Something Is Strange (4)
"It appears the children have entered the Treasury."
No sooner had those words fallen than the banquet hall erupted into a buzz of excitement.
"Oh, at last!"
"I can't wait to see which child emerges with which treasure."
"Haha, does that even matter? The mere appearance of a Saint who will protect the Empire is joy enough."
"Oh? And I suppose it isn't your son who's about to claim the Patriarch's hidden legacy, my lord?"
"What nonsense. Your child is far more remarkable."
On the surface, the families who had produced Saint candidates were exchanging well-wishes and discussing the Empire's bright future. But really.
The adults' combative spirits. The rivalry between houses. Even the nobles hoping to divine investment opportunities from the candidates' achievements. All of it was tangled together, and there was no way Rillai couldn't see that the banquet hall had become a battlefield like none before it.
And with good reason — in the Holy Empire, a Saint was no mere celebrity.
The title itself was power. Authority made flesh.
Just look at the Papal House as it stood today.
Besides, from the moment the Pope and the Emperor themselves had taken their seats, this had ceased to be a simple Doljabi long ago.
"The link to the Treasury interior is established!"
"Oh, finally."
At the center of the banquet hall sat five knights, eyes closed, arranged in a circle. They were knights of House Eshua, tasked with relaying the situation inside the Treasury. Servant beasts had been sent into the vault, their vision linked to the knights' own.
⟨ Sight Sharing — 3rd Tier ⟩
The arrangement was simple: as the servant beasts trailed the candidates, the knights would narrate what they saw. Indeed, within the Treasury, black cats serving as the watchers' eyes were scurrying about busily.
"The central door of the Treasury's First Wing has opened!"
"The candidates appear to have passed through the central section. We can't tell who's who yet, but there's one child moving overwhelmingly fast. Could that be the one who entered first...?"
"Oho!"
The nobles scrambled over one another to catch the news first.
"Then they've already cleared a trial?"
Good heavens — hadn't they said the Treasury was so treacherous even high-ranking knights had to watch their step!
"And a child has already made it halfway through a place like that. I suppose he truly is the Saint!"
The Saintess's Treasury was infamous for its brutally difficult trials.
Realistically, the only ones who could come out of there without a single injury would be Cardinals — the heads of the Five Great Families — or the Saintess herself. It was no place to casually toss in young Saint candidates still wet behind the ears, still fumbling with their budding power.
Rillai's friend Simon swallowed hard.
They said the failure rate in the First Wing alone is normally fifty percent.
It was called a Doljabi venue, but in practice, merely retrieving the Doljabi items was a feat in itself. And the deeper the wings went, the higher the failure rate climbed.
And in that notorious deathtrap, one child was already in the lead.
Who is it? Who!
The nobles who had sent their children inside were beyond curious — they were practically burning up. Simon, for his part, had gone so far as to secretly summon his own servant.
"Hey, hey, can you see what's going on in there? Can you?"
Simon's servant was casting the very same Sight Sharing holy art the knights were using. When had he ever gotten permission to piggyback on Eshua's broadcast? No — he'd linked directly with his own child's eyes to judge the situation for himself.
"Ah, the link with the young master is established! Thankfully, he seems to still be running safe and sound."
"Waaah, that's it, my son! Magnificent! The Third Wing! The THIRD WING! Run, my soooon! Crush the pride of Eshua and the Papal House!"
Truly a sight to behold — the heir of a Count's house crouched in the bushes like he was answering nature's call, doing... whatever it was he was doing.
Rillai sighed at the scene, which might as well have been a horse race, though in fairness his own side was hardly in a position to talk.
"Elders... I'm telling you, the elders shouldn't be doing this either."
"Shut it, boy!"
House Eshua's elders were huddled in a corner, secretly attempting their own vision link. Their target: Isaac.
Rillai could only groan.
Granted, every member of the Elder Council had once been a guardian knight of the Saintess. And Isaac was the Saintess's son. It was only natural that their loyalties bent inward.
"If you truly believe in the boy, you should wait for him to return on his own. Secretly linking your vision to a child — that's a violation of his rights, you know..."
"Bah! Can you not hold your tongue? And you call yourself the boy's uncle!"
"Well, no. If Isaac gets hurt, I'll know it immediately, so..."
"Tch! Seal that mouth of yours!"
"......"
"Hmm? It works with Shuri, so why won't it link with Isaac? How very strange."
"Perhaps because he's still at the breast?"
House Eshua's elders were 9th-Tier holy knights whose names were known across the continent. Watching such men struggle and wheeze against a mere infant was bizarre indeed — though, well, they had long since retired from active service.
More importantly, I think we've let them expect far too much.
This fuss was surely because they'd all been publicly assured that Isaac was a special child. He'd embellished quite heavily to get the boy accepted into the family.
Granted, the child did show signs of talent, but Isaac was still far too young. Honestly, just making it back from the Treasury uninjured would be breaking even. Thinking of the disappointment to come, Rillai felt a twinge of guilt.
That was when it happened.
"Isaac, was it? You must place great hope in your nephew indeed."
"!!"
Rillai whipped around in alarm.
The speaker was Cardinal Verith.
The moment he approached Rillai, every noble in earshot went rigid with tension.
A golden stole draped across his shoulders. Pallid skin, and the sharp, angular features peculiar to the Papal House — a domineering man whose expression always seemed faintly displeased.
Cardinal Verith, who had inherited the position of family head early, sneered at the Saintess's house.
"The previous Saintess was far too greedy. A Saintess should have been content with being a Saintess — but no, blinded by the seat of the Saint, she gathered candidates and hurled them into that deadly Treasury. She even staked the Remains of the Skeleton Demon King as the prize. Senility must have finally taken her."
At the Cardinal's words, the nobles nearly spat out their wine.
Only someone of the Papal House could so brazenly attack and demean the Saintess to her face. The Pope and the Saintess had always been natural enemies, after all — the kind who would scrape the halo off a revered Saintess at the first opportunity.
Anyway, getting entangled with him would only breed exhaustion, so for now, quietly—
"Well, the parents who swallowed that Saintess's words whole and tossed their own children into hell are every bit as laughable."
"?!"
What the hell is this bastard doing, dropping an area-of-effect attack on everyone out of nowhere?
Simon, along with every parent present, turned to stare at Cardinal Verith.
But not a single one could force an insult past their lips.
Cardinal Verith of the Papal House was, for all practical purposes, the Pope's own proxy. How could anyone possibly lay a hand on a man who was, in effect, the king of the Holy Empire?
Verith, knowing this full well, let his smirk deepen with mockery.
"The Remains of the Skeleton Demon King in the Treasury are an evil relic even the Saints of old could not claim. The parents who demanded their children fetch it — and the Saintess who asked — neither side is in their right mind, if you ask me."
He was calling them parents without a shred of parental sense. And at that display, every noble burned with humiliation yet held their tongues—
"Gah, that mutt of the Papal House."
—or rather, tried to, before House Eshua's elders bared their teeth.
They looked ready to draw blades then and there over the blasphemy against the Saintess, but Rillai hastily restrained them.
Still, he too seemed to have words for the Cardinal.
"And what about Your Eminence, may I ask? Coveting the treasure, you sent your own son into that same deadly Treasury. You hardly seem in a position to criticize others."
At that, the Cardinal burst into scornful laughter.
"Ha. The same?"
His golden eyes flashed, as if to say: don't you dare lump me in with the rest of you.
"Don't be absurd. Whatever about the Remains of the Skeleton Demon King — the trinkets in the Saintess's Treasury mean nothing to the Papal House. To that child, the Treasury is nothing more than a children's playground. He'll retrieve the Remains and the Treasury's greatest treasure alike, with ease."
"!"
The nobles stirred.
"Do you understand now? The Papal House sent that child to make one thing abundantly clear. To the small-minded schemers who would seize power by exploiting a prophecy — what a true Saint actually is. How differently he ranks from those children who merely received the over-generous title of 'Saint candidate.'"
In a word: he intended to crush everyone, decisively, right before their eyes.
Kina Berith would prove himself the one and only Saint — and thereby erase the very notion of "Saint candidates" from existence. He would make the title itself too shameful to even utter.
"Both the Remains of the Skeleton Demon King and the greatest treasure will be claimed by our Kina. The world is about to learn why the Papal House has reigned supreme for thousands of years."
Everyone swallowed.
Cardinal Verith's son, Kina Berith, was unquestionably a child called a genius. Recognized by the Pope himself — the Saint child who had already captured one of the Skeleton Demon King's subordinates at the age of three...
And at that very moment—
"Oho, it's connected!"
"!"
One of House Eshua's elders shouted. Rillai bolted over as if the Cardinal were of no importance whatsoever.
"You've established the link with Isaac?"
"No, it wouldn't connect no matter what I tried, so I sent a Holy Spirit instead!"
"!"
A Holy Spirit? On something that precious?
A divine spirit that could only be summoned once, perhaps twice, in situations bordering on a city-wide catastrophe. And he'd spent something like that on this—
No, never mind that right now.
"Is Isaac safe?!"
"He is. First and second place have passed through the central section... and everyone except those two is trailing far behind. They're chasing, but the gap is rather overwhelming."
The nobles gulped.
First place was obviously Kina Berith without even looking — but who on earth was second?
"Third place is Simon's son—"
"MY SOOON!"
"Second place... appears to be Shuri."
"What?!"
From a short distance away came the sound of Goel's delight.
"That's my boy!"
Simon's face fell into a sulk. Around them, everyone else seemed to be receiving similar reports — which meant the information was solid.
"First place will naturally be young master Kina, with young master Shuri following close behind, then?"
The Cardinal couldn't help but chuckle.
"Shuri is more than capable of keeping pace with Kina. Fine material indeed."
At that smile, Simon ground his teeth and whispered to Rillai.
"Would you look at that! The man's seething, but because Shuri's his kin by marriage, he goes and celebrates him anyway."
Rillai felt a touch bitter.
It was only natural, of course — Isaac was probably still standing at the starting line.
The Cardinal looked at Rillai and smiled.
"If he's at the starting line, at least there's no risk of injury. Safe and sound. Well, don't worry yourself too much. Once Kina claims the treasure first, he'll go collect the boy himself. Rescuing the weak is only natural for a Saint, after all—"
But the Cardinal could not finish his sentence.
"First place is... Isaac... huh? No, why would an infant... no, wait! In any case, first place is Lord Isaac Eshua!"
"......?"
What? Who?
The Cardinal's face stiffened in an instant.
The nobles, too, erupted into chaos.
"Wait — so first AND second place are both those Eshua children?"
"How could the weakest house of all— no, wait, those two are there?"
"Something's wrong. In God's own Treasury, no trickery should be possible."
"What do you mean the rest can't even keep them in sight?!"
"And Kina Berith? He's not even in the rankings?"
Everyone was visibly thrown by the unexpected turn of events.
The Cardinal was no different.
The report arrived quickly.
"It appears the First Wing's trial has activated, and all the candidates are struggling against it."
But that was no satisfying answer at all.
No — wasn't it even more bizarre?
The trial activated, and somehow an infant is in FIRST place?
Just then, an elder jabbed Rillai in the ribs.
"You sly rascal. Just because he's your nephew, you went and laid out such a useful holy art? Is that any way for a member of the Saintess's house to behave?"
It was meant as a scolding, but there was no hiding the smug curl at the corner of his mouth.
Rillai, however, was merely bewildered.
It wasn't me.
I never laid anything like that down.
Under the elder's relentless rib-jabbing, all Rillai could do was sweat.
BANG! BANG!
The Treasury, First Wing.
The First Wing was already a scene of utter chaos, thick with explosions.
"AAAGH! The treasure's exploding!"
"Waaah! There's a hand coming out of the floor!"
Traps that should never have been activating were firing one after another. They had originally been deactivated by the elders — anti-theft mechanisms at heart, and the Saint candidates had always found the trials alone challenging enough.
But because Isaac had wandered, of all places, into the restricted zone, every trap function in the Treasury had switched on. And with one child already inside, the system couldn't be shut down until every last candidate had emerged.
Isaaac! Not over there!
In the end, the elder and the elder-in-chief had chased after Isaac. Kina Berith had then trailed after them of his own accord, and with everyone pouring into the Treasury, the Doljabi had well and truly begun.
And amid all this, the Saint candidates were facing the First Wing's trial as well.
The Trial of Choice
"Damn it all — how am I supposed to know which path is the right one?!"
"They all look exactly the same!"
The First Wing's trial was a test of paths.
Stepping stones, creeping vines, crossing planks — countless routes wound through the wing, but only one of them was safe. One had to find the correct road with the eye of the Saint.
The sole method of finding it was known to no one alive except the head of House Eshua.
Step wrong, and you were instantly swallowed by poison, explosions, or toxic gas.
In a word: hell.
And the one calmly carving a path straight through that hell — a hell that even the elder and the elder-in-chief could not breach—
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
—was Isaac, who had by now thrown open even the central door and was racing alone toward the Second Wing.