The Seven-Year-Old Village Chief in Exile - 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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Episode 13
I forced myself to refocus.
Right now, rescuing the child who’d been so wrongfully separated from her mother took precedence over my petty jealousy and anxieties.
“Ribi, Dalis—you’re hearing this, yes? We’re heading back to the mansion now. I’ll contact you again once we’re inside the forest.”
[Got it. Be careful out there!]
[You all…….]
Dalis’s voice trembled, thick with unshed tears.
[Please. Take care of Flora……!]
“I swear it on my life.”
Ian’s voice came smooth and earnest.
The video call ended.
“Anyone listening would think you were the one saving her single-handedly.”
I fixed him with a narrow-eyed stare.
Ian shifted awkwardly, clearing his throat with an embarrassed cough.
“Well, I—I was just trying to reassure Dalis…….”
“Sure. Ian, desperate to be Flora’s new father.”
“That’s not what this is!”
He denied it vehemently, his face burning crimson, but it was no use.
“Don’t worry.”
I patted his arm encouragingly.
“I already know you’re sweet on Dalis. Everyone does.”
“Wh—what……?”
“It’s not just me. We all know.”
“I figured it out after spending one day in the village.”
Verity chimed in without hesitation.
Even when life is bearable, exile corrodes the spirit.
In such harsh circumstances, Ian’s hopeless, unrequited love had become our small amusement—and more than that, proof that life was still worth enduring.
“They say prisoners always fall for each other.”
I was genuinely rooting for him.
“You and Dalis are practically in the same boat—the odds of you two ending up together are actually pretty good. Of course, if she’s not interested, I’ll take her side.”
“Gods, this takes me back. Those ancient nobles used to hold contests the moment they got a chance—’You’re a slave,’ ‘Breeding slave,’ ‘Breeding grounds’—all to increase their slave counts.”
Verity trailed off wistfully, muttering, “Those were dark times indeed…….”
* * *
I negotiated with Verity to get fresh clothes for Flora, then helped her change out of that tattered exile garb.
As she was dressed, Flora looked even worse than a convict—Dalis would have been heartbroken to see her like that.
“Flora.”
After she was changed, I spoke gently.
“From now on, no crying. Not a sound.”
“M—Mommy…….”
“Yes. We’re going to your mother now.”
“Mommy…….”
“That’s right. Let’s go together.”
I draped a concealment cloak around her as she whimpered, calling for her mother—then pulled her close.
“You can do this, yes?”
“……Okay.”
Her lips pressed tight in determination not to cry again, tears still clung to her long lashes like dewdrops.
“Good. Let’s move.”
We retraced the path we’d used to slip into the Deste Mansion.
To move quickly, Ian carried Flora in his arms.
The mansion remained eerily still.
“…….”
I finally voiced the question that had nagged at me all along.
“For a place supposedly without people, doesn’t the mansion seem unusually clean?”
“The servants might be locked away somewhere?”
I nodded at Ian’s suggestion.
“From what we’ve seen so far, this mansion fell into the hands of that fat rat and the demon. But somehow I doubt either of them bothered to clean it themselves.”
“If you count the thin rat as well, that makes three.”
Verity reminded us of the other rat we’d forgotten.
The fat one Ian had knocked unconscious—I’d given him an anesthetic injection.
I was the one who’d administered it, partly because being a minor meant any legal trouble would end in a suspended sentence.
“I can’t save the hired staff. We’re already in over our heads. But if they suffer harm because of what we’re doing here…….”
The words never finished—there was no point in wondering if this would turn into a disaster.
It already had.
Verity and Ian spoke in quick succession.
“Wait. Something’s…….”
“There’s blood in the air, Verity.”
“Miss Flora, stay close to me.”
Ian cradled Flora deep against his chest, shielding her from the sight beyond.
Verity drew me close as well, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.
We reached the corridor of the second floor, from which the entrance hall below lay fully exposed.
…….
And there we found them—the hired staff we’d been worried about, all dead.
Bodies piled like mountains in the cavernous entrance hall.
Beneath them lay an inverted pentagram and a circle, drawn in dark red blood.
‘A Summoning Circle……!’
It was the demon summoning mark I’d grown all too familiar with.
“Oh dear. Oh dear.”
Someone stepped leisurely from behind the heap of corpses.
A gaunt man with a thin build chuckled with an air of awkwardness, then pushed his glasses up with a flick of his finger.
“You’ve caught me red-handed.”
“……Ugh.”
We snapped out of our shock-induced paralysis and bolted in disgust at his off-putting, uncomfortable tone.
“Really, there’s nothing quite like the cloying speech of a socially inept otaku to jolt people back to their senses, is there?”
“What’s an otaku, Verity?”
“Ian, that’s not what matters right now.”
“No, the real issue is that smug look on his face—the way he adjusted his glasses with such deliberate precision, that insufferable finger……!”
“That’s not important either!”
As my pace slowed noticeably, Verity hefted me onto her shoulder like a sack of grain and kept running.
She explained the horrifying sight we’d just witnessed.
“What you just saw—that is the primary reason why the Summoning Inheritance Ritual is forbidden.”
The Summoning Inheritance Ritual.
The foulest taboo—forcing the price of summoning a demon onto another person.
“As I mentioned before, the Summoning Inheritance Ritual demands a price equal to, or greater than, that of Demon Summoning itself.”
The cost of interfering with dimensions is meant to be borne by whoever summoned the demon.
The cause creates the effect; the inevitable chain of causality must be accepted.
But to transfer that burden to another is to deny causality itself.
“An ordinary price won’t suffice. That’s why the ritual typically demands a sacrifice equivalent to life itself.”
“Life…….”
I recalled what I’d read in Clavis: The Complete Guide.
‘Life.’
A resource irreplaceable by anything else.
It’s the most precious currency exchanged for summoning demons.
But since there is only one life, typically something bearing the traces of life or carrying symbolic weight is offered instead.
‘Bodily fluids, for instance…….’
Haven’t I myself made bargains with demons using my saliva and blood?
“So all those people……!”
Ian wanted to ask if they’d killed so many just for that, but he clamped his jaw shut, careful lest Flora hear him.
But there was no need for caution.
“Mother was…….”
The scent of blood had stirred a horrifying memory, and Flora continued to murmur the same words over and over, her face twisted in fear.
That Mother had been there.
‘Earl Deste, you absolute madman……!’
I glared at the receding Deste Mansion.
‘You showed your own daughter the Summoning Inheritance Ritual?’
Back then too, there must have been mountains of corpses to serve as payment—yet he’d exposed his young daughter to that hellscape!
Fury blazed through me. Why did wicked people commit such horrors without hesitation?
And why did they never stop at just one atrocity?
That’s when a terrible suspicion took shape in my mind.
“Verity…….”
I forced my trembling voice steady and spoke her name.
“What happens to the victim who’s forced to inherit the price?”
Ian’s sharp gaze settled on me. He’d probably guessed by now what I was driving at with such a question.
After a brief pause, Verity spoke.
“……Forcibly shouldering another’s Causality Law is extraordinarily dangerous. Fundamentally impossible, really. That’s why such an enormous price is required.”
“So what happens to them?”
“They die.”
“So…….”
Dalis was the only one caught red-handed, then.
‘She should have died in the Summoning Inheritance Ritual, but she survived—so they turned her into a scapegoat to dispose of her. Because she’d learned that the Deste Count had summoned a demon.’
And behind the Deste Count would be the Emperor.
‘Maybe this isn’t the first time…….’
The Deste Count knows enough to carry out both Demon Summoning and the Summoning Inheritance Ritual. That means the Emperor’s been providing substantial support.
‘He’s got experience. It’s absolutely impossible with just one or two attempts.’
Demons summoned this way could be scattered throughout the Empire.
‘Emperor, you piece of——’
* * *
The four of us who’d escaped the Deste Mansion ran without stopping.
“……Isn’t something strange?”
Ian spoke between gasping breaths, trying to steady himself.
“Has it ever been this quiet here?”
True to its reputation as a city famous for Magic Engineering, the Deste Territory sparkled with bright lights even late into the night, and there were many people moving about.
But now the world seemed to have fallen asleep.
“We didn’t spend that much time in the Deste Mansion…….”
“It seems to be the demon’s ability.”
Verity set Hebenia down on the ground and spoke.
“Demons each possess their own unique abilities. From what I can tell, it’s put the entire city to sleep. Perhaps something like ‘silence’ or ‘slumber’…….”
“But why are we fine?”
At Hebenia’s murmur, Verity gestured to her cloak.
“The cloak doesn’t just hide your presence—it has Defensive Magic woven into it as well.”
“Defensive Magic……!”
Hebenia’s eyes widened as she recalled an article she’d seen in the newspaper.
“I heard the Crown Prince was staying at the Temple to strengthen his Defensive Magic formulae…….”
But in the end, her words trailed off.
She couldn’t bring herself to suggest going to the Temple.
‘If the Crown Prince is at the Temple, that means the Imperial Knights protecting him are there too.’
To Ian, who’d been exiled bearing false charges of embezzlement from his comrades’ betrayal, the Imperial Knights were an uncomfortable presence.
And if he happened to run into someone he knew, things would only spiral worse.
But Ian remained levelheaded.
“The Temple always has Defensive Magic active, so the demon won’t be able to reach it. We need to head there now.”
“Will you be all right?”
“With the cloak, I won’t be easily spotted.”
Ian’s lips curved upward softly, as if to reassure her.
“And it’s better for Verity to fight without worry. Flora’s struggling too.”
Ian glanced down at Flora, whom he’d been cradling all this while.
Flora was holding back her tears as promised, but her anxiety had become noticeably worse ever since she’d caught the scent of blood in the mansion.
She needed somewhere to rest, even if only briefly, and the Temple was perfect.
“……How did you know?”
Verity’s eyes widened in surprise.
“That I need to hunt down that demon?”
“We saw and heard enough back there. Didn’t we, Ian?”
“Yeah.”
Hebenia and Ian exchanged glances and nodded.
“Just from what happened in the mansion, that demon is beyond redemption.”
“Beyond redemption?”
“A piece of——.”

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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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