Chosen by the Northern Grand Duke

Chapter 233: Agitation (2)

Ellen had thought Seria's agitation had disappeared.

It was because she conversed quite well without becoming agitated even while knowing Harad was a Mage.

Moreover, she did not become agitated toward Jis either.

She was the same with Grex.

She endured it toward Grex, then became agitated toward Roka.

After seeing magic several times.

'She must be able to endure it a few times.'

She endures and endures and then bursts.

Seria's agitation was like that.

Harad had speculated that stress accumulated and then burst forth.

That the existence of demons or suspects brazenly before her eyes became stress for Seria.

He was wrong.

Shura proved it.

In that child's eyes, Seria slowly nodded.

The speed was not important. What mattered was that she accepted that Kubel was alright.

Seria had acknowledged demons as neighbors.

Precisely, the good Mages.

'Yet she became agitated.'

Did she become agitated toward Kubel?

It was a meaningless question. All the Mages she had encountered before were similar to Kubel.

That fact, the currently most sensitive Seria would know well.

"Faith, ideology, and agitation are unrelated."

Because they are demons, it is stressful.

It was a plausible interpretation. However, if that premise were truly correct, she might be physiologically uncomfortable but should not become agitated.

Because she had learned that among demons, there were also neighbors.

Did Shura's eyes not prove it?

It meant the target Seria had just become agitated toward was not a demon but a neighbor.

Ideology was not the problem.

The very existence of Mages themselves was the problem.

"It is closer to instinct than stress."

What Seria had been enduring was instinct.

At least in Harad's eyes.

Seria, who had been dragged outside so the Annex would not get dirty and had her head burst and regenerated, sat across from him together with Ellen. Her face was shamefaced.

"That child……"

"Are you concerned about the small demon?"

Seria's face became fierce.

Harad shrugged his shoulders. It was because Ellen beside him also became fierce together.

"If it is Shura, she is fine."

Both physically and mentally safe.

"It was an excellent reaction."

"Because she is a Mage!"

When Harad reached his hand toward the floor, the shadow rose up like a hand and waved up and down.

"Not all Mages are that excellent."

Jis's shadow spat out Shura and simultaneously swallowed Seria.

He perfectly isolated the two.

Thanks to that, Shura did not know that Seria had screamed, nor that her head had burst.

Looking back, it was a very excellent technique.

Most Mages would not even be able to imitate it.

"Thank you, Jis."

Seria bowed her head toward the shadow on the floor.

As Shura's eyes had proven, Seria had accepted good Mages.

"Of course! Because we are friends!"

Seria flinched upon hearing Jis's answer.

She was not moved. She was enduring. Because she was looking at a Mage.

"……It is because I am lacking."

Seria bit down hard on her teeth.

Then Jis plopped down into the shadow and flowed out of Harad's Annex.

He did not actually leave but tore off only a part and pretended to leave.

Jis too had noticed that the standard was Seria's perception.

If she did not perceive a demon, she did not become agitated either.

"I have shown you an unseemly sight."

Seria, who believed Jis had disappeared, said.

Her color was much more comfortable.

"Could you convey an apology to that child? I wish to give it directly, but…… I am still very lacking."

Seria said with a bitter smile.

She seemed unable to stop worrying about Shura.

"There is no need to be so self-deprecating. In my opinion, it is not your problem."

"What?"

"Agitation. You said that phenomenon was a characteristic of young baptized ones who show prominence."

"That is correct."

Geniuses who received an unusually large amount of Divine power in the same baptism.

Agitation occurred frequently among them.

Seria had said it was because too much Divine power had been contained in the vessel called faith or priest.

At that time, Harad had recalled Jesult of the Ivory Tower.

Jesult, who could not overcome his emotions and was devoured by his Origin, whose vessel as a Mage had shattered.

"There are no cases of dying due to agitation, as I know."

"That is correct."

Seria nodded.

If the vessel shatters, a Mage is devoured by their Origin.

Priests are not. Because magical power and Divine power are different?

That might be so, but Harad focused on the healing.

"Actually, I know about agitation to some extent. Though I learned about that phenomenon in detail thanks to you."

He had often seen insane priests in his previous life too.

He had merely learned through Seria that it was called agitation.

"As I know, it is not that common a phenomenon. Right?"

"Yes."

"A young baptized one who shows prominence. You said it was a characteristic of geniuses, but it would not be such a ubiquitous characteristic either."

"……That is correct."

Agitation was a phenomenon seen occasionally.

But there was no priest whose agitation was as frequent as Seria's.

"Do you consider it a disgrace?"

"I do."

Seria nodded while biting her lip.

Because her faith was lacking compared to her Divine power.

Because the Church judged the reason for agitation that way.

"I know quite a few priests more pathetic than you. There is no problem with your faith. Nothing is lacking either."

"If you intend to console me, it is unnecessary."

"No. Truly. If you have a disgrace, it would not be your faith."

Harad pointed at Seria.

"Your very existence would be the disgrace."

"……Were you trying to pick a fight?"

Seria, already uncomfortable, glared with an even more uncomfortable color.

"How is it? The agitation, I mean."

Even waiting, Seria did not open her mouth.

Her emotions seemed hurt. Agitation was her sore spot.

"First, does your head turn white?"

"……"

"Then someone scribbles on it as they please. To kill demons. Not scribbling, but at the level of wallpapering."

Seria's eyes widened.

"Drooling…… would not happen. If you do not kill immediately, you would feel like you will go insane. You would endure at first, but eventually a limit comes."

"……"

"If you kill, you regain your senses."

This time she swallowed her saliva.

She seemed to recall when she had killed Mages.

"But when you see the next demon, you want to kill again. You can endure more because you just killed, but a limit comes again."

"……"

"When you kill, does pleasure come?"

"Yes……"

Seria nodded as if entranced.

"……Are you perhaps a priest?"

"As if."

"Harad, you have entranced me."

"Are you insane?"

Ellen took a stance to burst her head from the side.

There was no need to burst it.

Unfortunately, Seria did not become agitated.

'It must be because the other party is me.'

Harad clicked his tongue quietly.

"……It is not that other priests are like that. Generally, they do not feel pleasure."

Feeling pleasure by killing demons.

Seria made excuses that it was not universal. It did not seem like words said for the Church's sake.

"If one looks, there would be rare cases. Like you."

Seria was one of those rare priests.

"If we treat you as a regular person, you would be like a drug addict. Ah. For you, anger management disorder, that side would suit better."

Bang! Seria struck the table with her fist.

It was a curse no priest had ever heard.

"But if we treat you as a Mage, it becomes natural."

"What?"

"What I just explained was my symptom. Not yours. Well, it is not killing but eating."

Harad stabbed deeply at his left chest.

"Once a Mage predates a heart, they become addicted to this heart."

Merely changed from eating to killing, Harad had explained about Predation.

"Addiction and going insane are a hair's breadth apart."

They went insane for hearts.

Harad and Jis were Mages described that way too.

"You have gone insane for Mages."

Seria was addicted to Mages.

"Were you like that from when you were baptized?"

"It was after I killed for the first time."

Seria answered immediately.

It meant she clearly remembered her first agitation. It had begun after she tasted the death of a demon.

"I also became addicted after predating for the first time."

That was why he had felt kinship.

Harad drools in front of a Magical Beast's or Mage's heart.

When Seria discovers a Mage, killing intent flows out profusely.

The former is resolved by eating, the latter by killing.

Harad recalled when he had fasted. Seria enduring agitation resembled Harad at that time.

"……Why is it like this?"

"My words exactly."

"……?"

Predator.

It was a common phenomenon among Mages who had predated.

Not for priests.

Harad, who had regressed, had not encountered a priest who became so agitated and felt pleasure toward demons.

"Could it be something like a special constitution?"

Seria frowned.

It did not seem like a satisfactory answer.

"Is it not because Seria is a genius?"

Suddenly Ellen took Seria's side.

Was it for nothing that she was the next Inquisitor and next Saintess's aide?

However, Harad shook his head.

"No. Other priests are not like this."

It was Jis, who had been hiding, who opened his mouth.

That seasoned 5th Rank Mage was showing interest.

"Ah."

When Seria flinched, the shadow hastily fled.

This time too, it was pretending to flee. As a Mage, Jis was more bold than expected. It was confidence in his own skill.

"Jis is right. If constitution is also talent, then it is talent, but even those great Apostles or Cardinals are not like that."

Seria was special.

"However, there would be precedent. Since the Church is keeping an eye on you."

If there were no precedent, the Church's response would have been more decisive.

Seria would have been executed or under research.

"Priests who have gone insane for demons occasionally exist. The Church already knows."

Next Inquisitor and next Saintess's aide.

Seria was a genius the Church had marked.

'Saintess's aide.'

A priest who goes insane when seeing demons.

"Then why does she not become agitated toward Harad?"

It was then. Seria asked.

"My words exactly."

"……?"

"I jest."

Using Predation as an analogy makes it easy.

Treating it as a Mage, it would be not drooling over Harad's heart.

"Why do I not go insane toward you?"

Harad manifested fire at his fingertip.

Something like a candle flame swayed before Seria. Even staring directly at it, she was fine.

The candle flame increased. It bloomed in all directions like ghostly fires. Even all over Seria's body.

Seria extinguished the fires one by one with a hand imbued with light. She was still fine. Seria did not go insane toward the Mage called Harad.

It was a phenomenon Harad, who was insane for Predation, could not understand.

Because Seria was not a Mage.

"I do not know well about you. But I know roughly about myself."

So to find the reason, he had to look for it in Harad.

"I am also special. Like you."

Radiance.

In the eastern snowfield, in the sea of Lohit, Seria had felt Harad's fire that way.

As a kind of Divine power. That another priest had come to help.

"It must be because my Origin is the sun."

The magic in the snowfield had been Projection.

In the sea, he had tried to Manifest and failed.

However, that failed magic brought to mind the sun.

It was the influence of Embers.

All fire manifested by Harad, who had newly become 5th Rank, brought to mind the sun regardless of power.

That sun, Seria had felt as radiance.

"In my opinion, it is one of four."

Harad spread his fingers.

"Either you are intimidated and cannot become agitated toward Mages with impressive Origins."

Predation and agitation were close to instinct.

The former was the Origin's, the latter was Seria's instinct.

One flips their belly before a strong predator.

That too was instinct.

"Or you are stupid enough to confuse my sun with a god."

"……"

"Or it is not confusion, but my sun actually resembles that radiance."

One finger remained.

Seria swallowed her saliva.

"Or I am Laan?"

"Even nonsense has limits……"

She cursed.

That Seria did.

"How insolent."

It was not an attitude to show to a god.