Ch.77. Punk City and the Human Boy

It’s snowing.

According to the weather forecast, it will snow frequently this winter.

When the news anchor said we could look forward to a White Christmas, Sonia jumped around in excitement.

She loves when it snows.

It was proof of her innocence.

Amon’s soul was too old to enjoy snow, having had to shovel it since getting his ID card, in the military, at work, and at home.

However, Christmas was a magical word that excited even his aged soul.

Though he pretended otherwise, Amon looked forward to Christmas just as much as Sonia did.

‘Already Christmas, huh.’

Christmas in this world was no different from his previous life.

Streets decorated with Christmas trees, adults giving gifts to children, various events being held.

The only difference was that the person born on Christmas wasn’t the son of God, but the daughter of the Goddess.

Everything else was exactly the same.

While thinking about this, Amon headed to his room’s drawer.

He wanted to prepare envelopes of money for the upcoming Christmas.

‘This one’s for offerings, this for Sonia’s gift, this for the orphanage director…’

Amon transferred money into envelopes.

His only income came from running errands and government support in the form of allowance.

But since Amon was such an ascetic person, he barely spent anything.

Thanks to that, the amount he’d saved over a year was quite substantial.

Amon nodded with satisfaction as he wrote notes on the envelopes.

Hand cream for the orphanage director, toner for Sonia, a lighter for old man Johnson who had helped him often, and so on.

Though his year’s savings would be depleted in an instant, Amon was truly happy in this moment.

The very fact that he had the means to give to others felt like a blessing to him.

Finally, after setting aside an offering of gratitude for the Goddess, Amon locked his drawer.

Then he left his room to go to the sword training hall with Sonia in the afternoon.

Murmuring voices

When he came out, the orphanage was in commotion.

“Huh?”

Wondering what was happening, he turned toward where people were gathering.

The nuns were controlling the children with serious expressions.

Younger nuns were sending children back to their rooms, while more experienced nuns formed a circle as if surrounding something.

A translucent barrier spread along the circle the nuns had created.

Seeing this, Amon quickly understood the situation.

‘Looks like some kid got possessed.’

Children at the orphanage getting possessed by ghosts wasn’t particularly rare.

Being located right next to the red-light district, the orphanage was a perfect gathering place for the spirits of abandoned babies.

As a result, possession incidents happened about once a year.

The fortunate thing was that infant spirits weren’t particularly strong, so the nuns could usually subdue them.

Amon tilted his head, curious to see who the protagonist of this possession incident was.

Through gaps between the nuns’ barrier, he could see inside the circle.

It didn’t take long to identify the culprits.

“My goodness… I knew these boys would cause trouble someday.”

It was Jimmy and his friends.

A nun standing nearby gave a wry smile at Amon’s muttered comment.

Even to them, this possession seemed largely self-inflicted.

The objects the boys were clutching were fetishes sent by wandering spirits to possess children at the orphanage.

These fetishes were mixed in with Black Friday gifts, but most were screened by the nuns and sent to storage.

While the nuns could seal or block spirits, they needed specialists for exorcism, so they planned to deal with them all at once later.

However, Jimmy and his friends had deliberately broken into the storage and even torn off the seals to get these fetishes.

For the nuns who had worked hard to sort these objects, the phrase “you reap what you sow” naturally came to mind.

They wanted to mock the boys, but as nuns who needed to care for children with love, they expressed their feelings with wry smiles instead.

Amon joined them with his own wry smile.

Meanwhile, the subjects of the nuns’ and Amon’s silent criticism were repeating nonsense in a dazed state inside the barrier.

“Hehe… my precious…”

Jimmy lovingly hugged and stroked a black vase.

The other friends showed similar symptoms.

Seeing their condition, the Mother Superior made her diagnosis.

“They’re still in the entranced stage. It doesn’t seem to be complete possession yet, so let’s try to wake them first, and if that fails, put them in isolation.”

With 30 years of running the orphanage, this situation wasn’t particularly special to the Mother Superior who had experienced all kinds of possessions.

She calmly sprinkled salt and holy water on the entranced children.

Fortunately, some children regained their senses.

But not Jimmy.

While the other children had taken only one object each from storage, Jimmy had stuffed them under both arms.

This meant he was entranced by multiple wandering spirits.

Because of this, he was too deeply entranced for salt or holy water to work.

The Mother Superior looked at Jimmy with concern.

“Jimmy…”

Though it was still just entrancement, entrancement was merely the groundwork for possession.

If not resolved in time, possession was inevitable, so the Mother Superior made a cold judgment.

“We have no choice. Let’s put him in isolation.”

Once possession begins, things get a bit tiresome.

Though an infant’s spirit isn’t particularly threatening in terms of spiritual power, Jimmy was a boy going through puberty.

In terms of pure physical strength, he was somewhat difficult for the nuns to handle.

So it was much better for their safety to throw him into isolation while he was still half-conscious.

Following the Mother Superior’s order, the nuns threw Jimmy into a room.

Jimmy was left alone in an empty room designed to be unopenable from inside.

After taking one last look at Jimmy through the closing door, the Mother Superior locked it.

“The exorcist will come the day after tomorrow, so please make sure the children don’t touch this lock. And I’ll give you instructions for special situations.”

The nuns noted the Mother Superior’s detailed instructions.

Right after,

Bang!

Jimmy pounded hard on the isolation room door.

[Mommy-! Mommyyy-!!!]

Jimmy shouted in a voice mixed with a baby’s cry.

The nuns were relieved, saying they would have been exhausted if they’d been any later.

Meanwhile, Jimmy’s voice changed again.

In an eerie bass voice, Jimmy shouted as if scratching his throat.

[Sister-in-law!! You shouldn’t do this to me! Why did you do this to me!!]

The nuns recoiled in horror at the creepy voice and moved away from the isolation room.

Unlike the other nuns, the Mother Superior didn’t flinch.

Instead, she made the sign of the cross toward Jimmy’s room and offered a prayer.

May salvation come to that child.

***

That evening.

Amon rustled around before throwing off his blanket and sitting up abruptly.

“Ah… maybe I drank too much cola.”

Rubbing his messy hair, Amon got out of bed.

Though it was pitch black, his body easily found his slippers, remembering the layout of the room he’d lived in all his life.

Dragging his slippers, he headed to the bathroom, guided by the soft corridor lights.

Unfortunately, the path to the bathroom required passing by the isolation room.

Amon yawned and bowed slightly to the nuns guarding the isolation room.

There was no response.

The nun on guard duty had fallen asleep sitting up.

Seeing this didn’t particularly bother him.

It was hard to call her negligent when her fatigue was so understandable.

Between entertaining guests, waking entranced children, and standing guard duty, it was too harsh.

Besides, the isolation room wasn’t flimsy enough to require a nun’s guard.

According to the Mother Superior, even if a bomb went off inside the isolation room, it wouldn’t budge.

Looking at the thickness of the iron door, it seemed to be made of armor plating suitable for an armored vehicle.

‘Where did they get something like this?’

The more he learned, the more curious Amon became about the Mother Superior’s identity.

Anyway, since the room was practically a vault, there was no chance of Jimmy escaping even if the nun dozed off.

Amon bowed slightly to the sleeping nun and continued on his way to the bathroom.

Trickle trickle

After comfortably relieving himself, Amon headed back to his room.

On the way, he passed by the isolation room again.

The nun was still dozing.

Amon gave another bow that wouldn’t be acknowledged and continued on his way.

That’s when a voice came from inside the room.

“Amon. Is that you?”

It was Jimmy.

It was Jimmy’s pure voice, without the dissonance typical of possessed people.

Amon stopped and turned toward the door.

Somehow knowing it was him, Jimmy spoke to Amon from the other side of the door.

“I’m not possessed anymore. I’m hungry, could you open the door?”

“…”

“I couldn’t eat dinner, so I’m starving. I could eat a whole cow.”

Amon’s eyes narrowed.

Then he silently gave the middle finger toward the door.

Jimmy suddenly went quiet.

That reaction confirmed Amon’s suspicion.

“In all my life, I’ve never seen a human conspiring with a possessing spirit.”

Amon spoke loudly enough for Jimmy to hear through the door.

In normal possessions, the original owner of the body and the wandering spirit fight for control.

That’s why the wandering spirit typically weakens the original owner’s mind and body to make possession easier.

But rarely, the original owner and the wandering spirit coexist.

Like in boys’ comics, sometimes the wandering spirit gains the original owner’s acceptance and they suddenly reconcile,

Sometimes they grow fond of each other after sharing a body,

Or maybe it wasn’t a wandering spirit to begin with, but just a kind soul living together.

Of course, not all such relationships are hopeful.

Sometimes the original owner and the wandering spirit are both jerks, so they get along well.

Amon believed Jimmy fell into this category.

The evidence was that he knew Amon was passing by despite the thick iron door between them.

It was proof of spiritual sight.

Fortunately, neither the wandering spirit nor Jimmy was particularly intelligent, so they blatantly revealed their spiritual sight.

No one would fall for such fools.

Amon was about to return to his room without giving these idiots any more attention.

But then something occurred to him, and he asked Jimmy and his soulmate:

“How did you two become friends? With so many spirits entering, I’d think it would be hard to get along.”

There was no answer.

But Amon knew an easy way to make wandering spirits talk.

“I’ll perform a memorial service for the first one to answer.”

It’s ambiguous whether the term “memorial service” exists in America, but the wandering spirits understood the nuance.

Being entities preoccupied with resolving grudges, they responded immediately.

One of them, with the youngest voice, spoke:

[He said he’d help us possess you. We agreed because it gets too cramped with multiple spirits in one body.]

“Ah. So Jimmy suggested it first?”

[Yes.]

Amon nodded.

Right.

That’s so Jimmy.

‘Jimmy, I’ll revise my assessment of you.’

Jimmy wasn’t a jerk.

He was a natural-born great son of a b—

‘No, good thoughts. Good thoughts.’

Barely suppressing the curse that almost escaped, Amon made the sign of the cross over his chest.

‘Inner peace. Peace like a river…’

Singing hymns internally, he pushed down his anger.

Only after finding inner peace did Amon promise a memorial service to the wandering spirit who had told him the truth, and prepared to leave.

But someone stopped him.

An old wandering spirit spoke through Jimmy’s mouth:

[Young one…]

A cavernous voice mixed with Jimmy’s flowed out.

Amon ignored it and continued walking.

The old wandering spirit, undeterred by Amon’s attitude, continued:

[Your eyes are truly clear. You have no interest in vanity or glory, but seek wisdom. Young one, are you not curious about the afterlife? Are you not curious about the truth of this world?]

He wasn’t curious at all.

Having already experienced the path of light ending, gone through the afterlife, and even met the Goddess, what was there to be curious about?

Besides, how could a being unable to ascend and wandering the netherworld know anything about the afterlife?

So Amon had no reason to listen to the wandering spirit.

But he was curious.

Curious about what nonsense this stupid wandering spirit would spout.

Curious about what kind of antics this fool would perform.

So he stopped and turned back toward the door.

The old wandering spirit interpreted Amon’s action as curiosity and began spouting false truths.

People are said to go to the afterlife when they die.

But most humans can’t reach the afterlife because they lack sufficient qualification.

According to the wandering spirit, one must accumulate enough qualification while staying in the netherworld to move on to the next world.

[I will elevate your qualification.]

Normally, it would take long training in this world to gain that qualification, but this old wandering spirit was on the threshold of ascension.

Therefore, if Amon would just open this door, he promised to show him the moment of ascension.

That wasn’t all.

He even whispered that he would bestow upon Amon all the truths and wisdom of this world that he had learned after death.

While the wandering spirit was tempting Amon, Amon’s shoulders began to shake.

The wandering spirit misunderstood this as a common reaction among wisdom seekers who glimpse fragments of truth.

In reality, Amon was struggling not to laugh.

‘A clown is truly funny because he doesn’t know he’s a clown.’

This quote from somewhere came to mind in this situation.

As if trying to kill Amon with laughter, the wandering spirit excitedly gave Amon a taste of his false truth.

[Young one. There’s no need to live virtuously in this world.]

“?”

Amon stopped trying not to laugh.

What nonsense was this now?

Amon listened to the wandering spirit’s words.

The wandering spirit, mistakenly thinking Amon was listening attentively, continued:

[Things like karma or virtue are nothing but false values created by rulers to control people. The world doesn’t work that way. The world is one elaborate system of cause and effect. Good and evil have no impact on that system.]

“…Why should I believe that?”

[Because I’ve seen it. There is no god in this world, and the world simply operates as an elaborate system.]

Snap.

The moment he heard those words, something broke in Amon’s mind.

Amon’s head lowered, casting shadows over his expression.

Without saying anything, he quietly unlocked the isolation room.

By the time the sleeping nun woke up at the rattling sound, the lock was already undone.

Before she could admonish Amon, the thick iron door opened.

Through the opening door, Jimmy with a sinister smile appeared.

The nun was horrified but stood protectively in front of Amon.

Jimmy(?) sympathized with Amon, who was standing behind the nun with his head lowered.

[Young one. Was it that shocking? I understand. Nothing hurts more than having the virtues you’ve believed in and protected all your life denied. But don’t worry. You’re still young. Let me whisper the truth to you-]

Jimmy stopped mid-sentence and turned his gaze to Amon’s hand.

In Amon’s hand was a scripture.

But his gaze wouldn’t have been drawn there if it were simply being held.

The reason his gaze went there was one:

It was trembling passionately, as if stuffed with all sorts of suppressed emotions.

[?]

A question mark appeared above Jimmy’s head.

It was difficult to read the emotion behind that trembling.

Because of this, he was slow to react until Amon approached right in front of him.

Jimmy’s eyes followed Amon’s hand as it raised the scripture high.

The scripture was positioned with its corner pointing toward Jimmy.

Looking down slightly, there was a reddish forearm with veins about to burst,

And looking further down, Amon was glaring at Jimmy with a murderous expression, grinding his teeth.

[Ah…young one…?]

Toward the wandering spirit making stupid sounds,

Amon roared loudly enough to wake everyone in the orphanage:

“YOU BLASPHEMER!!!!!!”

The scripture split the wandering spirit’s world in half.