Saintess

The Holy Infant Society had temporarily made peace with the authorities, but that didn't mean the authorities would make the Society's existence public.

They still had reservations about the Holy Infant Society. No one knew whether their cooperation might fall apart, and the widespread public discontent that would follow would be a headache for them.

After gaining its freedom, Nakai Hayato kept the members of the Holy Infant Society out of the public eye. He seemed to have no plans to recruit new members on a large scale anytime soon. This came as a relief to many who had been watching, though they also felt a little disappointed.

They had been hoping to join when the Holy Infant Society opened recruitment. Now that the Society wasn't in a hurry, they found themselves getting impatient.

Nakai Hayato hadn't done this at Shiraishi Wataru's instruction. The Holy Infant had only just been brought back, and after spending so long imprisoned or in hiding, the members needed a little emotional comfort. Besides, the Ninth Guardian was engrossed in animal experiments, so Nakai had decided to first shore up the old members, especially those who had taken the Holy Son Pills. He would focus on training them and see if he could draw out their deeper powers.

Shiraishi Wataru didn't interfere much. He had already secured a very favorable environment for the Holy Infant Society, and now it was time to see what Nakai Hayato could do. The Society was merely a somewhat valuable pawn to him; it wasn't worth spending too much time on. If Nakai couldn't manage it, Shiraishi would naturally support someone else to take his place.

Even if the Special Affairs Bureau showed that it was particularly capable of bringing about new mutations, what would be wrong with handing the Holy Infant Society over to them to manage?

After that, he could simply put on a new face, create another society, and play both sides against each other. That wouldn't be difficult.

His ultimate goal remained the pursuit of higher-level mutations, so that he could become invincible in the world, if not immortal and indestructible.

He hadn't even developed the mutation that would let him come back to life. How could he spend all his precious time on a single pawn?

So Shiraishi Wataru was now working on three fronts.

On one front, he had the Ninth Guardian intensify the animal experiments. Unfortunately, no new abilities had emerged since the first experiment, as if he had used up all his luck.

As for his main body, he was compiling all kinds of information while maintaining [Listen], keeping track of the condition of each symbiote and piecing together a mutation code that was drawing ever closer to the truth.

On the other front, he was practicing multitasking. He had parasitized an old man and was making the rounds of various hospitals. On the surface, he was seeking medical advice; in reality, he was searching for people who might harbor extreme sorrow.

He had secretly established symbiosis with several people, but unfortunately, none had developed new abilities. He even began to wonder whether people who took the Parasite of their own free will were more likely to mutate.

Today, after his usual bout of listening, Shiraishi Wataru heard the same person's prayer that he had been hearing for quite some time, and grew curious.

"God! The Demon Fetus grows stronger by the day. I'm afraid I won't last until I see you again."

He listened four or five times a day, and heard this prayer at least twice every day. Even priests weren't that free, were they? And it was a woman's voice. Could she be a nun?

After roughly figuring out the direction, he made the old man head that way. In the end, he arrived at a psychiatric hospital.

Psychiatric hospitals were one of Shiraishi Wataru's targets, too, so today's visit was a lucky coincidence.

Once he reached a secluded spot, the old man used Void Walk and slipped inside without a sound.

"You've been taking your medication regularly lately. That's good. Keep it up."

"...Doctor, can you help me have an abortion?"

"Hmm. The abortion pills we prescribed should have started working by now. Have you been going to the bathroom more often lately?"

"Yes, but... I can still feel him growing. He's moving. He... He can't be born. He's the child of a demon. If he is born, the world will face destruction and the end of all things!"

"Calm down. Easy... Maybe the medicine isn't working well because he's so powerful. I'll increase the dosage. You don't need to worry. Besides, our world has the Giant of Light. Even demons are no match for him, let alone the child of a demon."

"..."

After listening to their exchange, Shiraishi Wataru looked at the woman before him. Her face was haggard, she was barely over twenty, and her abdomen was flat, without a trace of excess flesh. He became quite interested.

He moved behind the doctor and secretly glanced at the medical file on the computer. He soon gained a basic understanding of her.

Inagaki Miki, female, twenty-five years old.

She had married at twenty-two and become pregnant that same year, but had suffered a miscarriage at six months.

At twenty-three, she divorced and sued her husband for causing the miscarriage through domestic violence, but the case was eventually settled out of court.

Inagaki Miki had developed a tendency to abuse her abdomen, and had tried to injure it with a sharp object. She had been discovered and stopped in time.

Finally, because of her severe suicidal tendencies and her constant talk of God's salvation, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital by her family. She blamed herself for letting demonic energy pollute the Holy Fetus and claimed that the body of God's child had been occupied by a demon's offspring, along with other such bizarre statements.

Before all this, she had never shown any signs of religious faith.

Her emotional state had stabilized for now, but she still believed she was carrying a Demon Fetus and spent long periods praying every day.

Based on all this, Shiraishi Wataru thought she would make a good subject.

"Which god is she praying to? This host happens to be an old man with white hair and beard. Put him in a holy white robe, and he'll look divine even without using Alienation."

Shiraishi Wataru had a rough idea. He directed the old man to go make preparations.

After her routine examination, Inagaki Miki trudged back to her room like a living corpse, one hand supporting her lower back like a pregnant woman's, her eyes vacant.

"Saintess! How is the Demon Fetus?"

A female "fellow believer" hurried over to ask. She looked at Inagaki Miki's abdomen as if it were something terrifying.

Inagaki Miki shook her head. "This must be God's test. Perhaps everything has already been decided. All we need to do is wait in peace. The moment that will decide our fate will come in time."

"May we return to heaven. Amen, Amitabha, Allah!" The female believer performed a religious gesture that perhaps only she understood, then carefully helped Inagaki Miki back to her room.

Because Inagaki Miki had once been at serious risk of suicide, she had a private room that had been specially modified. But now that her condition had stabilized, it might not be long before they considered moving her into a shared room so she could communicate more with others.

Inagaki Miki sat cross-legged on a cushion in the middle of the room and continued to pray.

She prayed more devoutly than a priest and seemed holier than a nun. No wonder, over the past two years, others had gradually "converted" to the god she believed in. They gathered every week to pray together.

From afternoon to evening, the sun sank in the west and dusk washed over the sky. Golden-orange light streamed through the room's two small windows, falling across her face and making her look like an angel born at twilight.

Inagaki stopped praying with her eyes closed.

It wasn't just that her prayer had ended. She could also feel someone standing before her, blocking the light.