Chapter 1. Candidate and Candidate (5)

No.

Thinking about it again, this seems right.

So, the father who put Ria here wants to revive Ria’s faith, right? Conversely, the more I am refuted, couldn’t Ria’s faith also be gradually revived?

…Well, it’s a bit frustrating to be refuted, but what can I do? Since I plan to stay here a little longer anyway, I can endure that much.

“Hey, you, the belt below your chest.”

“Yes?”

“Do you have any extra?”

At Ria’s sudden question, I tilted my head.

“Why this belt?”

“If you have any extra, lend it to me. I want to use it too.”

“……”

I couldn’t help but look at Ria’s chest.

I thought I wasn’t paying much attention because of her fierce impression and short hair-well, looking again, she does have a figure to be proud of.

In terms of size alone, I’d say she’s even more impressive than me.

As expected of a heroine. A character whose desires are directly applied by the author.

And I’m certainly not small either.

“You look good enough not to need to wear it, don’t you?”

“No, did you wear it because it wouldn’t show otherwise?”

At my answer, Ria scoffed as if incredulous and said.

Well, if you insist, I did wear it to ‘make it show better.’

Because of some nonsense I heard a long time ago.

“Well… I can lend it to you if you ask.”

I replied, lifting one corner of my lips.

“Can you handle it? The pouring gazes of people. You’ll probably receive them even more persistently than I do.”

“Well, I’ve been famous since I was young.”

“……”

An infuriating answer came back.

No, to be precise, I’m definitely not small either. In fact, in a sense, my balance is better, so you could say mine is better. In the original work, Ria was never a long-range attacker. In terms of position, she could be considered a tank that charges forward. It wasn’t a game fantasy, so it wasn’t clearly defined like that.

For someone like that, it’s an unreasonable bust. As expected, the being who wrote this novel is irrational. Well, considering they wrote a novel about a cult that worships them, they couldn’t possibly be a rational being.

“No, I know what you’re thinking, but I didn’t mean it that way? I mean, you were famous as the daughter of a Hero.”

As if sensing my gaze, Ria pushed her chest out and said.

“I wasn’t thinking that either!?”

I protested, but Ria just chuckled.

Ria is right.

In the original work, there was even a scene where people were surprised, saying, ‘No way, that Lee Chae-eun!?’

She wasn’t famous solely by her father’s name, and while she hadn’t officially started her Hunter career, she already had public achievements at this age. She had a few records of cleanly dealing with monsters that came through gates, and she had never lost in sparring matches with adults.

This is despite the fact that many of those adults, envious of Lee Chae-eun, the Hero’s child with abundant talent, had deliberately held back their strength.

She feels reluctant about being famous because of her father, but she’s not lacking in confidence about her own skills.

“……”

However, now that I knew that fact, if I tried to argue, Ria seemed convinced I was looking at her figure, so I decided not to argue further.

I opened the closet door next to the bed, took out an extra belt, and threw it towards Ria.

Ria caught it deftly, examined it, and immediately put it on below her chest.

Her figure, which was slightly hidden by the somewhat loose clothing, was now fully revealed, making me incredibly embarrassed from an observer’s perspective.

“Huh? What, it doesn’t turn out like yours even if you wear it like this?”

However, even if you tighten the upper part of loose clothing, the lower part doesn’t cling tightly to the body.

“That’s probably because your clothes aren’t made for slim people.”

For men’s clothing, even if a fat person wears a larger size, it doesn’t look particularly strange. Large-sized clothes are made to fit the shoulders of a larger person, so the shoulder line of clothes for people with a belly might droop a little, but there are rarely cases where only one part is strangely tight.

However, for women’s clothing, chest size is also important.

Well, generally, if people are around the average, they can wear ready-made clothes of a similar size and they’ll fit reasonably well… but if that size deviates significantly from the average, the clothes will either be excessively loose or excessively tight unless one pays special attention to wearing them.

In reality, if your chest is too large, your style becomes unfashionable. Well, something like that.

Since nun’s habits are unlikely to be custom-made like that, Ria’s nun’s habit is naturally closer to ‘plus size.’ This means that only the chest area fits roughly, and there is plenty of room below.

If you tighten the top, a lot of wrinkles form at the bottom, and there’s a lot of leftover fabric, making the style a bit different from mine.

“My chest area is snugly fitted, and the rest is a decent size.”

“Hmm.”

Ria’s eyes narrowed.

“Is that true? Aren’t you actually shrinking the size?”

“……”

“Huh, what? Why are you avoiding my gaze? Did you really shrink it?”

“N-n-no, no, no, no, no! I absolutely didn’t shrink it!?”

“Aren’t you wearing the belt just to emphasize your chest, and not because it makes you look that way?”

“……”

“Hmph.”

She really has a sharp eye to point out something that no one had even suspected until now.

“Hmph, heh heh…”

“What are you laughing at?”

“Uh, what? What are you saying to me? Should I run to the Nun Superior’s office right now? Tell her what you did to your nun’s habit?”

“…I didn’t do anything.”

“Hey, you really can’t lie.”

It’s incredibly annoying that she says that while holding back laughter.

Ria took off the belt she had tied below her chest and casually threw it back towards me. I caught it and casually threw it back into the closet.

“Well, putting that aside.”

Ria shrugged her shoulders. Ugh, that attitude is also infuriating. As if she’s in a superior position to me.

But I have nothing to say since I’ve been caught with a weakness.

“I’ve noticed something over the past few days living with you.”

“What is it?”

“I overheard some of the other girls whispering.”

“You have good ears.”

“You don’t usually preach like that in front of other girls, do you?”

“……”

“Well, there are some girls who moved rooms after hearing your nonsense, but usually, those girls were the ones who picked a fight with you first.”

“Can you just hear things like that as whispers?”

More than annoyed, I asked in surprise, and Ria chuckled.

“Do you think I hear all those things as whispers? I heard it from friends I made after coming here.”

“Friends…?”

Do you make friends at the convent?

I haven’t had any friends until now?

“The convent rules say not to talk to others carelessly, right?”

It’s a rule written in blood.

It might not matter much in a girls’ or boys’ high school. Even if sexual desire builds up, there are plenty of things to relieve it with at home, like videos or manga…

If you have the ability, you can date. In any case, there are many ways to satisfy desires.

However, the convent is not like that. Even if it has inherited part of society’s functions, a religious facility is still a religious facility. There are bound to be parts that are excessively suppressed compared to the secular world.

If you can’t go outside and rarely see the opposite sex, what will happen if you put teenagers who are boiling with sexual desire in one place? Whether it’s just men or just women, accidents are bound to happen.

Therefore, they minimize contact with each other by strengthening the rules.

…If that’s the case, I don’t know why there are double rooms in the first place.

“……”

But even after hearing my explanation, Ria just looked at me with an incredulous expression.

“Uh, well, are you in a position to talk about rules?”

……

No, well, that’s true.

This is a bit unfair to me too, because I’ve made some considerations on my part.

My mind isn’t in puberty, but my body is going through secondary sexual characteristics. Naturally, well, there are those days.

But the problem is, I still perceive women as sexual objects. And there are women all around me.

Moreover, all of them are minors. Even I have at least minimal morality.

So, I decided to live a life of abstinence. At least in that regard, I think I’ve followed the rules quite well. If the other party speaks to me first, I answer, and if they make me angry, I get angry and retort, but at least there haven’t been any troubles of that kind.

“The rules say not to seduce and not to make unnecessary physical contact, but they don’t say not to talk to each other.”

“……”

I have nothing to say.

“Anyway, you don’t usually talk first in that way, right? You’ve spoken to the Nun Superior and the priests, and when you became a Saint Candidate, you caused a stir by writing a letter to the Cardinal, but that was also because they came forward first.”

Seeing my expression, Ria quickly steered the conversation back to the main point.

Damn it, I’ve been shown consideration! By my verbal sparring opponent!

“Anyway, why do you keep talking to me first and expressing religious doubts?”

“Uh.”

“Are you perhaps thinking of something behind this? Well, even so, it doesn’t seem like your goal is to make me apostatize, you who are a Saint Candidate.”

“Uh, uh, wait a moment.”

I stood up abruptly and tried to stop her, but Ria, as if deliberately, put her fingers under her chin and made a thoughtful expression, then smiled at me and said.

“Or is it the opposite? Aren’t you deliberately trying to provoke me to turn me into a church-friendly person by making me react negatively to your words? Did you hear something from the Nun Superior?”

“Ah.”

……What is it?

My plan was supposed to be perfect.

Is she perhaps using mind-reading? A psychic?