Chapter 49: Urgent (2)
"Isaac! You're truly remarkable!"
Isaac pulled a face like he'd just bitten into something foul at the sight of Rillai's beaming expression. And why, you ask?
"This uncle of yours still can't believe it. You—walking!"
No, you idiot.
That is not what you're supposed to be saying right now.
"You can even talk!"
That's still not the point!
"There is nothing more this uncle could possibly ask for!"
You son of a—!
Why aren't you mentioning the ordination, you bastard?!
Granted, it did please Isaac that his uncle was so fond of him. If the man lost his mind over this, he'd probably faint dead away once he was fully grown. But still—good, fine, whatever!
'So why won't you talk about the ordination, huh?!'
The recommendation letters from those scholarship officials had surely gone in by now. The head of the house had even handed out the aptitude test results as proof of positive signals. And Isaac had strained every nerve answering those questions—because his entire education, his whole future, hinged on getting into the Academy. His character assessment had been flawless, not a single fault to find. He'd even had Whisper eavesdrop on the family head's quarters, and the verdict had come back: everything pointed yes.
So what was this? Why the silence about the ordination?
Don't tell him he'd been rejected?
[In fairness, Master, there was never a chance in hell of you passing a character evaluation.]
What's wrong with my character?!
But even as he said it, Isaac was just as anxious inside. 'Did I actually get rejected?'
In truth, his name sat at the very top of this year's list, and Rillai was simply keeping it from him—but Isaac had no way of knowing that. His eyes had no choice but to narrow into blades.
As if reading the thought right off his face, Rillai laughed. "Well, now that you can walk, it would be good for you to see plenty of places."
Yes! There it is! Attaboy! He'd been planning a continental tour to celebrate the ordination!
A mere continental trip? Sure, why not. Isaac would go receive his ordination in the capital first, then tag along. So just get him out of Eshua territory right now, and—
"Until you come of age, we shall travel every corner of the Eshua Duchy together. Starting today, you and this uncle begin your training in earnest! Eshua is home to many magnificent training grounds—the very ones that raised the Saintess herself!"
...Huh?
Isaac arched an eyebrow at the pair of them as if to say, look at these bastards.
Hey. I have to go receive my ordination? Which means going to the capital? Why the sudden training sermon out of nowhere?
But Rillai, already having gotten his story straight with Isaac's father beforehand, simply kept smiling. Who could have guessed he'd come to appreciate the importance of a proper home education—being from a priestly family and all.
'There. No rush. As for Isaac... yes. Regrettably, I'll tell him his ordination was denied.'
And who knew? Raised properly, perhaps even Isaac's character... his faith might change for the better. So Rillai beamed down at him, without a shred of malice. "Your grandfather has said you're not to set foot outside Eshua until you come of age either. He'll be overjoyed to hear about the training."
Isaac answered with a wide, sunny smile instead of words.
'These bastards. No intention of ever letting me out of Eshua, huh?'
Attempting to deceive the Skeleton King, of all people? They were about ten million years too early for that. And they thought a suckling would be easy to push around.
'If anything, it's because I'm in this body that there's an easy way out.'
And sure enough.
The very next day.
Isaac vanished.
— Don't bother looking for me, you bastards.
The runaway letter was a bonus.
The Holy Empire of Hella.
In the capital, where the Holy See stood, stood also the finest academy in the Empire. And this year's graduating class—the one about to graduate from that illustrious institution—was in an uproar.
"They're saying a ten-year-old is receiving ordination this time?"
"Insane. This graduation ceremony is going to be the talk of the century. This might be our chance!"
"Well, we'll be the sideshow. The real spotlight's going to the Division of Holy Law, as always. It's the top program for a reason."
The graduating students all cast glances toward a certain classroom as they passed. The Division of Holy Law—the elite program that produced priests. Every pillar of the state, without exception, came up through it.
Yet even those rising stars were being shaken to their cores, all because of one name: Isaac Eshua.
"Hey. A ten-year-old receiving ordination is unprecedented, isn't it?"
"What kind of child receives the same ordination as us at ten?"
And then—
"Pfft!"
A boy with vivid red hair let out a scornful snort. "And why exactly are you all terrified of one little brat?"
"Niger!"
"Of a brat who's still suckling, no less."
He was Niger Sephet, the pureblooded son of the Ducal House of Red, the very boy who had crossed paths with Isaac in the treasury ten years ago. He, too, was among this year's ordinands.
And when one of the Five Great Families spoke, it carried weight that no ordinary piece of gossip ever could. Ninety-nine percent likely to be true. Everyone had no choice but to pay attention.
"'Suckling'? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Is your reading comprehension broken? It means exactly what it says. That brat hasn't grown an inch in ten years! No wonder he vanished from public view for a whole decade."
"What? Seriously?"
"Wow... if he's been stacking holy power this whole time, wouldn't he be the strongest of our generation? A suckling accumulates holy power four times faster. If he's trained in that state..."
At someone's awed remark, Niger's brow twitched upward. "It wasn't training, you moron—he got cursed for gorging himself on the Skeleton King's mana!"
"Still, the moment he grows, he's the strongest of our era, right?"
Niger scoffed. "Cursed by the Skeleton King and you think he can grow? Right, Saintess-family gentleman?"
"!"
At Niger Sephet's words, every head turned. And there stood Shuri Eshua, glaring at the boy with pure revulsion, as if to say, this bastard's starting up again.
Niger, sensing blood, only raised his voice further. "Just when mixing the Papal bloodline into Eshua seemed to be doing some good, out pops another cursed one. Blegh."
But Shuri pretended not to hear a word of it. 'Engaging with him only means losing.'
Yet Niger Sephet showed no sign of giving up. "That House Eshua earned the gods' dislike is a plain, public fact. And just how cursed are they? A Saintess line that only births boys? Seven of them! And cursed one after another, starting from the top. It's a miracle that generation even produced Saintess candidates at all."
"What? It's that bad?"
"Oh yes. So cursed, in fact, that—"
Shuri whipped his head around.
He knew the bastard held a grudge against Blue. But the more he let it slide, the further it went—now he was dragging his uncles and his father into it?!
This, he could not let pass.
"You. That remark just now could, depending on the circumstances, constitute an insult to the Ducal House of Eshua—"
"Oh! Does it? My bad, then. Sorry, everyone—seems I was mistaken!"
Niger Sephet weaseled deftly around the edges, smirking, careful never to let it escalate into an open dispute between Houses. "Anyway—Isaac Eshua? He's been called up to be made a laughingstock again, obviously. Ordination, my ass. He'll get some ceremonial honorary ordination for the event and that'll be that."
But then—
"That's enough. I heard it from the professors: Isaac Eshua met every qualification for ordination."
When one of the female students looked at Niger Sephet with open disgust, the whole room went still. Even Niger flinched this time. The students, thrown off balance, pressed her.
"Don't tell me he actually passed the exam? At ten?!"
"Ah... no, not the qualification exam. It was a recommendation from the priests, apparently."
The instant those words left her mouth, Niger Sephet burst out laughing. "Being the Saintess's family sure has its perks! A duchy on its last legs, and they still manage to cram in a brat who can't grow and doesn't qualify? They're screwing their own colleagues over like dogs, is what that is."
You absolute—!
Just as Shuri, finally pushed past his limit by the slander against his family, shot to his feet—
"Do you find the priests of the Holy See laughable, then?"
"!"
At the unfamiliar voice, everyone spun around—and at the face it belonged to, they went positively white.
"Kina Berith...!"
He stood by the door. The Pope's grandson, now grown to fourteen, looked down at Niger with an expression of utter disdain. "You believe the priests of the Holy See hand out ordination recommendations on the strength of a family name alone? The recommendation system is, in fact, stricter than the qualification exams that serve as your graduation test. And besides—"
"!"
"The man who accepted that recommendation was none other than your own father. Duke Rion Sephet."
"...Wh-what?!"
Kina Berith let a faint, careless sneer slip. "Your father, then, was the one screwing his colleagues over like dogs."
"Why, you—!!"
As the room broke into murmurs, Niger Sephet ground his teeth. Damn it all—why is the Papacy's boy siding with Eshua?
No, set that aside. The real problem was something else entirely.
"You're not even an Academy student! Why the hell are you here, spouting off?!"
"I was summoned for the Founding Festival."
"Aha! So even the Pope's grandson has his limits! Reduced to observing how his seniors do things!"
"No. I was summoned as this year's graduating class's mentor—and their instructor in Holy Law."
"...?!"
Wait, what?
"Instructor?!"
At the same moment, Shuri's brow furrowed deeply.
Kina Berith. The Pope's grandson had never received his ordination—yet the priests already regarded him as a colleague of mid-tier rank or higher. The ordination itself, the boy simply had no interest in...
'No. That's not it.'
The Pope, so it was said, had declared himself worried that children of other talents might fall into despair beside Kina's. And so the boy would take his formal priesthood only after coming of age, and for now was to share his enlightenment and accumulate experience.
Was that not the supreme confidence of a man declaring that the Saint and the Pope would, naturally and inevitably, be that child?
And yet the very Kina Berith who had just shielded Eshua turned to Shuri with a smile. "I'm worried about you, Shuri. Isaac Eshua, who cannot even grow, has no chance whatsoever of becoming a priest. Let us pray Blue can hold out until such time as you can lead it."
"Why, you—!"
He might as well be chanting a prayer for Blue's ruin!
And then, as though pitying him, Kina murmured: "Ah, but then again—would even a Cardinal's seat be within reach for a half-wit like you? Well. If it proves too much, come find me. A Half is still proudly Gold-blooded, after all—the Papacy would hardly mind taking in you and your father, the pair of you. Surely you could earn yourself a post as my attendant?"
"...!"
What even—?
Attendant? To a little cousin-nephew?
Was this bastard seriously telling his own elder cousin to come serve as his valet?
Even as he turned away, Kina Berith's mind drifted back to the Holy See. To the words of a scholarship official—one who had, unmistakably, been praising Isaac.
"Your Grace, I saw it with my own eyes. Young Lord Isaac truly brought the Skeleton King's mana under control! And he made the Holy Spirit's power stronger still!"
A rigid, exacting man who almost never praised anyone.
But surely it was groundless worry. A suckling body like that would never make the ordination list anyway. Even his father, the Cardinal, had said such a thing wasn't even worth calling a rival anymore.
And yet—why?
"Perhaps he may yet be the one who saves the Holy Empire."
Kina couldn't stop thinking about it.
"Aaargh! You dog bastards, all of you!"
Back in his dormitory, Shuri could do nothing but clutch the back of his neck.
'Damn it all. Are they both so blinded by arrogance just because they're Great Ducal Houses?'
He'd swallowed it all for the sake of his father's honor and House Eshua's dignity—but that didn't make it any less infuriating. And it was equally true that, with his current skill, he couldn't beat either of them.
'Well. That's not what matters right now.'
Outside, the capital was already roaring with the Founding Festival. Word had spread that the papal candidates themselves would be receiving ordination, and people seemed to have flooded in from every corner of the land. Natural enough—they all wanted a glimpse of their future masters.
The problem was this: at that historic ceremony! On that glorious stage where every eye in the Empire was fixed!
Not one member of his family had come!
Shuri was bitter. 'And it's all that damn brat's fault!'
The entire household had been too busy tearing around searching for the runaway Isaac! Shuri himself had hunted for the little demon right up to the last possible minute, and had only barely scraped back to the Academy in time.
'Not that I ever expected that bastard to sit quietly in Eshua.'
The truth was, Shuri had known all along: the family was deliberately making sure Isaac would never receive his ordination.
'Yeah. I knew that bastard's rotten character would blow up in his face eventually.'
A priest? Him? He should be off being a Demon King.
So Shuri fetched the luggage the servants had sent ahead to the dormitory. 'Stay home and take your character education like a good boy.'
So you want an ordination, do you? And what exactly would you do if you ran away from home, hm?
Leaving the Eshua Duchy had been flatly impossible for Isaac in the first place. Without a passage permit, no one got through the Eshua checkpoint. Ever.
'He'll be caught long before he ever reaches the capital any—'
"...Son of a—why is this bag so heavy? What on earth did Father stuff in here this time..."
And the moment he grumbled his way to the latch and flipped it open—
"Took ya long enough, ya fuggin' jerks."
"?"
Shuri stared into the bag, doubting his own eyes.
"Whad's a guy gotta do to get opened up 'round here? Yappin' at me for bein' late—you're the one who'sh late!"
"??"
"Ah, I'm gonna pee mythelf! Shoo-i! Hurry up an' get me outta here. Ah—I'm about to make a run for the toilet."
"?????!!"
"Whatcha starin' at like that for, ya dummy."
Shuri screamed at the sight of Isaac—coiled up comfortably in his luggage in place of his belongings.