The Seven-Year-Old Village Chief in Exile - Chapter 62

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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 62
Hebenia and I stood before the entrance.
Ian reached out and touched the door. Unlike with Verity, it didn’t repel him.
The lock turned with a click, and an unpleasant creaking of hinges gave way to the dim interior beyond.
Contrary to the crumbling exterior, the inside revealed concrete walls painted smooth and a staircase descending into darkness.
“Both of you.”
Verity spoke.
“Go safely.”
“Yes!”
“We will return.”
I answered brightly; Ian, with his usual composure.
And we looked back at Nema.
Though she wouldn’t be coming with us, I felt no regret or longing. Ian felt the same.
Nema, for her part, neither wept nor apologized.
I spoke.
“We’re going now.”
* * *
“We’re going now.”
With those words, Hebenia and Ian descended the stairs.
……
Nema watched their retreating forms until they vanished from sight.
Hah……!
Then she exhaled the breath she’d been holding all this while and collapsed where she stood.
Gasp, heave……!
“You endured well.”
Nema was suppressing madness. Her right hand, gripping her chest, and her left, planted on the ground—both showed veins swollen with the force of her heartbeat.
Cold sweat beaded at her temples, and her eyes opened and closed repeatedly, as if in pain.
While Ian and Hebenia had wandered the courtyard,
Nema had engaged Verity in a deeper conversation.
“Are you still afraid?”
“I am. I truly…….”
“What frightens you so? Being consumed by madness?”
“That no longer frightens me.”
She no longer feared her own rampage.
Because she now held the certainty that Hebenia and the villagers would not despise her, even as madness drove her to violence.
Hebenia’s counseling had been effective.
But it had spawned a new worry.
“Who could stop me?”
……
“The moment I realized you wouldn’t be with us, I’ve been—continually—feeling joy. Even now, deep in my chest…….”
“You are suppressing it well. For now, you must hold on, and you are managing.”
“I am no longer afraid of my own nature. But what if, because of me, Hebenia or someone else gets hurt…….”
Someone being injured because of her own rampage.
That was what Nema feared most.
She had long known she was different.
Once she broke, everything in her vision turned red. Her mind, dyed white with fury, forgot all reality, and her body used that as excuse to shatter everything in sight.
And that’s when her younger sibling was hurt.
The kind younger sibling who’d only tried to help her when she was being bullied—hurt because of her.
So when Nema was dragged to the place of exile, she’d privately felt relief.
Confined for life, she could ensure the violent impulses lurking within her remained forever hidden.
“We’re going now.”
But Hebenia—
continued to trust her.
Her compassion, beyond what a seven-year-old should possess, stimulated the madness Nema had long suppressed. It whispered that it was safe to let it loose.
“……Verity.”
Nema, forcing the words out, barely managed to lift her head.
“Please, teach me how to maintain reason……!”
“That cannot be learned in a single session.”
……
“However, I can teach you a shortcut. In exchange, it will be quite painful.”
“Actually, that’s far better……!”
Because Nema was already struggling enough to suppress the madness consuming her mind.
Piling pain upon pain would only yield more of the same.
* * *
Five years prior.
The Antema Research Institute came under fierce scrutiny when inappropriate research was exposed, and shortly after, a mysterious fire forced the facility to close.
In truth, they had simply moved their equipment and records underground and continued operations without interruption.
The fire was nothing but misdirection to escape public censure.
“Sigh, it still rankles, thinking back on it.”
“Tell me about it. We had to incinerate perfectly good test subjects just to cover our tracks…….”
“Yeah, experimenting on corpses doesn’t yield much. We used to have plenty of living ones.”
“Couldn’t they at least procure something freshly dead?”
“Give it time. Once the herb supply runs short, we’ll start getting bodies that die on their own.”
“Not dead ones! Living ones!”
“These ignorant bastards are tougher than nails. It’s been nearly a month and the damned thing still hasn’t keeled over.”
“Speaking of which, who modified the undead we demonstrated today?”
“Oh, that one? Turned out beautifully.”
Drained of all ethics and morality, their vulgar conversation sprawled like idle gossip.
“…….”
From amid the cluster of white-coated researchers, someone quietly slipped away.
The man with greasy hair, his face slick with grime, clicked his tongue dismissively.
“Crude lot.”
He entered his own laboratory.
At first glance, it appeared ordinary, but two corpses—dissected and preserved countless times over—hung from the walls like ornaments.
He spared them not a glance.
“Oh, you’re awake.”
He made for a bed in the corner.
On it lay a terrified woman, her body bound tight with restraints.
“You’ve slept well, so your body should be somewhat recovered by now.”
“Mmph! Mgh!”
The woman thrashed desperately, trying to dodge the man’s reaching hand.
But bound as she was, her body merely flailed in place like a fish cast ashore.
A gag prevented any sound from escaping her lips, and only her eyes—the sole part of her still free—wept in endless streams.
The man toyed with instruments he would use for his experiment.
“Let’s see now. Our test subject worked quite long in a restaurant, from the look of things. The old saying about ignorant minds leading to exhausted bodies holds true.”
“Mgh! Mmph!”
“Not that I mean any disrespect. I’ve noticed that successfully conditioned undead obey only commands related to what they did in life—occupations, especially physical labor.”
“……!”
The woman’s eyes widened in horror.
“Ah, interested in the research?”
The man leered.
Reflected in her enlarged eyes was not only the man approaching with a syringe, but something else besides.
“Close your eyes!”
At the sharp command, the woman reflexively shut them.
Thud.
“Urgh……!”
A dull sound followed—a heavy body collapsing to the floor.
“Keep them closed. It’s not a pleasant sight.”
A child’s voice, gentle and warm, soothed the terrified woman. Even with her eyes shut, tears continued to fall steadily at the kindness in that tone.
“You can open them now.”
When she cautiously opened her eyes, she saw a young girl, her appearance matching her voice, smiling warmly down at her.
Striking first were her eyes—a deep, vibrant green like a summer barley field.
But her hair was a soft, gentle hue, the color of ripened wheat in autumn.
Beside the child stood a man.
The black-haired man wiped the blood from his blade with indifference, then sheathed it.
He kicked the corpse of the Researcher sprawled on the floor, shoving it under the desk. Blood pooled darkly where the body had lain.
“You’re safe now. We’ve come to rescue you.”
The gag binding the woman’s mouth was soon unfastened.
The man helped support her body as she struggled to move.
“Take your time rising.”
“You don’t appear to be seriously injured, but drink this just in case.”
The woman, freed from her bindings, slowly drank the blue-green potion the girl offered her.
Strength flowed back into her body as if by magic. The bruises from the rope marks began to fade gradually.
The girl, Hebenia, asked gently.
“Do you think you can talk now?”
The woman nodded.
“Were you brought here alone?”
“I… I was alone, but…”
“There are other victims?”
“In the basement. Deeper than this level…!”
She didn’t know the exact location, but she’d seen others who’d been taken like her.
The woman was desperate not to leave out anything she’d witnessed, and despite her fear, she spoke with remarkable clarity.
“I think it was the deepest basement. The place where I was held didn’t have walls like these—it was more like a cavern dug straight into the earth.”
“What level?”
“Underground Level 4.”
“How many people total?”
“Six of us, including me. Three men and three women. Two of the women are children.”
“Havi.”
Ian called out to Hebenia.
It was a shortened name they used instead of her real one, to keep her identity hidden.
Hebenia nodded.
‘It matches the number of victims we just rescued.’
Hebenia and Ian had dealt with ten Researchers on the way here and rescued five victims. Two of them were children, slightly older than Hebenia herself.
‘Just as I thought—he’s not stopping at one.’
Hebenia caught sight of the Researcher’s corpse shoved beneath the desk and swallowed a curse.
‘May you find no peace even in death.’
May you fall into hell and suffer eternally.
Hebenia and Ian led the rescued victim to another location.
The other victims they’d rescued earlier were gathered there.
They wept openly, genuinely relieved to find one another safe.
Hebenia cast a Protective Barrier around the space where the victims were sheltering.
“We’ll be back as soon as we’re finished, so wait here until then.”
“We’re leaving food and water. Don’t worry. We will return, I promise you.”
“This barrier will hold even if the building collapses.”
“Um, um…!”
The woman they’d rescued last spoke up.
“Who… who are you…?”
She couldn’t quite finish asking why they’d saved her.
Hebenia smiled faintly at that incomplete question and answered.
“The village chief!”
* * *
To be honest with myself.
‘I wavered right up until the moment I set foot in the institute.’
Could I really kill someone?
But that turned out to be an unnecessary worry.
“Experiments with corpses alone don’t yield good results. We used to have plenty of living subjects.”
“Just wait a bit longer. Once our herb supply picks up, the weak ones will start dying off.”
“These ignorant wretches are tough as nails. It’s been nearly a month and they’re still hanging on.”
All that painful deliberation about universal human values, about the prohibition on murder—all for creatures like these that barely qualified as human.
I killed every last one of them.
No.
‘… I tried to.’
In the end, it was Ian who actually did the killing.
The moment I sealed off their breathing with my ability, Ian drew his blade with practiced precision, as if he’d been waiting for exactly this.
His eyes were ice-cold as he severed their lives without hesitation, and that coldness frightened me.
But Ian didn’t offer excuses—didn’t say he’d dirty his hands for my sake, or that I was too young to commit murder.
“There’s a problem with your method, Havi.”
“Problem?”
“It takes too long. It’s inefficient.”

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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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