Harmony Is a Must (1)
Isaac had been a Demon King who raised every last one of his demons with his own two hands.
From newborn magic beasts to fully grown adults of the demon race, he had nurtured them all with a surprising degree of care. Because when Isaac had first been dropped into their midst, the demons were quite literally dying out.
If I don't keep these dying bastards alive, I'll be the one getting dismembered by the magic beasts first, he'd figured, so he'd saved them.
And then, well, unless we build a civilization, we're all living as beggars forever, so he'd raised them up to use as a labor force — but regardless of the motive, he had poured genuine effort into it.
In any case, if he'd never touched them in the first place, fine, but once he'd personally raised them, he tended to grow rather attached. And demons that received that attachment responded with loyalty.
But these damn priests, for some reason, just reek of rebellion.
"Throw it away. Right now."
At Shuri's flat declaration, Isaac bristled.
Because — let's recap — what had this priest just said?
Throw it away? Throw it away?
What Shuri was pointing at was the monstrous rattle-whip.
"Are you insane, Kim Shuri?! Do you have any idea how much this thing is worth?"
"If you knew what it was worth, would you have made it look like this?!"
"What! It looks cool!"
At Isaac's shout, Shuri clutched the back of his neck as if all the blood in his body had rushed straight to his head.
Cool? Is this bastard serious?
Isaac's re-shaped rattle was already less a weapon than an abomination, pure and simple.
No wonder my team members made those faces after I swung this thing around.
After the storm known as Isaac had passed, the reactions of his group members had been remarkably consistent — pale, hollow-eyed, like men who had witnessed something they were never meant to see.
Ghost-white and trembling, they had grabbed at Shuri as if begging him to flee at once, treating Isaac like a man possessed by a demon.
At least they still saw him as a person, so that was something.
Haah… So when exactly did the noble and honorable House Eshua get lumped in with the cults…?
"What kind of priest swings a monstrosity like this in the first place?!"
Even the Red Faith, whose specialty is torture, wouldn't use something like this!
And that was why Shuri was cursing his grandfather in his heart.
Keep a close eye on Isaac. And don't let the Holy Spirit be discovered just yet.
Hadn't the head of the Blue Faith issued that very order to Shuri before they entered the training compound?
But keeping an eye on him, my ass.
Lord Head of House, I have failed you.
His grandfather had assured him that Isaac wouldn't cause any trouble until he'd settled into life at the compound. This bastard caused trouble on day one, damn it all.
The first Pentagon trial will be… the White Faith's 'Harmony.' Ah well, you'll be fine. Just nibble on some pastries and have a good time.
Fine?! Grandfather! It was supposed to be "Harmony," and he beat people up!
Granted, in a sense, things did get "harmonized"…!
Tears welled in Shuri's eyes as he replayed his conversation with the head of his house.
"I'll say this only once. Restore that rattle to its original form!"
"Why! It's hard to intimidate anyone without it!"
"Don't you think beating nobles with a genuine imperial gift is itself the problem?!"
But Isaac merely tilted his head, baffled.
"What's the problem? One wave of this thing and all the kids shut right up."
Shuri pressed both hands to his face, as if pleading for someone, anyone, to come arrest this heretic.
"…You. Genuinely. If you rule through fear, it's going to blow up in your face later…"
Isaac's expression grew only more uncomprehending.
I already tried that? Worked like a charm?
"Isaac Eshua. Listen carefully. Being a Saint isn't achieved through force alone."
Could've fooled me. The Saintesses knew nothing but force. Every single one of them would chat for a bit and then rip a pillar out of my Demon Castle and hurl it at me.
Not that he could share that particular fact.
Isaac gave a light, mocking laugh.
"Right. So since being a Saint can't be done through force alone, that's why my dear brother decided to play the pushover."
"Ugh…!"
Shuri averted his gaze.
Honestly, when he'd first read the hit list Isaac had handed him, his blood had run cold. This bastard — how does he pinpoint, with such precision, exactly the people who've been getting on my nerves behind my back?
But there was nothing Shuri could do about it.
"To score well on the virtue of Harmony, you have to…!"
"So that's why you went around buttering people up? You mustn't."
…But beating them up is fine?! You absolute bastard?!
Shuri had hoped never to say the next part, but there was no helping it. He forced the words out.
"…The Blue Faith has a weak base of support. If we don't do things like this, the nobles won't back us."
"!"
"You understand? We're priests, supposed to keep our distance from worldly affairs, but it's factional politics all the same. If no one supports us, we lose our power."
Apparently, standing as a candidate for the next head of house, Shuri had given all of this a great deal of thought.
If his grandfather and grandmother ever vanished, the Blue Faith would become prey overnight.
At that, Isaac snorted, as if pitying his brother.
"That's the story of people who have nothing."
"!"
"House Eshua is big and strong. Why do you think we're one of the continent's major faiths? The Five Great Ducal Houses shouldn't need to tiptoe around anyone's opinion, should they?"
"No. I'm not saying this for nothing. The moment Eshua lost its Secret Art, we became the butt of everyone's mockery."
"!"
Isaac raised a single eyebrow.
…The Secret Art?
Could that have something to do with the grimoire he'd pulled out of the treasury?
"Anyway, if we revive the Blue Secret Art, we'll be the strongest again and I could shut everyone up for good. But since we can't…"
"Hm. It might not be entirely impossible."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Anyway! Our other cousins are out hunting for something to replace that Secret Art! You can't afford to be worse than them!"
"Why?"
Why, he asks!
"How does it look if you score below your rivals?!"
The other cousins were scattered across the empire on family missions, so Isaac hadn't met them yet. But every one of them had his eye on the seat of Head of House.
Even now, one of them is already commanding the Killer Whales, Eshua's own knight order…
"Anyway, there's something you can receive from the Holy See for top marks in the Pentagon. It counts as a major achievement, which works in your favor for the succession. That's why Harmony matters too."
"Mm, right. Fine, I get it. I understand perfectly that you played the pushover for my sake, brother."
"P-Pushover…?"
Well, that wasn't the important part right now.
"And yet, after all that generosity, the very friendly houses you courted are stabbing Eshua in the back."
"What? What do you mean, 'stabbing in the back'?"
"As for the Harmony part — I've already got a plan."
This bastard is chewing through my words.
"…What do you mean, a plan?!"
Does this bastard plan to apologize and hand out candy, after beating everyone half to death?
But at the sight of Shuri's expression, Isaac just grinned and told him to follow.
Where Isaac led Shuri, moments later, was the closet in a spare room of the training compound.
A closet?
Why on earth would he bring me somewhere like this?
The moment Isaac flung the closet door open, Shuri crossed his arms with a fine, let's-see-this attitude.
Well, he's a money-lover, so maybe he's hoarded away some spending money for the apprenticeship…
"Mmph! Mmph!"
"…"
It was money, all right. Ransom money. Son of a—
Shuri went white at the sight of the boy trapped inside the closet.
The chubby boy's mouth was stuffed and gagged with a twisted towel, his body bound tight with rope — and judging by his clothes, he was a fellow apprentice from their own quarters. You have got to be kidding me—
"You lunatic! What is this?! He's on OUR team!"
Forget harmony — this bastard is actively sowing division!!
The boy stared up with huge, brimming eyes, silently begging for his life.
Fair enough. Who could have imagined such a thing happening among priests? The terror was understandable.
But Isaac was Blue too. There had to be some reason he'd—
"Turns out this kid's from a rich count's house. His ransom's gotta be worth something, right?"
…Lord, I beg you. Please, take this child away.
Wait — more importantly, did this lunatic even know who this priest was?
"He's the heir of Count Age!"
"Who?"
"Uncle Rillai's friend! Count Simon's only son! One of the three richest families in the entire empire!!"
"So I really should sell him."
"HEY!!!"
But then Isaac said:
"There's already a team making moves on us over the Pentagon."
"Making moves?"
"Yesterday, this kid snuck off somewhere carrying a suspicious letter. What did it say again? Ah, right — that he was quitting the spy business."
"!!"
The instant those words landed, Shuri — whose mind worked fast when it mattered — went vicious in a heartbeat.
"Niger Sephet ordered it, didn't he?!"
At Shuri's shout, Amon Age curled into a ball, bracing for a beating. Isaac smiled sweetly.
"Niger Sephet told you to wreck our team's unity, didn't he?"
At that, Amon — who was close to Shuri — squeezed his eyes shut, and a wave of betrayal surged up in Shuri's chest.
"Fine, your houses serve a hostile duchy. But your head of house is Uncle Rillai's dearest friend. I thought we had no bad blood between us and House Eshua… I never dreamed you of all people would betray us."
Then Amon Age burst into chicken-scratch tears and tried, through the gag, to say something — mmph, mmph.
Isaac smacked him on the head as if to say face front, and loosened the gag.
"I'm shorry! I had no choice! We have our own circumsh… ghk!"
"I don't care about your circumstances. Just tell me what that Sephet brat ordered you to do."
Staggering from the blow, Amon Age spoke in furtive glances.
"Niger said to absolutely destroy Team Eshua. He said if it's you, Shuri, you'd go down on your knees for the other nobles for the sake of the Harmony score — so keep piling on impossible demands and split the team apart."
Shuri's jaw hung open in sheer disbelief, while Isaac seemed to have a sudden realization.
"Oh, so that bizarre welcome ceremony was his doing too?"
"Y-yes…! All of them were plants Niger inserted. To make us fail the Harmony trial."
So THAT'S why they were spouting nonsense about binding me with rope the moment we met?
Well, no harmony possible there, obviously.
"You especially, Isaac — you drew all that attention at the Ordination Ceremony, so he's targeting you even harder. It's not just your team. Niger wants to monopolize the execution of the Skeleton King's underlings. It's the most visible stage there is — the one place a Saint can make his name known to foreign nations."
And so Isaac smiled — adorably, one might say.
Execute MY underlings, would he.
First they mess with Bung-Bung, now my subordinates too?
Greedy little thing, isn't he.
Not that the 'Red' faith—
As if I needed another reason to hate them — they're the torturers guarding the prison where my underling is locked up.
Between the Gold Cardinal constantly summoning him and this brat, the gods' errand boys were getting awfully annoying.
"Gotta process the whole lot of 'em at once, y'know~."
"…"
At that, Shuri buried his face in his hands.
Please, just start by processing that tongue of yours.
"WHAT?! The spy says he can't do it anymore??"
Niger Sephet bristled as if he were running a fever.
Day four of the apprenticeship.
He had planted spies in the Blue Faith to eliminate his rivals for the first Pentagon trial — the virtue of Harmony.
After all, thanks to that damned skeleton that had appeared at the Ordination Ceremony, Isaac was hogging all the attention.
So while he was at it, sowing division, he'd ordered them to squeeze out information on Isaac Eshua as well.
Never liked the little weasel from the start.
And yet, one after another, they all claimed the information alone was beyond them.
A tea party??
Don't tell me the Blue Faith is bribing people at tea parties?
Or was it that, with Blue drawing so much attention since the Ordination Ceremony, they didn't want to do anything that might shame their house?
The more he thought about it, the hotter Niger Sephet's blood boiled.
The Ordination Ceremony, the Ordination Ceremony, the Ordination Ceremony!
What's a hollow-eyed skeleton know about discerning talent, anyway?!
And then — what? The Purification Divine Art is amazing?!
Put it next to the Red Faith's Secret Art and it's barely common holy arts, nothing more! And yet His Majesty the Emperor himself, they say, rejoiced and called that boy a Saint!
Damn it all.
He never should have accepted that man's letter of recommendation in the first place.
When he'd confronted his father over it, the Cardinal of Red had only smiled, meaningfully.
I'm simply curious to see what that power he's gained turns out to be worth.
Ugh, what does that even mean?!
Eshua's power is just more of the same old!
Useless bastards who couldn't even catch the Skeleton King.
So invite that boy over to the Red Faith, won't you.
Invite?! INVITE?!
Is he insane?! Courting Blue, of all people?!
But it didn't matter.
Today is the day of the Harmony trial.
Fine — perhaps extracting information could harm the family, so he'd let them refuse. But today's evaluation was different.
There were trusted men planted inside Isaac's team for the evaluation itself. Men who would, without fail, betray House Eshua the moment the Pentagon began.
Well then — the honor of executing the Skeleton King's underlings shall belong to the Red.
With anticipation lighting his face, Niger Sephet set off for the trial grounds.