Interference
Far away,
at the starting point of the lake, a spray of water erupted.
The sight of a person being sucked beneath the ice chilled every onlooker to the bone.
“How could this be...”
Even Lucia was no exception. She failed to immediately grasp that Shiron had not passed the succession ceremony. The result was simply too unbelievable.
She had expected that one of the three might fail, yet she had never once imagined it would be Shiron. That made it all the worse.
Why did he fail? What could Shiron possibly be lacking?
Lucia stared at the lake with wide eyes. A hole she had never seen before had opened in the ice she herself had just crossed—the exact spot where Shiron had been swallowed.
The ice that had not so much as scratched when she struck it with internal energy had, the moment Shiron stepped onto it, collapsed in utter ruin. Even knowing the ice was no ordinary thing, her heart plummeted.
If Shiron does not possess the qualifications, then who does?
Lucia’s brows knit. Her fist clenched at the sheer unfairness of it. The succession ceremony was nothing more than crossing the ice. She herself had managed it, and Siriel had passed without the slightest trouble.
A succession ceremony, they called it?
If the ceremony’s purpose was to continue the lineage of the founder Kyle, then Lucia—Kyle’s reincarnation—was the person most perfectly suited to that intent. That much she understood without difficulty.
She turned her head and looked at Siriel, who was clutching the hem of Hugo’s clothes with both hands.
Siriel, who seemed to stand at the complete opposite pole from Shiron.
The girl looked so soft she might not even be able to kill a bug. At a glance one could easily mistake her for a scholar’s daughter.
And Shiron?
Shiron Prien. Lucia’s half-brother. The one who carried a Holy Sword.
So the fact that Siriel—neither a hero’s reincarnation nor a wielder of a Holy Sword—had passed made her question the very criteria of the trial.
It was not that she particularly wished for Siriel to fail…
While she was still turning the matter over in her mind—
“He failed.”
Hugo, arms crossed, clicked his tongue as though disappointed.
His brow furrowed slightly, yet he felt no urge to blame Shiron. Failing the succession ceremony was not the boy’s fault.
I only hope he does not take it too hard.
He simply felt sorry.
Hugo looked down at Lucia standing at his feet. The red-haired girl who shared the same hair color as his younger brother Glenn had recently come to live at Dawn Castle with Shiron. According to Yuma she was Glenn’s illegitimate child, was she not?
Shiron, the legitimate son of the main wife, had black hair and black eyes, while Lucia possessed red hair and golden eyes. As if she had inherited the blood more thickly, her appearance was, ironically, the spitting image of Glenn as a child.
A legitimate son inferior even to an illegitimate one…
Hugo let out a low groan and stroked his beard. A legitimate son worse than a bastard. At a glance the label was heavier than the one Hugo himself had worn all his life—the older brother inferior to his younger sibling.
Failing alone in the succession ceremony that his half-sister and cousin had both passed would leave a deep wound in Shiron’s heart. That much was obvious.
The face he had seen yesterday rose in his mind.
Shiron, who had simply smiled and said he understood when Hugo insulted his father to his face, had shown a maturity far beyond his years.
Poor child.
Since when had this weak emotion called pity taken root in Hugo’s chest?
It was by no means impulsive.
Five years earlier,
the funeral of Shiron’s mother, Irina, had been held.
The face of the boy he had seen that day remained vivid even now.
A child standing blankly while the servants wept around him.
Six-year-old Shiron had been far too young to grasp the concept of death. Not even realizing she was gone from the world, he had wandered the castle calling for a mother who would never answer.
And yet Glenn… that so-called father never even showed his face at his own wife’s funeral.
Having grown up without a mother’s care, let alone a father’s, it was only natural that the boy had matured early.
Crunch.
Glenn really was a bastard after all.
“……Father. What will happen to Big Brother Shiron now?”
“……He will be fine.”
At Siriel’s question Hugo smoothed his expression and exhaled a white breath.
“There were those who failed previous succession ceremonies as well, yet every one of them came out unharmed. The ceremony does not exist to kill children.”
“That is a relief, then.”
Siriel clutched Hugo’s coat and looked across the lake toward Yuma, waiting for her to pull her cousin out as quickly as possible.
“But why is she just standing there?”
Lucia, who had never taken her eyes from the lake, narrowed her gaze. Her stare remained fixed on the frozen surface.
The behavior was rude, yet this was no time to fuss over minor formalities.
“Hasn’t quite some time already passed?”
“……You’re right.”
“Before we crossed, Yuma told us she would pull anyone out with magic, so not to worry. Is she using some spell that takes time to extract him?”
“That should not be the case. When I myself took the succession ceremony, a few of us fell into the lake. Each time Yuma used magic and pulled them out. It never took more than a few seconds.”
“Then why now—”
An ominous premonition rose in Lucia’s chest.
Had Yuma herself not said she would use magic to rescue him? Yet the one-horned demon visible in the distance remained completely motionless.
Ten seconds, twenty seconds…
Even as time continued to pass, Yuma did not move. She simply stood with her eyes closed and both hands clasped before her.
Lucia turned her head toward Hugo, urgency sharpening her voice.
“Lord Hugo. At this rate Shiron might die.”
Hugo stroked his chin and lowered his head.
“Yuma is acting strangely today. She is a demon, but… hmm… she has never been like this before.”
“If it comes to that, I will go in.”
Yohan, who had been watching the situation at Hugo’s side, spoke toward Lucia.
“Surely there will be no problem if an outsider intervenes in the ritual, correct?”
“You know well.”
From some point the demon who had always been especially affectionate toward Shiron stepped into their path and blocked them.
“……Encia.”
The action twisted Lucia’s eyes into something even fiercer.
“You—are you trying to let Shiron die?”
Could one even open their eyes in freezing ice water?
Until the moment he fell, that had been his worry.
This is fucking ridiculous.
Even as he slammed into the lake bottom, Shiron glared. Not because he had known in advance. Simply because he was furious.
What the hell—it just collapses without any warning.
He had steeled himself from the very first step.
When would he fall? Around now, right? It should be about time…
Yet with every step forward he had gradually fallen into the delusion that he might pass safely after all.
If there had been even the slightest crack as a warning he would have prepared himself, but the lake had thoroughly betrayed his expectations. Who would have thought the floor would simply evaporate on the very next step after he let his guard down?
Anyway. What a fucking game.
Shiron chewed on the burning emotion, yet at the same time forced himself to calm down. The more excited he became, the faster his heart would beat, shortening the time he could hold out underwater—and that was something he refused to allow.
He unclenched the fist he had been clenching so hard it trembled and began to move forward.
The ice water made it easier to compose himself. All the training he had endured was paying off; even submerged in freezing water, his body did not seize up.
The underside of the ice, however, was darker than he had expected.
With no light reaching it and the bottom invisible, the lake looked immensely deep—like an abyss from which there was no return once one was sucked in. It was enough to inspire fear.
But it was not scarier than dying because he had failed the succession ceremony.
The humiliation of failing alone when even Siriel—neither a reincarnator nor a possessor, and two years younger—had passed was far worse.
Fuck it.
Shiron swam clinging to the underside of the ice.
He wasted none of the breath he had drawn in fully.
He did not move his arms unnecessarily; only his legs kicked.
Slowly,
toward the far side,
cutting through the current,
he advanced.
How long he swam like that he could not say.
The water grew shallower. Grains of sand gradually became visible.
He had arrived. Beyond the thick ice above lay the destination.
Alright then.
Shiron planted his feet on the sandbar so the force would transmit cleanly. His tightly clenched fist drove upward to smash the hard ice.
Thud—!
Thud—! Thud—!
The moment the heavy blows struck, successive shockwaves rippled through the water. He poured out every scrap of energy he had conserved on the way here.
Thud—!
…I knew it wasn’t ordinary ice.
Shiron looked back and forth between the unyielding ice and his fist, which was already scraped raw.
He had rarely felt pain since possessing this body. Now his knuckles throbbed. Blood began to seep out.
Coming in was free, but leaving isn’t? Does someone think I want to die trapped under here?
Perhaps because he had made quite a racket underwater,
it was noisy outside.
The murmuring of people reached him faintly through the ice.
Fortunately, no helping hand was extended.
Good thing I said so in advance.
Shiron smiled bitterly. If he accepted someone’s help after coming this far, it would be putting the cart before the horse. Better to have failed openly from the start and earned a little pity.
He rubbed his solar plexus.
The wealth that had emerged after dismantling the sacred relic seemed to have been fully digested. The bloated, indigestion-like heaviness in his gut had eased considerably.
I was nervous the whole time it might be detected.
Fortunately, once digestion began the wealth no longer registered on any detection ability. That meant it had already become one with him.
Thus he had become a body that could draw a Holy Sword from anywhere. Even so—
I always wanted to try this once.
The boy opened his mouth and drew the Holy Sword.