Transformation (3)
“Good heavens……”
A commotion unlike anything any ordination ceremony had ever witnessed rippled through the hall.
Neither the participating priests nor the distinguished guests could tear their eyes away from Isaac.
And how could they?
Rumors had been circulating for decades, after all.
“The honorable House Eshua is finally collapsing, haven't you heard?”
“They keep it hushed up, but whether it's the main line or the branches, the bloodline has withered—children growing weaker, dying young. The gods have cursed them, plain as day.”
And in an empire devoted to the gods, what did a rumor like that mean?
“Would the gods hate them for no reason?”
“Of course not. They must have done something to earn it.”
“Perhaps the Saintess committed some unforgivable sin.”
“An affair, maybe? Pfft.”
It wasn't merely talk of decline—it was an insult and a shame so foul that a family famed for its devotion could hardly bear to speak of it.
Worse still, the very peace that allowed those gossips their idle hours had been built on the blood of Blue spilled across the frontlines.
The only reason no one dared say a word aloud was that the current head of House Blue was overwhelmingly powerful.
The other cardinals, meanwhile, could do nothing but pray for that head of house to simply die.
Once he's dead, House Eshua is ours for the taking.
The prestigious Blue Faith was, in every sense, a succulent piece of prey.
For some, its standing army and secret arts; for others, its reputation and wealth; for yet others, a bitter grudge that wanted nothing more than to erase the very name of Eshua from the world. A richly seasoned morsel, layered with all of it.
And House Eshua had no heir.
The matriarch, Melissa?
Saints of her caliber were barred from direct involvement in the mundane affairs of a family, and her seven children each came with their own tangle of problems.
It wasn't for nothing that every other cardinal seat had passed to a new generation while his alone remained unfilled.
“The grandchildren show promise, I suppose. A shame they pale beside the current head, though.”
“As if the grandchildren could escape the curse anyway.”
In short, whispers were quietly circling about who would devour Blue when the moment came.
And in the middle of all that—an Isaac looking like this?
Good heavens, wasn't the Curse of Stunted Growth rated worst-class among curses?
He overcame it?
There's a child in House Eshua with that kind of power?
Rillai's face was a portrait of disbelief.
“B-Brother, do you see it?”
Rillai was trembling, but Goel wore the expression of a man who had just discovered a cockroach severed in two inside his half-eaten sandwich.
“I do. I was wondering where he'd run off to, and turns out he was squatting in the latrine here. With a stomachache, collapsed over the bowl.”
“What?! No, that's not it! The boy has grown! And he came out wearing the acolyte robes I made for him, no less!”
“Ahh. Yes, yes, don't fret. He'll be scurrying back to the latrine soon enough when the diarrhea hits. Let's just pray nothing splashes on the robes. I ought to buy him some poisoned diapers.”
“Brother!”
Goel denied reality to the bitter end, but honestly, at this point even he couldn't refuse to acknowledge it.
I always suspected that if he ever grew up, he'd be something out of the ordinary.
Admitted.
Isaac was, outwardly, the most spectacular of all the Eshua sons in recorded history—men who had already been exceptional.
That uncanny platinum blonde alone was striking, but paired with the crimson, jewel-bright eyes nearly never seen among humans, the harmony was uncanny—almost divinely eerie.
And that smile, radiant as a saint's?
So he could smile like that?
He had never once seen a smile that sent chills down his spine like this one did.
Come to think of it, he'd also never seen his father wear such an expression.
“Your Grace! Why on earth have you kept such a magnificent grandson hidden all this time!”
“…What in the hell is that thing.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“That Skeleton Demon King bastard. Destroying temples wasn't enough to satisfy him anymore, so now he's possessing the minds of children??”
“…Wh-what?”
By that point, the Papal faction and their allies could do nothing but whisper among themselves.
Had Isaac been a normal child—had he merely been a talented one—such a reaction would never have surfaced.
He had definitively been cursed, rendered unable to grow. And now he had grown?
As proof, the priests of rival faiths who had been watching let a remark slip from their lips.
“Eshua still lives, I see.”
“!”
Kina Berith started and turned to look at the knights and priests murmuring around him.
“Who was it that said the Eshuas were hated by the gods?”
“That appearance—surely that is the very image of one truly beloved by the divine.”
Kina Berith bit his lip, while the man at the center of it all was snickering to himself. Puhet, puhuhet.
Yes! That's right!
I'm beloved by the gods out of my goddamn mind!
Praise me! Praise me more, hurry! Hurry up and declare that I am the Saint!
For all appearances, Isaac was struggling to hold back his laughter.
You moronic priests!
Damn it all! Hah, fine. Fine! At least all that miserable suffering paid off! His bones still ached remembering the years he'd spent stretching his body out in the latrine.
That Rillai, of course he had to make the robes too big.
Whatever the man's intent—whether he'd hoped or prayed that Isaac would one day shake off the curse and wear the acolyte robes—
For ten straight years he'd commissioned a new set of robes every year, just to draw other people's mockery.
Well, Isaac had been touched enough by the devotion to wear Rillai's robes instead of the Holy See's, as a kind of repayment for a decade of effort.
And honestly, if the fit had been wildly wrong, he'd have looked ridiculous, wouldn't he?
So he'd stretched his body to fit the robes, and that part was fine, but—
Damn it! What the hell, why is it still baggy?!
How absurdly did that bastard overestimate his nephew's future height?!
His body needed to have been stretched three years beyond his physical age. Which was why his limbs now hung longer than expected, his joints throbbing like they were on fire—but……
Actually, maybe that worked out better?
Those receiving ordination were sixteen, with two years still to go before their coming-of-age rites. Naturally, they were all quite large.
Looking too young would just make me look weak.
Stretching his body further had, in effect, fed the audience one more helping of shock.
Case in point: the expressions of Niger Sephet of the hostile Ducal House and his entourage were simply delicious. No doubt they'd planned to sneer their fill at the sight of a suckling babe walking in.
[Well, you look like the Goddess of Beauty might just carry you off in her arms, so I hardly dare describe it.]
Right, and that very goddess of beauty treats me like a bug and despises me, but sure.
Ah, come to think of it, that's also the god who so lovingly crafted this body, so this should be entertaining to look back on later.
'Anyway, like I said before—no matter what happens in there, do NOT come out. Lock your power down completely. Not even one milligram.'
[Understood.]
Because the people gathered here were no ordinary priests.
Isaac's gleaming eyes lifted toward the head table. There sat the cardinals, unable to look away from him—and the Pope.
“Seems you've startled us all.”
Isaac was face-to-face with the Pope for the first time.
He looked to be well past sixty at a glance, but the man's uncanny aura made his true age impossible to guess.
And that look in his eyes—the one unique to the Papal line.
At the sight of it, Isaac's angelic smile twitched, ever so subtly.
Ugh, seriously—why does every Pope I ever fought wear that same face?
The Papal bloodline truly never changed.
Generations upon generations had passed, and yet the aura was suspiciously, uncannily identical. Worse, Isaac could see the wretch of one particular era—the generation he hated most of all.
Isaac's eyes shifted into something satanic.
Should I just slit his throat right here after all?
Isaac's hand slid smoothly toward the Golden Rattle in his pouch—his one and only weapon.
The ones most horrified by that gesture were, of course, his own family.
And in that very instant—
Crack!
CRASH!
Shatter!
AAAGH!
The sound of shattering dishes rang out, followed by a priest's scream. Amid the sudden pandemonium, Isaac's face drew a question mark.
Startled, the crowd all turned toward the sources of the simultaneous noise.
Rillai had seized the hem of Isaac's robe with holy power invisible to everyone else—
“……”
The Head of House Blue, with a casual gesture of his hand, had deliberately snapped his own table's leg clean in two—
THUD!
“KYAAH! Your Grace! Are you all right?!”
“The table—it just collapsed!”
The elder of House Eshua hurled his own sword to the floor—
“Ow—the blade!”
“Tch, these old hands have lost their grip.”
The senior elder cut the cord anchoring the enormous canopy overhead to the ceiling—
“AAAH! The canopy—mph!”
Shuri channeled holy power into a button and flung it at Isaac's waist, then keeled over as though dizzy—
“Shuri!!”
And Goel stuck out his foot to trip a passing priest carrying ritual implements—
“AAAHH! Pthaa-AAAHH!”
“……?”
With all the commotion his family was kicking up, it was only natural Isaac's expression began to curdle.
“……?!”
But paying their theatrics no mind whatsoever, Shuri bounced back to his feet and smoothly slipped behind Isaac.
Then, pretending to refasten Isaac's belt, he plucked the rattle from the pouch.
“This is confiscated.”
“……”
…These goddamn bastards?
Isaac bristled, but that hardly mattered now. The family had briefly thrown the hall into an uproar, but it settled quickly enough.
Every last one of you is dead later.
Just how many times had he thrown that rattle into people's faces, that the mere sight of him reaching for it would summon it right out of his hands? Isaac paid it no further mind and strode forward before the Pope.
One by one, the other candidates were called as well. Once they had all taken their places in orderly rank, the bishop brought forth the Holy Water Basin.
At the appearance of that basin, the look in every eye gathered at the ordination changed.
“We shall now perform the rite of greeting unto the gods.”
In a word: a compatibility test. The most important part of the entire ordination ceremony—its crowning highlight, one might say.
I heard it reveals which god suits you.
Simply put, it tested which gods took an interest in you, and which you were best matched with.
And which god, out of the countless deities, would choose you—that was the singular question on everyone's mind.
Not that House Eshua wasn't already on pins and needles for entirely different reasons.
Shuri had nothing to worry about, granted.
“Do you think… there's actually a god out there who suits Isaac?”
The boy has essentially no faith whatsoever!
Would any god actually respond?
“Aigoo, come now. Boy like that or not, he's one of Blue's own. Blue's god will claim him.”
“…Father is preparing to smash the Holy Water Basin as we speak, you know.”
Not a lie—he genuinely looks ready to break it if anything goes wrong. His eyes are blazing like he'll torch anything strange that appears.
At that, Goel clicked his tongue.
“Don't squirm about so undignified. Rest assured—all five Great Ducal Houses without exception receive the blessing of their own family's god. And this is a body that overcame even the Skeleton Demon King's curse. Isaac is an Eshua; there will be no trouble.”
“……”
No, hearing YOU say something reassuring, Brother Goel, only makes me MORE nervous?!
Rillai's pupils trembled like an earthquake, and the elder hoisted his pair of spectacles up his nose with a groan.
“And yet… one never knows. Long ago, when a child of the Black faith received ordination, another Chief God happened to mark him, and it started a war. The family was told to send the boy away as an adopted son.”
“That child was a bastard born out of wedlock, though. It has no bearing on Isaac.”
Meanwhile, the candidates who went before the basin rejoiced or despaired at their results in turn.
“Shuri Eshua. The God of Light.”
“Ohh! The Chief God of Blue himself, no less!”
“As expected of my son!”
The Pope bestowed a seal upon Shuri's arm. With it, he could now formally contract with his god.
Shuri clenched his fist, then glanced anxiously toward the next candidate—Isaac.
What if no god claims him at all?
Going by the personality test results alone, there was no chance in hell.
Still, at least it wasn't the Papal family's god—that much was a small mercy. Frankly, he was sick of being treated as an outsider within House Eshua any more than he already was.
“Isaac Eshua.”
The moment Isaac stepped forward, the very air of the banquet hall changed.
Kina Berith watched with keen interest.
The crowd stirred, faces brimming with anticipation.
“Which god will answer?”
“Don't tell me—could this be the first time in history multiple Chief Gods answer at once?!”
Goel laughed it off, already convinced the show was over.
Shuri already drew the best possible result. What could that boy possibly draw that's better?
Everyone wore the expectant look of people wondering which god would respond. The Head of House looked ready to rig the outcome itself if it came to that.
But Isaac, extending his finger with an unhurried sweep, couldn't have been more indifferent.
Huh. So the god Blue serves is that God of Light, eh?
That explains why Blue's people are all that shape, that caliber.
As for the God of Light—well, he wasn't bad. He was actually good.
True to his nature as the god of integrity and incorruptibility, he was one of the only bastards among those damn gods who had ever shown Isaac any goodwill.
So if it turned out to be that side, he didn't care who answered.
Well, what matters is what kind of blessing comes with it.
Given the choice, he'd prefer a god with strong vitality or combat prowess.
Then the bishop lightly pricked Isaac's fingertip with holy power. And the moment Isaac let the welling drop of blood fall into the Holy Water Basin—
FLASH!
The crimson blood dispersed into the pristine holy water. It writhed as though alive, gradually shaping itself into a form—revealing which god held a compatible claim.
At last, when the blood settled into a sigil, the Pope—until then watching with detached boredom—wore a strange expression.
His brow narrowed, just slightly.
It couldn't be helped.
The sigil that had appeared was none other than the faith of Gold.
An Eshua, compatible with the Gold faith?
No—that wasn't even the real problem.
The sigil was a script that had never once appeared in several thousand years of recorded history.
And this was the god of the Gold faith itself—the very god Gold had prayed for and yearned to connect with for millennia, and always failed……
…The Supreme God?
The Supreme God who stands above even the five Chief Gods?
That impenetrable fortress of a god is showing interest?
And Kina Berith was hardly the sort to miss what he was seeing.
What is the meaning of this?
He was too far away to make out the details.
And a god's sigil could only be deciphered by the Pope connected to the divine, or by a Gold cardinal trained in such things.
Sensing the strange, tense atmosphere, the Head of House Blue subtly lifted his hand toward his sword.
So it IS a curse that needs smashing, then?
I knew it—an evil god came out, didn't it?
“The god who has shown interest in this child is—”
But at that very moment—
BOOM!
“AAAH!”
“KYAAH!”
Black smoke erupted from the Holy Water Basin.
And at the shape the smoke conjured, every priest present could only recoil in horror.
“The Skeleton Demon King!”
The smoke had taken the form of the Skeleton Demon King. The sigil was smothered beneath it, hidden from sight.
At that sight, the look in Rillai's eyes—and the eyes of every soul sworn to Blue—changed in an instant.
“Skeleton Demon King! How dare you show your face here!”
But the smoke, utterly merciless, snatched Isaac up as though to kill him.
“Isaac!”
“The Demon King has taken an Eshua child!”
“Is it trying to steal away the very child who overcame its curse?!”
Everyone stared aghast at Isaac, seized by the demonic miasma.
Isaac, kidnapped, blinked.
What the hell is this?
But the Skeleton Demon King, as though he had waited his entire existence for this day, yanked Isaac roughly toward him.
And then, as though declaring war upon the world, he spoke.
Isaac bristled.
This goddamn son of a bitch……?