I Can't Figure Out Priests These Days

1.

Eclipse.

They were the ones who had sworn, of their own will, to become shadows — if that was what it took to blot out the Empire's sun. Because they hated the Emperor. Because they loved slaughter far too well. Because they had been shadows from the very beginning. And so on, each for a reason of their own.

Of all who had become Eclipse, only seven had risen to its inner circle. The sole measure of selection was power. Those seven, ranked by the simple law of the strong devouring the weak, sat gathered around a round table.

The first to speak was second among the Seven Calamities: the Calamity of December.

"It was excessive."

The voice rasped, and sank.

"Gardner territory or not. The whole of Radiance lodging there or not. Turning every last one of the Hounds loose on that place was excessive."

The Hounds December meant were the assassins Eclipse itself ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had raised, and he sounded none too pleased that every one of them had been committed to this operation — the Usurpation of the Heavenly Shield.

As if to answer him, a soft voice drifted down from the fourth seat.

"What, feeling precious about the ones you raised with your own hands?"

"...Hardly."

"See? No matter how carefully you tend them, not every one grows up to be a pretty flower."

The woman of the fourth seat, the Calamity of the Blooming Flower, glanced at the second and let a thin laugh slip as she added the rest.

"The Hounds are trash. If they succeed, lovely. If they don't, they're perfect for pinning on the Emperor. Trash you use roughly, and throw away."

A twitch.

Before he could stop it, the Calamity of December's brow jumped, and he turned his head toward the fourth seat.

"Agreed. The weak are trash. Cowards who have nothing but criticism for those beneath them, then tuck their tails the moment they look up — those, most of all."

"Hmm? Strange. Why do I feel oddly stung?"

Tuduk. Tududuk.

A handful of words was enough. The sealed chamber shuddered, and stone-dust sifted down.

"A weak dog was barking."

"I didn't know you were into that."

WHUD!

The two auras collided. A corner of the round table sheared clean off and slammed into the wall.

Even that was not enough. The table itself was on the verge of splitting in half when—

"Aaaah, stop it, please!"

A clear voice, bright with terror, rang out, and the round table knit itself back together, neat as if it had never been touched.

"I said it's started!"

The sixth seat: the Calamity of Twisted Faith.

Clap!

The boy struck his palms together, then flung them wide, and a screen bloomed in the empty air. What it showed was the Gardner count's estate.

A hundred Hounds and the people of the manor tangled together in a single knot. The vanguard that had been thrown in sowed chaos; the rear ranks, swinging wide, climbed the face of the house itself.

Watching that orderly movement, the fourth seat — the Calamity of the Blooming Flower — let out a soft, pleased hum through her nose.

"Useful, aren't they?"

She meant it literally. The hero party, Radiance, was there. So were the count's warriors and mercenaries, and among the guests no shortage of skilled knights and mages. And still—

"Breach."

Crash!

In a single breath the captain of the Hounds was inside the family head's office, undoing the vault that held the Heavenly Shield.

"Impressive, isn't he? They said he was a grandmaster in the Eastern imperial house. Guess it was true."

"......"

"And look at you, gone quiet. Mood's improved, then. While we're at it, why don't you teach me a little too? Grandmaster of the East. December."

"Me too! I want to learn too!"

The air had softened before anyone quite noticed, and the Seven Calamities were needling one another like gossips when—

A curse came through the screen. The reason was simple. The Heavenly Shield they had gone in hunting was already gone.

In an instant the warmth died. The Blooming Flower murmured before she could help herself.

"......We're in trouble."

The next moment—

Trrrrrk—!!!

A pressure beyond any comparison to the clash before erupted from the highest seat. Crack!Krrrrk!Crunch, snap! The round table split. The ceiling came down. Beneath it, six Calamities broke.

The weight held at exactly the point where they would not quite die. The man who alone remained standing spoke, short and flat.

A clean abandonment. And, in the same breath, the next plan begun.

The six Calamities bowed their heads to the first seat — to Doom — and were gone from that place in an instant.

Doom, left alone, watched the screen for a long while after, and murmured.

"...Black Wolf."

Was this your doing again? And if it was—

They would be seeing each other soon enough.

On the screen, the calamities began to run wild.

2.

This was a raw deal.

He had only just recovered — accidentally caught on the blade when Hestia went down, and barely ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pulled himself back together — and now this.

"Kyaaaaaah!!"

"I-intruders! We're under attack!!"

"What!? Don't tell me it's those Black Wolf bastards!!?"

Before he could so much as change out of his bloodstained clothes, Eclipse's assault had begun. And that was not even the end of it. He had gone to all the trouble of pretending he was fine, of playing the broad-hearted priest and comforting her, and then—

"This way, my lady!!"

"Ah! W-wait!! That man, that man too!!"

"If those are Black Wolf, your safety comes first, my lady!!"

"Let go of me, Mister Rohan!! Priest!! P-Priiiieeest......!!"

They left him standing there like a post, and whisked only Hestia away.

"......Son of a bitch."

Fine. He understood. If the Black Wolf that had taken the bait really had come, they would strike at anyone tied to Gardner first, so grabbing Hestia ahead of him made sense. She couldn't even walk. And she was the young lady who had shielded them from Black Wolf besides, so of course they were fonder of her. He understood all of that.

But still.

"......?"

"......"

They could have put down at least one of them on the way out. Then again, he had never even been introduced as a benefactor, and here he was in this sorry, rumpled state. Of course he got shoved to the back of the line.

"...A priest? A free priest?"

"Does that matter, in a situation like this?"

"Of course it does. Priests get burned. Free priests get torn apart."

"Whew. Fierce of you...... no, wait. In my case, the word would be forceful, wouldn't it."

"A free priest, then."

This was a bit much, wasn't it?

Nahan thought it over.

What can I actually do?

Right now he was Ian Red. By the setting, a feeble authority that could judge only life and death, and only by touching something that belonged to a person. Which meant he could not use the power Black Wolf carried, nor Yellow Dragon's. Of course, if no one were watching, he could switch it on where no one saw and switch it off again, but—

I heard it in the carriage. The hero Selena is watching the whole of the Gardner county.

He hadn't asked how closely, so he couldn't say how far it reached. Things were still quiet, which suggested she couldn't pick out a disguise artifact. But if he used his power?

She'd notice. Obviously.

She had stared straight through him even in the carriage. His heart had nearly climbed out of his throat.

Which brought him back to the start.

So what can I do?

The authority he'd been granted was feeble, and he had scrambled this way and that to make up for it, but Ian Red — the man who had fallen out of the Church and become a free priest — in the end...

What could he actually do?

Survival instinct crept in, slow and sure, and the blood began to move through his whole body.

"Scared? Scared of being torn to death?"

"......"

"Kih-kih. Yeah. You would be."

Lick.

The wretch dragged his tongue the full length of his longsword, let out a snicker, and came closer.

"Don't worry. The tongue that does the screaming — I'll tear that one out last."

Well. Thanks for that. Tongue spared, Nahan swallowed as if he were tense, and asked, lightly.

"Are you people Black Wolf?"

"......"

"What's your objective! I'm asking what you came here to do!"

"......"

Nothing but silence. The voice sounded stupid. The training, plainly, did not. Still, it hadn't been for nothing. While he put the questions to the man and edged back a little at a time, he had checked the status window.

A C+-rank nobody, out of the mercenary trade. A Sword Expert at the ripe end of the novice tier — and he used aura on top of it. Black Wolf and Yellow Dragon were both Ex-rank, and most of the artifacts Nahan wore were transcendent-grade as well. Selena's watch meant he could use almost none of them. On the premise that he erased the man called Ian Red, he could keep his life.

Black Wolf's skills. Yellow Dragon's skills. The regeneration of the Ring of Iaso. None of it fit what Ian Red was supposed to be able to do, and the Ring of Vulcan would only raise his resistance to magic, which was useless here. The Heavenly Shield, the moment he used it, stood a high chance of being noticed by the Gardner family. In practice, there was nothing for it but a bare-handed fight.

And even that meant meeting a C-rank swordsman as an ordinary man.

...Run?

Impossible, obviously. The man used aura. The gap would be a child against a grown adult.

And in the middle of that—

...tok.

The foot he had been backing away on stopped, where the manor's wall was gouged in like an alley.

"Well now. Nowhere left to run, is there?"

Kilson smiled, thin, and shrugged. He had known. He had known that the end of Nahan's retreat was this place, walled on three sides.

"Kih-kih. How should I kill you?"

A prey cornered, and before it the mean smile only a predator can wear. But the man did not know. He did not know that the one who had chosen this spot — three walls like a rampart, free of every watching eye — was not himself, but Nahan.

It had been fighting. Looking back, Nahan had not lost once in his previous life. The reason was this.

If the one he had to face was a human set down on the same level as himself—

"I'm always stronger."

The words were barely out before Kilson's aura was restricted. He flinched, stopped dead, and demanded—

"You...!! What the hell did you just do!!"

"Curious? Come closer and put your ear up."

He'd bite it clean off.

Nahan versus Kilson.

"I'll ask after I've killed you!!!"

"You do that."

The fight began.

3.

Shhhhrk!

A sound of wind, as if the air were being ripped in two, tore apart around Tehelan Gardner. He was making for the rear garden. Radiance and his warriors were cutting the attackers down, yes — but for the head of a house to turn his back on a front garden still in the thick of battle and run for the rear was, on the face of it, a strange thing.

He had no choice.

He had been told that the benefactor who saved his daughter had been left behind alone.

Even as he ran with everything he had, Tehelan read the ground around him. Most of the attackers were advanced Sword Experts — A-rank, in plain terms. Men specialized in nothing but killing people and killing them unseen. A priest, famous for frailty, and a free priest at that, granted only a feeble authority, was not something to face alone.

Hestia's abduction. Two assaults. The loss of the Heavenly Shield on top of it all. And if the man called Ian Red died as well, and they failed even to repay the debt—

How far is Gardner meant to fall?

The thought drove him harder. He put on speed, and reached the rear garden, and in that instant—

Thwack!

CRACK!!

A sickening sound of flesh bursting caught him and dragged him in.

"Damn it all!!"

Each of them carrying a weapon made to fit his own hand, and they meant to beat a man to death with them? What a hideous turn of heart was that?

His grip tightened on the greatshield and the short hand-axe.

I'll kill you in a single stroke.

The moment they entered his sight, the axe that had kept him company all his life would split the bastard's skull. He finished the resolve. The hidden stretch of garden opened in front of him. Tehelan was a breath from hurling the axe when—

"......Huh?"

The sound that escaped him was, even to his own ears, utterly blank. And no wonder.

"You! God! Damn! Bastard! Why! Do you! Keep! Fucking!! Giggling!! Like a lunatic!!!"

"......"

"Go on, smile!! Smile again!! You son of a—!!"

Whud! Whud! Whud-whud!

The man who bore every feature his daughter had described was hitting the man who was, at a glance, plainly an attacker. Hitting him, and hitting him again.

"...Priests these days, I just can't figure them out."

Had someone gone and invented a separate order of battle-priests? But he did not get to stand and wonder for long.

An ill-omened force began to burst from every corner of the Gardner estate.