Well, This Is Unexpected (2)
Even the elders, for once, flinched at the savage flames.
No—flinched was putting it mildly.
They stared at the Holy Spirit with eyes as wide as if they were beholding the apocalypse itself.
Good heavens, to think I'd live to see that thing with my own two eyes!
"That summoning circle! That's the King of the Holy Spirits, is it not!"
There was no mistaking it.
The humanoid appearance, the sheer magnitude of its power—it matched, point for point, the descriptions of the supreme spirit said to have appeared exactly once during the great war against the demons.
A being so rare that not even the Pope or a high priest could hope to lay eyes on it more than once in a lifetime.
The only problem was that the thing was decidedly not friendly toward humans.
Exhibit A: the way it was throwing a tantrum the very moment it was summoned!
FWOOOOSH!
"Hrk!"
The spirit's flames cracked and split the pillars throughout the hall. The elders' terrified glances toward the Duke were understandable.
"My lord! Summoning a king-rank, of all things—this is madness! Are you intending to burn the Eshua Duchy to the ground!"
"Unfair. I didn't summon it."
"I beg your pardon?!"
"That little rascal over there did."
I'm sorry—what?
That child? Surely he doesn't mean Isaac?
"What in the world are you—everyone, take cover—AAAH!"
KABOOOM!
Terrifying flames roared all the way up to the ceiling.
Whisper cheered at the sight of the blazing inferno.
Whisper was delighted, but Isaac himself looked utterly dumbfounded.
No. This is insane.
Why is a king-rank coming out?!
Of course, Isaac had known.
He'd known that whichever gift he chose, he would get a Holy Spirit—because the Duke had drawn a spirit summoning circle beneath every single gift.
He was testing me. Whether what happened in the treasury was really Shuri's doing or not.
There had been three summoning circles, but two of them were, at best, one-shot contract circles—mercenary spirits that vanished the moment their service was rendered.
And they weren't even particularly good ones.
So the correct answer had been the fire.
It was the only subsidiary contract circle of the three—and only a spirit summoned through that one could be permanently owned.
In short, it had been a test of discernment.
But did they really think the Demon King—a being whom even archmages had once begged for tutelage—would fail to notice something so trivial?
Summoning circles are arcane craft, you know. Amateur.
In any case, Holy Spirits were beings whom even the gods paid a price to keep at their sides, all for the sake of reaching the Transcendental Tier.
Higher rank was always better—but was he not still a suckling babe?
A mid-rank or even a low-rank would be plenty for now.
So Isaac had decided to be modestly humble and poured a little extra holy power into the summoning circle.
That should guarantee at least a mid-rank... or so he thought. I'm sorry, what?
A king-rank?!
That was why Isaac could only stand there, flustered.
No, damn it! If this much gets me a king-rank, what on earth would I summon at full power?!
What, is this crazy Saint body of mine going to summon a god next, like the Pope?!
...Let's not go down that road. If one actually showed up, I'd be the one cursing.
The elders, meanwhile, were looking at him with entirely different eyes now.
"Has there ever been a precedent of a king-rank emerging from a contract circle?"
"Ahem, well... I believe the child of the White Faith and the child of the Papal house summoned one at the Founding Festival..."
"Ha! You mean that stunt where they pulled an avatar out as a ceremonial event? This is the true body, summoned through a full subsidiary contract circle! They could house a lower god within the family!"
"And a mere infant called it forth?"
"So the feat in the treasury truly wasn't Shuri's doing after all?"
"......!"
Elders, quit staring. You're going to burn holes in me.
Anyway—yes.
He understood full well that this was a being good enough to make the divine faction break out in hives.
But how exactly was he supposed to contract with something like that?
How?
I do love how easy to understand you are.
That's fair.
Granted, when it came to beating things down, this thing looked like it would do the crushing.
"Kghk!"
"Elder!"
Sure enough, the Holy Spirit seized an elder by the collar and flung him.
"Elder, are you all right!"
"Ghk—we were only trying to raise a barrier around the temple to contain the collapse—!"
Good grief. Is that a Holy Spirit or a demon?
The Duke simply stared at Isaac in silence, but apparently the summoned spirit's temperament left much to be desired.
But who cared about temperament right now?
That's right.
That is the fire of Anti-Magic!
A fire that repelled demons.
Small wonder that Whisper—a being of pure mana—had reacted first.
Yet Isaac, gazing at the flames, was grinning from ear to ear with both hands raised.
Why? Because that one is a rare treasure.
He knew from long experience in the God Realm.
Well, granted, he had once mixed bird droppings (?) into the gods' offerings because their fawning over these spirits was so nauseating, but that was beside the point.
The point was: among Holy Spirits, there existed genuinely rare specimens.
To any ordinary demon, this would be a fire that made them faint dead away and flee for their lives. But well?
Yes!
Quick on the uptake as always!
That's exactly it!
The reason the divine faction went absolutely feral over spirits with the Anti-Magic attribute was that they could convert mana into holy power.
And what was the single most critical preparatory step for reaching the Transcendental Tier?
Purity!
Whether holy power or mana, the less impurity it carried, the stronger it became—purging impurities was non-negotiable!
Which meant there were always scraps of filthy, unusable mana that had to be thrown away.
And there were annoyingly many of them. A shame, really. But with this thing?
Just convert the useless mana into holy power. Isn't that a perfect recycling system?
Mana was the spear, after all—so holy power was the shield!
He needed his holy power strong too, if he meant to out-eat the gods.
Yes! A rarely-drawn unique attribute—and a king-rank, no less!
In short, anyone who didn't grab this thing right here and now would be an absolute fool!
What are the odds another spirit of this grade would ever come out of a subsidiary contract circle again!
Yes, exactly!
If the gods and I weren't sworn enemies, I'd have made it my lackey ages ago, damn it!
'I can't contract with it.'
Isaac clutched his head in agony, looking for all the world like a man watching a fortune slip through his fingers.
The truth was, he had no choice.
Every king-rank Holy Spirit is wired directly into the God Realm!
Holy Spirits were the flagship forces of the divine faction.
The lower the rank, the closer to humans—but the higher the rank, the closer to the God Realm.
And what if his own lackey were chumming it up with his mortal enemies?
That'd be infuriating, right?
What if that lackey, in the sunny innocence of introducing him to its little friends, came dragging a whole crowd of gods along?
That'd make my blood boil, wouldn't it?!
Above all, Isaac had zero intention of entangling himself with the gods until it suited him.
Hence the sigh.
The ability's a waste, but it can't be helped for now.
As long as the thing was tethered to the God Realm, regrettable as it was, he would simply have to request a lower-rank replacement...
"Oh, my lord! Send it back at once! Now that I look closely—isn't that the very one the gods themselves cut ties with!"
At the elder's words, Isaac's head swiveled around with an ominous creak.
What? Cut ties?
Did these brats just say cut ties?
"By 'cut ties,' do you mean that mutant—the king-rank that despises the gods?"
Yep. That's it.
So what you're telling me is: this brat got dumped by the gods and is a pitiful, friendless outcast. Right?
The elders, meanwhile, were clutching the backs of their necks.
"Of all the king-rank spirits in existence, it had to be this insolent one!"
"Well. If I got roasted over my hair color, I'd cut ties with the gods too."
"My lord!"
The elders sighed.
In terms of raw ability, of course, it's the strongest of them all.
Anti-Magic was the very attribute all Five Faiths broke their backs trying to summon.
If word spread that Eshua had called forth such a being, the duchy's standing would soar even higher. And given how highly the gods themselves rated this one's power, they would surely be delighted to hear that a child of Eshua had tamed it.
Yes—if only it could be handled!
"That thing is a delinqua—ahem, an insolent wretch that hates the gods. The gods were so exasperated they discarded it and seated its younger brother—no Anti-Magic attribute at all—as chief instead..."
"Gahk!"
Blasting the elders away with a mere shout of pure will, the spirit loomed menacingly over the Duke.
Its eyes promised to reduce the lands of Eshua to a wasteland where not a single blade of grass would grow, depending on his answer.
A one-shot circle, where tribute was paid and a task requested, was one thing. But a subsidiary circle?
That was an unmistakable declaration of intent: I intend to make you my servant.
Naturally, the spirit's look said do you have a death wish?—but the Duke was shameless as ever.
"I didn't summon it."
"I'm telling you I didn't."
"That kid summoned you."
As the Duke pointed, the enraged spirit's head whipped around in an instant.
"Dada! (Translation: You got dumped, didn't you?)"
...What lowly—
"Dada-ya! (Translation: Yeah, you got dumped, alright?)"
The spirit fell silent for a moment, then turned to look at the Duke.
"That one."
"Dada! (You horned bastard. You're caught red-handed now!)"
"He means that one."
The spirit's face said it could not comprehend what it had just heard.
A baby still in the throes of toilet training? Impossible.
Eshua may be a family that produces superhumans called Saintesses, but still!
"I'm not."
The demented-looking infant wiped his mouth with a little snort.
Huh. Great ability, mortal enemy of those damned gods?
Isn't that the sound of a fish so perfectly filleted—bones and all—served steaming over a hot bowl of rice?
Whisper smirked too.
Yes. Exactly that.
But whether it knew that or not, the spirit let out an hollow laugh.
"Wh-why does no one believe me?"
Rillai went pale.
"Wait, please! Even if it could endure, the effects would not be nothing! To subject a child to something so reckless—ghk!"
Rillai lunged to scoop Isaac out of harm's way, but before he could, the inferno crashed down over him.
"Isaac!"
FWOOOOSH!
The flames were so violent that even Goel—who wished Isaac dead—flinched. Yet Isaac, engulfed in the blaze, was curling the corners of his mouth upward.
Isaac had once taken the head of a king-rank Holy Spirit.
A human close to him had died, and that spirit had been partly responsible.
So he knew better than anyone exactly what a king-rank's power was capable of.
But this thing?
It's strong.
One touch and he could tell. It was surely one whose name would ring out even among the countless ranks of Holy Spirits.
And yes, it ran a little hot—but what was that to him?
This bastard isn't just a filter. It's a premium-slave jackpot.
But when the spirit met Isaac's eyes, it recoiled in horror.
"What?"
"We didn't feed him anything. And they didn't all die out."
"That's what I've been saying."
The Duke decided this was, if anything, a fortunate turn.
In the last thousand years, no family has summoned an Anti-Magic Holy Spirit.
The last to do so had been the divine faction at the very height of its golden age.
And if Isaac—whose affinity for fire was already evident—were to contract with this thing, what kind of monster would he become?
Honestly, pretending not to anticipate it would be a lie.
So—did they really think he'd send it back?
The Duke's listless eyes glinted.
"Now that you're convinced that this infant is your summoner, you have two choices. A summoned spirit, absent special grounds for rejection, must contract with a direct descendant of Eshua. Either you contract with this little one—or you violate the blood covenant and accept your punishment."
The spirit was incredulous.
It was true that Holy Spirits were bound by blood covenants with the Five Great Families—a kind of accord among those who led the divine faction.
But the spirit sneered.
"Oh? And where exactly in the contract does it say king-ranks are exempt?"
Why, you little—!
The spirit glared at the Duke with murderous intent.
But the moment passed, and it burst out laughing.
"Freedom, hm."
Isaac picked his nose.
Good grief. Why does someone younger than me keep going on about age?
He really is absurdly strong, though.
The Duke spoke.
"Well then. Do go, if you can."
The spirit suddenly shrieked.
And it was not the only one screaming.
"Isaac!"
Isaac had grabbed the fleeing Holy Spirit and stuffed it into his mouth.