The Seven-Year-Old Village Chief in Exile - Chapter 29

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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 29
“Saker!”
Cherdo the High Priest clamped his colleague’s mouth shut.
Only then did Saker realize his mistake and fell silent. But the secret had already spilled out entirely.
‘I… I couldn’t help myself. It just poured out……’
Looking into that girl’s eyes, he found himself yielding without resistance.
As though obedience to her were an instinct he’d been born with.
‘But somehow… my heart feels lighter……’
After the sacred Angelic Descent, a Curse had befallen Deste Temple.
The High Priest—the temple’s eldest keeper and the spiritual pillar of all its clergy—had lost his mind entirely.
He wore his trousers slung carelessly about his hips, and as he walked, he clutched at the front seam with a grotesque, hobbling gait.
The priests had confined him to the prayer chamber in isolation.
‘The very place where the young prince had stayed alone……’
Saker’s mood darkened again.
Whether Cherdo had glimpsed his thoughts or merely shared them, his companion’s expression had hardened as well.
‘But that child……’
‘Could she really be… Clavis?’
The two priests exchanged a silent glance.
If she were from Hebenia Territory, she would be the young Clavis who’d been exiled to the Primordial Forest.
The youngest princess—the one the Clavis people had doted upon and treasured.
Yet that noble lady had died not long ago in a rampage of Primordial Forest beasts. At least, that was what the world believed.
“Ah, the High Priest……?”
How strange.
Hebenia expressed surprise at the tragic news, yet demonstrated a composure unbecoming of her apparent years.
“That might not be a Curse at all—perhaps a blessing. In a sense, he’s been granted a second youth, hasn’t he? Like the young people nowadays.”
Hebenia offered her condolences for the High Priest’s predicament with genuine sincerity.
Yet both Saker and Cherdo broke into cold sweat.
‘Her eloquence… that’s pure Clavis……!’
‘The way she feigns sympathy while delivering a biting jest—she’s the spitting image of the Clavis patriarch! She really is Clavis after all!’
Thus Hebenia gained their trust.
Unaware of their conclusions, Hebenia posed her next question.
“In any case, the temple currently lacks a responsible authority, doesn’t it?”
“That is correct.”
Cherdo nodded in agreement.
“And the two of you?”
“Us?”
“Do you hold influence? What is your rank in the hierarchy?”
Hebenia restated her original purpose for being here.
“I told you already. I’ve come to negotiate.”
As Hebenia’s lips curled upward, her full cheeks dimpled, poking gently beneath her eyes.
“From what I overheard earlier, you want to help people, don’t you?”
“W-would there be a way to do that?”
“Yes.”
Saker’s eyes brightened.
If the temple could reclaim the chance to fulfill its proper role, he would be willing to do anything.
He longed to atone somehow for his past blindness to the young prince’s plight, a blindness born from his concern for the imperial gaze.
‘Perhaps I’m being too selfish……?’
Suddenly disgust washed over him.
‘I’m helping others just to ease my own conscience.’
Saker found himself pitiful and revolting.
“High Priest.”
With a light tap, Hebenia touched the back of Saker’s hand. The startled priest flinched and turned to face her.
“I came here to gain something for myself—not out of pity for those outside these walls, understand?”
“Y-young Lady Clavis……?”
“In fact, I’m grateful things have turned out this way. So find some comfort in seeing how selfish I am.”
“Ah……’
Embarrassed, Saker glanced toward Cherdo.
“Your inner voice just escaped your mouth.”
“Oh dear.”
Cherdo laughed with a wry smile.
Saker, the High Priest, felt his embarrassment keenly and squeezed his eyes shut.
But when he opened them again a moment later, he had collected himself, regaining his composure like a man who had steeled his resolve.
“Then shall we begin discussing the terms of negotiation?”
Hebenia clapped her hands and broached the main subject, her dimpled smile seeming just a touch unsettling.
“You’re aware of what humiliation the old Pharmacy Owner of this city suffered today, aren’t you?”
The elderly pharmacist had a somewhat stubborn temperament, but he was a good man who bore his own losses to sell medicine cheaply to those who were ill.
His arrest this time came because he was caught secretly distributing medicine made from rare medicinal herbs he’d happened to acquire to the orphaned children in the Slums.
“He told me. He said an insider from the temple betrayed him.”
“…….”
“…….”
Both priests lowered their eyes in shame.
Hebenia regarded them both quietly.
‘Well, at least they have a conscience.’
Standing idle is a sin.
Yet forced passivity born of power is beyond one’s control.
‘They must have encountered situations like this many times before.’
As such experiences accumulated, self-condemnation grew heavier, until it seemed they had come to regard every tragedy in the world as their own fault.
Hebenia stated her negotiating terms.
“Give him to me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The informant.”
Hebenia laid out her condition.
“If you surrender that informant to me, I will give you both a chance to reclaim the temple’s true purpose.”
* * *
Before we approached the temple.
The old Pharmacy Owner had explained to us in detail how he came to suffer this ordeal.
“There was a young brother and sister I looked after separately. They lost their parents not long ago and became orphans, and the older one fell ill.”
“It was a minor ailment that would heal with a week or so of medicine…….”
“……But thanks to you selling me the Deltvebia, I was able to prepare medicine for that child.”
And the day he was going to deliver that medicine to the siblings.
He happened to cross paths with a certain priest, he said.
“A man with short chestnut hair and eyes as narrow as threads.”
“Yes, I knew him. He was a priest who had often come to my shop to sell medicinal herbs the temple cultivated.”
The priest asked about the source of the herbs, and the old man made up a story about buying them from a wandering merchant.
“That was the only time I ever mentioned those herbs to anyone.”
“And then this trouble started…….”
“It was that priest who guided the knights here…….”
“His name was…….”
Nukata Saikufpu, the senior priest.
The youngest son of the Saikufpu Count Family, loyal servants of the Emperor, he was known from childhood to possess exceptional aptitude for Healing Magic.
“But he has never once used Healing Magic here.”
“In the Capital, they say he healed many nobles with that skill…….”
“Yet he has left no evidence of being able to use Healing Magic.”
I was moving toward the interior garden of the temple while listening to the information the priests provided.
I had donned a Concealment Cloak as a precaution, and fortunately, I encountered no one on my way to the garden.
“Priests of noble birth typically serve in the Capital or nearby regions. They rarely venture out to the periphery like this.”
“Of course, the Deste Territory is quite developed for a border city…….”
Their manner of speech was dignified, befitting clergy, yet their distrust and disapproval of the senior priest Saikufpu was unmistakably plain.
‘They’ve never directly witnessed him using Healing Magic…….’
That statement bothered me.
Reflecting on what had happened so far, there was considerable possibility that the senior priest Saikufpu’s Healing Magic was connected to demons.
‘I thought all demons were good.’
After our first visit to the Deste Territory, the image of Verity sweating over drafting a report about what had happened there was still vivid in my mind.
‘Even the demons seemed to find that matter quite grave…….’
It looked as though Verity’s report this time would be equally thick.
“By the way.”
An idle question suddenly came to mind, and I posed it almost in jest.
“Aren’t you accepting rather easily that I’m Clavis?”
“Your manner of speech is identical to the lord of the Clavis household. We’ve met him once before.”
“And besides, what good would it do to make Clavis an enemy?”
“There’s even a saying: ‘If you bare your belly before Clavis, you’ll get a funeral.’—meaning if you look good here, your life will flourish.”
“…….”
What kind of eccentrics are my family members?
‘Slightly irritated, and yet…….’
I liked it.
‘Like, I’ve suddenly got a scapegoat for all the insane things I’m about to do?’
Just as our conversation wound down, we arrived at the garden.
The garden had a humble charm that stood in stark contrast to the ornate temple building.
The peaceful atmosphere of a rural farmstead put my mind at ease.
‘Carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, corn…….’
Each carefully tended plot bore a small marker with its name.
“These are the vegetables we cultivate. Most of the priests’ food is grown here.”
“Do you grow it yourselves?”
“Farming is an essential form of practice. By laboring with our own hands, we come to understand the value of work, and we remind ourselves each day how difficult it is to nurture and tend life.”
“That’s a worthy practice.”
But I hadn’t come to the garden to admire the fields.
“The well you were looking for is over there.”
A small well near the edge of the farmland.
Saker dropped the bucket hanging from the well’s frame downward.
After what felt like three seconds, I heard a splash.
“……It’s deep.”
My voice, echoing up from the depths, came back heavy and hollow.
“It’s deep, yes, but the water level is quite high. That’s why even an adult could be in danger if they fell in.”
“I see.”
“But the well—why…….”
“We’re trying to create a miracle.”
“A miracle……?”
I stepped back from the well, the corners of my mouth curling upward.
“A well from which Holy Water springs forth.”
I let out a small, admiring breath.
“Just hearing about it sounds miraculous, doesn’t it?”
Perfect cover for a gift left behind by a descending angel.
* * *
[A well from which Holy Water springs forth. Just hearing about it sounds miraculous, doesn’t it?]
The study inside the Deste Residence.
“My, look at our young lady’s nerve.”
Verity was eavesdropping on the temple situation through the Timepiece.
‘Not even most twenty-five-year-olds would have the guts for this.’
This plan had been Hebenia’s design from the start.
“Let’s divide the roles now. Elba, you’ll head back to the village with Grandfather. And Ian…….”
After that, Elba returned to the village with the Pharmacy Owner in tow.
Hebenia had used her power to send the two off, and once again, her nose had bled.
Elba’s face had been full of concern. The other adults felt the same.
But Hebenia did not stop.
“Libi, find the children that Grandfather looked after. I think it would be good to bring those children to the village too. If they’re orphans and caught the eye of an informant…….”
The rest went unsaid, but everyone understood what Hebenia was worried about.

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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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