The Seven-Year-Old Village Chief in Exile - Chapter 14

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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 14
Ian rushed to cover Flora’s ears, startled by Hebenia’s outburst of curses.
Regardless, Hebenia finished her thought to Beriti.
“Besides, you’re strong and uphold the law scrupulously. You’re not the type to ignore such things.”
……
“You’re planning to capture him alive, aren’t you?”
“……Did I say I had to?”
Beriti asked back, his expression one of surprise.
Hebenia shook her head.
“You don’t need to say it—it’s obvious. That demon is a criminal who violated a Taboo. You’ll need to keep him alive to get the details.”
……
“And in the process, you’d probably like to torment him legally.”
……Ha ha ha!
Beriti’s silent lips curled upward like a child receiving a wonderful gift.
“Then let’s finish this quickly.”
“I shall do as you command, miss.”
Beriti bowed deeply like a dashing gentleman and made his promise.
The location of the Sacred Temple was confirmed by sight alone. In the Deste Territory, shrouded in silence and darkness, it was the only place that glowed with light.
“Miss.”
Beriti called out to Hebenia as she turned toward the Sacred Temple.
“When you enter the Sacred Temple, perform a Summoning.”
“A Summoning? Of whom?”
“Just perform one. Then it will come out on its own.”
Beriti spoke without hiding his reluctance.
The demon in the school uniform, left alone, watched their figures disappear toward the Sacred Temple until the very end.
A demon’s eyesight was excellent. He confirmed that the three humans had infiltrated the Sacred Temple safely, and only then did he exhale a light sigh of relief.
‘Humans of rare sincerity these days.’
Commendable humans whom he wanted to teach more, to give more, to place more in their hands.
The tender smile he wore thinking of them would, sadly, have to be erased now.
“……So you’re coming out now?”
Beriti, left alone, spoke as he removed his school uniform jacket.
The thick winter jacket that fell to the ground scattered and vanished like dust.
“You’ve been watching the whole time.”
“Good instincts.”
A demon bearing the same name appeared in the middle of the empty street.
Beriti’s eyes narrowed.
‘Changed again already.’
The demon’s appearance had transformed noticeably.
One of the two horns on his head had swollen abnormally. Of his two pale yellow eyes, the right one had turned a vivid red, and his muscles had ballooned grotesquely—his body now twice its former size.
He was no longer a demon, but a monster.
‘Just as I thought…….’
Beriti clicked his tongue lightly.
‘It wasn’t just the Summoning Succession Ritual.’
He had not explained in detail because young Flora was present, but the summoning circle drawn in the Main Hall of the Deste mansion was not a simple Summoning Succession Ritual.
‘The cost should have been sacrificial, but there were too many bodies. It was definitely the Demonic Enhancement Ritual.’
A ritual that strengthened a demon’s power by sacrificing innocent lives.
Naturally, this too was a Taboo, just like the Summoning Succession Ritual.
‘I haven’t received any reports about an incident like this.’
Beriti rolled his shirt sleeves up to his elbows as he pondered.
Where had this creature encountered that Forbidden ritual?
That ritual had been declared Taboo long ago, and the Great Demon Lord himself had personally blocked all information about it.
In other words, there should be no way for demons to learn of it.
……Sigh.
Beriti dropped his head and released a long breath.
“I thought I’d finally get to work comfortably for once. I actually accepted this as a real vacation……!”
“Blame your misfortune.”
The demon-turned-monster grinned wickedly. Drool dripped from the long fangs stretching between his split lips.
“I don’t make a hobby of killing my own kind, but now that I’ve been spotted, there’s no helping it. Your death will be the cornerstone of our great revolution.”
“Ugh, they say adolescent delusions are only a blessing if you’re actually an adolescent.”
“How foolish, knowing nothing, fearless, and spouting such drivel.”
As the demon extended its right hand, steel-sharp claws grew long from its fingertips.
“Kehehehe.”
The demon licked its own claws with a forked tongue, serpent-like.
“Ugh, hey, that’s a bit…….”
Beriti scrunched his face in distaste.
Part of him wanted to snap at it—to tell this fool to stop posturing so lethally, to quit acting as if he possessed some tremendous power.
But he held his tongue for now, listening as the idiot continued its speech.
“Demons these days have no fire in them. What’s this talk of order, discipline, covenants? Why seal away true strength just to clean up after humans?”
“…….”
“Humans aren’t creatures meant to coexist with us. They’re resources for us to exploit and consume as we please.”
“Mm…….”
“Every time they summon a demon, the way those fools puff themselves up as though they’ve achieved some grand life success—how pathetic and…….”
“Oh, so that’s your self-introduction…….”
Ah, damn it.
Beriti shut his mouth too late.
The quip had already slipped out.
“Ah, my apologies. Never mind me—please, do continue your…….”
“Die!”
The demon swung its hand in a great arc, and crimson demonic energy poured forth, shaped like claws.
The energy, curved like shackles, tore across the ground leaving jagged scars as it rushed toward Beriti.
Clang!
The red energy shattered like glass.
Through the fragments of broken force, the demon’s look of shock was laid bare.
“How—how is this possible……!”
“How did I do it, you ask?”
Flick.
Thud.
The demon’s vision plummeted downward, then rolled this way and that.
“Sigh. Do I really have to teach such basic things? This is exactly why young demons today are such a problem.”
The demon’s rolling vision came to a stop.
It blinked ceaselessly, unable to understand what had happened.
Why was its body lying so far away, and why couldn’t it see its own head?
‘Ah…….’
The head is me.
The severed head was me.
Realizing this, the demon slowly looked up at the being now trampling its head.
“Didn’t anyone teach you not to judge an opponent’s full strength by appearance alone? That’s why demons today get called demons no longer—weaker than humans themselves.”
Beriti gazed down at the demon’s head, which stared up at him with vacant eyes, and smirked.
“Bad luck, that.”
A spear of some kind now rested in Beriti’s hand.
“Even if you were going to impersonate…….”
A long-bladed polearm, sharp as a sword.
“Getting caught impersonating me.”
The Golden Emblem adorning the shaft.
A mark symbolizing one of the great demons and a great general who stood guard over four lords—it fluttered in darkness where no breath of wind stirred.
“This is going to hurt.”
Beriti undid the necktie he’d been fiddling with all along.
At that moment.
“Gack!”
An impact as if a colossal meteorite had fallen from the sky crushed down upon the demon.
The ground beneath both demons caved in like a meteorite strike, creating a massive fissure.
Even through pain so intense he coughed blood, the imposter demon managed to lift his head and gaze up at Beriti.
Half of him wanted to deny what he was seeing; the other half, masochistic, craved the certainty of the unchangeable fate that awaited him.
Beriti smiled wide.
“Fighting small fry like you—I’m too precious and too busy for that.”
Beriti formed a Hand Seal with the hand not gripping the spear.
He slowly pressed the tips of his thumb and ring finger together to form a circle, then inverted his hand.
The imposter demon, understanding what that gesture meant, cried out in haste.
“Wait, I’ll tell you everything! Everything I know, I’ll……!”
“The Inverted Seal.”
Screeeeeech.
An unpleasant metallic shriek erupted from the ground.
“Reverse Summoning.”
Crimson light streamed from Beriti’s feet, carving a massive rectangle across the earth.
A long vertical line soon appeared through its center.
It became a colossal Iron Gate, laid horizontally.
The gate creaked open on grotesque hinges, slowly revealing itself.
An impenetrable darkness lay beyond—nothing visible even a hand’s breadth ahead.
Horrible screams erupted, heat that seemed to melt flesh, and cruel laughter at someone’s torment engulfed the sleeping city.
Vast Iron Chains burst from the gap, seized the demon’s severed head and body, and dragged them through the portal.
“P-please! Save me! I don’t want this! I’d rather die—!”
Thud.
The demon’s cries were cut short as the door slammed shut mercilessly.
All that remained were the steel-hard fingernails, broken from clawing at the floor in desperation to survive.
Snicker, snicker-snicker.
And cruel laughter lingering like a phantom sound.
* * *
The Sacred Temple, infiltrated in secret, lay in disarray.
“This reaction is—!”
“A strange aura is detectable!”
“Form an investigation team at once! Priests, divide into groups—!”
Not long ago, when the barrier within the Primordial Forest had shattered, a horrific death had occurred, and now the priests and Imperial Court knights rushed about in haste.
In that chaos, Ian, Flora, and I pressed deeper into the temple.
“Hebenia….”
Ian, following close behind me at the front, asked cautiously.
“Do you actually know where you’re going?”
“To be honest, I’m just walking.”
“Fearless thing.”
“But somehow, I feel like I should go this way.”
The moment my feet touched the Sacred Temple, an strange sensation seized me.
An invisible force—like a hand—pulled me in a certain direction.
Just as opposite poles of a magnet draw toward each other.
And so we arrived at a Dead-End Corridor.
It felt as though we’d reached the very heart of the temple.
In this place where only a crude torch flickered on the wall, a single small, worn wooden door stood installed.
“Well.”
Ian murmured like an enlightened sage.
“Compared to what we’ve been through, this isn’t even strange.”
Ian, who had been gazing intently beyond the door, turned to me.
“I sense a presence. Just one.”
“….”
“Still want to go in?”
“Yes.”
My answer was certain, even as confusion clouded my mind.
“Well then.”
Ian nodded.
“We just need to hope the Prince doesn’t show up.”
“Why the Prince specifically? Wouldn’t the Imperial knights be more of a problem?”
“Knights I can incapacitate or defeat, but the Prince—I can’t do that. Besides, I taught him Swordsmanship once.”
“Ah, so a commoner teaching a prince’s martial arts made you unpopular with the aristocratic knights, and they betrayed you.”
“…I hadn’t thought that far.”
“Don’t worry. A noble prince wouldn’t be held in some squalid place like this.”
In this crisis, keeping the royal family confined in a place like this prison was unthinkable—that was my reasoning.
“Right?”
Ian laughed and agreed.
We should have kept our silence.
“…Ian?”
The Prince was there.

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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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