Raising the Grand Duke of the North as a Farmer Behind Dad’s Back - Chapter 13

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 13
“……uh, um.”
An awkward silence.
“So…… h-hello……?”
“Can’t say hello.”
Basil looked down at me with a terrifying expression. Then he let out a low growl.
“You dragged one of my subordinates all the way here? How dare you.”
“B-but we’re allies…….”
Why, why now?!
Cold sweat poured down my face.
‘When did he even get here?’
I hadn’t sensed a thing!
His massive chest expanded and contracted with a heavy breath. Without hesitation, he turned his body.
“……Still, thank goodness I caught you before something happened. Follow me. I’ll make sure your first day of getting scolded by your uncle the Grand Duke is one you won’t forget.”
“N-no, no please!”
“What’s this…… won’t sit still? Once something looks a little cute, that’s all it takes?”
“……?”
Surely he didn’t just call me cute, did he?
The Grand Duke tilted his head, seeming confused by his own words.
“My tongue’s developed a mind of its own.”
Regardless, I thrashed about wildly in his arms.
[Haniel channeling Holy Power (x16)]
– Holy Power flows around the body for a set duration (13:20)
“Your Highness, wait! I still have work to do!”
“This won’t do. Camilla.”
“Yes.”
Wait—Camilla was here too?
“Take the bread out of her bag.”
“Yes.”
Now that I looked, Camilla was holding my carefully folded bag hostage from a distance.
“Nooo! That’s Haniel’s bread!”
“Right. Now it’s Basil’s bread. Stay still, will you?”
“Nooo!”
He pulled me closer, cradling me more firmly.
That was when it happened.
– Holy Power flows around the body for a set duration (00:40)
In that instant, the time remaining plummeted—whoosh—straight down.
‘F-forty seconds?! Why?!’
[Helpful tip: All forces possess hierarchy]
[Holy Power and Magical Power are incompatible]
In other words, the sheer magnitude of Basil’s Magical Power was causing my Holy Power to drain at an alarming rate! Strength contest: major failure!
“Agh, let me go!”
What do I do?
At this rate I’ll just become someone who burned through sixteen Holy Power Stickers for nothing!
“I-I can purify it!”
“……What?”
“I can wield Holy Power,”
That was when.
BOOOOOOOM!!
“……!!”
The earth trembled with a deafening crash.
From far off came Luden’s urgent voice.
“Your Highness! Monsters! The traps have been breached!”
“……Hah. I had a feeling.”
The Grand Duke’s brow furrowed deeply. Simultaneously, an ominous tremor ran through the ground. His arms loosened their grip on me.
I didn’t miss the opening.
“……! You cursed brat!”
“It’s not cursed brat…….”
“Camilla! Grab her!”
“It’s Haniel!”
‘No time!’
I tore myself away from Basil’s embrace.
Then, quick as thought, I bolted straight for the Pillar and wrapped my arms around it with all my might.
Shiiiiiiine!
White light erupted.
It blazed so brilliantly that keeping my eyes open was nearly impossible.
Father’s Pillar.
Father’s legacy.
If I can purify all the Light Dragon’s Miasma dwelling here, will I someday be able to purify Father’s Holy Power as well?
I closed my eyes.
‘Father, I’m sorry.’
Tears threatened to spill.
‘Because I was so young and inadequate, I caused Father nothing but suffering, didn’t I?’
Not this time.
I swear I will be of help to Father!
I drew the Life Force from my own heart and amplified my Holy Power.
* * *
“……!”
He spun around abruptly. His beautiful silver hair, neatly bound, whipped about in disarray.
What was that?
“Dantelion?”
Dantelion clenched his teeth.
‘My eye…….’
He carefully covered his right eye with his left hand. His adjutant watched with a puzzled expression, but he had no time to heed it.
His heart thundered as if possessed.
A sharp, piercing pain in his eye would not subside.
What in the world was happening?
It was like the instinct of a beast sensing danger.
Or… the feeling of losing something precious forever.
“Your Grace? What’s the matter all of a sudden?”
“……It’s nothing.”
He answered in a strained voice.
“Nothing at all.”
He returned to his usual composed, dignified bearing as a Holy Knight, yet his heart continued to pound.
Aside from the physical pain wrought by his corrupted Holy Power—
‘What in the world…….’
What was this unease?
“Please.”
This urge to plead, to kneel, to prostrate himself, to beg, and ultimately to betray. What was it?
“……Continue your report.”
“Yes. As I mentioned before, from our inquiry into the residents of Zone Z, the number currently missing is three people in total…….”
His voice resonated hollowly.
It was as though he were walking through a dream while still awake.
* * *
Boom-boom-boom-boom!
Everything shook.
“Your Majesty!”
Camilla cried out in alarm, pointing toward where Haniel had rushed off.
Pure white light was bursting from one of the Pillars. It was nearly impossible to look directly at.
“The child……!”
“Don’t just stand there gawking! Do you want to die!”
Basil roared.
Crash! A lurking monster hauled itself upright.
Camilla swiftly regained her composure and readied her stance. Dark, venomous shuriken gleamed as they erupted from all across her servant’s form.
Basil lunged toward the Pillar where Haniel had charged.
But another monster cut off his path.
Was it because this was the Tomb of the Light Dragon?
Impossibly powerful creatures sometimes emerged from this place.
A monster the size of a house hurtled forward at sickening speed. But—
Shreeeeek!
To Basil’s blade, he was nothing but a speck.
What on earth had happened to the little one?
Wrapped in white light, invisible. But to approach so close to the Pillar that held the Light Dragon’s Miasma in check….
That small, frail thing had already.
‘Dead again.’
His teeth clenched hard.
Another monster burst from the side.
Blood dripped from his fist as his jaw tightened, his blade still moving.
‘Dead again, right in front of me.’
This was precisely why he hated keeping weak, young things at his side.
Countless faces from the battlefield rose before him—comrades he’d failed to protect, bonds he’d been unable to save.
‘Rot in hell, Basil, you bastard.’
Couldn’t save a single territory.
Couldn’t protect one small, fragile child!
“Damn it all!”
Crash! He drove his sword into the ground. Everything around him was already devastated.
Then Luden’s panicked voice rang out from behind.
“Your Highness! The P-Pillar—!”
His head snapped up.
“The seal on the Pillar is opening!”
That couldn’t be right.
Whirrrrrr—!
One of the chains binding the Light Dragon began rewinding with a deafening screech—the chain that had held its tail.
……
In that brief moment.
He’d already made his calculation.
Basil spoke in a voice devoid of warmth.
“Luden, Camilla. Down the mountain. Take the children and get out of the Northern Region now. I’ll find some way to bring the little one back.”
“We cannot possibly—”
“Listen to me!”
Just then, Luden cried out in alarm.
“Your Highness! Camilla! Look there! The M-Miasma—!”
Dark energy erupted in a violent surge.
Was it already too late?
Basil’s teeth clenched tight.
“The Light Dragon’s M-Magical Power—!”
That scorching, tainted Magical Power, the Light Dragon’s curse, was about to sweep over this place—
“It’s b-being purified?”
…What?
“…P-Purified Magical Power…”
……
“…Is flowing?!”
Huh?
As he blinked in confusion, the ground suddenly trembled beneath his feet.
Like a beast, long asleep, finally stretching awake.
‘The Dragon Vein…’
The vast network of draconic power that spread like a web across the entire Northern Region—
It was awakening.
“What in the world is this…”
It was the moment Basil’s eyes widened in shock.
The brilliant light began to fade. And then…
Huuuuuuuuh…
Haniel, still clinging to the Pillar, slid slowly down toward the ground.
“Oh my dear little one!”
“Little one!”
Nngh…
Haniel landed hard on his backside and blinked several times. Then.
“Wa-hoo! We did it!”
He sprang up and began hopping and bouncing.
“Yay! I did it! The miasma will stop now! The sun will rise tomorrow! The sun will rise tomorrow ooooh!”
The three of them went momentarily speechless.
Basil was the first to move.
His expression hardened to an extreme as he spun the child around to face him.
“You…….”
“Your Highness! It’s me, sir—actually, I can use Holy Power!”
“What?”
“So I purified the Pillar! Whoosh! And then—splat!—and just like that! Wow, this actually works! The Dragon Vein is opening now, isn’t it?”
Grrrrrumble—
The earth stirring slowly awake.
The Dragon Vein writhing.
The heat that surged from the ground—that distinctive warmth of the Light Dragon that shifts the very climate—rose upward, higher still.
The dark clouds that had hung overhead began to part, moment by moment.
“I was actually useful!!!!”
The child’s expression blazed with peculiar brightness.
Basil found himself unable to speak.
‘Hehe.’
Haniel looked down at her own hands. The sensation of using Holy Power remained vivid and clear.
‘I erased Father’s seal that was carved into the Pillar, and covered it with my own Holy Power.’
The moment she withdrew the seal from the Pillar, the Light Dragon’s Miasma erupted as if it had been waiting.
The other Pillars still stood firm, so the unleashed miasma had only one exit—the Pillar that Haniel was holding.
Black energy surged forth.
Without hesitating, Haniel amplified her Holy Power.
Shhhhhhh—!
Drawing on the Life Force pooled within her own heart.
A person possesses two kinds of power.
The power contained in the Core—Magical Power or Holy Power.
And the Life Force contained in the heart.
Most people use the power in their Core, more or less, throughout their lives. Life Force is, quite literally, power bound to life itself. For that reason, she had never heard of anyone who could use Life Force.
But Haniel had been born without a Core.
Was that why?
‘I could always use my Life Force however I willed!’
Holy Power fed by Haniel’s very life and amplified beyond measure raced along the Pillar, consuming the encroaching black poison utterly and completely.
It was a perfectly clean purification.
‘At this rate…… I think I only used about three months’ worth.’
Haniel blinked.
‘But…….’
Why did the crown of her head sting so?
Haniel looked up at Basil, whose eyes burned as they fixed upon her.
‘Is he…… angry?’
Why? She’d just given the Northern Region an advantage!
“What in the name of the gods have you done.”
His voice dropped low.
“Ah, well, you see, actually I…….”
In that moment, Haniel’s hands flew to her mouth.
“……!”
A sudden cough erupted from her throat. The hand she’d reflexively brought up was stained with deep black blood.
Blood trickled from her nose as well.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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