"God created all things in six days and created humanity on the seventh. Don't you think that sentence is very interesting? Every person is so similar, yet by God's design, so different—possessing a divine countenance, but having a different heart."
Interesting?
Would a believer use such a flippant term as "interesting" to describe the contents of the Bible...?
In her letters, the nun chatted with the man about many myths, legends, and biblical chapters. As she said herself, she did not belong to any specific sect, so she knew the doctrines of every denomination clearly.
However, judging from the fact that the sanatorium only hung crosses without icons, and the silver cross the nun wore around her neck, she leaned more toward Protestantism.
Hmm? Wait.
The man reread the letter. He suddenly remembered where he had vaguely heard the name Abaddon Yama-Rakshasa before.
He took out his communicator and connected to the Fire-Moth database. Although the portions he could access were limited, he wasn't looking for classified intelligence, but rather simple knowledge regarding the Bible.
Abaddon Yama-Rakshasa...
After he input that unsettling name, a string of data hit him in the face, his mask reflecting the white glow of the communicator's screen.
To be precise, "Abaddon Yama-Rakshasa" did not belong to the Bible. It came from a Christian offshoot sect in Shenzhou, and the name they used was a portmanteau of two monsters appearing in the Bible.
These two monsters were the Old Serpent, who tempted Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, and the Great Red Dragon, the incarnation of the Devil, Satan, with seven heads and ten horns.
She was called "Abaddon Yama-Rakshasa"—did this have some internal meaning? Or was that simply the name used for that Herrscher in the parallel world?
Furthermore, she said that the name was from an era so distant she could no longer remember...
The man thought for a moment and had an idea. He took out pen and paper to write a reply, asking the nun in the letter if she had any impression of the name Abaddon Yama-Rakshasa.
Though it was likely a futile effort—after all, while the general direction of parallel worlds might be the same, the details varied wildly—a name might not necessarily mean anything.
"...Writing a letter to Sister Aponia?"
The man turned abruptly. The oppressive force stirred by his sharp movement was enough to make one tremble, but the mask on his face instantly scattered that pressure into nothingness.
Consequently, the little girl hiding behind the window, showing only a pair of eyes, wasn't scared in the least by him looking at her.
"..." He stopped his pen, stuffed the letter into his pocket, and turned to leave.
Seeing this, the little girl grunted with dissatisfaction, "What gives? It's not like I'm forbidding you from writing."
The man stopped in his tracks upon hearing her words. He gave her a thoughtful look and suddenly asked, "How did you find out?"
"What's so hard to find out? Sister Aponia has been looking prettier lately, and she's smiling more. I also saw her walking to the mailbox often. I went to check after she left and found a letter tucked in there." The little girl pouted, her clever eyes darting toward the man. "I saw it in a book! This state Sister Aponia is in is called 'being in love'! Women all get prettier when they're in love!"
"..." The man now had some doubts about what kind of books the nun usually let these children read.
"How did you get Sister Aponia to like you? Is it because you're very rich? The book says women all like rich men, but what counts as being rich... or are you just good at talking and making Sister Aponia happy?"
The man felt that for the sake of the child's mental and physical health, he ought to explain. But as the words reached his lips, he noticed the conflicted expression on the girl's face. He asked instead, "Why do you want to know?"
"O-Of course it's so Sister Aponia will like me too. But I'm not a boy, so I can't date Sister Aponia... it's so distressing..."
I see. She's confused dating with being cared for?
For a child her age, she might have ignorantly picked up some related knowledge without truly understanding what it meant.
"Brother Ultraman, can you teach me how to become rich and good at talking?"
The man walked to the window. He looked into the little girl's envious gaze, then slowly shifted his eyes to her collarbone.
Patterns. Pulsing.
Even if he could no longer see color, he could never forget the color of those patterns. They were etched into his deepest memories.
After a moment of silence, the man asked, "Do you really want to know?"
"Mm-hmm!"
"What is your name?"
"The name Sister Aponia gave me is Daniela!"
Daniela... truly a name a nun would give.
"Daniela, which book did you get that knowledge from?" The man opened the window slightly, enough for a hand to pass through. Clearly, he wanted Daniela to give him the book she was reading.
Daniela was smart. From her ability to notice the nun's recent changes and the small detail of her frequent trips to the mailbox, it was clear she was a clever and sharp child. She naturally understood the man's meaning, turned around, crept back to the dormitory she shared with the other children, pulled out a book, and returned to the hallway, sliding the book through the gap.
Once the man took the book, he saw the words on it.
"How to Pick Up Girls in Five Minutes"
"..."
"Brother Ultraman, is what's written in this book right? Do you use this method to pick up girls too?"
Facing Daniela's curious inquiry, the man silently opened the book and flipped through it at random.
First of all, the title alone was a complete, non-constructive gimmick. the amount of content in the book was unexpectedly large, and most of it was nonsense. Meaningless statements, parallelism, and metaphors took up more than half the pages; it would take far more than five minutes just to find a useful part.
However, the man's reading speed far exceeded that of an ordinary person. He finished the entire book in three minutes and extracted the outline and core viewpoints.
Secondly, the things written in this book—while not entirely without reference value—would likely only earn one strange looks from the opposite sex if they tried to "pick up girls" using them.
The book consisted mainly of general social interaction techniques mixed with the author's own fantasies.
Although the man had never been in a relationship and didn't know how to date, he could tell at a glance that this book was a load of nonsense.
Of course, he didn't need to know how to date.
"Do you want to know how to pick up girls?" He put the book down solemnly.
"Mm-hmm."
"Fine. I'll teach you."