Raising the Grand Duke of the North as a Farmer Behind Dad’s Back - Chapter 24

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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 24
The bread I’d been about to chew fell from my mouth.
“……Pardon? Why me?”
Basili casually picked up the fallen bread, tossed it to Felix, and handed me a fresh one.
“I know it’s strange coming from me, but a convincing position can sometimes be a useful shield.”
“Ah…….”
“Even if my position is nothing but a puppet’s, holding it firmly is still worth something, isn’t it?”
“…….”
“If you’re unlucky and word gets out about your Divine Power, even the Holy Temple wouldn’t dare take you away if you’re under my…… association.”
Had he been about to say family just now before changing his words?
‘No way.’
In any case, his explanation made sense. I let out the breath I’d been holding.
‘Scared me for a second. I really thought he was suggesting we become an actual family…….’
Basili regarded me intently.
For the first time, something like tension—or something close to it—seemed to flicker across his usually indifferent face.
‘No way, is the Grand Duke actually nervous?’
I must have been seeing things……?
“Of course the choice is yours, but I’d think you’d find it easier living with someone who knows about your Divine Power.”
“Um…… Yes…… I understand what you mean.”
So that’s what this was.
‘The Grand Duke needs my Divine Power, and I need his protection.’
He was essentially asking me to align our stories to fit some convenient position.
“But…….”
Calling him father felt wrong.
I clenched my fists quietly.
‘My father—the one I call that—there’s only one.’
Even though I’d decided not to see him again in this life. Still…… even so.
When I pictured my father’s warm, gentle face, a quiet sadness settled over me.
Just then, Basili tapped my cheek.
“Your cheek’s swollen again.”
“Oh, it’s not——”
“I’m obviously not asking you to change anything right now. It’s just…… well.”
He chose his words with difficulty.
“……I’m saying we should arrange it so we appear close to others. Publicly.”
“Oh……!”
That’s all it was!
I nodded eagerly.
My heart felt considerably lighter.
I went back to tearing into my bread, my cheeks moving as I thought.
‘That should be fine, right?’
Just appearing close in public.
‘Since we’re not actually becoming a real family…….’
Family is good.
But it’s heavy.
I must have been very heavy for my father.
I didn’t want to become such a burden to anyone ever again.
“The child keeps falling ill. Dear Lord, what is this…….”
I remember my grandfather wiping away tears as he watched me suffer.
Because of me? No…….
“My Dante must be going through so much…… That boy has endured so much hardship…….”
Seeing my father struggle because of me broke my heart.
It was only natural.
At the time, Father was working desperately to find a cure for me.
‘The truth is…… I wanted to spend more time with him.’
But every time he came back injured, those thoughts dissolved away.
The servants helped straighten out those selfish wishes too.
“Miss Haniel, a family shouldn’t be a burden to one another. You understand, don’t you?”
“When your father returns, you must smile. He’s coming home from working for you, after all.”
“Shall we sit up a bit straighter? If you make another mistake with the order of courses this time, your father will be so very sad…….”
“My Dante…… how much he must…….”
I shook my head sharply, pushing the thought away.
‘I mustn’t let myself grow too close to him.’
I was someone destined to leave, after all.
His Highness would never do such a thing, but if he grieved the way Father did when I eventually died… if he tried to sacrifice something for my sake…
‘I wouldn’t be able to bear it.’
I clenched my fists tight.
This was as far as I could go. My final line.
Playing at being a fake family for appearances.
‘Besides, I won’t be meeting outsiders anytime soon anyway.’
“Well, that should be fine!”
“…Fine? You mean the soup tastes good?”
“Yes! I finished all of it and the bread too!”
“You did very well.”
“Hehe…”
Night deepened around us.
And my assumption that I wouldn’t meet any outsiders for some time came crashing down almost immediately.
* * *
Dantelion sidestepped slightly as the child came running toward him.
“Father!”
Thud!
The small child still collided with his legs.
“Ow! I’m so sorry!”
“…”
“Oh, child, you must be careful. Commander, are you all right… Commander?”
Mark, Dantelion’s adjutant, examined the child before turning to look at him.
Mark’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘What’s with that cold expression?’
Anyone would think he’d just encountered Heresy itself.
‘He’s been more sensitive lately than usual.’
Just as Mark was scratching the back of his head, Dantelion lowered his body.
“You must be more careful.”
A smile appeared on his face as though he had drawn it there, and he brushed off the child’s clothes.
Though the smile was false, it was enough to transform his entire demeanor.
The child gazed up at the beautiful holy knight as if entranced.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
“Wow… Yes! Th-thank you! Father! I went boom! But, um, the angel saved me!”
The child scampered off to a man who stood nearby examining goods at a stall.
“Oh? You should have been more careful!”
Dantelion watched the departing figures of the father and daughter for a moment.
A grim, expressionless mask had already settled over his features.
He brushed lightly at the cloth edge where the child had touched him, then turned away without hesitation.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes, sir.”
When had it begun?
Whenever Dantelion saw young children, an indescribable repulsion welled up within him.
“Should you not take up the matter of succession?”
Was it because of his father’s words?
The retired Holy Knight Commander, hailed as the empire’s sage.
Dantelion respected Ulios, yet for some reason, that particular words did not sit well with him.
Even though he understood it was the duty of a holy knight to serve God.
In truth, years ago Dantelion had married a noblewoman for the sake of succession, but they had been unable to conceive.
When the contract period expired, the noblewoman departed for a foreign land, and it was settled outwardly as a clean divorce.
‘Perhaps what weighs on my mind is that failure to fulfill my duty as a holy knight back then.’
He gripped the Cross-shaped Pendant as though seeking penance.
The strange unease persisted, yet he had no leisure to dwell on it further.
There was work to be done as one who served God.
He entered the ancient stone building.
“It has been quite some time since we last came to this place.”
Mark spoke.
A single-story building constructed in ancient style.
The interior exhaled an inexplicably desolate atmosphere.
Clang, clang.
Silver boots descended the decrepit staircase without hesitation, their soles ringing against each worn step. The old stone walls bore dark stains—or what looked like dried blood—smeared across their surface.
“-please! ……please……!
From somewhere came the sound of low sobbing.
At that moment, Dantelion asked Mark a question.
“Any new reports from the Eastern Region?”
“Pardon? The Eastern Region? Ah.”
Mark seemed only then to remember why he had come to this place.
“No, all has been quiet for now. But… since it’s a novel pathogen, I cannot say how it will affect the crops.”
……
“Well, thinking about it again, it’s absurd. Even if there’s nothing else to do, to actually develop a new contagion in the Z Region…… how could anyone?”
Indeed.
Not long ago, the Holy Knight Order had conducted a search of the Z Region.
At the Village Chief’s residence, they discovered a large cache of strange plants and medicinal substances.
Upon investigation.
It was revealed that the Village Chief and the Marquis, who oversaw the Z Region, had developed a highly contagious pathogenic strain.
It was an Extreme Toxin—one that rotted crops.
The problem was the whereabouts of the poison.
After persistent pursuit, Imperial Court knights finally apprehended the Village Chief in the Eastern Region.
“But both of them are said to be dead…….”
They had taken their own lives the moment they were captured.
“So the toxin that the Village Chief was carrying was never found.”
“Yes……. It appears he dispersed the poison somewhere, but…….”
No one could determine where, or how much he had released.
What made it worse was that he had been apprehended in the Eastern Region—the Empire’s greatest granary.
“It must be resolved before the planting season. If the soil itself becomes contaminated…… the Empire could face an insurmountable food shortage.”
Mark murmured anxiously.
“Still, I heard the Imperial Court and the mages have developed new fertilizers and soil treatments…… so it should be manageable, shouldn’t it?”
“That would seem likely.”
Dantelion replied tersely and turned his gaze away.
They had by now reached the lowest level of the building.
Save me! Please, please save me!
The screams grew sharper.
I, I-I’m really, truly not guilty!
Dantelion continued forward without pause.
This matter concerning the Z Region could, of course, have been handed over to the Imperial Court knights and left in their care.
But Holy Knight Dantelion had not withdrawn from this investigation.
The reason was…….
I truly! This, th-th-thiii—
The magic used in creating this Extreme Toxin
Crack!
“-it’s not heresy, I’m telling you!”
……was precisely the forbidden heretical magic prohibited by the Holy Temple.
Thus Dantelion had been pursuing everyone from the Z Region connected to this affair.
“Sob, sob, please, let me out…….”
As the door opened, a woman’s tear-stained face came into view.
It was the Marquis’s Wife.
“Madam.”
Clang, his heavy footsteps echoed forward.
The emotionless voice of the Holy Knight resonated through the underground chamber.
“Do you have any knowledge of the forbidden magic your husband employed?”
Creak, thud! The door closed.
A short while later.
Mark emerged from the interrogation room, muttering to himself.
“Why was she so terrified, I wonder? We’ve furnished it like a luxurious villa, treated her with the utmost courtesy…….”
In the end, the Marquis’s Wife had been innocent.
This conclusion was reached through the use of a Holy Relic from the Temple, one that discerned falsehood.
“Anyone seeing this would think we locked her in a dungeon and tortured her. Sigh… what an age we live in, wouldn’t you say?”
The Holy Knight’s origins traced back to the Heresy Inquisitor.
The Empire no longer conducted the excessive Heresy Inquisition and persecution it once had, but punishment of those who violated the ‘prohibitions’ still fell squarely under the jurisdiction of the Holy Knights.
Perhaps because of a few cases that had become historical precedent—
Being branded as a ‘Heretic’ for violating the Holy Temple’s doctrine was a source of terror for ordinary people.
If someone were summoned to a Heresy Inquisition chamber, which was rarely used these days, panic would be justified.
“What do we do? We’ve essentially finished investigating everyone around the Village Chief and the Marquis.”
……
“We still need to dig deeper into information about the Eastern Region crop disease, and we need to ask if there were any related parties involved—but they’re both dead now…….”
Mark ran his hand through his hair in frustration.
“There’s no one else left to interrogate, is there?”
“There is.”
At the crisp tone, Mark’s eyes widened.
“The letter you sent to the Northern Region. Has there been no reply?”
……Ah!
In fact, there was one more suspect in this case.
A figure who had disappeared alongside them that day.
The undertaker, Pole.
And…….
A certain young child.
Dantelion’s eyes gleamed with cold clarity.

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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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