The Red Pentagon (1)
In truth, the reason the exam had changed was that the interests of the two cardinals happened to align.
Even when the Cardinal of Red had come sniffing around, the Gold faction's reaction hadn't been unfavorable.
"Your Excellency Verith. Why are you trying to use this venue for the Gold test?"
"Is there some problem?"
"You're even planning to slip a live human-combat event into the trial roster—of the Gold Pentagon, no less?"
"What's the problem?"
"I hear you've developed quite an interest in Isaac Eshua."
"State your business or get out."
"I heard the rumors—that you mean to take him in as an adopted son."
"...Shall I give you a reason to state your business?"
Whether the reaction had truly been favorable, who could say—but the Cardinal of Red simply wore an oily smile and said only what he'd come to say.
"I understand taking an interest in the boy. But this is cheating, Cardinal Verith."
"If you keep spouting such nonsense—"
"You're trying to kill Isaac Eshua, aren't you?"
!
The Gold Cardinal's eyes turned murderous at being caught off guard. But the Cardinal of Red bared his own killing intent in answer, like a serpent shedding its lids—those ever-smiling slit eyes finally showing their true color. The corners of his mouth curled as thin as a snake's gaze. There really is nothing quite like the face an arrogant man makes when you stab him in his blind spot.
"Why the long face? Did you truly think the Red Faith couldn't read the Gold's intentions?"
"......"
Cardinal Verith knitted his brows in displeasure. The Red Faith, ever prying into men's hearts. Displeasing, sly, revolting—fitting for the faith of torture, with not a trace of warmth in those eyes. The cardinals had all been Academy classmates, Isaac's father included, but entangling themselves with one another had never brought anything good.
Yet the Cardinal of Red reverted to his angelic smile as though nothing had happened at all.
"Well, never mind. Our test needed changing anyway."
"So what. Is. Your business."
"This year, the holy knight apprentices were attacked."
!
"By those demonkin from fourteen years ago, I'm told. The apprentice priests will be attacked as well—say, during the Gold Pentagon that takes them abroad. So you'll be needing countermeasures, won't you?"
You son of a bitch, so what's your real business— the Gold Cardinal was about to snarl when the Cardinal of Red smiled and said:
"Move the Red test up, and you have yourself a splendid countermeasure. The Red Pentagon makes for excellent live-combat training, after all."
!
Cardinal Verith drummed his fingers against the desk in irritation.
"So you're proposing the Red test be held before Gold's?"
"Yes. And who knows? If lives start hanging by a thread in the Red test, Isaac Eshua might just show us something truly entertaining."
The Cardinal of Red recalled the letter Shuri had once brought. Perhaps intimidated by the cardinal, Shuri had held it out with trembling hands. Isaac's letter had read:
"Your Excellency. If you move the Red Pentagon up ahead of Gold's, I'll show you something genuinely entertaining in return."
The Cardinal of Red had simply wanted to watch Cardinal Verith squirm. That was why he'd used Isaac to make a fool of the Gold faction.
Yes. That was the plan.
"......"
Kina?
Kina Berith?!
The training grounds stirred. At Kina Berith's appearance, Naizer Sephet rounded on his father, his fury unmistakable—'Entertainment' was supposed to be the win condition?
The Cardinal of Red was smiling too, but he seemed inwardly flustered. When Isaac had promised to show them something entertaining, he'd assumed the boy would trot out a Holy Spirit or some such display of power. And now the Red side was the one caught in a bind.
By that point, he shot a suspicious glance at Cardinal Verith beside him. If Kina is his opponent, even my boy will have a hard time of it. Don't tell me you deliberately attached that son of yours to the Blue team—
But one look at the Gold Cardinal's expression, and the Cardinal of Red turned his head away. Yeah. No way that's it.
The high officials—nay, even the imperial family—were gaping in fascination. The eyes of the Imperial Princess and the Crown Prince, who had not yet held his investiture, changed noticeably. At the sight, the escort knight gave Isaac a look of grudging admiration. Well, no wonder His Highness finds this particularly interesting.
Why? Kina Berith was the man who would become the next Pope—and the relationship between the Pope and the Emperor needed no explanation. However much they might look like allies on the surface, in truth they were enemies each scheming to steal the other's throne. From the moment the priests insolently took to calling Kina 'the Prince,' relations between the two could never be good. And now that Kina Berith had joined the Blue team? A man of power who had never once strayed from Gold?
Granted, on the surface one could read it as 'Blue has become the Pope's faction.' But really? If that were so, Kina would never be wearing Blue's cord. Above all, the Gold Cardinal's face would never look like that.
To priests and nobles alike, the symbolism of color mattered that much. What Kina had done was nothing less than setting down gold itself—the very emblem of royal authority. From the Crown Prince's standpoint, Isaac had tamed the very man who held his grudge. Isaac's act could only feel extraordinary to him.
But not everyone merely gawked at the spectacle in fascination.
"This is cheating!"
It was Naizer. He was dumbstruck at the sight of Kina glued to Isaac's side, gunning for their team. Of all people—Kina Berith?
You're kidding me.
He hated to admit it, but that man was the most favored Saint candidate, a once-in-a-century genius no words could adequately describe. The guy already being called the Little Pope, of all people! He didn't want to go this far, but even if a hundred people joined the Red team right now, that one man would sweep every last one of them. And now Isaac's power was stacked on top of that?
For Naizer, there was nothing to laugh about. At this rate, we might actually wash out of the Pentagon!
No wonder he rebutted like a man possessed.
"Hey! You're not even a novice! You've already been acknowledged as an Upper Priest—what the hell are you doing butting into a bunch of novices' games? Can a man who teaches others even be called a novice? So his participation is invalid, and—"
"I relinquished that Upper Priest recognition."
"Right! You gave it up! So since you gave it up... what?"
What did you just say?!
Everyone stared as though doubting their own ears, but Kina Berith, arms crossed, spat it out as if it were nothing at all.
"I am giving up the rights granted to me. As of today, I intend to serve as a novice, just like Isaac Eshua."
"...What?!"
Everyone's eyes flew to the Gold Cardinal in shock—did he actually permit this? But the moment they checked his face, they shuddered and hastily looked away. Only the Cardinal of Red snickered off to the side.
Naizer glared at Kina, utterly at a loss.
"Like whom... what? You—of all people on this earth—have become a novice priest?"
"That is so. So that I may stand at Isaac Eshua's side."
The children of the other faiths let out screams edged with disbelief. Why? Why would someone that brilliant demote himself, all for Isaac?
By then, every gaze in the grounds had turned toward the culprit behind it all. And the culprit, of course, could only be Isaac.
What did that little brat do?
Why is the Pope's grandson hanging off that kid?
Naizer, moreover, instantly grasped whose place Kina had come to fill.
Molech. The spy he himself had planted—the one who'd been itching to defect to Red. Don't tell me that bastard deliberately kept his spy from surfacing and went and brought in Kina Berith in his stead...
Just then, Isaac chuckled as though only now catching on.
"Aigooo, I'm so, so sorry! My foraging page went and taste-tested my breakfast for me, and the poor thing got an upset stomach and collapsed!"
...Figures... no, wait—a foraging page? A noble keeps one of those? What on earth was he even talking about??
But under those disbelieving stares, Isaac arched a crescent-moon smile.
"Aigooo, I've always dreamed of facing the Red side with their divine power to spare, and you've gone and drawn up the match roster for me like this! So moved am I by Your Excellency the Cardinal's grace that tears come to my eyes!"
Clutching the back of his neck, Naizer glared at the referee.
"This is cheating! Drag that cheating mercenary off the field right now! I'll lend you one of ours to fill the slot!"
"It's not cheating, though? I scoured every single clause to find him. Right? Isn't that correct?"
Under Isaac's beaming smile, the Red priest sweated bullets, stealing anxious glances at Naizer.
"Y-yes... Lord Kina is formally of Lower Priest rank, and having never sat the Pentagon... that is to say, he holds novice status... so there is no problem with the regulations whatsoever."
"......!"
The words had barely fallen when Kina Berith cast a haughty glance over the Red team.
"If your questions are resolved, you may proceed."
Naizer ground his teeth.
Damn it!
"Down with Red!"
"Krrrk!"
"Down with Red!"
"Kwak-kwak-kwaaark!"
"Chwaa."
Ten minutes before the Red test began. Isaac, holed up in the strategy time, was busily layering buff holy arts over each of his teammates in turn.
Exactly what holy art he'd cast was anyone's guess, but the Blue team's motivation was boiling over to the point that they seemed to be turning into beasts—and Isaac couldn't have cared less.
What actually bothered him lay elsewhere.
"Big Bro, what's with the face?"
It was Shuri. The captain's expression was unusually grim. When Isaac asked what was wrong, Shuri hesitated a moment before opening his mouth.
"You said sparring would raise my divine power, right?"
"Yep."
Shuri gazed down at Isaac's injured hand with pity. That hand of Isaac's was a secret he kept from everyone—most of all, from the heresy inquisitors. Granted, since this was the Red Pentagon, the referee and every priest covering the training grounds were heresy inquisitors to a man, which was terrifying in its own right, but there was nothing to be done about it.
They said that the more divine power I gather, the better I can suppress the Skeleton Demon King's curse.
Sparring was especially effective for raising divine power—when a priest fell into danger, the god who had chosen them would intervene, and their holy power naturally swelled. That was precisely why Shuri had sent word to the Cardinal of Red: to get Isaac's hand treated.
"But I never dreamed the match positions would be drawn up like this..."
Isaac blinked, genuinely surprised.
"Big Bro, don't tell me you're scared of being captain?"
"The other teams would be fine... but of all opponents, it had to be the Red team. I'll only be a burden to everyone."
Shuri was anxious about his own abilities. This match, above all, hinged on the captains' duel—in the end, it was the captain who would have to steal the enemy's treasure.
Isaac snorted.
"So that's what had you worried. You skipped a grade and took the top seat in the whole year. You're plenty qualified to be captain. If you ask me, the Cardinal of Red placed you rather well."
But Shuri squeezed his eyes shut, as if that wasn't it at all.
"...I really, really didn't want to say this to you. But honestly, speaking coldly—becoming class representative, skipping a grade, the priest exams... even the Unity trial. It was all thanks to you, not my own skill."
"......!"
Isaac stared at him, visibly taken aback—the face of a boy who had never imagined Shuri saw it that way. But Shuri meant every word. He knew Isaac had been using him to extract information about the Academy. That was why Isaac had tutored him, and Shuri had crammed through Isaac's crash lectures all the way from the top-of-class exam, to the grade-skip exam, to the priest exams. He had told himself that at the very least, here at the Pentagon, he—the older brother—would be the one to lead.
"Even Unity only passed because of your help. In the end, I didn't actually do anything. All I did was sob my eyes out in front of my little brother."
Worse still, he'd very nearly been caught being treated like a pushover by his own classmates. And even that—if Isaac hadn't been there, Unity would have failed and he'd have slunk back to the Academy, unable to manage even that much, unable to protect the friends who followed him. As the man who led Blue, as an older brother, it was mortifying beyond words.
Isaac heaved a deep sigh and patted Shuri on the shoulder.
"Big Bro. You call it a crash course? That was no crash course."
"!"
"Sure, I boil everything down to the essentials and teach it absurdly well. But that's not a normal pace. Most people couldn't keep up even if I did teach them."
"......!"
"In the end, it was your own skill that carried you that far. You made it there on your own strength. So I believe in you."
The Unity trial had been the same.
"You say all you did was bawl your eyes out—but that's exactly why it was so unfair to you. It proved you were sincere, that you gave everything you had. Evidence you fought with everything in you. Don't go deciding you did badly."
Shuri stared at Isaac, stunned. He had never expected to hear such words from him.
"Just believe me. They say when the teacher's a genius, even the students all become geniuses."
"But... I've never beaten Naizer. Not once. Whatever that guy looks like, he's insanely, absurdly strong. Honestly, he's a novice in name only—he's already reading at Upper Priest level. In reality, there isn't a Lower Priest alive who could take him."
No wonder he held the top spot in holy arts. He'd had no interest in the class-representative seat, which was why Shuri held it—but in raw strength alone, Naizer was overwhelming.
Isaac smirked. Well, Shuri was oddly soft-hearted and kind. Which was part of why he liked him.
"It's fine. You've never once shown what you can really do. Do exactly as I say, and I guarantee something amazing will happen when you fight that ill-mannered red-haired bastard too. I believe in you, Big Bro."
"Isaac...!"
Shuri looked at him, chest tight with emotion, and Isaac pulled him into a warm embrace.
"And one more thing."
"Yeah? One more thing?"
"If you lose, you die before I do. You little shit."
"......"
Shuri bit his lip hard.
...Damn it.