Among the special few who were beloved by the goddess Rafella, some were born possessing what was known as a “sacred beast.”
Without exception, those individuals also carried divine power of extraordinary strength and purity.
It became only natural that those born with sacred beasts rose to become emperors of the Declair Empire, and it was said that throughout history, each emperor had used the unique power of their sacred beast to bring the empire ever greater prosperity.
This was part of what had been recorded in the Declair mythology.
Riersha stared at the sacred beast with her wide, round eyes fixed unblinkingly upon it.
It really is a sacred beast. There’s no mistaking it.
She tightened her grip — as if she had no intention of ever letting go.
“Riersha, what is that?”
“It’s a sacred beast.”
“…Excuse me?”
“A sacred beast, I said.”
The words sacred beast hit Risideon like a thunderclap.
Riersha had identified it almost instantly, and at that, Sion’s eyes narrowed into thin slivers.
“That’s something out of mythology.”
Risideon shook his head in disbelief — that couldn’t possibly be right.
In truth, his reaction was probably the more common one.
The existence of sacred beasts had long since been relegated to the distant past, to the realm of old stories and forgotten things.
For reasons no one could fully explain, at some point the imperial bloodline had simply stopped producing children born with sacred beasts.
It was around that same time — when the darkness first began to descend upon the Declair imperial family — that the Temple had risen to spectacular prominence.
Curiously, it was from that very period onward that Popes began appearing who possessed divine power surpassing that of the imperial family itself.
“Ngh…”
The sacred beast, which looked as though it had only just been born, trembled and burrowed deeper into the warmth of Riersha’s arms.
“It’s okay. I’ll pwotect you.”
Riersha kept stroking it gently, over and over, as if to reassure it.
But why does the Tower Master have a sacred beast with him?
She took a cautious step backward as Sion drew nearer.
“I’d like you to return it now.”
“Don’t come any closew.”
She clutched the sacred beast tighter and refused absolutely, showing no sign of giving it up. Sion’s expression shifted into one of pure annoyance.
Whatever the situation was, it was obvious the two of them were at a standoff — so Risideon moved to block him.
“Don’t come any closer, Tower Master.”
“I found it first. I simply want it back. This isn’t something a child ought to be handling.”
“…Is this truly a sacred beast?”
If it was, there was no way he could allow Sion to take it.
“Why don’t you step back for now, Tower Master. …At this rate, the noise will draw people over.”
“And yet it doesn’t make any sense to just leave it behind.”
Sion’s expression made it abundantly clear he was far from pleased.
But if things escalated any further, the imperial knights stationed nearby might come to investigate the disturbance.
And then there was the other matter.
Sion’s violet eyes curved with something that looked very much like interest.
“…You’re right. Taking it with me right now would be difficult. I forgot about that ability of hers.”
Without anyone noticing quite when it had started, Riersha had extended her ability to encompass both herself and Risideon.
Sion had encountered that ability before, and he knew the odds were not in his favor. He decided to fall back — for now.
He could always create another opportunity.
Either way, he couldn’t afford to give up on that sacred beast entirely.
“I’ll concede the field today. But whatever you do — don’t hand it over to the Pope. Surely you can manage that much.”
“Yes.”
As if it had understood their exchange, the sacred beast, which had been curled tightly in on itself, visibly relaxed.
Riersha still hadn’t released her ability. She opened her eyes in what she clearly intended to be a fierce glare.
It was, in the end, just her round eyes growing a little rounder — but her meaning came through perfectly well.
“Liar!”
“I’m sorry for deceiving you.”
“You said you came awone! You said that man wasn’t here!”
Riersha pointed her finger squarely at Basen.
Basen stared at the small finger aimed at him with a briefly blank expression, then slowly moved to one side.
Riersha’s pointing finger followed him in exactly the same direction.
“…Riersha, that’s enough.”
Risideon tried to intervene — too late, as it turned out.
After watching Basen shift direction several times and tracking him each time with perfect, merciless accuracy, Riersha held her ground. Basen wore the expression of a man who could not quite believe what was happening to him.
“…Mister? Tower Master, is the child really talking about me?”
“Who else is there?”
“How, by any measure, do I look like a mister?! Despite appearances, I am considerably younger than you might think. Realistically speaking, compared to Young Lord Risideon, I’m not even that much—”
Basen was still mid-protest when it happened.
“Sounds like things are getting rowdy over there. Is someone there?”
One of the imperial knights on nearby patrol had heard the commotion and was moving in their direction.
Sion clicked his tongue.
“I’ll be in contact separately.”
He appeared to mean through the magical communication device he’d sent previously.
“Wait a moment!”
Riersha called out to him quickly.
There was something she needed to confirm before he disappeared.
“This sacred beast… where did you find it?”
“…I happened to pick it up while passing by.”
Basen offered an explanation with a conspicuous amount of detail left out of the beginning. And his uncomfortable expression made it plainly obvious there was something he was hiding.
“I’m telling the truth. I didn’t sneak into anywhere and find it.”
“…Haah.”
Sion stared at Basen with an expression of profound exasperation and pressed his fingers to his temple.
“We’ll take our leave, then.”
Before any more inconvenient questions could follow, Sion grabbed Basen by the scruff of the neck and vanished.
“Let’s head back. Father will be waiting.”
“Okay. But what do we do about this one?”
“Ngh…”
“…We’ll bring it with us for now.”
Now that they knew what it was, leaving it behind wasn’t an option.
Just then, they came face-to-face with the knight who had come to check on the disturbance.
“What are you doing out here, Young Lord Arachrene?”
“Ah… my sister kept wanting to play, so. Were we being too loud?”
The knight recognized Risideon and immediately relaxed his guard.
“Not at all. The party is almost over — please make your way back safely.”
“Yes, we will.”
Risideon smiled pleasantly, took Riersha’s hand, and led her away from the area.
Once they had put a reasonable distance between themselves and the spot, Risideon spoke first.
“A sacred beast. How did you know?”
“I dunno. It felt exactly like Isierd’s power, so that’s how I figured it out.”
At that, the sacred beast’s ears perked up sharply — and for the first time, it lifted its head all the way up.
“I see.”
Risideon’s expression grew somber.
No matter how he thought about it, stumbling across a sacred beast by the roadside made no sense whatsoever.
Sacred beasts were extraordinarily rare. From the very moment of their birth, they would have been taken under careful imperial protection.
No — before even that: if a sacred beast had been born, the imperial family would have made a public announcement, and everyone in the empire would have known of its existence.
And yet no one had known anything until now. That meant—
“The Emperor doesn’t know this sacred beast exists, Riersha.”
“Yeah. Looks like it.”
This was a very serious problem.
There was one detail, however, that struck him as strange: the sacred beast was in remarkably good condition. It had the look of something that had been well cared for — as though someone had been tending to it all along.
If Riersha’s instincts were correct, then the one who had been playing keeper…
“The Pope.”
Riersha said it with complete certainty.
All this time, the sacred beast had been in the Temple’s hands. She was sure of it.
Risideon’s face hardened alongside hers.
A sacred beast had been born — and the Pope had spent all this time concealing that fact.
It was a betrayal of the imperial family.
Things were beginning to make sense now.
The reason the Pope had needed to leave the party in such a hurry. The reason a high-ranking priest had rushed over to deliver a message with such frantic urgency.
Because the sacred beast now sitting quietly in Riersha’s arms had disappeared.
By the time they realized it, the two of them had arrived at the entrance to the banquet hall.
“Oppa, who do you think its real owner is?”
“Hard to say. What’s clear is that it came here searching for its owner. Sacred beasts struggle to grow without a proper bond — that’s probably why it’s still so small.”
The fortunate part was that it had possessed enough strength to escape the Temple on its own.
And the way the sacred beast occasionally reacted to their conversation suggested it understood human speech to some degree.
It had likely heard the Temple’s people talking and learned what was happening at the imperial palace today — which meant—
“Riersha! You took so long. The party’s practically over. And this fellow here kept insisting he had to see you before he left, so we all ended up waiting—”
“Ngh!”
“What in the world is that? You went and picked up something strange?”
Their family had been waiting at the entrance to the banquet hall, along with Isierd. Ricador, who had been standing there looking thoroughly disgruntled, spotted Riersha and Risideon the moment they arrived and started toward them — only to do a visible double take when the sacred beast suddenly began squirming and thrashing in Riersha’s arms. Riersha quietly looked toward Isierd.
“Where did you drag that weird thing in from?”
Ricador was in the middle of wrinkling his nose when Isierd drew close and looked down at the sacred beast in silence.
Sacred beasts and their owners could normally communicate with one another — so even without any explanation from Riersha, Isierd would have recognized exactly what this creature was.
Thump. Isierd gazed down at the sacred beast.
Just as she’d thought.
Riersha had just begun to hold the sacred beast out toward him when —
Isierd breezed right past it without a second glance.
“Riersha. You shouldn’t go around picking up random things off the street. What if you catch something? Germs and all that.”
And then he proceeded to treat the sacred beast as though it were a particularly revolting piece of rubbish.
He even scrunched up his face for good measure.
The sacred beast, which had been squirming so desperately just moments before, went completely still — and stared at him with its mouth hanging open.
Riersha couldn’t understand the sacred beast’s words, but the sheer bewilderment radiating from it was impossible to miss.
When Riersha didn’t respond at all, Isierd clicked his tongue.
“It’s dirty.”
…Wait. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.
