Chapter 107 - The Grand Temple (3)

“So, how are things looking?”

At the Pontiff’s yawning question, the priest hastily leafed through the documents he had brought.

“The relocation to the Grand Temple has been successfully completed, and the estimated number of people—”

“Not that. You know that isn’t what I’m asking.”

Spend long enough serving someone in power, and the first things you naturally developed were tact and survival skills. Serving the Pontiff had maxed out the priest’s stats in both.

He knew perfectly well what had been the sole focus of her interest lately.

“I am told Aiden Kellermain and his party have arrived safely, Your Holiness. However...”

Sure enough, he saw the Pontiff sit up straight the moment she heard that.

“However?”

“He made an interesting move as soon as he arrived at the Grand Temple. I hear he attempted to approach Princess Mylène.”

“... Hmm.”

The Pontiff breathed out through her nose and swept back her hair.

Watching her, the priest felt his blood run cold.

... He could immediately tell that, for some reason, she looked displeased.

“What a slick little womanizer. Does he make a move on every woman he sees?”

Hearing her mutter something so inexplicable only doubled his fear.

In fact, he was so frightened that, the moment he saw the plans for the succession ceremony’s first event that she tossed him, he even harbored the blasphemous thought that this decision might have been driven by emotion.

“Um, Your Holiness. If we proceed with this format—”

Having examined the details of the ‘team competition,’ the priest stammered, his face deathly pale.

“People will get horribly hurt.”

The Pontiff indifferently cut off what he was about to say.

“But so what?”

“...”

“It was worse when I became Pontiff.”

She delivered that quintessential ‘back in my day’ remark without a care, but the priest dared not contradict her.

Not merely because she was the Pontiff, but because he had witnessed the previous succession ceremony and knew that it was the unvarnished truth.

Casualties had plummeted since the reform of the ancient succession rites, which had been brutal enough to call wholesale slaughter. Abigail III’s succession, however, was infamous for producing a body count comparable to those days.

And this woman had become Pontiff while smashing record after record in that very ceremony.

There was a reason she ranked among the greatest in history.

‘...’

With that in mind...

“Then what will you award those who distinguish themselves in the team competition? Unless the prize is sufficiently enticing, everyone will withdraw before it even begins.”

“We already know who’s going to score the most points. We can just pick something to suit him.”

“... Pardon?”

“Aiden Kellermain. Him.”

The very existence of a man this woman could speak of with such confidence was an anomaly.

For her to arrange an event this... ‘extreme’ and still be certain he would outperform everyone else, he had to be far from ordinary.

And the reward she intended to prepare for him was no less extraordinary.

“Tell them they’ll be allowed one visit to the altar.”

The priest’s eyes widened.

The altar that held the first vow—the hottest divinity—was where Sier had first made contact with humanity. It was no exaggeration to call it the holiest place in the Holy Kingdom.

Even among royalty, only a tiny handful had ever been allowed inside.

‘... This woman.’

The thought escaped him like an inward groan.

She truly intended to make this Aiden a major contender in the succession ceremony.

In symbolic terms, granting him access to the altar would give him enough ‘power’ that installing him as the next Pontiff would hardly seem strange.

“...”

Honestly, he had no idea what she wanted.

While he mulled over thoughts he could never voice, the Pontiff spoke again.

“Oh, one last thing.”

She spoke as though something had just occurred to her.

“Who’s that?”

“... Pardon?”

“Someone keeps obsessing over the promising young man I’ve already called dibs on.”

“... Pardon?”

As the priest floundered, unable to fathom what she meant, the Pontiff continued impatiently.

“I put together a spell and attached it to him so I could see who approaches him. There’s someone who keeps watching him from a distance, you see?”

“...”

“I’m asking who it is.”

... Seriously?

Just how obsessed was she, to personally monitor him in addition to the orders she had given the priest?

And what kind of mindset let her resent someone else watching him when she herself was keeping him under such close surveillance?

“... One moment. I will look into it.”

Still, that was beside the point. He had to do as he was told.

Searching through the documents based on the Pontiff’s description, the priest soon began haltingly reading out the person’s details.

“Elisha Gillius Craven... it says here. The information is rather unusual.”

“What’s unusual about it?”

“... Apparently, she came to this succession ceremony to find someone to become her family?”

“...”

A bizarre expression crossed the Pontiff’s face.

... A rare sight, to be sure.

▣

“Hmm...”

Beneath the pitch-black night sky, Aiden sat on a coastal cliff above the crashing waves, stroking his chin as he added a check mark to the rough map he had been carrying.

Similar marks already covered it densely.

He had spent all day turning the building inside out, with little to show for it.

‘The layout is the same...’

He scanned the map with a dissatisfied look.

The Grand Temple’s actual layout matched his memories almost exactly.

“And the facilities inside were the same too?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

Aiden frowned a little more as Alex answered, rubbing his hands together obsequiously.

In other words, the scheduled events were likely to proceed just as he remembered them, too.

‘The first event is...’

The team competition.

A battle for territory, with each side establishing a fortified position.

A mock war, essentially. Rather than the riffraff eliminated in the preliminaries, these were royals who had already passed one round of screening. Throwing them straight into something like this showed just how vicious the succession ceremony was.

But the event was every bit as important.

‘... This is where pretty much everything takes shape.’

Alester, Mylène, Julius.

The camps would most likely split between those three leading contenders, but a few others would ultimately distinguish themselves through their own abilities.

And Aiden suspected that was where an unexpected factor was most likely to emerge.

‘Who is it...?’

The traitor.

Someone who had entered the succession ceremony not to become Pontiff, but to ‘kill as many people as possible.’

For now, anyone could be the culprit. Not a single person entering this event had an entirely clean background.

And, he suspected, tomorrow’s team competition would be an occasion that such a traitor could not possibly pass up.

Someone was definitely going to make a move.

“... There was one unusual thing, though it was minor.”

Given all that, Alex’s hesitant remark was enough to make Aiden’s eyes widen.

“Something unusual?”

“There are people after you.”

“...”

Aiden narrowed his eyes and looked Alex up and down.

“Besides you lot?”

“...”

Of course, Alex would have loved to give Aiden a good, satisfying stab in the back at any opportunity, if he could. But their royal status, their entire fortunes, and much else besides were all tied to Aiden.

They could not afford the consequences of trying anything rash.

“... Not us.”

“Who, then?”

“A fellow named Pierce. I know him personally... Apparently, word has spread that you approached Princess Mylène.”

“Why would word spread about me talking to her?”

Surely a simple courtesy greeting was hardly a big deal.

But Alex gave him an odd look instead.

“... Weren’t you trying to seduce her?”

“...”

“... Besides, all your attendants are women. The Lionhearted and Deathwish, no less.”

... Apparently, that image of him was now firmly cemented in the public mind.

Before Aiden could explain otherwise, Alex shrugged and continued.

“Anyway, Pierce has admired Princess Mylène for a long time. He’s the sort to appoint himself her knight in shining armor without anyone asking.”

“That sounds... exhausting.”

What else could he say?

How else was he supposed to describe someone who stuck his nose into matters that had nothing to do with him?

“But you said he was your friend. Why are you telling me all this?”

His tone was oddly disparaging, too.

Alex answered with a snort.

“There’s no real loyalty between us.”

“... Huh?”

“The moment I ended up like this, he laughed at me and said I’d completely lost my touch. I wouldn’t mind seeing him take you on and end up in the same boat.”

“...”

What a hollow friendship.

As Aiden mulled that over, a voice suddenly came from behind him.

“That hurts, Alex. Though I always knew groveling under someone like him was about your level.”

“...”

Every syllable dripped with swagger. The moment he heard it, Aiden pressed his fingers against his temples, which had begun to throb.

‘... Speak of the bastards.’

When someone picked a fight this blatantly, disbelief came before anger.

This was probably the Pierce they had just been talking about.

‘Another fight. Again.’

Why did people like this turn up everywhere he went?

This time, however, things seemed destined to play out a little differently.

“Hey, you. Aiden Kellermain, was iiiiigh—!”

As Pierce swaggered toward him...

WHAM!

Someone appeared as if leaping down from the sky and kicked him, sending him tumbling across the ground.

“...”

The group accompanying him stared in bewilderment. The arrival had been far too sudden.

It was a girl who came up to about Aiden’s chest. Shoulder-length orange hair, a headband holding it in place, scars all over her body, and taut muscles reminiscent of a leopard.

She gave the unmistakable impression of someone who had spent a long time on the battlefield. In some ways, even more so than Noel, a veteran knight.

“... Excuse me, who are you?”

The problem was, Aiden had absolutely no idea who she was either.

At his uneasy question, she swiftly spun toward him.

“Uh, uh, uh, h-hello!”

Flustered, she bowed her head to him, looking for all the world like a girl meeting the object of a long, passionate, unrequited crush.

“My name is Elisha! It’s a pleasure to meet you!”

“... Yes, a pleasure to meet you too. But what was that just now...?”

“N-nothing much!”

Elisha pointed behind herself as she answered.

“I stepped in because I wanted to exterminate these little fucking pests swarming around you!”

“...”