In Cyberpunk, There are Just Too Many Unbelievers

Snow is falling.

According to the weather forecast, it will likely snow frequently this winter.

When the announcer said you could look forward to a White Christmas, Sonia jumped around excitedly, saying she loved when it snowed.

It was proof of purity, she said.

Amon, who had shoveled snow in the military, at work, and at home in his previous life, felt his soul was too old to love snow.

However, the word “Christmas” was a magical word that could excite even an old soul like him.

Pretending not to show it, Amon looked forward to Christmas no less than Sonia.

‘Christmas is already here.’

Christmas in this world was no different from his previous life.

Christmas trees decorated the streets, adults gave gifts to children, and various events were held.

The only difference was that the child born on Christmas was the daughter of the Goddess, not the son of God.

Everything else was exactly the same.

Since he had just thought of it, Amon headed toward the drawer in his room.

To prepare money envelopes for the upcoming Christmas.

‘This one is for offerings, this one is for Sonia’s gift, this one is for the orphanage director…’

Amon transferred the money into envelopes.

His only income sources were errand jobs and the government support called an “allowance.”

But since Amon was an extremely ascetic person, he barely spent any money.

Thanks to that, the amount he had saved over about a year was quite substantial.

Amon nodded contentedly as he wrote memos on the envelopes.

Hand cream for the orphanage director, perfume for Sonia, a lighter for Old Man Johnson whom he was indebted to, and so on.

It would definitely deplete almost all the money he had saved over a year, but Amon felt so happy in that moment.

The mere fact that he had the means to give to others felt like such a blessing to him.

After finishing the categorization with an offering of gratitude for the Goddess, Amon closed the drawer.

Then he left his room to go to the swordsmanship dojo with Sonia in the afternoon.

Murmuring sounds

As he exited his room, the orphanage was in an uproar.

“Hm?”

Wondering what was happening, he turned his gaze toward the crowd of people.

The nuns were sternly trying to control the children.

The younger nuns sent the children back to their rooms, while the more experienced nuns formed a circle, surrounding something.

Following the circle formed by the nuns, a semi-transparent barrier unfolded.

Just from witnessing this, Amon roughly grasped the situation.

‘Looks like some kid got possessed.’

It was not as rare as one might think for an orphan to get possessed by a spirit.

Being located right next to a red-light district, the orphanage was a prime spot for the lingering souls of abandoned babies to gather.

Thanks to that, incidents of orphans getting possessed occurred about once a year, quite frequently.

The only saving grace was that the souls of newborn babies weren’t usually very strong, so the nuns could subdue them.

Amon approached the scene with the intention of at least seeing the face of this incident’s main character.

Through the gaps in the barrier formed by the nuns, he could see the inside of the circle.

It didn’t take long to identify the main character.

“Aigo… I had a feeling those brats would cause trouble sooner or later.”

It was Jimmy and his friends.
The nun standing next to Amon, who had overheard his casual muttering, gave a gloomy smile.

Even to them, this possession seemed like Jimmy’s gang had brought it upon themselves.

The items they were preciously clutching were totems that the lingering souls had sent to the orphanage to enable their possession.

Those totems were mixed in with the Black Friday commemoration gifts, but most were screened by the nuns and sent to the storage shed.

While the nuns could seal or block the lingering souls, exorcising them required a professional, so they had planned to deal with it all at once later.

But Jimmy and his friends had gone so far as to break those seals and take the totems out of the shed.

From the perspective of the nuns who had struggled to sort out those totems, it was only natural to see this as something they had brought upon themselves.

Part of them wanted to mock them for their foolishness, but as nuns nurturing children with love, they could only respond with gloomy smiles.

Amon also joined in with a gloomy smile.

Meanwhile, the subject of their inner scorn was zoning out inside the barrier, repeatedly muttering nonsense.

“Heheh… my precious…..”

Jimmy preciously hugged and caressed the black vase.

His friends showed similar symptoms.

Observing their state, the orphanage director made a diagnosis.

“It’s still at the entranced stage. It doesn’t seem to be full possession yet, so let’s try waking them first, and if that fails, move them to the isolation room.”

With 30 years of experience running the orphanage, this was not a particularly special situation for the director.

She calmly sprinkled salt or holy water on the entranced children.

Fortunately, some of the children regained their senses.

But not Jimmy.

Unlike the other children who had only taken out one item, Jimmy had come out of the shed with both his sides stuffed full of items.

It meant he was not entranced by just one or two lingering souls.

That’s why he was entranced so firmly that salt and holy water had no effect.

The orphanage director looked at Jimmy with pity.

“Jimmy…”

The entranced state was merely preliminary groundwork for full possession.

If the entranced state was not resolved in time, possession was inevitable, so the orphanage director made a cold judgment.

“There’s no choice. We’ll have to put him in the isolation room.”

Possession causes some fatigue.

Although the soul of a newborn baby wasn’t particularly threatening in terms of psychic abilities, Jimmy was a pubescent boy.

In terms of pure physical ability, it would be somewhat troublesome for the nuns to deal with him directly.

So it would be far safer for their well-being to throw him into the isolation room while he was still only half-conscious.

Following the director’s order, the nuns threw Jimmy into the room.

Inside the room with a structure that could not be opened from the inside, Jimmy was left alone.

Through the closing door, catching one last glimpse of Jimmy, the orphanage director locked the padlock.

“The exorcist will be coming tomorrow afternoon, so please make sure the children don’t tamper with this lock. And I will provide instructions for handling special situations.”

The nuns memorized the director’s detailed instructions.

Immediately after,

Thump!

Jimmy strongly pounded on the isolation room door.

[Mom! Moooommmm!!!]

Mixing a baby’s crying voice, Jimmy called out.

Relieved that they had acted before he became too fatigued, the nuns exchanged looks.

In the meantime, Jimmy’s voice changed again.

Scratching his throat with an eerie low voice, Jimmy called out:

[Sister-in-law!! You shouldn’t do that to me! Why did you do that to me!!]

Chilled by the creepy voice, the nuns backed away from the isolation room.

Unlike the other nuns, the orphanage director did not budge an inch.

Instead, facing the room Jimmy was in, she made the sign of the cross and offered a prayer.

Beseeching that salvation would come to that child.

That evening.

With a rustle of sheets, Amon suddenly sat up in bed.

“Ah… Did I drink too much cola?”

Rubbing his disheveled hair, Amon got out of bed.

In the pitch-black darkness where he couldn’t see even an inch in front of him, his body, which had lived in this room his whole life, easily found his slippers.

Dragging his slippers with a shff shff sound, guided by the dim corridor lighting, he headed to the bathroom.

Coincidentally, the path to the bathroom passed right in front of the isolation room.

Yawning, Amon nodded slightly at the nuns keeping watch in front of the isolation room.

There was no response.

The nun on guard duty had dozed off while sitting.

Seeing her state didn’t elicit any particular emotion from Amon.

It was too understandable how exhausted this nun must be to call her negligent.

Attending to guests, waking up the entranced children, and then standing guard duty on top of that was simply too harsh.

In any case, that isolation room wasn’t so poorly constructed that it required a nun to guard it.

As the orphanage director had said, even if a bomb went off inside, it wouldn’t budge.

In fact, judging by the thickness of the iron door, the metal plate seemed sturdy enough to be used on an armored vehicle.

‘Where did they even get something like this?’

The more he saw, the more curious Amon became about the orphanage director’s true identity.

In any case, since it was practically a vault, Amon deemed it safe even if the nun dozed off, as there was no way Jimmy could escape.

Amon nodded subtly at the sleeping nun and continued on his way to the bathroom.

Pitter patter

After relieving himself, Amon headed back to his room.

On the way, he passed by the isolation room again.

The nun was still dozing off.

Amon politely nodded, not expecting a response, and continued on his way.

Then, a voice came from inside the room.

“Amon, is that you?”

It was Jimmy.

Not the out-of-place voice unique to possession, but Jimmy’s pure, original voice.

Amon stopped in his tracks and turned toward the door.

Somehow, from the other side of the door, Jimmy was addressing Amon.

“I’ve been un-possessed now. I’m really hungry, so could you open the door for me?”

“…”

“I didn’t eat dinner today, so I’m starving enough to eat a whole cow.”

Amon’s eyes narrowed.

Then, wordlessly, he blew a raspberry toward the other side of the door.

Suddenly, Jimmy fell silent.

From that reaction, Amon was certain.

“I’ve never seen a human conspire with a possessed spirit in my life.”

Amon spoke toward the door, as if telling Jimmy to listen.

In ordinary possessions, there is a struggle for dominance between the original owner of the body and the lingering soul.

That’s why the lingering soul goes through a process of rendering the original owner in a mentally weakened state to facilitate smoother possession.

But in rare cases, the original owner and lingering soul can form a symbiotic relationship.

Like in a shounen manga, the lingering soul gains the original owner’s recognition and they suddenly reconcile.
Or they become attached from sharing the same body.
Or the lingering soul was simply a kind spirit to begin with, not a malicious one.

Of course, not all such relationships are hopeful.

In some cases, both the original owner and lingering soul are just pieces of shit that happen to get along well together.

Amon judged Jimmy’s case to be one of these.

The proof was that he knew Amon was passing by despite the thick iron door in between them.

It was evidence of clairvoyance.

Fortunately, because both the lingering soul and Jimmy lacked intelligence, they had openly revealed their clairvoyance ability.

No one would be fooled by such idiots.

Amon was about to leave without giving them any more attention.

But then a question occurred to him, so he asked Jimmy and his soulmate:

“How did you two become friends? It seems like it would be difficult with so many lingering souls possessing you.”

There was no response.

But Amon knew an easy way to make the lingering soul speak up.

“I’ll hold a ceremonial offering for the first one to respond.”

It was ambiguous whether the word “offering” existed in America, but the lingering souls seemed to grasp the nuance.

As beings obsessed with appeasing resentment, they immediately reacted.

One of the lingering souls with the youngest-sounding voice spoke up.

[I helped entrance you. Since it gets cramped with multiple souls in one body, we accepted.]

“Aha. So Jimmy suggested it first?”

[Yes.]

Amon nodded his head.

Yes, of course.

That’s just like Jimmy.

‘Jimmy, I’m revising my evaluation of you.’

Jimmy wasn’t just a piece of shit.

He was a natural-born great shithead.

‘Ah, no, good thoughts. Good thoughts.’

Barely holding back the curse that had almost slipped out, Amon made the sign of the cross over his chest.

‘Inner peace. The tranquility of a river…’

Inwardly singing a hymn, he forcefully suppressed his anger.

Only after inner tranquility returned did Amon promise to hold an offering ceremony to appease the lingering soul that had told him the truth, then turned to leave.

But something held Amon’s feet in place.

Borrowing Jimmy’s mouth, an elderly lingering soul addressed Amon from behind.

[Aaheyya…]

A voice like coming from a cave mixed with Jimmy’s voice and spilled out.

Amon ignored it and tried to continue on.

But the elderly lingering soul, undeterred by Amon’s attitude, continued to speak its piece.

[Your eyes are truly clear. Without any interest in vanity or fame, they are the eyes of one who pursues wisdom. Aaheyya. Are you not curious about the afterlife? Are you not curious about the truth of this world?]

Amon was not curious at all.

He had already experienced up to the Path of Light ending, passed through the afterlife, and even met the Goddess, so what was there to be curious about?

Moreover, how could a being unable to ascend and wandering the heavens know anything about the afterlife?

That’s why Amon had no reason to listen to the lingering soul’s words.

But he was curious.

Curious about what nonsense that foolish lingering soul would spout.

How that idiot would make a fool of itself.

So he stopped walking and turned back toward the door.

Mistaking Amon’s action for curiosity, the elderly lingering soul began spouting its false truths.

It is commonly believed that people go to the afterlife when they die.

But most humans are unable to go to the afterlife, because they lack sufficient spiritual level.

One must accumulate sufficient spiritual level while dwelling in the heavens to move on to the next world, said the lingering soul.

[Allow me to raise your spiritual level.]

Ordinarily, lengthy training in this world is needed to attain that spiritual level, but coincidentally, this elderly lingering soul was on the threshold of ascension.

Therefore, it promised that if Amon simply opened the door, it would show him the moment of its ascension.

Not only that, but it even whispered that it would bestow upon Amon the truths and all wisdom of this world that it had learned after death.

As the lingering soul tempted Amon, his shoulders shook slightly.

The lingering soul misunderstood this as a common reaction from seekers of wisdom witnessing fragments of truth.

But the truth was that Amon was struggling to hold back laughter.

‘A clown is truly funny precisely because he does not know he is a clown.’

It was a situation where that saying came to mind.

As if trying to make Amon die of laughter, the lingering soul, feeling emboldened, revealed part of its false truths as a taste.

[Aaheyya. There is no need to live virtuously in this world.]

“?”

Amon stopped holding back his laughter.

What kind of nonsense was it spouting now?

Amon lent an ear to the lingering soul’s words.

Mistaking Amon’s listening for interest, the lingering soul continued speaking.

[Things like karma or virtue are all false values created by rulers to control people. The world does not operate that way. The world is simply an intricate system of cause and effect. Good and evil have no influence on that system whatsoever.]

“…And why should I believe that?”

[Because I have seen it. There is no God in this world, and the world simply operates as an intricate system.]

Thud

The moment he heard those words, something snapped inside Amon’s mind.

Amon’s head bowed, his expression cast in shadows.

Without a word, he quietly unlocked the isolation room’s padlock.

By the time the rattle sound woke up the dozing nun, the padlock had already been unlocked.

Before she could a

Dmmoning Amon, the thick iron door opened.

Through the opening door, Jimmy was there, laughing grimly.

Although startled, the nun stood as if protecting Amon.

From behind the nun, Jimmy(?) looked down on Amon, who had his head bowed, with pity.

[Aaheyya. Were you that shaken? I suppose so. There is no pain greater than having the virtue you have believed in and upheld your whole life denied. But do not worry. You are still young. Allow me to whisper the truth to you -]

Jimmy was in the middle of speaking when his gaze turned toward Amon’s hand.

In Amon’s hand was a scripture.

But it was not simply being held – that alone would not have drawn his gaze there.

The reason his gaze was drawn there was because

It was trembling violently, as if containing a whirlwind of emotions that had been forcefully suppressed.

[?]

A question mark floated above Jimmy’s head.

It was because he had difficulty reading the emotion behind that trembling.

That’s why his reaction was delayed until Amon approached right in front of him.

Jimmy’s eyes followed Amon’s hand as he swiftly raised the scripture.

The scripture’s edge was pointed toward Jimmy.

Lowering his gaze slightly, bulging forearm muscles that looked like the veins might burst were visible.

Looking further down, Amon was gritting his teeth as he glared at Jimmy with an expression of utter malice.

[Ah… Aahey…?]

Toward the lingering soul spouting such foolish words,

Loudly enough to wake everyone in the orphanage, Amon roared a curse:

“You blasphemous being!!!!!”

The scripture cleaved the lingering soul’s world in two.