The spotlight shone down on us.
Thousands of worshippers surrounding us stared daggers, their gazes sharp enough to freeze us in place with fear.
But it didn’t stop there. Those standing close enough to reach us quickly stretched out their hands toward us.
“Grab themmmm!”
“How dare you ruin the sacred ceremony!?”
“Kill themmmm!”
The mob of lunatics, aptly described as zealots, surged toward us in an instant. While I stood there dumbfounded, Six naturally wrapped her hand around my waist.
“─Don’t open your mouth, okay~?”
Without hesitation, she stomped on the heads of the worshippers, leaping gracefully into the air. She moved like a phantom thief, darting around and hanging from the walls. Watching her, I finally rembered who she truly was.
The sixth executive of the evil organization.
The top spy who had infiltrated every city and corporation, stealing their secrets.
It beca clear that the boss hadn’t assigned her such a role solely because of her ability to go unnoticed.
“This is dangerousss~ What do we do now?”
“...Let’s get out of here first.”
“How, exactly? All the exits are completely blocked, you knowww~?”
Hearing her words, I looked around and realized we were in a sealed chapel with no windows. The radiant stained-glass windows commonly found on Earth were nowhere to be seen.
It was probably because they didn’t need such ornants; the saint herself radiated holiness.
Of course, summoning the entire evil organization was out of the question. We weren’t fighting a powerful superhuman or villain this ti but escaping from ordinary civilians...
Moreover, since our identities hadn’t been exposed yet, leaving behind traces that could reveal who we were would have been a foolish move.
“Let’s head up.”
“Up... Don’t tell you’re planning to escape through that ventilation duct, are you~?”
Six pointed to a large vent, her expression incredulous. With her agility, she could probably crawl through it and escape this place.
But even if she managed to escape slowly through the vent, she’d be caught outside anyway. Not to ntion, dragging through that cramped space was impossible.
Fortunately, the vent wasn’t my plan.
I was thinking of sothing higher.
“The sky will open soon.”
“What? What does that even an─?”
As Six responded with confusion, sothing fell from the sky. It burned through the chapel roof before disappearing into thin air, its task complete.
Six stared at the long beam of light that reached into space and turned to with an incredulous expression.
“Did you... hack a satellite...?”
“I didn’t hack it. I launched one recently.”
“L-launched!? Satellites aren’t toy rockets you can just fire off that easily...”
Her astonishnt lasted only a mont. Realizing that the sky was now open, Six imdiately grabbed and escaped from the chapel.
Apparently, the saint’s power didn’t extend beyond the chapel. As soon as we left, the people who had been pursuing us faltered and looked around in confusion.
“Huh? Who were we just...”
“What were we... trying to do?”
Pushing through the bewildered worshippers, we got into a vehicle and left the religious city.
As we drove away, I glanced back at the chapel with its lted roof.
“A saint, huh...”
It was obvious that she wasn’t just an ordinary person. It was equally clear that we should never set foot in that place again.
But just because we gave up, did that an they would do the sa? Based on my experience so far, that seed unlikely.
It might be ti to start preparing for the saint’s inevitable return...
“What... what is this...?”
“The roof... why did the roof lt?”
The mont the intruders disappeared from sight, the saint realized that the power she had placed on the worshippers had lifted. She quickly gathered her wits.
“─It seems the heavens wished to peer into this place. It must have been a divine visitation.”
“Oooohhhh!”
“A hole created so God could watch us!”
“A divine peephole!”
Effortlessly attributing the incident to divine intervention, the saint recalled the two intruders who had been rummaging through her chapel. One was a reasonably handso man, the other a woman whose fashion sense seed to suggest her head was in the clouds.
She had only noticed them by chance. The worshippers’ movents had been uncharacteristically awkward, as if sothing was blocking them from advancing.
Borrowing the vision of her divine benefactor, she observed them closely and imdiately recognized that neither of them was ordinary. One seed like they didn’t belong to this world, while the other felt slightly disconnected from reality.
When she shared her vision with the worshippers, they too seed to notice the intruders. Of course, the mont they left her sight, the congregation imdiately forgot about them.
“A peculiar ability... Assassins, perhaps.”
In truth, this wasn’t the first ti she’d faced such a situation. Every ti she exercised her saintly authority and displayed divine power, there were always those who envied or hated her, seeking to kidnap or kill her for their own purposes.
But she had overco every trial with her own strength (or rather, with the borrowed strength of her divine benefactor). She now led the largest religious organization in the city. One could even say she ruled it outright.
“It’s been a while since sothing like this happened.”
It had been ages since assassins had made it into the chapel—or even close to her. Normally, her worshippers’ rigorous screening processes would have caught them long before they entered.
The fact that they hadn’t suggested the pair had infiltrated undetected. Thinking back, they hadn’t flown or anything; instead, they must have used so unique ability to blend seamlessly among the worshippers...
“I’ll need to tighten security.”
The saint contemplated the budget necessary for such asures. Ah, it was almost heartbreaking to think about how much money she would need. There were already so many financial burdens...
Fortunately, she had excellent wallets to squeeze.
“Now, everyone, let’s pray. Let’s ask that our hos remain safe from intruders...”
The saint prayed.
For her followers to make larger donations.
And naturally, her wish was granted.
“Na: Lizebel. Occupation: Self-proclaid saint.”
Back in the lab, I used the AI to gather information on the saint. Since no special protection had been placed on her data, it was easy to uncover her personal details.
Lizebel. Self-proclaid saint. Twenty-two years old. Height: 165 cm. Weight: 63 kg, according to her recently registered fitness app...
“Hm, makes sense.”
I recalled the several-kilogram masses of fat hanging from her chest and nodded. Considering their weight, she was on the slender side.
As I continued reading through her profile, I found nothing particularly unusual. Even her abilities seed mundane.
“Clairvoyance?”
Her database entry listed her power as clairvoyance, which was surprising. It wasn’t so divine or religiously inspired ability but a simple knack for seeing through things. Not farsight or X-ray vision, just the ability to see the contents of a flipped card.
It was baffling how she managed to maintain her saintly act with such a trivial power.
“Is she lying about her abilities?”
That seed the most plausible explanation. She must be deceiving everyone about her true powers, passing off sothing else as clairvoyance. After all, clairvoyance didn’t co with any real disadvantages—especially for a woman.
If a man had such a power, he’d probably spend his life proving he wasn’t a pervert by wearing anti-clairvoyance goggles everywhere. But for a woman, the worst-case scenario would be limited enjoynt of certain casino gas.
If she truly had divine powers, it would be logical for her to disguise them as clairvoyance. But if that were the case─
“Did she start deceiving people from a young age?”
How long ago had she planned to beco a saint? And what did she hope to gain from being one?
Those were the key questions.
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