Something Is Off Here...? (2)
Isaac Eshua.
He had heard plenty about the boy through rumor alone.
Not that any of it compared to the most famous fact of all — that hair color.
Of all the colors that should have come out of the Papal House, it had to show up in House Eshua.
But however famous the boy might be, what part of it was actually his own doing? The couriers weren't the least bit afraid of Isaac's team.
At the end of the day, they're just the same priests as any other.
So when Isaac picked them, they'd almost taken it for good fortune. They'd assumed they'd simply be dragged off to babysit a pack of brats through some trial or other.
Never in their wildest dreams had they imagined the little bastards were headed to the same destination!
"Aaagh, help me—!"
One of their own had been dragged away in the middle of a courier mission. They'd tried to go after him, only to be blocked by the upper brass.
And did they know who the demon that abducted their comrade was?
Unbelievably, it was the very demon Isaac had been ordered to deal with! The same demon from fourteen years ago!
And these priests were bound for the same place?
What a windfall!
We'll use them to rescue our comrade.
Of course, that meant first stripping the little priests of command.
Then again, flail as they might, they were still just brats.
Not difficult at all.
…Right. It should have been easy.
"…Have we been played?"
A small tavern in the village. The five couriers who had arranged to meet Isaac's team were grinding their teeth. The meeting was supposed to be over lunch…
But the little bastards hadn't shown up at the agreed place.
And they dared suggest it was because they had arrived too early?
Ridiculous. They had deliberately come two hours late. The whole point was to make the others wait and seize the upper hand.
The plan was simple: let those brats whine about the wait, and victory was theirs.
After all, those ones couldn't function without an escort. The advantage was clearly on the couriers' side.
Either way — first strike, won!
Yes… that was the plan. That was the plan, but… damn it all, who knew these lunatics would go one step further!
BANG!
"Five hours?! Is five hours acceptable to any of you?!!"
"How in the hell do a pack of brats run five hours late?!"
Instead, they'd ended up as the ones waiting! The couriers, kept standing around for Isaac's team, were flushed with heat and one breath from dropping dead.
Five hours!
"Those Blue bastards… weren't they supposed to be punctual to a fault?"
No matter how they turned it over, something was off. The Blue Faction they knew were so rigid about time you could set a clock by them.
"You don't think they heard the rumors about us and are toying with us?"
"No. Blue's people would never pull something like that…"
Played or not, played was played. Just as they could bear it no longer and were rising from their seats—
"Look at that. Told you I'd still be here."
"?!"
Isaac's team came ambling up to them like they hadn't a care in the world.
Shuri, punctual to a fault, couldn't even lift his head, and the Blue team avoided their eyes. Only Isaac shamelessly chomped away at a piece of candy.
The couriers had no choice but to bristle, eyes brimming with murderous intent.
"Is this the extent of Blue's punctuality? It was supposed to be lunch today, if I recall."
"Yeah, it is lunch. For us, anyway. Some thugs worked us over and broke an arm, so we couldn't exactly get up."
"……?"
Weren't the broken arms decidedly on the thugs' side?
No — that wasn't the point.
"What does one thing have to do with the other? A couple of street punks hardly—"
"Hardly? Those were agents sent on the Magic Empire's orders! A matter that could have blown up into a full diplomatic incident, you're telling me it's hardly—?"
The M-Magic Empire? Where is this brat getting the nerve to spin tales?
But they couldn't quite bring themselves to call it a lie, so their eyebrows merely twitched.
"Th-that must have been quite an ordeal."
"We're relieved you all escaped with your lives."
At that, Isaac let out a puhehet of a laugh, as if to say, would you look at these idiots.
"You dolts are hopeless. Like the Magic Empire would hire neighborhood thugs! You got udon noodles stuffed where your brains should be?"
"……?!"
…This little brat is playing us for fools?
"What, did that sting? If there's a sore spot, then maybe you cover our travel expenses. A courier should know how to use sweet words, no?"
This shameless bastard — now he's treating us like moneylenders?
"We have no idea what you're talking about. We're the injured party here, and the ones who showed up late are acting this shameless? At this rate—"
"What, you can't work with us?"
"!"
As the couriers flinched, Isaac glared at them with contempt, as if to say so we're not the only latecomers after all.
"We weren't the only ones running late, were we? You showed up a full two hours late yourselves — and made a show of it. I already checked with the shop owner, by the way."
"That's…"
"We were late because we were recovering from the shock of catching thugs and working through an all-you-can-eat meat buffet. You had no reason to be late at all. Am I wrong?"
…No. You lot have zero reason either, actually?
"I know you picked up bad habits trying to grab command on purpose. But let me be clear — that trick doesn't work on us."
"What did you say?"
"Got it? I don't know how other priests would've taken that, but you answer to us."
The couriers glared at Isaac, thoroughly rankled. If they didn't settle who held the upper hand here and now, there'd be no living with it.
"Sounds like you think you don't need an escort."
Exactly. How crucial was an escort for apprentices heading into a danger zone?
Priests — the kind of precious darlings who wouldn't lift a finger for anything dangerous or filthy, and went crying for Holy Knights instead.
And when their grades were on the line, they'd avoid conflict all the more desperately.
But.
"Sounds to me like you're the ones who don't need to go into Crashandia. Don't you have a comrade to rescue?"
At Isaac's words, the couriers flinched.
Don't tell me this brat knows everything?
They fixed Isaac with ferocious stares.
"Did you hear the inside story from Sir Rillai?"
"Nope. Our uncle is strictly business-public and business-private — he'd never breathe a word. But I don't need to be told to see it."
Isaac grinned like a wicked little imp.
"People who'd dump you and walk off if you annoyed them don't wait around five hours out of insanity. You need us."
"……!"
"And the reason's obvious, isn't it? Either we're useful to you, or we're headed to the same place."
Isaac clicked his tongue and looked the men up and down.
"Not that anyone needs a half-witted Blue apprentice like that."
What did you just call me, you—?!
The Blue team stared at Isaac, scandalized, but he ignored them entirely, patting his own head with a self-satisfied little tap-tap.
"The only ones with any value here are yours truly, Blue's direct line, and maybe Shuri. Even if you're all idiots, you wouldn't try to kidnap people officially assigned as your partners."
"……"
"Besides, look at how you're dressed. For an escort, that's absurdly heavy armament. It means you're planning to face a strong enemy — and you didn't come dressed like that to help with our mission. Which means! You intended to use us as bait to flush out a demon. Am I wrong?"
"……"
The couriers' eyebrows twitched in bewilderment.
Has that brat learned mind-reading magic or something?
"Well, it's not like the demon that showed up in Crashandia hasn't been abducting Holy Knights. Now then — explanation's over. I'd suggest you do the math properly on who holds command here."
The meaning was clear: stop wasting brainpower and fall in line.
"For the record, your opinions will not be solicited. We have a Gold Pentagon to complete."
At that, the couriers ground their teeth, muttering that they'd known it would come to this.
"That brat — we should've clocked him back when he was beating down those thugs…!"
"Damn heretics…!"
Isaac's brow furrowed sharply.
"Uh, who exactly are you calling heretics here?"
"You're like the Skeleton Demon King himself!"
"Hey. Hold it right there. You wanna die?"
He'd hoped for a little more from the son of the Saintess, but priests really were all the same.
Then again, the high-ranking clergy were typically drawn from noble houses, while the Holy Knights were mostly commoners. It was only natural that priests looked down on the knights and treated them as meat shields.
"Especially with Crashandia in the state it's in — with this Halak or whoever refusing to even let a knight through to rescue a comrade…"
They'd begged to at least be sent manpower if they wouldn't be let in, only to be refused on the grounds that there wasn't a single body to spare for courier duty.
But at those words, Isaac and Shuri both tilted their heads.
Halak?
Shuri's brow narrowed in particular.
That's my fourth uncle's alias.
The mission had come down from the Papal Court, too. Could his fourth uncle be involved in this affair after all?
Uncle the Fourth — he'd have more than enough reason to eliminate me and Isaac for the sake of claiming the family headship…
But there was no time to think it through.
Shing!
"Captain!"
One of the couriers, draped in a black cloak, drew his sword.
"Maybe not under ordinary circumstances, but this time is different. Without you, we cannot enter Crashandia. So we will take you with us — even if we have to cut off your legs to do it."
At the aura rising from the blade, the Blue team recoiled in horror. It was the distinctive energy unique to Holy Knights.
'The power of a 7th Tier!'
At the same moment, the Blue team turned on Isaac, all but saying we told you so.
"See?! I told you there's no way they'd follow us! You bastard!"
"We haven't even left and it's already a disaster!"
"Isaac! Every one of them is half demon! There was never any chance of working together!"
Stung by the shout, the couriers gritted their teeth and drew their blades as one.
"Damn it, we're already so watered down we barely qualify as wine, and you're still crying about demon blood?!"
"Break them one limb at a time so they can't run! Use those brats as bait and that demon is bound to show itself!"
The captain moved first. With demon blood running considerably thicker in his veins than in the others', he had caught on in an instant.
Who among them carried the most precious bloodline. And which little brat was the priest the demons would go mad over!
Shuri, too, saw at once who the man was after.
'He means to take Isaac hostage!'
"Isaac! Fall ba— …hyaaak?!"
The ground heaved violently.
The knights lost their footing and toppled. And in the same breath, they could only stare in disbelief.
"M-magic?!"
Why is there magic here?!
Isaac's eyes went wide and predatory as he raised his rattle.
"Holy Knights using magic? You've got some nerve!"
"Wh-what is that? What kind of slander— kghk!"
The Golden Rattle came flying from out of nowhere and smacked the captain square in the face.
As if to demand what is the meaning of this, the captain lunged to seize Isaac by the collar — and in that exact instant.
A chill swept the air.
"…Hhuurgh?"
The captain froze solid, unable to lay a single finger on Isaac. And Isaac placed a hand on the man's shoulder.
"Easy way or hard way. Sheathe it."
"……!"
Trembling to his very pupils, the captain swallowed dryly and slid his sword back into its sheath.
Why?
At those words his throat had gone parched, as if scorched — and his body had simply moved on its own.
Isaac patted him on the shoulder twice, the way a superior might praise a subordinate.
"There. See how well you listen when we use our words?"
Every courier stood in open astonishment at the sight.
But the most stunned of all was the captain himself.
'I can't defy him.'
No — had he been cowed by sheer force? By a brat like this?
Not once in his life had anything like this happened.
And as he stared into those confused eyes, Whisper threw its head back and laughed with perfect satisfaction.
[Boasting so brazenly before your lord — you, of all creatures, with demon blood in your veins!]
Isaac's eyes narrowed to slits as well.
Yes — like it or not, demons submit to the strong. It was instinct. The demon blood mingled in the captain's veins had sensed, on a level beneath thought, the aura of the Skeleton Demon King.
Well, it was precisely because the man was still mostly human that it had ended with just this. Had he been a true demon, it wouldn't have resolved so neatly.
'Which is exactly why I picked these guys.'
They obeyed orders so well that, if anything, they made perfect bait. And with a Demon King's power, he could excite that demon blood until it served him all the better.
"Anyway, your captain sheathed his sword, so the rest of you kneel too. Let's get this Gold Pentagon underway."
The couriers looked utterly dumbfounded. He wasn't wrong, exactly — but, well, what?
"…Are pentagons really that important to you priests? Why did you even pick us in the first place? Just drag along some obedient lapdogs and be done with it!"
"He's right! You only need proof that you visited the scene anyway—"
Isaac gave an empty laugh.
"What are you on about? I told you — we're going to complete the Gold Pentagon."
"Fine, yes! So go retrieve the consecrated relics of the fallen Holy Knights—"
"Recover them. As in, the mission is to bring back the Holy Knights who were taken."
"…Eh?"
At the unexpected words, the couriers doubted their own ears. But Isaac continued, as if that had been the goal all along.
"We hunt the demon from fourteen years ago and rescue every single knight it abducted."
"……!"
"Whether your comrade happens to be among them is none of my business."
At that, the captain stared at Isaac as if struck by lightning.
"…Don't tell me, Lord Isaac — you chose us because you knew our comrade had been abducted?"
Huh? No. That is not what happened.
But they gazed at him, speechless, with the reverence of men beholding a living Saint. To think he had chosen them for such a purpose…
"…So that's why you understood our circumstances so perfectly!"
No. I'm telling you, no?
"We apologize for doubting you! Slaying demons — we will gladly help!"
"It's a matter worth staking our lives on, so please — take our equipment. Ours, that is, we mean, we'll lend you ours!"
The couriers' attitude flipped in an instant. They had turned entirely, unreservedly favorable toward Isaac.
Well. That was good.
Good news, this.
Very good news, in fact…
"Hey. Since when was our mission upgraded to 'deal with a high-rank demon'?"
"…Weren't we just supposed to grab the item and go?"
The Blue team, for their part, was undergoing a full pupil earthquake.
No, hold on. Hunt the demon from fourteen years ago?
…Say what?
Nobody told US that!!!
Son of a— this bastard. This was NEVER part of the negotiated terms?!