No matter how closely anyone looked, the sacred beast didn’t appear dirty in the slightest.
It simply seemed to have fallen out of Isierd’s good graces.
For reasons no one could quite determine.
The sacred beast, which had gone rigid with shock, shook itself free of its stupor and began thrashing again, flailing its tiny forepaws at the air.
“You haf to be good.”
Riersha fixed it with a stern expression and spoke sharply. The sacred beast flinched, then went still.
“It seems to understand human speech. Where did this one come from?”
Riscal stepped closer, eyeing the creature with open curiosity.
As the group crowded together and peered down at it, the sacred beast’s tail drooped and curled underneath its body. Being the sudden center of so much attention all at once seemed to have overwhelmed it.
“Whimper.”
It let out a soft, plaintive sound and gazed up at Isierd with desperate, pleading eyes — which made it fairly clear who its owner was supposed to be.
“Isierd.”
“Yes, Riersha?”
“Do you really not know who this is? It’s so cute — you really don’t know it?”
Riersha held the sacred beast right up to Isierd’s nose, as though urging him to take a closer look.
At the word cute, Isierd’s brow furrowed even deeper.
“Isn’t it cute like Yong-yong? Don’t you want to keep it?”
“…Like Yong-yong?”
Yong-yong was a name Isierd knew well enough.
A demon dragon as large as a mountain who, whenever Riersha was near, would pretend to be a hatchling and follow her about like an oversized puppy.
“Why are you even asking him? How would he know about some stray she picked up off the road?”
Ricador asked in genuine puzzlement. Riersha answered without hesitation.
“Because this is your sacred beast.”
In an instant, the surrounding air went quiet.
At the rather implausible word — sacred beast — everyone turned to look at Riersha with bewildered expressions.
Even Pernoa, who had been watching the children play from a comfortable distance, couldn’t conceal his surprise.
“A sacred beast?”
“Yes, Father. It’s a sacred beast.”
“I see. Then the reason the Pope suddenly returned to the temple… was because this sacred beast disappeared.”
Pernoa grasped the whole of the situation almost immediately.
“Yes, that’s what it seems like.”
“…That can’t be right. So a sacred beast was born, and the Pope kept it secret this whole time? This is practically a declaration of war.”
“There is never a day to rest easy, it seems.”
Riscal exclaimed in alarm. Pernoa responded with quiet exasperation.
Given that his daughter had just brought home a sacred beast she’d found lying in the road, his reaction was entirely warranted.
“Riersha, hurry up and hand that sacred beast over to Isierd. We’re washing our hands of this. What if it brings misfortune?”
Ricador urged her to pass it along immediately, warning of bad luck. The sacred beast bristled and shot Ricador a withering glare.
It had heard plenty of blessed and reverent words spoken about itself throughout its life, but misfortune — that was a new one.
In the end, the sacred beast began urgently directing something at Isierd.
You! You! How dare you pretend not to know me! I waited years for you and you never even came to find me! You terrible owner! And now I have to hear that I bring misfortune?!
“…Hmm.”
Take me home this instant and treat me like royalty! And give me something to eat right now. I’m so hungry I can barely move!
“I can’t understand a word it’s saying, but it sounds extremely rude. Riersha.”
As everyone turned to watch the sacred beast, Isierd smiled pleasantly and played innocent.
Wretched creature.
The sacred beast thrashed once more, then went completely limp.
Grrrrowl!
A thunderous rumble erupted from the sacred beast’s stomach.
Risideon looked at it with sympathetic eyes and spoke up.
“It sounds hungry. It’s still so young… what are we even supposed to feed it?”
Once again, everyone looked at Isierd.
“I don’t know.”
Just as Isierd shook his head, Pernoa answered in his place.
“According to the records, sacred beasts feed on their owner’s divine power. The fact that it’s this small is likely because it has never properly received divine power from its owner.”
The extent of a sacred beast’s abilities also varied enormously depending on the quality of that divine power.
What was certain, at least, was that this sacred beast had not enjoyed a single satisfying meal since the day it was born.
“What if we just put it back where it came from? I have no intention of raising a sacred beast. I can’t stand animals that shed.”
Who are you calling an animal! I am an extraordinarily magnificent sacred beast, the most beloved of the goddess Rafella herself…!
Stung beyond endurance by Isierd’s last remark, the sacred beast finally began to growl.
And then—
You are my owner! I know it!
The sacred beast cried out in a voice that everyone could understand. Then, as though that final outburst had drained the last of its strength, it went utterly limp in Riersha’s arms.
“…”
Silence settled over the room.
At last, Isierd conceded the inevitable.
“…It seems I’m its owner. Give it here, Riersha.”
“…”
“Feeding it divine power is the way to go? And if I do, it’ll grow much bigger than this?”
Even as Isierd accepted the sacred beast, his expression remained thoroughly displeased.
⁂
Christia returned to the temple in a state of cold fury.
Despite the early morning hour, every last priest in the temple had gathered in the lobby.
The High Priest followed at Christia’s side with his head bowed in the manner of a condemned man, and began relaying the details of what had happened in greater depth.
“We searched every corner of the temple, but there is no sign of it. It appears… it has escaped the premises.”
It was the worst possible outcome.
They had erected a barrier around the grounds specifically to prevent the sacred beast from leaving.
So all those hours it spent sleeping — it was gathering divine power to break through the barrier.
Christia’s expression darkened.
He had constructed a specialized barrier around the perimeter of the temple precisely in anticipation of such a scenario. Sure enough, they found the evidence — a single, precise strike delivered to the barrier’s weakest point.
Even so, the sacred beast could not have gone far in its current state.
It was still in its infancy, utterly undeveloped, with no signs of growth to speak of.
Christia reined in his irritation and asked with measured calm.
“Do we know when it was last seen?”
“…The thing is.”
“…”
“We’re not entirely sure of that either.”
The irresponsible answer stripped the calm from Christia’s face in an instant. The High Priest turned ashen under the Pope’s frigid gaze.
He seemed terrified that he would be the one made to answer for this.
“…We thought — since it always slept on its cushion, we assumed it would be doing the same this time…”
“Enough. I have no interest in excuses. That isn’t what matters right now.”
Finding the sacred beast had to come first.
The High Priest asked in a voice that sounded close to tears.
“Su-surely the sacred beast hasn’t gone to the Imperial Palace?”
“That is the most likely possibility. It has almost certainly gone to find its owner.”
“B-but the sacred beast cannot understand human speech — we confirmed that ourselves. And besides… its capacity for learning was markedly diminished as well.”
“I wonder how much any of that matters now.”
None of it could be taken for granted anymore.
The timing of the sacred beast’s escape was far too precise to be coincidence.
It had fled the moment Prince Isierd Declair appeared.
“Perhaps we were careless. We know virtually nothing concrete about sacred beasts.”
The temple had made numerous attempts over time to probe the extent of the sacred beast’s abilities. Their conclusion had been that its powers grew alongside its physical development — because a newborn sacred beast had shown no abilities whatsoever, beyond sleep.
The sole exception was the extraordinarily pure and potent divine power it carried within itself.
But what if all of it had been deliberate?
Christia pushed his hair back with a somewhat irritable hand — a rare display of visible agitation that left everyone in the room tense.
“We must retrieve the sacred beast.”
“Is there a way to locate it?”
“We must find it regardless of whether one exists.”
Because if they did not—
“If the sacred beast’s existence becomes known, the temple will not emerge from this unscathed.”
An open confrontation with the Imperial House would be unavoidable.
Christia opened and closed his hand slowly.
Fortunately, there was still one option available. He had taken precautions, binding a portion of the sacred beast’s divine power to the temple — just in case a moment like this ever came.
