A year or so until enrollment at the academy.
Corin's ability far exceeded my expectations.
'What an able little devil he is.'
Once I found him a direction, his ability exploded as though it had sprouted wings.
By now he handles attribute conversion between Healing and Condemnation freely.
He showed a healing efficiency you would never guess came from a mere single holy power crystal.
'This is... seven years old?'
So a talented child really is different.
What was I doing all that while, you ask?
What do you think. Swinging a steel pipe until I dropped and drawing holy magic circles diligently.
The one where skill was actually being added was the holy magic side.
Swinging the steel pipe was to bring the feel back.
And to adapt to a seven-year-old body.
There was a great disappointment in the middle of it, too.
'Damn it, drawing a holy magic circle on a glove doesn't work!'
My dream is shattered.
Apparently the cloth moves and the lines get disturbed, so it fails.
'I wanted to recreate that image of snapping your fingers and producing a flame...'
-Good grief, this otaku.
Would you kindly not dismiss an otaku's romance?
One day I will succeed at it.
Skill piled up steadily. And at last, the day of the academy entrance ceremony.
I stood in front of the academy's auditorium, looking up.
'A vision stone?'
-Looks like they're broadcasting this time too?
A vision stone floating at the entrance to the ceremony hall.
It reminded me of the Baptism Rite.
'Fair enough. They openly called us candidates back then.'
More to the point, they broadcast the entrance ceremony live too?
'It doesn't sound entertaining.'
-Lian, a close-up of your face right now would be top-tier entertainment.
I'm seven, though?
I looked at the vision stone a while, then stepped inside.
Osten Academy.
The cradle of learning for clerics, located in Raellum, the city that holds the Church's central seat.
Eligibility for the academy belongs to children who have received baptism.
'More kids than at the Baptism Rite.'
Their numbers, however, were greater than at the Baptism Rite.
Most enroll immediately after a one-year gap, but some enroll later than that.
They study abroad or do more personal training first, then enroll.
'The academy is also, in the end, a place where your showing has to stand out.'
Vision stones drifted here and there inside the ceremony hall too.
Meaning that even if the scale is smaller than the Baptism Rite, a national event, there are people watching this as well.
'By Earth standards it amounts to a rookie league.'
Just as football has youth leagues.
Osten Academy was watched mainly by an enthusiast crowd.
The entrance ceremony is the event where those rookies are met for the very first time!
You can also confirm what growth the children seen at the Baptism Rite achieved over a year.
'They said the entrance ceremony has the Dormitory Selection Rite, individual tests and a simple inter-dormitory match.'
The Dormitory Selection Rite is one thing.
How the individual tests or the inter-dormitory match would be structured was a puzzle.
“Lian! Over here!”
Corin waves from a distance.
I thought I'd arrived earliest.
“You're here.”
“Lian, you're last? Heheh.”
Apparently not.
Beside Corin, Lumiel and Adrian stand there snickering.
This past year.
Not only with Corin — I kept up contact with all the children who were in my group.
'Come to think of it, these are the first proper friends I've made since childhood?'
-On Earth the other children were frightened of you.
Children's senses are sharper than adults'.
Unlike adults, who merely saw me as a slightly peculiar child, children my own age sensed Elly's presence and were afraid.
No child ever approached me first. And once I grew up, rumors spread and making friends became more remote still.
'Childhood friends, is it?'
If we keep growing up close like this, perhaps it becomes that sort of relationship.
“Hey, Corin. Are you really going to apply to Zerotil?”
“M-mm...”
My reverie scattered at Lumiel's question.
Osten Academy splits its halls according to career track.
And the dormitory the children who set their track to the Inquisition Bureau enter is Zerotil Hall.
“Such a waste, when your healing ability is good too.”
“...I'm still going to Zerotil.”
“Good grief. Lian went and blew strange ideas into you.”
“What did I do.”
Regrettably, at present.
The Inquisition Bureau's popularity was rock bottom.
Why rock bottom?
'Because it isn't popular with the citizens, obviously.'
A cleric's duties, excluding administrative posts working at a cathedral, are all field posts.
Most children prefer field posts. Why?
Because they're glamorous. And because you can win the citizens' popularity and live a celebrity's life.
But clerics out of the Inquisition Bureau are not very popular.
“Going to the Inquisition Bureau won't make it easy to get ahead.”
“My mother was popular, though, they say.”
“Obviously, you idiot. She's beautiful.”
Hm?
“Beautiful and rough is a charm point.”
-Ooh. This kid knows something, doesn't he?
Lumiel, are you really seven.
The reason clerics out of the Inquisition Bureau are shunned by the citizens is that their methods are brutal.
Demons have tenacious life force and black magic has higher power than ordinary magic.
Their methods inevitably become excessive, and to ordinary people this looks far too severe.
'And the Elion Holy Empire's chief enemy is the Demon God.'
They have to face demons, the Inferlim who worship the Demon God, and monstrosities contaminated with demonic energy.
And yet as the Inquisition Bureau's popularity falls, so does Zerotil's application rate!
Even though clerics have a mission to fight the chief enemy that wields demonic energy.
More and more priests were coming to feel belonging to the Inquisition Bureau — the actual specialists — as a burden.
“Still, a cleric means the Inquisition Bureau.”
I shrugged at Lumiel.
***
The left-hand corner of the auditorium where the children were gathering.
The professors were clustered together.
Among them, a gaunt man with hollow eyes was gnawing at his fingertips.
“We cannot have another year where not one child applies to Zerotil in the first selection.”
He was Rahil Runstia, head professor in charge of Zerotil Hall.
Last year had been a nightmare.
Not a single person had chosen Zerotil in the first Dormitory Selection Rite!
'I was hauled in by every retired senior professor there is...'
Senior professors who had been Inquisitors out of Zerotil Hall.
Everyone out of the Inquisition Bureau had a formidable personality, so being summoned had been agony for Rahil.
The feeling of being taken apart in a refined, softly-spoken tone!
'It cannot happen again this year!'
Ever since Lilliad withdrew from the front line, Zerotil's popularity had plunged into the ground.
The children choosing it first began dwindling little by little, until it finally hit zero.
'At least this year that Lilliad's son has enrolled.'
Rahil's gaze went to the platinum-blond head at the center of the auditorium.
“Professor. What do we do if Lian doesn't choose us either...?”
The assistant beside him asked, his voice loaded with anxiety.
Last year the assistant had been hauled in alongside him.
“Don't say ominous things.”
“Priestess Lilliad will have guided him properly, won't she?”
“She must have. She absolutely must have...”
Please, please.
Rahil prayed desperately. He did not want to be torn apart.
'Lian Ludersk. He'll come to us, first in first-selection rate every year.'
'Tsk tsk. As if a Baptism Rite rookie would go there.'
'They must be hopeful because Lilliad Ludersk came out of Zerotil. Regrettably.'
The professors in charge of the other halls, watching those two, snickered inwardly, of course.
***
If there's no popularity, you simply make it popular.
'Fortunately my looks have high potential.'
-Mm-hm. Lian does rather. So let's not build muscle in this life, shall we?
What are you suddenly talking about.
Muscle is my life, isn't it?
“Welcome, new students of the academy. I am Marel Eustas, dean of Osten Academy.”
While I was chatting with Elly. The entrance ceremony had already started.
No spectators like at the Baptism Rite, but a live broadcast from the floating vision stones!
'They film the boring opening address too?'
Are people actually going to watch this?
An entrance ceremony could never be entertaining, and now we have to sit through an opening address.
I was already struggling to hold back a yawn. And no wonder, it's an entrance ceremony, isn't it?
“I am delighted to be with you in the season when warm new shoots come forth.”
'What did I tell you.'
The perfunctory greetings had begun.
'As expected, this is going to be dull...'
“Then, from this moment, we shall begin the Dormitory Selection Rite!”
It was not!
The greeting ended far too quickly.
“Hm? It's starting right away?”
“Right.”
The surprise lasted only a moment. A short explanation of the Dormitory Selection Rite followed.
The Dormitory Selection Rite proceeds by channeling holy power to change the Sacred Flame's color.
Holy power is fundamentally white light.
Convert the attribute and the color changes.
Healing is green, Holy Aura is blue, Manifestation is purple, Enhancement is yellow, Condemnation is red.
The places requiring a mandatory talent are the Holy Care Bureau, which raises healing priests, and the Paladin Order.
'Those two can't be done without the mandatory talent.'
Raising a healing priest with no healing talent is a contradiction in terms.
And raising a paladin who cannot make a holy aura is an absurdity.
So the Dormitory Selection Rite made use of this attribute conversion as well.
'The Sacred Flame really is all-purpose, isn't it?'
The Naming Rite, the Baptism Rite, and now the academy entrance ceremony.
Was this all-purpose quality the reason Elysian sent the Sacred Flame to humanity.
Zerotil had listed Condemnation talent not as mandatory but as a preferred qualification.
Partly because you can fight demons with holy power alone, and above all else.
'Because there are so few applicants they lowered the bar.'
There was a tear-jerking reason to be inferred.
The one saving grace is that Condemnation is not such a rare talent!
'No wonder. Mother kept singing that Inquisition Bureau song.'
The very center of the academy auditorium.
The Sacred Flame was enshrined on a platform at about the children's eye level.
“Ahem. Then from this moment we shall begin the Dormitory Selection Rite!”
People who appeared to be staff began guiding the children.
Lines were formed in the order the dormitories would be chosen.
“Hey, isn't that him?”
“The Baptism Rite rookie.”
“I heard every talent came up as his specialty. He'll pick the Paladin Order, right? Lucky.”
Murmur, murmur.
Youthful voices brushed past my ears.
'I'm not going to the Paladin Order.'
Naturally, everyone was forecasting my track as the Paladin Order.
Ranked by the most first-selections, the order was the Clerical Governance Office, the Holy Care Bureau, the Paladin Order, then the Inquisition Bureau.
The Clerical Governance Office was first because ordinary priests handling administration, battle priests and holy magic priests all belong to it, so its absolute numbers are large.
Few children first-selected the Paladin Order because the mandatory specialty talent of Holy Aura goes unmet.
Even so, the undisputed number one in popularity was the Paladin Order.
'Because the Paladin Order is the most popular with the citizens.'
Not only with the citizens but in neighboring countries too.
Because they have the most dispatch missions and so get a great deal of exposure abroad.
One by one the children step out and begin changing the Sacred Flame's color.
'Oh, the very first is blue?'
Blue is Holy Aura.
A child choosing the Paladin Order came out right at the start.
“Wow... Holy Aura talent. Lucky.”
“Why didn't mine come up.”
The reason so many children envy it is that Holy Aura is the rarest of the specialty talents.
After that, green, purple, yellow, the base-attribute white and various other colors went past.
'No red, as expected.'
Red did not appear right up until my turn came.
“New student Lian Ludersk. Please come forward.”
At my name I stepped out.
Standing before the platform, Whitey the Sacred Flame, met after a long while, was blazing away.
'Hello? It's been a while.'
It won't answer, but I greeted it as I put my hand into the Sacred Flame.
FWOOSH—!
As though answering back, the Sacred Flame blazed up hugely.
“!!”
The staff member guiding me was startled.
'Mister Sacred Flame, please don't overdo it...'
I was startled too.