The Seven-Year-Old Village Chief in Exile - Chapter 44

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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 44
Elba, Ian, and Verity stepped into the iron cage.
I naturally tried to follow them in, but Ian pushed me back with a stern voice, telling me to wait outside.
“What’s so good about it that you want to watch up close?”
“Just do as Ian says. That’s how people in power work—they make their subordinates do the dirty business while they watch comfortably from a distance.”
In the end, I watched the Truth Serum administration from outside the cage, alongside the dogs.
Ian and Verity each grabbed one of the Saicfu Clan’s high priest’s arms and pressed down hard on his thighs with their feet.
In that moment, Elba skillfully fed him the Truth Serum.
“N-no! Stop it! Let go of—”
“It’s fine. It’s a good medicine when you take it. Of course, good for us.”
“He’s resisting quite a bit. Should I break something, Elba?”
“Never mind. Just hold his throat like this, and every time I pour the medicine, gently stroke downward—”
“Gack! Cough—”
“There we go. Not a single drop spilled, and he swallowed it all!”
“…You seem rather experienced at this, if I may say so?”
Ian marveled, and Elba flushed with embarrassment.
“I used to feed bitter medicine to children this way when they refused to take it. Their parents were thrilled, but the children absolutely hated it.”
That’s why the village children had called her the “witch who handles poison.”
‘Now I understand why the aptitude for “Pharmacist Who Whispers of Death” emerged.’
Ian and Verity’s expressions weren’t so different from mine either.
‘In any case, he’s taken the Truth Serum.’
I moved closer to the cage’s bars.
My eyes met those of the Saicfu Clan’s high priest, who was coughing repeatedly, his upper body heaving.
‘His eyes have gone a bit glassy.’
The Truth Serum impaired brain function, lowering judgment and self-control.
‘That’s why Elba mentioned the side effects of Truth Serum are dangerous.’
In the worst cases, she said it inflicted such severe damage to the brain that daily life became impossible.
‘I should hurry and ask.’
From my perspective, the Saicfu Clan’s high priest was truly a wicked villain, but I wasn’t about to inflict side effects so terrible he’d suffer for the rest of his life.
‘And I honestly don’t want to deal with the cleanup either.’
I pulled out the questions I’d prepared beforehand, one by one.
“What’s your name?”
“Nukata Saicfu…”
“Family name?”
“Saicfu…”
“Age and gender?”
“Thirty-three. Male…”
Following what Verity had taught me, I started with simple biographical information.
“The foundation of interrogation is easing tension. Pressure is important, but you must make the subject let their guard down without realizing it.”
“When you get to the main questions, don’t ask directly. One method is to break down the Five W’s one by one. For instance…”
When.
“You went to meet the Deste Estate employee, didn’t you? When was it?”
“Ten days ago…”
Who.
“Who did you go with? You didn’t go alone, did you?”
“The… the Tower Master and I…”
What.
“What did you two do at the Deste Estate? Kiss?”
“The dead… the employees… turned them into Undead…”
How.
“But you’re just an ordinary priest. You shouldn’t be able to use such an enormous ability. You don’t seem to have Holy Magic either.”
“A stone… imbued with power…”
“Power?”
“A summoned… Angel…”
Where.
“Where was that made?”
“The… Research…”
“The one that burned down?”
“Ugh… argh—!”
For the first time, the Saicfu Clan’s high priest showed an abnormal reaction, having answered slowly but without hesitation until now.
“Elba!”
“It’s not a side effect of the Truth Serum. This is……!”
“A Geas has been placed on him.”
Verity examined the Saicfu Clan’s high priest with a hardened gaze.
Ian narrowed one eye.
“A Geas?”
“A spell that prevents someone from revealing specific words or information.”
“Such magic exists?”
“Demons have it.”
……
“From my perspective, this just means more work and I’m furious about it, but for the villagers, it’s actually quite fortunate.”
Verity said this while looking at me.
“It’s strictly forbidden even among demons. As you can see, it’s cruel, and easily abused.”
In the worst cases, a Geas is placed on the victim and their memories are erased.
Because there were many instances of innocent victims created this way in the past, demons have forbidden and sealed this magic entirely.
“Then…….”
I glanced at the high priest of the Saicfu Clan.
It seemed the Geas placed on him was related to information about the Research Facility.
‘The information about creating Undead and the Angel-related details seem to have just barely escaped the Geas’s reach.’
The priest was struggling to breathe, letting out continuous gasping, pained sounds. The veins bulging from his dry neck expressed his agony vividly.
“We’ll need to narrow down which demons currently summoned to this world could have access to this Geas magic.”
Verity nodded at my words.
“I think we should stop the interrogation here. Any further pressing and he really will die. I can see him starting to convulse as it is.”
“Goodness, I went through all the trouble of making the Truth Serum so I wouldn’t kill him……!”
The high priest of the Saicfu Clan must have genuinely believed he was riding a red arrow pointing sharply upward, a symbol of his life’s ascent.
But what this fool was actually riding was a blue arrow that didn’t just break through the floor—it plunged straight down through the earth’s core.
‘Your stock was doomed from the start.’
I was too appalled to even curse.
* * *
To put it plainly.
The high priest of the Saicfu Clan did not die.
“That idiot didn’t reveal all the information, so the Geas activation stopped midway. The bastard got lucky.”
“Is that lucky?”
“I’m useless with magic. If the Geas had activated properly, there’d be nothing I could do.”
Verity mentioned a past incident where he’d tried to save someone once and ended up killing the prisoner instead, letting out a cheerful “Ehehe” and winking with one eye.
An irritated Hepenia jabbed the demon hard in the ribs.
Hepenia, Ian, and Verity sat side by side on a long bench set up in front of the Village Meeting Hall, sucking on lollipops.
They were strawberry milk flavored candies, a gift from the bleached demon who had visited before.
The sky was blue, and beneath their chair, Poppy and Chuchu were in the throes of passion.
“Elba said.”
Hepenia asked with a slight lisp.
“She’s going to reformulate the Truth Serum based on today’s results.”
“The high priest of the Saicfu Clan will probably die with his stomach bursting.”
“That would be inconvenient…….”
Hepenia propped one elbow on her knee and rested her chin in her palm.
Before her gaze—worn and dark for a seven-year-old—the village landscape stretched out like a watercolor painting, particularly vivid beneath the unusually brilliant sunlight.
“That man still has uses. It would be a problem if he died.”
“You seem to have thought of another clever way to use him.”
“Hepenia, you…….”
Ian’s words trailed off completely.
Ian, who had been rolling his eyes uncertainly, exhaled lightly and then spoke again, his voice carrying more force than before.
“……Doesn’t thinking about things like that give you a headache?”
“Things like that?”
“Actually, I was a bit startled back in the prison.”
Each time Ian spoke, the white lollipop stick caught between his lips moved back and forth.
Apparently finding it uncomfortable, Ian frowned and finally pulled the candy from his mouth.
“When you were pressing the priest. Honestly, I was a little scared.”
Ian spoke as if he were making a confession in a confessional.
Hepenia asked.
“Are you disappointed?”
“No.”
Ian’s denial was firm.
“If I were disappointed, would I be sitting here next to you so calmly, sucking on a lollipop? I’m not brave or cunning enough for that.”
“Fair point.”
“That’s true of you.”
At the agreement that followed, Ian let out a hollow laugh.
Hepenia, who had stiffened, smiled faintly in turn.
“Originally, this should be something we handle…….”
“Whoever can do it should do it. Well, it’s only possible because I’m not an ordinary seven-year-old.”
“…….”
It wasn’t just a problem of today.
Hepenia had always been that way.
Starting with rescuing the others from the guards, she had protected and cared for people while wearing down her own body.
Ian had long wrestled with this problem.
And when he’d discussed it with Rivi, Rivi had said that all the more reason they should set the right example.
‘But…….’
That alone wouldn’t suffice.
‘The circumstances surrounding us are terrible and cruel. If we only make righteous choices, spouting morality and conscience, we’ll end up on the receiving end. We’ll die.’
Even now, the Emperor sought to seize her—no, Hepenia—into his grasp.
And each time they clashed with the Emperor, Hepenia would bleed again.
When he thought of that young Village Master casually wiping her nosebleed while saying it was nothing, he felt so nauseated by his own helplessness he could barely stand it.
‘Elba must have felt the same thing then.’
In the face of her as she hurried away, saying she’d improve the Truth Serum, he could see the same anguish and resolve that weighed on him now.
Perhaps the improved Truth Serum she would create this time would deliberately carry severe side effects. She, too, had steeled herself to dirty her own hands.
“……Torture.”
That was the same for Ian.
“I’ll handle it, so you just make the decisions.”
“……What?”
Hepenia, who had been playfully bickering with Verity, turned around with a startled expression.
Verity was equally startled.
Ian met their stares directly—both looking as if they couldn’t believe he would say such a thing.
“When it’s necessary, you do it. We’re past the point of choosing our methods.”
“But, um, that…….”
“And if you ever decide someone absolutely must be killed and there’s no way around it, don’t hesitate—tell me.”
“…….”
“I’ll kill them for you, no matter who.”
Having spoken his cruel resolve aloud, Ian found himself enveloped in a strange feeling.
He felt the heavy discomfort that had been pressing on his chest until now vanish like a lie.
‘At last.’
Morality and conscience.
Those had been convictions of utmost importance to Ian when he was a knight.
‘But I’ve kept letting that child suffer alone in the name of upholding my convictions. That’s what’s really eating away at my principles.’
Ian put another lollipop in his mouth.
‘To uphold my convictions, I abandon them…….’
Crack.
He bit down hard with his molars on the lollipop that had shrunk from sucking.
The strawberry milk flavor, tasting far sweeter than before, was exquisite.
* * *
‘……What is this guy misunderstanding?’
Ian must have meant his confession seriously enough, but from my perspective, the situation was terribly awkward.
‘I just happen to enjoy tormenting bad people and crushing their spirits…….’
When those wretches, finally realizing their place, looked up at me with eyes trembling in indignation, there was nothing quite so thrilling.

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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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