Chapter 2. Encounters and Opportunities (1)

Chapter 2. Encounters and Opportunities

Something feels off.

In other words, I felt like I had made a wrong turn.

Yes, to be honest, I found that novel quite interesting. If I didn’t find it interesting, I wouldn’t have bothered to catch up to the latest chapter.

I had a certain amount of affection for each character, and I was curious about which character would end up with the protagonist. I even had in-depth discussions with other readers, exchanging various opinions about which character should end up with him.

Of course, based on my rational and logical judgment, there was no character other than the childhood friend who could end up with him.

Among the many literary theories, there is Anton Chekhov’s “Chekhov’s Gun,” explained by the great Russian writer Anton Chekhov.

Simply put, if there’s a gun shown in the first scene of a novel, then a scene where that gun is fired must also appear.

Movies, which are made by filming scenes and editing them together, sometimes capture unintended elements within the frame. Other cameras, the production staff reflected in mirrors, or the sudden actions of passersby. There are also many cases where it’s unavoidable due to production constraints.

However, a novel is judged entirely by the author’s intent. If there are many passersby, you can simply describe it as ‘there are many passersby,’ and there’s no need to describe the appearance of each of those people.

If the description of a person is deeply detailed, there must be a reason. Whether it’s to simply depict the atmosphere, or if that person’s appearance is actually foreshadowing a future story, or if it symbolically hints at something.

This is especially something that needs to be carefully considered in web novels, which have a limited word count.

That’s right. The ‘childhood friend heroine’ is Chekhov’s Gun. It’s a loaded gun that must be fired someday.

Usually, the first to appear, with sweet memories with the protagonist constantly flowing, and whether she’s tsundere or not, the story that she’s liked the protagonist since childhood- all those countless foreshadowing elements must naturally be used in the novel, shouldn’t they?

1. Rationally speaking, the heroine who appears the most and has the most foreshadowing of ending up with the protagonist is usually the childhood friend.

2. Logically speaking, the heroine who appears first is bound to have a large number of fans.

How can the childhood friend heroine be eliminated?

I simply cannot understand how she could get so close to the Saint, pushing aside the childhood friend who had meticulously built up so many foundations.

At best, the Saint’s power was ‘Mace Spinner,’ and the only practical help she could offer was the divine power she wielded.

To develop feelings after just a few heals, it’s not like the bridge-hanging effect.

Unless there’s an NTR tag, the protagonist is supposed to end up with the childhood friend in the first place.

I had already sent a detailed explanation about this story to the author. This was before I sent the important message about atheism.

“……”

“Why are you like that?”

And, was it because of that?

I was quite confused about whether the situation I was in now was intended by the author- that is, the God of this world.

“Hey.”

Poke.

“Kkik!?”

My side- no, my fingers dug into the space between my ribs, and I made a sound like that. This time too, with transcendent patience, I managed to keep my mouth shut, so the sound didn’t become a ‘Kkyaak!?’ scream-

I quickly looked around.

No one among those sweeping the convent courtyard was looking our way.

Several nuns were already gone. I assumed they had secularized or were preparing to secularize and had left their positions.

The truly young nuns, those around five years old or younger, the same age I was when I entered here, don’t have much interaction with us directly. The childcare facilities for such infants were in a separate section of the church.

“What are you doing all of a sudden?”

I touched my aching ribs and glared at Ria. Ria, who was holding a broom made of bamboo just like me, was, quite absurdly, giving me an absurd expression.

“I’ve been calling you since earlier, but you weren’t answering. You were just moving your broom with a blank expression. Look.”

At Ria’s words, I looked down at the floor.

Perhaps because I was sweeping only one spot mechanically, some sand had been pushed to the side. Well, since the floor was quite firmly packed, the ground wasn’t dug up at all, but since it was a stiff broom made of branches, lines were drawn as if it were scratched.

I frowned slightly and quickly erased those marks with my toes.

“Why? Are you still thinking about the face of that person you saw earlier?”

“What?”

“No, you know, that person who’s the same age as us.”

“Hah.”

I let out a sound of disbelief at those words.

I am rational, but I have a degree of understanding of irrational human emotions.

Of course, there can be women who are ‘instantly smitten’ by a handsome man. A person’s first impression is inevitably based on nothing other than their appearance.

The opposite gender can also exist, and of course, it can exist between the same gender. Although the probability is lower than between opposite genders.

And although the ‘protagonist’ was indeed set to be handsome-

“Why me?”

I replied with a hollow laugh.

As I moved the broom a bit roughly, a sharp rustling sound came from the floor. Even though I was showing my displeasure so openly, Ria’s expression seemed to indicate that she didn’t believe me at all.

“No, well, you usually don’t respond when men talk to you, right? In fact, you were hiding behind the nuns last time.”

The season where snow is unlikely to fall anymore. But it’s still a cold morning season.

While sweeping, I briefly thought about why I was having this conversation.

“Ria.”

And my rational brain quickly reached a conclusion.

“Are you perhaps interested in that man?”

“What?”

Hmm, as expected.

Ria’s exaggerated response to my question, based on decades of my life’s big data from my past life, was the kind of response women give when ‘they don’t dislike it, but they’re too embarrassed to show they like it.’

Unfortunately, I didn’t have many women around me, but I often saw this in dramas, which often feature female writers. Usually, when asked ‘Hey, you, do you like him?’ the heroine in such dramas replies with ‘What~~~?’

“Well, it’s understandable. Objectively speaking, he has a handsome face.”

His face, of course, and his body is also good. This is unavoidable. Maintaining physical fitness is essential to continue working as a hunter.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t recognize the protagonist just by his appearance. Web novel illustrations are usually 2D, and especially illustrations on Novelpia are often in the style of Japanese manga.

No, in fact, there were no illustrations of the male protagonist. For illustrations to be included in the main story, the author often has to produce them themselves, and in that case, it’s much more efficient to draw illustrations describing the heroines’ appearances rather than the protagonist’s.

So, in reality, the only face of the protagonist I knew was the SD character’s face from the released emoticon.

It’s understandable that I couldn’t recognize him.

I was just surprised that he was quite handsome after I poured divine power into his blood-covered face and washed it clean, and I was disgusted by his body, visible through his torn clothes for wound examination at the scene, thinking ‘How much of a gym rat do you have to be to maintain that?’

On the other hand, it’s natural for Ria, who was originally one of the heroines, to react this way.

“No, I haven’t even exchanged a single word with him.”

“When you become a nun, your fantasies about the opposite sex tend to increase. I know.”

One of the nuns I shared a room with didn’t fight solely over issues of God.

She talked about men all the time, so I got tired of it and requested to change rooms.

And while not all nuns are like that, some nuns going through puberty tend to show it more. There are even cases where they brag about meeting a man during volunteer work, but I can’t understand how they met a man their age. And in such a short outing period.

Unless the man is a severe premature ejaculator who can finish everything in tens of seconds to a minute, it would be almost impossible?

…No, that’s not what I’m trying to say right now, but.

“…It’s been a little over a month since I came here?”

“If you were popular even before, you’d feel that way even in this little over a month.”

“Huh? Popular? Me?”

“Isn’t it inevitable? There are many more men in the hunter profession, right? Plus, Ria is young, and she has an appearance that men find attractive in many ways.”

“Uh…”

What, so suddenly.

I’m also proud of my body, but Ria is even more so. Although it’s a subtle difference, I think it would be directly comparable if we wore the same tight-fitting clothes.

It wouldn’t be strange if she had one or two boyfriends her age.

Well, in the novel, that didn’t happen, but perhaps there were men who liked her secretly and approached her?

“……”

For some reason, with Ria lost in thought and quiet, I was finally able to enjoy a peaceful morning and contemplate.

So, what was I thinking?

Ah, right. I was in the process of logically proving that the childhood friend should end up with the protagonist.

Let me continue that story a bit.