The Truth Comes to Light (5)
The atmosphere was frigid.
Noel shuddered under the gazes of his brothers and cousins.
Cold.
Four quietly glowing blue eyes bored down on him with what could only be called revulsion.
Well, Benjamin had always treated him like a parasite, so that much was to be expected—but Rillai? This was the fool who fussed over even Goel, a half-brother and a piece of trash, cooing "older brother" this and "older brother" that. In the Blue faith, he was the one most obsessed with the fence of family.
And Leah? That was not a child capable of looking at a human being the way one looks at an insect.
Shuri, of all people, was worse still—his own nephew, staring down his great-uncle with pure contempt?
But the most terrifying gaze of all belonged to Isaac. A single crimson burning amid all that blue. That alone was enough to raise the hair on his neck.
If the others glinted like the Eshua winter—a cold, piercing blue—Isaac was hot. He blazed red, like a sun that melted everything it touched, utterly alone.
Crushed under an indescribable pressure, Noel could only gape.
What is this?
What was wrong with these brats, looking at him like that?
Is it because of my ties to the Gold faith—because of Benjamin?
No, surely even these people had imagined that possibility.
More than anything, that gaze was nothing like their usual look of dislike. It was, if anything, disturbingly relaxed... Yes. Looking down on him with an insolent smirk, as if to say go ahead, say your piece. A look the old Blue faith could never, ever have produced.
Noel told himself it was simply unpleasant—yet he kept swallowing, over and over.
What is it?
What did they find out?
He was terrified. For the first time in his life, he understood what fear was.
Then, as if he'd read Noel's mind, Isaac strode straight toward him.
"You wouldn't have a clue, would you, Uncle?"
"Hrk...!"
As Isaac closed in, Noel staggered back before he could stop himself.
"You've got so many skeletons rattling around in your closet, you can't even imagine why we're looking at you like this, can you?"
"......!!"
Is this brat reading my mind?
But Noel forced a show of composure and folded his arms.
"Well, I can see why you lot are puffing yourselves up. No one died, everyone awakened as a proper Saintess, and the trash Rank 0 clawed his way all the way to 6th Tier. I suppose the rejects are feeling awfully pleased with themselves now that they've had their little awakening. The faith of the weak gains a bit of traction, and suddenly you think you can come out here and strut? Hm? Young Lord?"
At that, the family's eyes grew even colder, and the corners of Isaac's mouth curled upward.
"Do you really think that's the reason?"
"?"
If not that, then what?
"Kaya."
"!"
"The father of the great Saintess?"
"......!"
At Kaya's name, Noel could hardly believe his ears.
So that's where all this swagger came from? This? THIS is it?
"Isaac. Don't tell me you're belittling Kaya now just because Leah awakened first. Now that you've killed the God of Awakening, does she look like a joke to you? Since poor Kaya will never get her awakening now?"
Isaac barely suppressed a snort at the outburst.
This absolute idiot is barking up entirely the wrong tree. But he had no intention of correcting him. He simply looked at Noel.
"What? Is the fatherly love boiling over?"
"Isn't that only natural? I am Kaya's real father. Her future—"
"...PFFT-HAH!"
"......????"
Noel looked Isaac up and down as if the boy had lost his mind.
At the trembling of those pupils, Isaac coughed with performative apology.
"Ah, sorry, sorry. I just couldn't help myself."
"What?"
"It's just... isn't seedless fatherly love such a grand, magnificent thing?"
In that instant, Noel's face froze. Only seconds later—after the blood had fully drained from it—did he finally sputter a protest.
"...Wh-what? What?"
When Noel stammered—an almost unprecedented event—Isaac sidled closer, playing innocent with theatrical grace.
"Oh, my mistake! Kaya looks so little like you that I simply misspoke. I couldn't find a single shred of parental love in you, so I assumed she must be the ugly duckling of the nest. My apologies, truly!"
...This little...?
Noel glared at him with trembling eyes, but Isaac just beamed, bright and guileless.
"Oh, but did you know, Noel? I saw something fascinating when I visited Verite Territory. They grow seedless fruit there?"
"!"
"And you have no idea~ how convenient it is to eat. You simply must check it out yourself, next time you're in Verite."
What is this brat playing at?
Noel stared at him in bewilderment, but Isaac showed no sign whatsoever of stopping.
"Verite breeds the most extraordinary things, you know. Right? Shameless bastards, for instance. Brazen, two-faced wretches. Thieves without a shred of conscience."
What on earth is his angle? Glaring at Isaac, Noel's fists trembled with fury.
"Th-this brat has lost his mind. What the hell have you been spouting since—!!"
"A gelding."
His heart plunged.
And toward that frozen, bloodless face, Isaac drove in the finishing blow.
"What business does a thief have putting the words 'father of a Saintess' in his mouth?"
"......!!!"
His heart dropped through the floor. Panic seized him, and Noel's eyes darted frantically to his siblings.
The eyes of his family looking back at him were colder than cold. That was no longer the gaze one gave a rival. That was the gaze one gave vermin.
Isaac regarded the speechless man almost pityingly.
"Maybe I should have saved this for the Founding Festival, and dragged it all out in front of a much bigger crowd."
Cold sweat ran in rivulets down Noel's spine. His panicked gaze had nowhere to go but the faces around him.
Don't tell me... they noticed?
No. Impossible.
There's no way these people could know!
Noel bit his lip—then immediately threw the accusation right back.
"You insolent wretches! You've gone too far this time—slandering people, insulting them with lies?!"
"Ah. Lies, you say?"
"!"
It was Rillai who, unable to bear it any longer, finally let a hollow laugh escape. He fixed Noel with a chilling stare.
"When your wives gave birth, my lord, the only one present was you. Wouldn't that make switching the infants a rather simple matter?"
Noel choked on the naked precision of it. It was a deduction so exact it might have come from someone who had been standing in that birthing chamber himself.
But Noel was hardly the sort to meekly confess to so little.
"...What a fine novelist you've become!!"
"!"
"You brats! I wondered what you were scheming, and here you are, determined to drive me out. It's Isaac, isn't it? That brat put you all up to this!"
"Hey, Noel what's-your-name."
Benjamin stepped forward, seething, but Noel only sneered.
"Wow. You brats have truly sunk to rock bottom—clawing at family bonds of all things? You insult and wound an innocent man with baseless filth, and you expect to just walk away?"
"Hey, you—"
"What evidence could you possibly even—!!!"
Right at that moment.
Flutter—
Isaac gave a single sheet of paper a lazy little wave.
"There's something quite interesting in the Imperial Library."
At the document inscribed in shimmering violet light, Noel's face went rigid. There was no need to read the contents closely.
It was a record concerning Noel. Of his congenital... condition. Of the secret by which Noel had been deceiving the entire family, all these years.
...Damn it! Why is that THERE?!
The Imperial Library records even that?!
"To be precise, it's a detailed registry of everyone under the gods' protection."
"!"
Under divine protection, there must be no lies—a system of holy surveillance.
Well, it seems to be an apparatus the first Empress—the Divine Dragon—devised to keep both imperial and papal authority in check.
Naturally, no deep record had ever been inscribed about Isaac.
I don't receive the gods' protection, after all.
Which suited him just fine.
Then Rillai spoke, cold as frost.
"You should count yourself fortunate that I haven't yet reported this to Father."
"!"
"Of course, he will learn of it soon enough. Or, shall I say—it will all be laid bare at the next Eshua family gathering, before that can even happen?"
"Are you kidding me?! Those records could be forged! How can you put faith in scribbles like that!"
"Believe them or don't—it makes no difference to me. In fact, this works out rather conveniently."
"......!"
The truth was, no one had berated and jeered at Rillai more savagely over the years than Noel himself.
"Then let us run you through the very same examination, shall we?"
"......!"
"What's the matter? Do you object? Or is it... that you simply can't?"
"Ugh...!"
White-faced, Noel staggered back without meaning to. At last, gnashing his teeth, he turned and hurried off somewhere with all due haste.
Damn it all! If it's come to this, I have no choice but to summon the Awakened God of Darkness!
As his figure receded into the distance, Leah quietly wrapped her hand around her sword hilt.
"Are we really letting him walk away like that?"
It was an offer to finish the problem herself, but Isaac shook his head.
"This is the only way to make him move."
"What do you mean?"
"Did you know? When vermin like that get cornered—do you know where they run?"
"...To the person they trust most?"
"Nope. They head for the treasure vault they hold most dear."
"!"
"They'll fetch out whatever they've decided is their most useful card. Meaning they'll dig up whatever they've always kept hidden under lock and key—with their own two hands."
Everyone around him seemed to startle at once.
And more than anything else, Isaac knew the truth of it.
Vermin like that never die alone.
The Gold Cardinal would come slinking along in his wake like a leech, without a doubt.
And that wasn't all.
"This is only my guess—but there's another way to awaken Kaya."
"What?"
Isaac gave a dismissive little laugh.
With the God of Awakening dead, Kaya—its registered Saintess—stood on the brink of becoming useless. And yet that bastard had been remarkably unmoved by the fact, hadn't he? What could that possibly mean? Either there was another power out there capable of awakening her, or—
As Isaac cast the bait, Benjamin's eyes went wide with realization.
"Ah—if it's that, don't tell me it's the one? The thing House Eshua sealed away?!"
It really does exist!
Isaac's grin split from ear to ear.
He had known of its existence all along, after all.
The remaining half of House Eshua's secret arts.
Isaac had, without question, revived the Eshua secret arts. But as it turned out, what he'd recovered was only half the whole.
Years of studying the techniques had taught him that much.
And though what he possessed now was more than strong enough, it had always felt oddly unsatisfying—and when he finally dug deeper, well, lo and behold.
The Blue faith's techniques were only ever passed down half-complete.
Which meant every Blue technique in use today was, without exception, half-finished.
The other half is supposedly devastating beyond measure—but no human could ever withstand it, so it was sealed away as taboo.
No wonder the faith they call 'the strongest spear' never earned that name for nothing.
Well, being the secret arts of a Saintess lineage and all, it would be the Light God's power.
Oh, for the love of— you brat. Why do you think I'm NOT awakening with the God of Awakening's power right now?
Nope. I merely nudged my mana core along a little, that's all.
Isaac grumbled under his breath.
He had tried to awaken the way Leah's line did, but well.
Damn it all. Apparently an eel doesn't get to play god, no matter how it wriggles.
The holy power was terrifyingly strong.
If I awakened with that, I'dpower up in one shot as a Saint—but there's a fatal flaw.
I'd lose my mana.
Whisper shuddered as though he himself had just been handed a death sentence.
It's a matter of compatibility.
A question of balance, too.
Isaac's current body was woven from two threads: the Light God's holy power, and dark mana.
If one of the two grew too dominant, the other could simply cease to exist. Things had held steady so far—but absorbing power at the level of an actual god changed the equation entirely.
Exactly. So as much as it stings, no can do. The God of Awakening's power can just go toward raising our kids.
Even that. Can't be helped. Raising the Blue faith from the sidelines becomes my strength in the end anyway.
You brat. What do you take me for?
Awakening would obviously be nice to have—but at the end of the day, the Conclave was merely humans squabbling with humans.
Besides, a true king has no need to shine on his own. A genuine mastermind makes his hands and feet do the—
But right at that moment—
Rillai asked, his face clouded with sudden worry.
"If you mean the sealed, forbidden half of the secret arts... don't tell me you're referring to the God of Awakening of 'Darkness'?!"
At those words, Isaac's ears pricked straight up—rare for him.
...Hm? The 'Darkness' God of Awakening?