Chapter 152 - 'Is There A God?”

WARNING TO RELIGIOUS READERS: SACRILEGE IN THIS CHAPTER.

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"You can choose to stay here in my house, or my friend's house." Fumio tells Ahdem and Havvah as they all sit down at the living room table.

"Our houses are practically the same, structurally." Nishiki informs the couple. "Just have them stay here at your house. You don't use this place that much anyways." He complains to Fumio however.

"Alright. You two can stay here, then." Fumio addresses Ahdem and Havvah.

Nishiki's complaint reminds him that just like Red in Hinohara, he prefers to stay under the hill in his cave, where everything he needs is available, and the treasure fragment dimension is always accessible.

"Do you know my name, by any chance?" Fumio asks the couple.

"Wasn't it Fumio?" Havvah says.

"Tsk. I was hoping you were not able to overhear it." Fumio clicks his tongue.

The couple can only shrug.

"Then please tell me your names." Fumio politely demands.

Havvah gestures to go first. But as she is about to introduce herself with a fake name, "Hav…" she cannot help but utter the first syllable of her real one.

"Y-you did it again…" She complains bitterly.

Ahdem immediately realizes that Havvah and possibly him too, are once again being forced by Fumio to answer honestly.

Fumio meanwhile, sneakily stores his Truth Powder back in his storage ring.

"I know that you don't mean to harm me or my domain. I just don't trust you two enough. My garden's illusion was also discovered by you two earlier, which is not helping." Fumio shrugs.

"..." The couple finds it logical, but they are still uncomfortable by how overbearing Fumio is.

"And besides. I'm at a disadvantage because you know my name and I don't know yourses." Fumio stands up and heads to the kitchen.

The couple then watch in interest as Fumio opens the wooden chest near the sink and takes out what looks like a giant pear from it.

The two have seen giant strawberries and berries in the gardens but they did not dare try the fruits due to Nishiki's warning them not to unless Fumio permits it.

So seeing the new fruit, and noticing its size, interests them.

"So? What are your names?" Fumio asks as he takes out a knife from the nearby drawer and slices the pear into two halves.

"My name's Ahdem." "Mine is Havvah." The couple answer without much thought as their attention is focused on the pear.

The pear's white sparkling flesh gives them another round of nostalgia.

"Sounds Arabic? Or Hebrew?" Fumio asks, finding the sound of their names pleasant.

"Yes." Havvah nods.

Fumio frowns, noticing the oddity of the answer.

"I see." He nods nonetheless, knowing the two cannot currently lie.

"Ahdem… Havvah… Ahdem…  Havvah…" He then repeats the two's name to familiarize himself in saying them, while he starts to slowly and carefully cut the pear into smaller pieces.

Even though the pear is dime a dozen in Red's hill, he still feels that he should respect the fruit by preparing it carefully and serving it beautifully.

"Ahdem… Havvah … " On his third repetition of the names, he freezes suddenly, his fluidly moving fruit knife stops carving another slice off of the pear, and he looks at the couple strangely.

"Ahdem… Havvah..." He repeats their name once more, but this time, with a tinge of shock and suspicion in his tone.

"..." The couple are taken aback, immediately figuring out what caused Fumio's reaction.

"Damn…"

"Yeah…"

The couple exchange frustrated grunts.

"Yes. You got us." Ahdem then says to Fumio helplessly.

"You might have heard of our names in English." Havvah adds with a sigh.

They know that Fumio is not stupid and can suppress their ability to lie, so they know that denying it is useless. They can only hope that by admitting their identities to Fumio before Fumio can even ask, they can lower the chances of them being hurt or experimented on by the cultivator.

"Huh… Adam and Eve, sitting in my living room. What has the world come to?" Fumio chuckles in amusement.

He then continues to finish slicing the pear and arranging them on a plate.

Ahdem and Havvah are taken aback by Fumio's reaction and they exchange confused looks.

"You… are taking it quite well." Havvah cannot help but ask Fumio.

"Yeah?... How am I supposed to react?" Fumio asks as he serves the plate of pears to the two.

"The last person who we told wasn't exactly… calm." Ahdem says, reminded of someone.

"Oh. Trust me. I'm shocked… and excited." Fumio says as he sits down.

The couple look closer and they notice that Fumio indeed is trembling for a bit.

"Anyways. Doesn't your existences mean that you two are the first superiori?" Fumio asks.

"We are." Havvah confirms.

"Huh… I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed." Fumio shrugs.

"Oh?" Ahdem is intrigued by the opinion.

"Why?" He asks.

"I thought you would be S-Class Superiori. But… You seem to have the physique of E-Class Physically Enhanced Superiori." Fumio says.

"Ah…" The couple understands.

"Well. That's not how we look at it." Ahdem scoffs.

"We might not have the destructive force of your regular S-Class Superiori, but I consider myself and my love here, S-Class." He argues.

"…" Fumio thinks for a moment, before coming to a guess.

"Longevity." He says.

"That's right. Longevity." Havvah confirms.

"As long as we're careful, we feel that we can outlive everyone living in the world right now. Not sure if we can outlive angels and demons though." She explains.

"How long did you two live?" Fumio asks.

"…" The couple refuse to answer.

Fumio, seeing the two's hesitance, shrugs and takes a piece of the pear and pops it to his mouth.

"Please." He then urges the two to partake in the fruit he prepared.

Ahdem, smelling the fragrance, grabs a piece of the pear and ungraciously chucks it to his mouth.

"My goodness…" He immediately tastes the pear's sweet but subtle flavor exploding in his mouth.

He also cannot help but tear up a little, being reminded of something in the distant past.

"…" Havvah notices Ahdem's actions and copies it.

The next moment, unlike Ahdem who held his tears in, her tears fall freely from her eyes.

"Ah… I missed this." She utters to Ahdem.

"So do I." Ahdem smiles in consolation.

"…" Fumio is simply observing the two, connecting things in his mind.

A few moments later, the couple recover from their nostalgia.

"How did you make the connection by the way?" Ahdem asks Fumio.

"Exactly. No one has heard of our names since the downfall of the Salvation Religion, Yehudism, and Submission Faith." Havvah adds.

"Huh. You two must be out of the loop. There are still copies of The Bible, the Avrhamic scriptures, and Al Koran around." Fumio looks at the two weirdly.

"Yes. But only scholars and historians are interested in those. Are you one of them?" Ahdem asks.

"And you're Japanese too. There were very few Iesous worshippers here in Japan before the great war, much less Yehudists and Moslems." Havvah comments to herself.

"Ah. Not a scholar." Fumio shakes his head.

"You two heard of anime?" He asks.

"Uhuh…" Ahdem nods.

"What's that?" Havvah asks Ahdem.

"Japanese animated tv shows." Ahdem explains.

"Oh…" Havvah gets the idea.

"What about it?" Ahdem asks Fumio.

"Well, it just so happens that you two appeared as minor characters in a famous anime I enjoyed as a child. Sometimes, characters in anime are based on real life, so I looked up who the characters in that anime I've seen, were based on.

"From my random research, I found out that only you two were the only ones that were not based on real people, but on people that are in religious texts. Then from that, I got curious why the maker of that anime had to use characters from religion, so I searched for more.

"That's when I found out that you two were the first humans in Yehudism, and Salvation Bible's Old Testament. Maybe that's why the writers of the anime named their first humans after you two." Fumio explains.

"Interesting…" Ahdem smirks.

"I can't even..." Havvah giggles in amusement.

"I have to say. They got your skin tones right." Fumio nods, referring to the two's brown complexions.

"I don't know if it's our bad luck, but… You, connecting a piece of entertainment from your childhood, to us… It's just…" Havvah shakes her head.

"That makes me think… I know that Mohammed and Buddha were real people. How about Iesous?" Fumio asks out of interest.

"Correction. Buddha is the title of an enlightened one in Buddhism. But I know who you're referring to. It was Siddhattha Gotama." Ahdem corrects Fumio.

"Yeah. Siddhattha. Whatever. How about Iesous?" Fumio asks.

"He was real." Ahdem reveals, surprising Fumio greatly.

"Originally named Yeshua, who was born to Yehudist parents." He adds.

"If he's real, then doesn't that mean… that God is real? Because if I recall my high school history subjects, Salvation Followers worshipped Iesous, who was sent by God, to die for humans' sins." Fumio asks.

"…" Ahdem and Havvah exchange conflicted glances.

"Iesous was but a man. Born of Yosep and Maryam. It's in the Salvation Bible." Ahdem finds his words.

"Yes, but what was it again?... Immaculate conception or something?" Fumio asks.

"No." The couple scoff.

"How the hell you know?" Fumio frowns at the two's disdain.

"We met Iesous." Havvah shrugs.

"Talked to him even. Told us himself." Ahdem adds.

"Huh…" Fumio would not have believed the two's words if they are not under the influence of his Truth Powder.

"That's too bad." He sighs.

"Was he a superioris? I read somewhere that he can walk on water and swim on land." He asks.

"Puhup!"

"AHAHA!"

Havvah and Ahdem burst out into laughter.

"What's wrong?" Fumio is a bit offended. Finding being made fun of for simply making a serious inquiry, a bit distasteful.

"It's just funny. Swimming on land…" Havvah giggles.

"According to the gospel of his disciples, he walked on water. He never swam on land." Ahdem explains.

"Oh…" Fumio's misunderstanding is cleared up.

"But was he though? A superioris? They said he made water to wine, and multiplied bread and fish to feed thousands of people." He asks.

"He was not." Ahdem says.

"Those were just embellishments and fiction written by the Salvation followers decades upon decades after Iesous' death." He explains.

"Oh. And by the way..." Havvah cuts in.

"We never met any other superiori until the Great Harvest. When the gates of Heaven and Hell appeared on our world."

"Ah… Well, that shuts down a lot my questions." Fumio is disappointed.

He is not out of questions however.

"Is there a God?" He asks.