Raising the Grand Duke of the North as a Farmer Behind Dad’s Back - Chapter 14

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

Episode 14
Basiliy’s face drained of color.
“Haniel!”
“Huh?”
The world spun. Basiliy caught Haniel as she stumbled, holding her upright with urgent hands.
“What’s wrong with you? What’s happening—”
“No, I’m… I’m fine… Cough!”
“Damn it. Camilla!”
“Yes, yes! Let’s get down quickly!”
Basiliy descended the mountainside as though flying.
Through her wavering vision, Haniel fixed her gaze on the man’s firmly set jaw.
She’d barely been any help at all.
Someone else’s face overlapped in her thoughts.
‘I hate this.’
Haniel wiped her nose roughly with the back of her hand.
‘I’m sick, and Father worries.’
In the end, she always became a terrible child—one who brought nothing but concern to everyone around her. She hated it. Hated it so much.
And yet.
Without meaning to, Haniel’s small fingers gripped the fabric of Basiliy’s robe. His broad frame tensed.
Pressing her face against his chest, she found herself thinking.
‘…But still.’
Her father’s embrace was so warm.
She drifted into sleep right there in his arms.
* * *
“It appears to be simple exhaustion,” Camilla said.
“Exhaustion?”
At her words, Basiliy’s brow twisted immediately.
“Exhaustion, and yet that much blood pouring out? Did she take a trip to the underworld and come back? Did she ask them for a house, some land, and get turned away at the gates?”
“W-what? They give out houses and land in the underworld too?!”
Ah, that voice grated on his ears.
Without thinking, Basiliy held Haniel at arm’s length.
“When did you wake up?”
“Just now! Hello!”
“…Sigh.”
Haniel stared up at him from his embrace with those bright, wide eyes.
Looking into those pink irises, his heart—which had been plummeting moments before—finally seemed to find solid ground again.
Camilla examined the child carefully.
There was no physician in this place, but Camilla possessed sufficient medical knowledge to handle emergency care.
Fortunately, the girl appeared unharmed.
It seemed likely that her Vital Energy had become disordered from brief exposure to the Mad Dragon’s Qi.
Rumble-rumble-rumble. Boom, rumble-rumble!
Outside the mansion, tremors both great and small continued to shake the earth. It appeared to be caused by the Dragon Vein opening after having been sealed.
And all this chaos, yet it wasn’t even midnight yet.
“…”
Basiliy stared out through the dark window, his fists clenched tight.
Was this actually happening?
Not only was frozen Bedel Village warming, but purified energy flowed through the Dragon Vein, cleansing all the large and small contaminations scattered throughout the land.
It was a phenomenon that could only be called a miracle.
And on top of everything, Ruden’s confession was making his head spin as well.
“I sincerely apologize, Your Highness. The truth is, I’ve never actually been to the South. I simply gathered supplies from the nearby Northwest and sold every Crystal Portal Pass I had!”
“…What?”
“The child discovered it, and I agreed to keep silent in exchange for bringing her to the North Mountains. I never imagined it would lead to… to all of this…”
He’d heard the whole story on the way down from the mountain.
A low sigh escaped him.
In truth, he’d sensed from the start that Ruden was deceiving him.
“Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”
The sensation he’d felt when he’d gripped Ruden’s shoulder in the storehouse.
The faltering response of his body.
That was always the tell of a liar.
But he had no desire to suspect so easily a comrade with whom he’d crossed the line between life and death, surviving together this far.
‘I still had to settle it somehow, I thought…….’
He never expected the little one to make a move first.
Basiliy gazed at Haniel’s reflection in his dark spear—the child accepting warm water from Camilla like a chick drinking from its mother’s beak.
……He couldn’t hold back anymore.
“Little one. I wish I could let you rest…….”
He rubbed his broad face with his palms, suppressing the sharp edge that had risen in him.
“Hm?”
“I’m afraid my mind is crumbling right now.”
He turned back to Haniel.
“Purification. How did you manage it.”
Haniel gulped down the water, then opened her mouth as if she’d been waiting for the question.
“Actually, I can gather Holy Power. So I used it to purify everything!”
“You can ‘gather’ Holy Power?”
“Yes. I don’t really know why……. I was never able to use Holy Power before.”
Not in my last life.
“It just suddenly became possible when I came to the North!”
…….
Basiliy and Camilla exchanged a look.
That…….
Anyone could see…….
‘She awakened Holy Power on the journey north.’
Basiliy and Camilla fell silent for a moment. Ruden had already been sent to bed, so only the three of them remained in the bedroom.
Camilla gazed at the child’s round profile and thought.
‘……Under Imperial Law, if you discover a child who has awakened Holy Power, you must report them to the Temple.’
People with Holy Power were rare. For that reason, children who awakened Holy Power had to be turned over to the Temple without fail.
Of course, a tremendous reward awaited the one who made the report.
‘If it’s a reward from the Temple…… it would surely help our household greatly.’
Camilla suddenly became aware of her back pocket.
There was one letter left there, unsent.
‘Commander of the 2nd Holy Knight Order, Dantelion Klein.’
She had not yet written a reply to him.
Camilla approached Basiliy and asked quietly.
“……What should we do, Your Highness. A child who has awakened Holy Power…….”
She trailed off.
The look in the Duke’s eyes, glimpsed sideways.
…….
It was openly glistening.
“……Your Highness?”
Basiliy’s head dropped low. Then his shoulders began to tremble faintly.
Kek-kek-kek…….
Soon a wicked laugh filled the bedroom.
“Your, Your Highness?”
“Ah…….”
Basiliy rubbed his mouth roughly. But he couldn’t stop the laughter that kept bubbling up.
“So you can even land a blow like this.”
Oh God. Are you there?
‘If so, you certainly know how to do things right.’
He gazed at Haniel intently.
‘To place such a blessing so openly in my hands.’
A child blessed with Holy Power—the very treasure the Temple coveted most.
Children with Holy Power were uncommon.
Even among the handful of Holy Knight families in the Empire, they appeared as rarely as beans in a drought.
The power these children possessed was extraordinary. It was fundamentally different in magnitude from the faint Holy Power that ordinary Priests acquired after years of arduous training.
Thus they were spoken of as divine blessings, and were regarded as promising material to become high-ranking Priests or first-class Holy Knights in the future.
If those in the Temple learned that he possessed such a child…… how furious would they become?
“Kek-kek-kek-kek……. Yet they wouldn’t give me a single proper Priest.”
A vengeful satisfaction suddenly flooded through his entire body.
‘The Emperor would lose sleep over this if he knew.’
How long it had been since he’d wanted to see that bastard’s face…….
“Stewardess, the Duke’s gaze seems a bit……off.”
“He’s always been a bit damaged. Just give him a little time and he’ll be socialized again.”
“Yes, yes.”
Camilla, who had drifted closer to Haniel by now, stroked the round-headed child’s hair and thought, ‘Just as I thought.’
‘He’ll never send the child to the Temple.’
Basiliy harbored an enormous resentment toward the Imperial Palace and the Temple that had abandoned him.
There was no way he would do anything good for such a place.
“Okay.”
Basiliy took a long breath in and let it out. Then he spoke.
“Emotional time’s over. So now… Camilla.”
“Yes.”
“Send a letter to Dantelion Klein.”
“…Yes?”
“Tell him there’s a child here with Holy Power. Have him come collect her.”
“…Yesssssss?”
“What. Why are you looking at me like that.”
“Weren’t you going insane with joy at the thought of keeping a baby in the North?”
Basiliy looked at his housekeeper as though she were talking nonsense.
“Yeah. That’s why I said it — emotional time’s over. She needs to go to the Temple.”
“…”
“This is her life turning around. At the Temple, she can live in comfort and luxury. Why should she toil away here?”
“…”
“I can’t deprive her of the chance to eat well and live well just because I want to.”
“You c-can deprive her! You should!”
Haniel burst in suddenly.
“Please deprive me!!”
“What?”
The abrupt mention of her father’s name, combined with her plans unraveling, made Haniel’s expression turn frantic.
‘I thought he had so much resentment toward the Imperial Palace and the Temple that he’d definitely accept me once I proved my strength!!’
Why was he being so unexpected?!
‘Why is he being so weirdly kind?!’
Haniel grabbed onto Basiliy and whimpered.
“I… I want to stay here! I don’t like the Temple!”
“No…”
“They subject young priests to incredibly harsh training there! That’s what I heard!”
Haniel spilled out words desperately.
“They lock you in rooms! They punish you for not awakening more power! They speak cruelly to you!”
“The Temple? That can’t be right.”
“It’s… it’s really true. And besides, I can barely control my Holy Power in the first place.”
Haniel’s voice trembled.
“If they treat me like a half-wit and I become a complete burden, you’d want me to become the Temple’s problem child?!”
‘Is that… what’s happening?’
Basiliy’s eyes narrowed.
Now that he thought about it.
He had never heard of Holy Power being ‘gathered’ and then manifested.
Moreover, he genuinely didn’t know much about the Temple’s internal affairs. It was an organization shrouded in secrecy.
How they trained priests, how they treated ‘special’ cases like Haniel…
‘Could they possibly treat her like… a heretic?’
The era of obsessive heresy purges was long past, or so they said, but one could never be too sure.
While Basiliy hesitated, Haniel fidgeted with her fingers and spoke softly.
“If you’re uncomfortable breaking Imperial Law, I’ll go to the Temple of my own accord when I’m ready.”
“…”
“…When I turn sixteen.”
Haniel mumbled the words.
“I’ll go to the Temple to train as a priest when I turn sixteen…”
“…”
Haniel’s lifespan was sixteen years. By then, whether she liked it or not, she would have to leave this place.
“So please! Just let me stay here until then! All right?”
No…
Why was she so desperate.
The child who seemed to only know how to smile was now speaking with tears glistening in her eyes, and somehow Basiliy’s mood sank.
‘Would things really become this much of a nightmare if I went to the actual Temple?’
For Basiliy, there was no way to know.
And if — what if, just what if — they branded him a heretic and that tiny creature…… was mistreated…… and endured it all alone…… was treated like a dog and cast about.
“Your Highness?”
In another sense entirely, his vision was turning white.

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