* * *
The sudden breaking or shattering of a normally intact object serves as a double-edged sword in creative work, suggesting someone's bad luck.
If a housewife is humming at the sink while washing dishes and the camera pans meaningfully to a dropped plate, it's safe to assume that her husband, who is shown in the next shot, has already been sentenced to death.
The fact that we can project someone's death onto something as mundane as a broken object is a testament to the high ground we occupy in the realm of imagination.
However, the wealth of imagination may not always be a benefit to mankind, as it is not uncommon for imagination to go astray and cause unnecessary worries and anxieties, or for it to turn into a quagmire called hesitation and threaten to bury us.
Pow!
For the fifth time, the fork breaks.
Bending the tines, falling off the head, I don't understand.
Still, it's a bit odd to see a perfectly good fork split in half lengthwise.
Ominous.
I haven't felt this level of foreboding since the time my party lied to me about going on a picnic and ran into an unregistered dungeon.
The embarrassment and betrayal I felt then is still fresh in my mind.
I lied, bad. Humans are ugly creatures.
As I hunkered down, repeating the same words like a broken doll, my elven companions told me it was time to give up.
For a while afterward, I suffered from a severe case of neuroses that would put my body on the defensive whenever they asked me to go somewhere.
''Oops, you broke your fork again, I'll be right back with a new one!''
''Uh, no. You don't have to do that----.''
I didn't get to see the back of the familiar yet unfamiliar man's head as he ran off somewhere in Burinake before I could finish my sentence.
His name was Lobel Wright, his once lustrous blond hair regressed to a shaggy black mass. Or, as he was known, Priest Ranovel.
Why this distinguished figure, who had once worn the label "handsome priest" like a cloak, was now acting as my chamberlain with a dazzling brilliance that meant something different than before, was a mystery that even I, the party, had yet to find a definitive answer to.
The day I fell for the nun's trickery and unwittingly lifted him from the mire of death.
Surrounded by weeping, rejoicing fiancées, his eyes constantly glazed over, his fists clenching and unclenching, I had only the general impression of a man who had just woken up from anesthesia.
But about a week later.
'As of today, I, Lobelite, hereby rescind my declaration of support for the Guardian Priest of Rages, and as of today, I declare that the Guardian Priest of Rages and I have ceased to be one and the same, one and the same, and I consider any attack on him to be an attack on me!'
During the weekend service, when all the priests in the chapel were gathered together, I decided to consider him, who had stood on top of the auditorium and uttered the above words, as an enemy that I must eliminate from my life.
''Haha----. That asshole----.''
And that was the first time in my life that the hometown curse word that hadn't come out of my mouth even on the day I had a hole in my stomach, even on the day I had a lethal dose of poison spreading all over my body, even on the day I was wandering around in a deadly stupor.
◈◈◈◈
At first, I thought it was just bullying in a new direction.
I thought it was just a new direction of bullying.
I didn't expect him to repay me for saving his life in this way. I saved him for nothing.
At the time, I had a very firm misunderstanding of the seriousness of the situation.
It was inevitable, given the circumstances.
Like a torrential downpour on a calm lake, it was hard enough to tame my mind and body to the many dramatic changes that were shaking up my hitherto bland work environment.
How could I possibly have time left over to pay attention to an oddball who suddenly switched from priest to monk?
Speaking of positive changes, one of my biggest complaints about the game has been the food, and it's gotten much better.
As the person in charge of feeding the saintess, and having to deal with her complaints, it was virtually impossible for me to get to my meals in time to meet the tight meal times set by the monastery, unless I had two bodies.
As it turns out, the nuns had already suggested a solution to my meal problem long before I complained about it, and as a result of this merit, I was granted a special meal ticket that allows me to eat as many meals as I want, whenever I want, wherever I want.
The all-you-can-eat ticket that he had jokingly talked about with his classmates in school was a reality.
Needless to say, a feeling of excitement, comparable to the one I felt when I learned that the legendary bibo that marked the beginning of the Daehan era actually existed, welled up inside me.
A ticket to go out in my left hand. In my right hand, an all-you-can-eat ticket.
At most, I hold two pieces of paper in my hands. I felt an unexplainable sense of omnipotence that I was a very different person than I had ever been before.
Alas, this is power.
The delicious wild flowers that had bloomed in the flowerbeds of the chapel were now nothing but weeds.
They say that when a person is imbued with power, they change the way they see the world, but I never expected the change to be so immediate.
It was a moment that proved once and for all that the black beast of desire was inside me. A vague fear flashed through my mind, wondering if it would try to devour me one day.
But with every good change comes a bad one.
Just like the pocket monsters in the faraway land of Japan, you have to sacrifice one of the four skills you've been learning in order to learn a more powerful skill.
The price I paid for my 10 out-of-town permits and all-you-can-eat pass was not cheap.
To tell the tale, however, I must first address a certain outrageous rumor currently sweeping the system.
A saintess's exclusive guardian priest can raise even the dead.
Rumors, rumors, rumors, rumors that have been spreading across the islands since I rescued Priest Lanovel and then by a group of Lanovel's fiancées who witnessed the entire spectacle.
The most fundamental cause of the rumors' fervor, which has shown no sign of abating in the weeks since.
I am convinced that it is the work of the highest echelons of the Holy See, who seek to conceal at all costs any truth that might discredit them, and to scatter as far as possible any falsehood that might enhance their honor.
To the eyes of these women, who, as those who were familiar with the circumstances, had no idea of what was going on, and who could not even conceive of the concept of divine power, I appeared to be a miraculous priest who had revived a man whose heart and veins had stopped beating.
It didn't take long for the hollow rumors to turn into well-grounded information, especially since the majority of those gathered were of noble birth with connections to the highest levels of government.
Whenever someone would ask me about the truth of a rumor, whenever I would have the opportunity to set the record straight, I would tell them it was a lie, a misunderstanding, a misconception, in the most truthful voice I could muster, but once again, my unnecessarily high position as the exclusive guardian of the saintess got in the way.
As the full-time guardian priest of a saintess, undoubtedly the highest ranking cleric in the system, to make a self-deprecating remark would be viewed by those below as nothing more than condescension.
Later, I was even cautiously chided by some of the older priests who said that too much humility was a sign of condescension.
Lord.
But what troubles me most of all is.
''Oh my. Isn't that the Guardian Priest of Rages? What a strange coincidence to run into you in a place like this!''
Ranovel's group of fiancées, several of whom began to blatantly cling to me.
Without even bothering to conceal the presence of the black demon named Desire, whose teeth were chattering in their pupils.
* * *