Peekaboo (3)
At the very moment a former-and-current Demon King was running a con on Shuri, Goel of House Verith—father of Shuri and a schemer of the first order—was wearing the grimmest expression anyone had ever seen on him.
And no wonder. He simply could not make himself believe it.
The Supreme God? Truly?
In House Eshua? That brat?
Goel pored over the classified records, and even with his own eyes on the page, disbelief refused to loosen its grip.
No—no matter how you slice it, the Supreme God of all things!
Isaac had really chosen It? A god whom the Gold Faith had never chosen—whom not even the Pope himself had ever chosen?
This was no mere "well, we can exploit that" situation. Far from it.
This is the kind of revelation that could overturn the entire existing order.
Just think about it! The papal line had always been treated as the foremost among the Five Great Ducal Houses—precisely because it wielded influence through contracts with the most powerful gods.
And yet a god even that house had failed to contract was being claimed by another family—and not just any family, but Eshua, the very house the Pope's faction held in contempt?
There would be absolute pandemonium.
Even if Isaac had drawn a Chief God of the Gold Faith, chaos would have followed. But the Supreme God?
To begin with, the Supreme God is a legend even among the gods themselves.
A unicorn, in a word. Revered as an idol among deities, a being so elusive that the prevailing account held no one had ever laid eyes on It.
And yet someone capable of choosing such a being actually exists in this world.
This was the kind of news that would leave not just mortals but gods themselves scrambling in disarray.
At that point, Goel raked his fingers through his long hair. Damn it all—no wonder the Pope had tried to kill Isaac! No wonder the haughty Verith had spouted such nonsense as adoption!
First things first—I have to tell Father.
He couldn't be certain, but if Isaac truly had drawn the Supreme God? This was a colossal opportunity for Eshua—and for him and his son.
At the same time, he was sure of one thing: whoever learned this truth was guaranteed to die for it.
...Wait. Is that why the ceremonial priests turned up as corpses?
The instant that thought flickered across his mind, Goel felt the blood drain from his entire body. Perhaps it was because he had glimpsed his own future in those dead priests. His hands shook uncontrollably. His heart hammered against his ribs.
Swallowing dust-dry saliva, Goel shoved the book back into its place.
If they catch me, I'm dead.
Those murdered priests were surely Cardinal Verith's doing as well.
He made haste to slip out of the Gold Library.
But that was the very moment it happened.
"What's going on out there?"
"Ah, my lord! You've returned!"
"?!"
The voices drifting in from outside the library nearly stopped Goel's heart.
Why is HE here of all places?!
Cardinal Verith was standing right outside. For a man who had planned everything down to the finest detail, the situation was unbearably flustering.
Goel hadn't come to the Verith estate today, at this hour, on a whim.
Today is the day the cardinals go to inspect the Fourteen Six Demons, isn't it?
Verifying the condition of the Fourteen Six Demons ahead of their execution was a matter of paramount importance. This was nothing less than the execution of the Skeleton Demon King's own subordinates, after all.
Moreover, dignitaries from foreign nations had arrived for the ceremony. With everyone already wondering which faction would claim the honor of executing the Fourteen Six Demons—and with other countries fixated on this year's Pentagons—attention had swelled to unprecedented levels.
And if the Fourteen Six Demons were to escape or cause an incident before the execution even took place? That alone would be a stain smeared across the Empire's face.
Yet the man had abandoned that inspection and come home?
I know the Verith duchy sits practically next door to the Holy See, but still.
The man who normally spent half of every single week at the Papal Court—here, of all times?
Then the voices outside made Goel's stomach drop even further.
"Was someone in the library?"
Startled stiff by the question, Goel clenched the door handle with all his strength.
Don't tell him! Don't you dare tel—
"Ah, that is... Lord Goel came by. He brought a book he wanted retrieved, but he wasn't at his residence, so."
"Goel?"
That damn, dirty commoner bastard—guhk!
Verith, you useless thing, you have never once been helpful in my entire life!
In the next heartbeat, the Cardinal's gaze underwent a complete transformation. And the direction he strode toward, with heavy, purposeful steps, was straight toward the Gold Library where Goel was hiding!
Shit!
Don't come over here, you son of a bitch!
Goel ground his teeth and desperately searched for an exit... but of course no such thing existed.
In the end, he had to wheeze and scramble up through the window and out.
Damn it—why do I have to suffer like this?!
Isaac, you little bastard! It's all his fault! Next time I see him I'll wring his neck.
And he was certain of one thing.
'There's no WAY Isaac drew the Supreme God, guhk!'
What was so special about that brat that the Supreme God would choose him?
All he'd seen was a crest, after all!
Granted, there had been a similar crest among the Lower Gods.
...Well, I'll have to verify it somehow. Assuming there even IS a way to verify it.
Records on the Supreme God were practically nonexistent, after all.
A god that deeply shrouded in mystery... no, none of that mattered right now.
Goel hurried desperately toward the main house. Just being caught inside the Gold Library would be enough to cost him his head. If he didn't return immediately, suspicion would fall on him.
But just then—
"Papilio."
"?!"
Goel looked up, his face the picture of a man whose heart had just stopped.
Cardinal Verith stood at the entrance of the estate.
"Come to snoop for information on Isaac Eshua, Papilio?"
At that word, Goel's blue eyes flashed with venom.
"...I suppose becoming a Cardinal makes the brain rot until you can't even remember people's names. Hirei Verith."
Papilio meant "butterfly."
The sort of name usually given to a little girl—but this cousin had insisted on attaching it to him in childhood as a contemptuous slur.
The meaning: ornamental.
A wretched little worm of a creature, good for nothing despite carrying the blood of the papal line—that was what it implied.
Apparently the head of the Ducal House found the word "defective" too coarse to utter from his own mouth, so he chewed it up ever so elegantly, in the finest papal tradition. It was nauseating.
Cardinal Verith watched Goel's eyes shift at the slur he hated above all others—and looked thoroughly satisfied.
But then the Cardinal went and trampled Goel's pride even further into the dirt.
"Whatever you saw, whatever you come to see, nothing changes. You are, and remain, the trash of Eshua and the papal line. Your son Shuri is a pitiable child, destined to be nothing but a stepping stone when Isaac takes the seat of family head. As a father without power, you would do well to think carefully about which side it's wiser to cling to."
It was a threat, in its way.
Behave yourself.
I know perfectly well why you came here. Do not lift a finger to help Isaac. Even if you saw something—keep your mouth shut.
But of course, this was Goel—a man whose inferiority complex over his own blood ran bone-deep. Hearing words like these, of course he exploded.
And explode he did.
"Like hell I'll keep quiet?! Even without you saying it, I will absolutely put my son in the seat of Head of House Eshua! Isaac Eshua? He's nothing!"
Good. Yes. That's the spirit.
A man whose love for his child burned fiercely enough to vow he'd raise him to the seat of family head would never carry information favorable to Isaac back to Eshua.
"Trash behaves as trash should, Papilio. Even if you pledge your loyalty to Eshua—do you imagine the Blue Faith would ever care about your papal bloodline?"
Goel stormed toward the main gate, cursing under his breath as though his mood had soured completely.
The head maid rushed out in alarm.
"Young Lord Goel!"
"Don't stop him."
"......!"
Cardinal Verith turned and swept coldly into the mansion—and the moment he did, Goel's face split into a guilty grin, as though he hadn't been cursing Isaac mere moments ago.
So it's true. The Supreme God really has appeared.
Isaac drew the Supreme God!
Goel couldn't close his mouth, the disbelief was so complete. He hadn't been convinced even seeing the crest—but watching Cardinal Verith's reaction just now, he was utterly certain.
Just as Cardinal Verith knew Goel's nature inside and out, Goel knew that man's nature just as well.
If it had truly been a Lower God, that man would never have provoked him like this. He would simply have let him walk away with the misunderstanding intact.
Even if it were otherwise, that reaction could only mean something real was there.
And the Supreme God?
Then the whole equation became beautifully simple.
Raise Isaac well enough... and couldn't we turn around and devour House Verith whole?
Goel set off at once for the Blue Faith's family head.
Meanwhile, back at the estate, Cardinal Verith headed for his study with an air of boredom.
The truth was, there had been a reason—far more pressing than inspection—for his visit home today.
The Cardinal of Red had come poking at him with that little barb.
And once word spread of which god Isaac had chosen—Blue, Red, everyone, all of them would have their eyes flipped inside out with hunger for the boy.
Verith recalled the words Isaac had spoken—wearing a face identical to his mother's.
Cardinal Verith drew a small blue pouch from the drawer. It was the possession of Isaac's mother—the Saintess who had vanished without a trace ten years ago.
His brow furrowed.
If I cannot have it... then destroying it is also an option.
"...What is all this?"
The Blue team, gathered in front of their dormitory, could hardly believe their eyes.
Because there, stacked in a tower on the dormitory training yard, was—
"Sandbags?"
"What is this tacky nonsense?"
Shuri had suddenly called an assembly, so they'd come expecting something. Instead—this.
"Why is there stuff that belongs in the training grounds of smelly holy knights sitting out here?"
"Why? Because starting now, big brothers, you're going to be carrying them while you run."
"???"
The Blue team members stared at Isaac as if to say, what kind of crap is this? Isaac, with bandages wound neatly around one hand, cracked his neck.
"Now, as you big brothers all know, the Pentagon exams are coming up soon. The Harmony proposal passed by vote, sure—but Harmony only means we're one team now. The real deal starts here. From this point on, without skill, nobody's going to give you the time of day. Got it?"
"We get it, but why are priests doing this tacky stuff? If it's physical work, just hire holy knights for it."
"Exactly! What matters for a priest is holy arts! Communion with the god from the Ordination! If we just offer prayers every day and build up our faith—"
Isaac ran a hand slowly down the back of his neck.
Ah. Aaah!
Just like sheltered noble little lords, aren't you!
It's so absurd my neck's about to snap off!
What was that? Prayer?
'Just hire holy knights for anything physical,' was it?!
"And yet you lot intend to debate the execution of the Fourteen Six Demons?"
"!"
Isaac's eyes gleamed like those of a rabid beast.
"You think the Demon King's subordinates are that easy?! You think the Skeleton Demon King is a JOKE?!"
"??!"
Now, it was true that priests hiring holy knights was common practice—the same as mages hiring mercenary swordsmen.
In fact, even at the Academy, the Holy Arts Department seemed to exchange with the Holy Knights Department quite actively.
It continued after graduation, too. Weren't Contract sessions—pairing with holy knights—already scheduled for the Gold Pentagon?
But in war, all of that was utterly useless!
Why?
Because the Skeleton Demon King knows!
He knows so well that he deliberately, gleefully splits the holy knights from the priests before the fighting starts!
I taught the demons the same thing—told them to go all out with that exact trick!
And I'd know—those kids are disgustingly good at it.
Without me, those moron clergymen would be helpless lambs to the slaughter.
Why else do you think the Blue Faith, which actually fights demons face-to-face, keeps hammering on about real training?
"Hey, Isaac. Which god did you draw, anyway? Ah, forget it—clearly you're not telling, the way you've kept quiet this long. Doesn't matter. Don't worry and just trust your big brother here. I got a pretty decent god this time too. As long as you just pray diligently—GYAH!"
Isaac smacked the prattling priests with a sandbag.
"If praying were enough, the flies would already be Pope, and that perverted Cardinal who lives in the prayer chamber would already be a god himself! You think this exam is a GAME?!"
"B-but at the Gold Pentagon, the holy knights handle all the combat. The Gold Faith's trials are mental work, so—"
"Right. If it were the Red Pentagon, maybe..."
"Ah, that mental-work Gold Pentagon you're all talking about? Got pushed back. We're doing the Red Pentagon first."
"WHAT?!"
They reeled in shock.
The Red Pentagon's assignment was human-to-human combat. A trial of the body.
"W-well, the Gold Pentagon needs tons of preparation, so a delay works out fine for us, but..."
"The schedule changed?"
"Yep. Due to personal circumstances, I'm going to be moving the Red Pentagon up. And we're changing the exam assignment, too."
...What did you say, you brat?
Moved up due to 'personal circumstances'—what kind of nonsense is that? The schedule bends to YOUR whims now?
And you're changing the assignment on top of it?!
But under the apprentices' stares, Isaac simply smirked.
Divine power, needed to restore my hand to its original state?
Why on earth would I bother praying to gather something I can just—
'TAKE! Puhah!'
Among the ways a priest gathers divine power, there's Heresy Inquisition! Combat aimed at other people!
In a word: divine power confiscation.
A standard practice of faith life, used chiefly by the Red Faith—specialists in torture—designed to weaken a heretic's power.
And I've already learned the fundamentals of divine power confiscation, haven't I?
Granted, in principle priests weren't supposed to fight one another. But hey?
Wasn't human combat, by time-honored definition, a legally sanctioned opportunity to beat the stuffing out of someone and shake them down for their power?
Not even remotely, actually. But Isaac cracked his neck anyway.
"Right! With that said, ALL of you big brothers will run fifty laps around the dormitory. GO!"
"WHAT?!"
"We've been working at the Holy See this whole time, you know?!"
"Who even died and made YOU boss—"
Isaac drew out his rattle with a slow, sweeping motion.
"...We'll run. Yes, sir."
"If we're Blue, it's not fifty laps—it should be a hundred, sir."
And so the Blue team, swallowing tears along with their mustard, began their run.
The sky blurring hazily at the edges had to be an illusion. It simply had to be.