

Not like the haphazard investigations before, but by collecting only truly strange occurrences, weird events, signs of miracles, and such.

So, I wandered and wandered through the sea of information, neither eating nor sleeping.

For thousands of hours, tens of thousands of hours, no, much longer, I thought of only one thing. The existence of the God who would save me.

Sometimes I wondered if I was strange, but I couldn’t stop.

The conviction that a ‘true God’ definitely existed somewhere in this world.

My heart was screaming that it had to be so.

It wasn’t so much a thought from my head, but rather, it felt like the only reason I could live.

And I wasn’t wrong, was I?

Because I met you like this.

Did you know? Omega Detroit is the city with the most CCTVs in the world.

Among those countless eyes, wouldn’t at least one have captured it?

The wondrous moment when a pure soul, unstained by original sin, first set foot on this land.

And all the deeds of a being with divine compassion in human form, secretly sharing goodwill with the sick and injured.

You don’t know how overwhelmed I felt watching.

Because you were exactly the savior I had believed in without a doubt.

My heart fluttered so much that I couldn’t sleep for days.

Is this feeling… perhaps love?

But along with joy, my impatience grew steadily.

The savior I was looking for was right there, seemingly within reach….

Yet the ones being saved were others, and I, who had been praying so earnestly all this time, was still trapped in this filthy, disgusting prison of flesh.
Of course, I never doubted that your mercy would reach me someday.

But I couldn’t just wait indefinitely for that turn, for when that would be.

I wanted to greet God even a single day sooner and escape this suffering.

So, I gave a little nudge.

I guided Karen and her daughter, whom Pastor Meyer was ‘working on,’ to you.

I thought that with your good heart, which I had observed so far, you definitely wouldn’t be able to ignore them.

And just as I predicted, here we are, able to meet like this!

I’m truly sorry if I offended you.

But this heart of mine, which yearned so unbearably to welcome you even a little sooner…. could you please understand?

Oh, and…. that greedy old Leader and those bad men under him? I’ve tidied them up cleanly too. They would only be a hindrance in welcoming you, the ‘true God.’

Leaving only those who most purely yearn for salvation….

Right now, there are exactly 144 believers remaining on the upper floor of this building.

They are all clean souls who, with the same faith as mine, earnestly desire your salvation.

Yes, all of us have lived for this moment, to serve you.

So, it’s a pleasure to meet you for the first time. I have been waiting for your advent all along.

Our God.

============

‘Wait a minute…. Then, could it be….’

During Yoanna’s story, which was fitting together like a puzzle, there was one part that bothered me.

Setting aside other things for now, her words that she herself had ‘tidied up’ the Leader.

I asked in a trembling voice.

“Did you… intentionally trigger Joseph’s Cybernetic Rage?”

Yoanna, still gripping my wrist, smiled enigmatically.

“Well, what do you think?”

A chill ran down my spine at the girl’s playfully questioning demeanor.

Yoanna, observing my expression, then chuckled lightly and waved her hand.

“Aish, I’m kidding. He’s still my only family. There’s no way I’d do something like that.”

She was smiling as she said it, but her eyes were not smiling at all.

“However…. I did think that if oppa saw that medicine, he would take revenge on the Leader and executives who deceived him and his sister. Of course, he should, right? The true God has arrived, so we can’t just leave those who defile God’s name right before our eyes.”

Not a hint of guilt could be felt in her calm voice.

She continued, as if she had merely anticipated a natural outcome.

“Of course, I didn’t know oppa would lose his reason to that extent and kill all the other believers too. Anything beyond that…. well, shall we call it an unforeseen accident.”

Having said that, she smiled chillingly once more.

“But, perhaps it was inevitable.”

“….Inevitable?”

When I asked back, she nodded as if it were obvious.

Her white cheeks were flushed even redder, perhaps due to excitement.

“Yes. I gave them many chances.”

There was no longer any hesitation in her voice.

Instead, a fanatical atmosphere, a conviction that she was right, could be felt.

“I told them countless times that the ‘true God,’ not a false prophet, would soon arrive, and that they should prepare to welcome Him.

But they didn’t listen to my story.

They were just worthless chaff who remained by the side of a foolish liar until the end, turning away

from the truth before their eyes.”

Her eyes, which had shown a momentary coldness while thinking of someone, instantly transformed into fervor and adoration when she looked at me.

“But we are different. We knew who we truly had to believe in, the one who would save us.”

An expression of utter ecstasy bloomed on her flushed cheeks.

“Now, I don’t wish for any reward. True faith is a blessing in itself. I simply hope that you will use us freely as your tools…. and achieve whatever you desire in the future.”

Finishing her words, Yoanna, still holding my wrist, slowly knelt on the spot.

Her emaciated body, having descended from the wheelchair, bowing on the cold floor, looked precarious, but her eyes burned more intensely than ever.

She bowed her head at my feet and whispered reverently.

“I will offer everything I have, no, all of us, to you.”

As if it were the most natural thing in the world, there wasn’t a shred of hesitation in her voice.

“Therefore, my God, please allow us to serve you.”

A suffocating silence filled the room for a moment.

In the face of the fervor emanating from that fanatical vow, I found myself asking back without thinking.

“Why…. me?”

“……….”

Yoanna slowly raised her head.

In the girl’s eyes, instead of the fanatical atmosphere that had been there moments before, an expression of utter, almost pure-looking bewilderment appeared.

“….Eh?”