episode_0001

*

A window, hanging open, rattled and creaked.

It seemed to be barely clinging to its hinges.

Salty wind poured through the open window, pushing past the flood of sunlight.

I sniffed at the briny scent and slowly opened my eyes.

“…That window again.”

The building was so old that strong sea winds would easily push the window open.

I should really fix the hinges or install a new latch, but I couldn’t be bothered and had just left it as it was.

Dazedly, I sat up in bed and blinked a few times, then slowly picked up the pocket watch on the bedside table.

With a *click*, the watch opened, and the hands showed that it was just approaching seven o’clock.

“Late. I need to prepare for morning Mass…”

I stretched and then very slowly got out of bed.

I picked up the soutane that I had haphazardly hung over a chair the night before, put it on, and roughly swept back my wildly sticking-up hair.

Despite saying that I was late, I didn’t seem to be in any hurry.

I smoothed the wrinkles in my soutane and looked in the mirror.

The mirror reflected my dull face, devoid of any motivation.

Dirty, murky blond hair, and a menacing expression.

A messy beard and a shadowed face.

I looked more like a back-alley thug than a priest.

Well, my actions are closer to that, too.

The fact that a priest is waking up after sunrise is already abnormal.

But, I didn’t care.

Who could expect motivation or passion from me in the first place?

It’s not like this is something I wanted to do, or a place I wanted to be.

“Ha…”

Of course, it’s true that I am a priest who has received formal ordination, but I was far from a priest who sits in a church or monastery and only prays.

I wasn’t good at studying, I had difficulty adapting to a regular life, and I was terribly untalented at managing church finances and administration.

The only reason I was able to live as a priest was because I was exceptionally good at beating up devils.

Since my time as a sub-deacon, it’s been 17 years, and 8 years since I became a formally ordained Exorcist Priest.

I have sent countless devils back to Hell.

Of course, it was hard work, but because it suited my aptitude, I never wanted retirement or a break. Unfortunately, the Bishop who watched me seemed to find my appearance unsettling.

One day, I received an order to go to a small monastery on a remote island.

I strongly protested, but the Bishop crushed my opinion with a single sentence: “You may have accumulated fatigue in your body and mind that you are unaware of.”

I didn’t know it then, but my appearance, focused only on hunting devils, seemed quite strange to the priests around me.

Come to think of it, exorcism, by its very nature, often involves witnessing terrible and frightening scenes, so ordinary priests avoid it.

But I was seeing such scenes at least twice a week, so it’s no wonder that I looked like a crazy person to others.

In the end, the Bishop’s order was a measure taken out of consideration for me.

I know.

I know, but…

“Ha, it’s just not suited to me…”

I can’t adjust at all.

Not to the role of Monastery Head, which is still too early for my seniority, nor to the island life I’ve suddenly experienced.

Nor to living with women who are at least ten years younger than me.

I just feel overwhelmed thinking about how long I have to stay here.

I sighed and slowly opened the door.

“Oh, Father. Good morning.”

Just then, a Trainee Nun who was walking out of the room across the hall greeted me.

“…Yes. Good morning, Lucia.”

“Father… you don’t seem to be in a good mood today either…”

Lucia carefully assessed my mood.

A cute girl with a timid expression on her small face.

Her arms and legs were thin, and her hazy sky-blue eyes and neatly braided light gray hair made her already pale skin look even whiter.

Overall, she gave the impression of being frail.

In fact, she was so physically weak that she had to be careful even when walking or standing for long periods.

Perhaps because of this, she also had a very cautious personality.

Even now, she was worried that she might have upset me.

Of course, I was in a terrible mood, but I wasn’t enough of a bastard to want to ruin this innocent girl’s day from the start, so I shook my head and said.

“I’m just groggy.”

“You haven’t looked well for the past three months.”

“I’m bad in the mornings.”

“Not just in the morning… but in the afternoon and at night too…”

“Then I guess I just have a bad face.”

“Ah,”

“…Ah?”

Lucia gasped and covered her mouth with her hand, then smiled cautiously.

The way she was cautious even about revealing her smiling face was quite endearing.

I looked down at Lucia and smiled back.

This series of conversations, where I would say something self-deprecating and she would agree before realizing and making a startled expression.

This was already a patterned joke between us.

The first time we had this conversation, Lucia bowed her head to the floor and apologized, but now we were even joking with each other.

I felt satisfied knowing that I could brighten up her timidity even a little, making this godforsaken island life seem worthwhile.

At that moment, Lucia’s legs suddenly trembled, and her body began to topple sideways.

I grabbed her arm and stopped her from falling.

“Ugh, thank you.”

“You have to be careful.”

“Ah… yes,”

“…Your legs are weak, aren’t they? I guess I kept you standing for too long.”

“Oh, no. Well, let’s go prepare for Mass quickly.”

“I’ll prepare for Mass alone, so you should rest.”

“Together…”

“I can do it alone. It’s nothing much.”

“…Yes, I’m sorry,”

I carefully let go of her thin arm, and she slowly leaned against the wall with her hand.

*Wheeze, wheeze,*

After gasping for breath a few times, she slowly went back into her room.

Not just her bones and muscles, but also her respiratory system and internal organs.

Seeing her body, so frail, made me feel like a huge lead weight had fallen into my heart.

I turned my back and slowly started walking down the short hallway.

*

‘Mora,’ a coastal village located at the southern tip of the Empire.

Thanks to its beautiful beaches and abundant mountains, it boasts a stunning landscape, but geographically, it is so far out of the way, and the surrounding sea has so many large and small islands and reefs, that it is a quiet fishing village where maritime trade has not developed.

On one of the countless unnamed islands stands an old lighthouse.

It is not a very tall or old lighthouse, as it illuminates the sea for the fishermen who catch fish in the nearby night sea.

At the very bottom of that lighthouse is a shabby and cramped building, and this is the Seclusion Monastery of Mora, where I live.

Unlike other Seclusion Monasteries that are cut off from the world and follow strict rules, the rules here are quite lax, because this place serves as a kind of exile rather than a proper monastery.

The three Trainee Nuns living in this monastery were all exiled here for their own reasons.

The nominal reason I was assigned here in the first place was that they needed a guardian.

An elderly nun used to be the Monastery Head, but she passed away from old age a month before I arrived.

For the Bishop, it was a win-win situation, as he could fill the vacant Monastery Head position and give me, who had been fighting devils fiercely every day, a break.

Of course, I also felt sorry for them.

Even I, who had only been here for three months, was sick and tired of this monastery life, so how much more would they, who had to spend their entire lives here, feel?

However, while I felt sorry for them, I also felt a little uncomfortable.

Not only did they have a big age gap with me, so I didn’t know what they were thinking, but I couldn’t find any aspects of them that resembled nuns at all.

Of course, I knew that I couldn’t force strict rules on them, as they weren’t truly seeking the path of a nun but had to stay here, but,

Even considering that, their behavior was too free compared to the nuns outside.

Originally, nuns had to cover all their hair, but they freely let their hair down, and they would freely lift or open their habits that should be worn demurely.

Even the cautious Lucia would let her neatly braided gray hair hang down over her chest.

They were free from the rules in exchange for being trapped on this island.

“Yeah, I understand it all. I understand, but, as I’ve said several times already…”

“Huh?”

“I asked you not to lift your habit skirt like that.”

It was breakfast time, and we had all gathered together after morning Mass.

The girl sitting next to me had her skirt flipped up and was sitting next to me.

Fortunately, she was wearing underwear that was close to shorts, so it didn’t feel obscene, but seeing her constantly flipping up the habit that exuded a solemn atmosphere made me feel like I could hear the sound of the religious person inside me crying out.

I thought I was a pretty self-centered person as a religious person, but seeing this girl made me realize clearly that I was a decent person.

The girl looked up at me with an incredulous expression and said.

“But Father, it’s really hot right now?”

“No… that… ha…”

“My legs are sweating like crazy, just dripping,”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Then how am I supposed to explain it?”

The girl sitting next to me asked me with a face that seemed like she really didn’t know.

“So, Sola…”

Lucia, sitting across from me, stopped the girl with an expression that showed that she didn’t know what to do.

I sighed and looked down at this little troublemaker next to me.

Her fiery red bobbed hair was sticking out wildly as if she hadn’t even touched it after waking up,

And below that, her clear lime-green eyes were staring straight at me, unlike her hair.

Her still youthful round face was full of girlish cuteness, but the expression on top of it was reminiscent of a playful boy.

Her name is Sola.

She is a typical country tomboy.

The kind of girl who rules the village boys and reigns as the boss of the alleys.

“Sola. Outside the island, if a girl does that…”

“So what? I’m going to live here forever anyway.”

“Ha…”

I couldn’t find anything else to say.

It was nothing more than a child’s tantrum, but sometimes there is a truth embedded in that tantrum that even adults can’t refute.

Sola is the youngest of the three nuns at sixteen years old, but she was exiled to this island before she was even one year old, and she has lived on this island the longest of the three.

Perhaps because she has only lived on this island her whole life, she lacked a lot of common sense, and even that made her seem like a little country girl.

“It just makes me a little uncomfortable to see. So please cover it up.”

“What’s wrong, Father? You’re not suddenly interested in a little kid like me, are you?”

The problem is that, unlike her childish personality, Sola is already sixteen years old.

She already knew everything she needed to know without anyone telling her, and her body had healthy and slender arms and legs.

Sola looked at me with a playful expression and fluttered her habit skirt.

“Why? Does it make your eyes go *there*? Automatically?”

“Sola…”

“Why? Father?”

It was then.

A tightly clenched fist came down on top of Sola’s sticking-up hair.

“Ouch!”

“Stop bothering Father and put your skirt down quickly. Idiot.”

“Argh, that hurts. Anna!”

Sola took her hand off the edge of her skirt and stroked her hair.

She didn’t even answer Sola’s words, but put the tray she was holding on the table and said to me.

“You can just punch her once in a while when she does that, Father.”

“Haha, honestly, I was about to.”

“What? Are you going to hit me, Father? Really?”

When Sola shouted in surprise, the one called ‘Anna’ spoke as if to warn Sola.

“I’m going to hit you first before Father touches you, okay?”

“Anna always hits me.”

“Is that so?”

“Ouch, ouch!”

When Anna raised her fist, Sola screamed exaggeratedly and burst into tears.

Even though she says that, she has never punched Sola.

She was the most mature of the three girls.

She was also the oldest at twenty-two years old, and her calmly flowing dark brown straight hair and brown eyes that resembled her hair exuded a mature atmosphere at first glance.

She was also good at housework, so Anna was basically playing the role of a mother to the other two girls, and honestly, if it weren’t for her, my job would have been several times harder.

Besides, since she had only come to this island a few years ago, she didn’t go against common sense.

I nodded slightly to Anna to express my gratitude.

“Thank you. Anna.”

“It’s nothing.”

Anna smiled and handed out the soup bowls on the tray one by one, then slowly sat down next to Lucia.

“Ugh, it’s always eggplant soup. Anna, don’t you know how to cook anything else?”

“This is the only vegetable we harvested right now.”

“I, I like the soup that Anna makes…”

“Thank you, Lucia.”

I warned Sola.

“Sola, complaining about food is bad.”

“Ugh, I really don’t want to be grateful for eggplant soup!”

Sola didn’t listen and complained.

I sighed and pressed hard on my throbbing temples.

Lucia looked at me and said to Sola in a trembling voice.

“So… Sola, stop… Father’s expression…”

“Ha… first, let’s say grace. Thank you for the daily bread you have given us today…”

Sola interrupted me and chattered again.

“Father, I really don’t want to be grateful for eggplant soup.”

Anna glared at Sola and growled.

“Hey, Sola. You’re skipping breakfast, don’t eat it.”

“Gyaaaa!”

It’s really a noisy morning.

Ah, Bishop.

You said it was a break.