The Red Pentagon (2)
"Whoa, what on earth is going on here?"
"What in the world did Young Lord Isaac do?!"
At the Third Imperial Training Ground, where the Red Pentagon was being held, the knights guarding the entrance were in an uproar.
The priests' Pentagon was a matter of great interest to holy knights as well. And really, how could it not be?
A talented priest was a future connection or partner, but the true reason was something else entirely.
Betting!
Above all, the priests' Pentagon was famous as a massive gambling event. Since these were men of the cloth, wagering was officially forbidden—but under the table, bets flew across every corner of the Empire.
"Senior, where did you place your bets this time?"
The most popular pick was always the aggressive Red Faction. The Blue Faction was the least popular of all.
"Never pick Blue. Those kids have zero ambition for results."
"What about White? They're the 'let's all live in peace' flower-garden types, aren't they?"
"No, those kids are actually the scariest when riled up. Their teamwork is the best, so they always place well."
"Ugh! Gold is the same—those guys value dignity over their own lives, so their results are solid! And Black has plenty of personal ambition, so they're surprisingly decent too!"
"Right. As long as you don't pick Blue, you're fine."
"Pffah! Where would you even find an idiot who'd pick Blue? They come in dead last every single year!"
The moment the Red holy knights chimed in, the Blue holy knights bristled.
"You think that's funny? Why would our Blue come in last?"
"Because this year's different."
Of course, Blue considered gambling absolutely forbidden. But for years now, everyone had thrown themselves into the trials with grim determination, desperate to shake off the annual humiliation of being the least popular pick!
"Do you not know that this time, Lord Isaac managed to rope in Kina Berith? The man's on another level entirely!"
"Yes!! That's right, I was just telling the juniors to go all-in on Blue's team, and—huh? Lord Rillai!"
At that name, the holy knights' ears all perked up.
To holy knights, an 8th-tier holy knight was a heaven-sent senior! And this man, the youngest ever to earn the title of Sword of the Empire, was an idol to every holy knight alive!
"Lord Rillai! It's been an honor! Blue will win this year, won't it? Can we trust you on that, rig—"
"NO!!"
Whoosh!
"...Huh?"
Their idol... vanished in an instant.
All he left behind was the word no.
Wait. No?
The knights were baffled for a moment—until their faces drained bone-white.
"Ah—the young lords' opponents this round, it was the Red team, wasn't it!"
"What?! Of all factions, the Red Faith?!"
They were doomed.
"Every team that's ever gone up against the Red team has come in dead last..."
Worse, since the first event was the Red Pentagon, tradition held that the Red team performed first—and those lunatics, in the name of demonstrating their "human combat techniques," would unleash every torture art in the book. And once you'd been put through that, losing match after match was simply a foregone conclusion...
"Ah... so Blue's coming in dead last, huh."
"Yep. Dead last."
So that's why he said 'no' and vanished...
"Ugh, I went all-in with my entire salary this year... I'm ruined."
"Me too..."
At that, the Red holy knights snorted with laughter.
"This is the natural order. Honestly, when did Blue ever get the audacity to look down on Red?"
"Grrk!"
Of course, the 'no' Rillai had bellowed hadn't meant anything of the sort.
"Of all the teams Isaac could've drawn, it had to be Red."
Rillai, escorted into the arena by the guiding knights, was fuming.
"Th-those kids, what are they?! How did they get that big?! They're supposed to be priests, did someone just stuff them full of meat? Hah, they should've fed meat to my boy instead! All I ever gave him for 'training' was bean water!"
"L-Lord Rillai?"
The guiding knights were drenched in sweat.
"Compared to those brutes, isn't Isaac just a teensy little hamster?"
That... hamster's personality seems rather vicious, though.
"Those wicked bulldogs are going to tear my adorable nephew apart!"
No, sir. I believe the hamster is about to be the one doing the biting?
Soon, the woman who had entered alongside Rillai let out a sigh of her own. She was none other than Asili, Isaac's nanny. From the moment Isaac had taken up residence at the Holy See, she had been attending to him here in the capital.
"Young Lord Isaac's side does seem to be at a disadvantage. The Red Faith are masters of one-on-one human combat, after all."
That much was true.
The Red Faith was a faith hyper-specialized in judging people—rooting out traitors from within its own ranks.
'Human combat and torture techniques are Red's specialties.'
Blue, by contrast, was a faith specialized in hunting monsters like demons. Its arts could protect people, but there was nothing in them for harming people.
Yes, yes, it was merely a difference in philosophy of protection—but still, look at those rascals!
"Those dirty Red brats are already using that Crippling holy art on them, aren't they! What a cowardly stunt!"
"The Crippling holy art, my lord?"
"That's what I said!"
Rillai jabbed a finger at the Blue team's children, who were growling and snarling.
For reasons no one could fathom, everyone except Isaac and Shuri was either rolling around like beasts or baring fangs and claws.
As an uncle, he had no choice but to be furious.
"Even if it is the Red Pentagon, there are limits! Subjecting apprentice priests to such low-down thug tactics—and ones that don't even work, at that...!"
At that, the guiding knights blinked in astonishment. Tactics that don't even work?
"...W-wasn't that a Blue holy art, though?!"
Rillai stared at them as if to say, what kind of nonsense is this now?
"...Blue has no such demon-like holy art."
"...I beg your pardon?!"
The knights' faces went rigid with frost.
"B-but Young Lord Isaac clearly cast a buff art on the Blue team, and that's why they—"
At those words, Rillai fell silent.
A buff art? From Isaac?
"...Asili. Anything come to mind?"
"Now that you mention it, half a month ago he asked me to teach him the holy knights' Mental Elevation art, so I did. It might be that..."
...Elevation?
"Elevation? THAT?!"
Mental Elevation, put simply, was a holy art that raised the body and mind into a state of heightened excitement so that one would not cower before unknown creatures.
But even so, it shouldn't turn anyone into that...
The holy knights gaped in horror at Isaac and the Blue team.
Isaac was issuing commands to the growling Blue team.
"Sit!"
"Grruff!"
"Stand up!"
"Grrrrruff!!"
"Prepare to bite!"
"AROOOARK ARK ARK!!!!"
The knights watching broke out in cold sweat. At this point, wasn't this less 'Mental Elevation' and more 'Beastification'?
But Isaac himself was grinning widely. Puhet.
The priests will never figure it out!
The fact that combining Mental Elevation with certain specific herbs scrambles the kids' brains into... well, turns them into beasts!
'Did they really think I raised these idiots' stamina for nothing?'
He had boosted their stamina from the very beginning precisely for this. Charging in like this demanded far more endurance than usual, after all.
Not that the completely oblivious Blue team had been nothing but delighted during training.
-Still, thanks to Isaac, we can actually put up a fight against Red! We've definitely gotten stronger!
-Yeah! That's right! We just have to trust Isaac!
-Alright! What matters is willpower and unshakable trust!
Isaac smiled sweetly.
'Hoh. One bit of special training and these innocent lambs think they can take on Red.'
They still had a mountain of things left unlearned—formation drills, tactical training, all of it—and they thought they could beat Red in a single month?
Friendship and hard work?
Don't make me laugh!
If a flock of spring chicks who'd done nothing but stamina training could simply bulldoze opponents who'd honed themselves for years, that would be the real injustice.
Right. So, in the name of fairness, he would simply have to crush them with a few centuries' worth of accumulated power on this side too.
The Demon King's eyes curved in a wide smirk. Pupup.
Isaac's plan was to beastify the priests and command them directly.
At that moment, the White priests seemed to notice something and raised a protest. They had spotted the Blue children chewing on something.
"Isn't that Energy Grass—the kind cultivated in White's gardens?!"
"The batch that got stolen recently!"
St... stolen?
Blue? Stealing?
Everyone recoiled in horror and looked at Isaac, but Isaac merely twitched an ear, unbothered.
"Originally I meant to feed it to the White Faith's sacred beasts and spring them out of the pen. Well, using it on people does get you a lot more mileage."
...I'm sorry, what? Spring them out?!
"Taking the sacred beasts out of the pen would only get them roasted alive anyway."
At those words, a White priest collapsed on the spot.
"Ah...! Bishop! The Bishop has fainted again!"
"That unforgivable wretch!"
White raged and protested, and everyone turned to Blue's representative, Rillai, as if to ask whether this was acceptable. But Rillai averted his eyes.
"...They haven't actually been roasted yet, so no harm done, I'd say."
"Sir Rillai!!"
The other faiths were burning with curiosity about just what method Blue had used to produce such effects, but Blue's own knights were drenched in cold sweat.
"More importantly... every member of that team is a noble young lord. Is it truly all right to handle them so... carelessly?"
Rillai answered only with a smile.
'Thank the heavens Father isn't here.'
If he were, he'd have clutched the back of his neck and dropped dead on the spot.
Asili smiled brightly too.
"It's a blessing there are no high nobles on the team, at least."
The people around them sweated bullets.
'A Count's house is plenty high noble, though...'
Especially the father of Molech, one of Isaac's teammates. Count Molech would have thrown an absolute fit.
'If Isaac deliberately removed Molech under the pretext of an upset stomach to keep the family feud from spreading, then the boy is frighteningly sharp.'
It would mean he possessed real political instincts.
Rillai agreed on that point as well.
"Pulling Molech out was a good move. The Count's house is a headache once you touch it."
"...And Count Simon's son is... fine...?"
Simon's son, Amon Age, had gone completely beastified as well. The heir to a Count's house was standing there like a beast, one leg lifted, pissing on the arena floor—
"AAAH! Stop him! Stop hiiim!"
"It's fine! His pants stayed on! It was just the posture!"
At that spectacle, the knights stole a glance at Rillai, but Rillai turned away with a dry cough.
"Simon is... fine to roll around."
...Really?
"Mm, it's fine. Apparently it's all part of the strategy."
Strategy? THAT is strategy?
"Yes. Winning is what matters."
...Blue, are these people really all right in the head?
Weren't these supposed to be the guys who treated their comrades like family?
They were treating their comrades with less respect than dogs—no, they were literally turning them into dogs??
The priests and knights of the other faiths felt their pupils shaking—then the very ground shuddered beneath their feet.
KUUUNG!
"!"
The training ground began to transform.
'It's starting!'
The Red priests stationed at the four cardinal points traced hand signs and began casting their summoning art.
KUGUGUGU!
Natural wonders began filling the vast, empty colosseum that had stood bare moments before.
A pond glittering like a basin of jewels, waterfalls, strange crags and trees ringing the water—even magnificent, colossal statues and sculptures. Shapes of a kind no human continent had ever seen.
"Ooooh, so that is the Garden of the God Realm...!"
"A vision granted by the Red God Himself!"
Heartfelt gasps of awe erupted from every corner.
Everything summoned was drawn from the God Realm itself. With their gods' permission, the priests could borrow a fragment of the very place their god dwelt.
It was a scene of rapture and reverence that only the Pentagon could offer.
But the truly important part was only beginning.
The moment the Cardinal of Red recited the verse, a colossal statue rose from the earth.
"Oh! That's—!"
"Let us all give thanks to the Red Chief God who lent us this ground!"
People prayed to the statue of the God of Penal Law that had risen with the garden, faith affiliations forgotten.
All gods were worthy of worship, and a Chief God above all was an object of veneration no matter one's faith.
The Red apprentices' eyes changed too, and they clasped their hands—for this was no ordinary statue.
"Hurry and pray with all your faith! The deeper your devotion, the greater the blessing our Red Chief God bestows! It will favor you in the match!"
"Ohh!"
Shuri, too, bit his lip hard at the majestic sight and clasped his hands together.
'And Isaac himself said I could do it.'
So he would trust that lunatic and bare everything he had in this trial—
KWAANG!!!!
An explosion ripped through the air.
The face of the Chief God's stone statue, which had risen along with the garden, had been blown to pieces. Every soul who had been praying to the Chief God doubted their own eyes and ears.
Shuri, heart seizing in terror, looked for the culprit who had fired off the spell.
'ISAAAAAAC!'
Isaac, quite unable to contain himself, had blasted the Chief God's face off.
Isaac twitched his eyebrows, as if to say, oops, my bad.
"It just... happened. Muscle reflex."
YOU ABSOLUTE LUNATIC!
Every horrified gaze in the arena swung toward Isaac.
Shuri wanted nothing more than to faint on the spot.
That bastard... is it really safe to trust him?!