The Seven-Year-Old Village Chief in Exile - Chapter 64

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 64
The man descended from the platform as though this entire space belonged to him alone, moving without hesitation.
Frankly, he looked insufferable.
But the moment he extended his right hand to the side and drew a long spear from thin air—
“……!”
Ian quickly unsheathed his sword, and I tensed my right hand, ready to use my ability at any moment.
The man smiled at us with contempt, as though we were beneath notice.
“The little Clavis Household—so pathetic up close.”
He stopped just short of the protective barrier, smirking.
‘……An insufferable creature, and beautiful too.’
Do all demons possess such looks?
Demon Necro.
The worst sort of filial impiety—he’d struck his father from behind just before the man’s promotion and simply threw him into the Han River so thoroughly that he was never found.
True to the nature of demons, Necro’s eyes were a shade of yellow as well.
But the color was cleaner and sharper than that of a Demon Lord Rank or Verity’s.
‘Similar to that so-called general demon I saw at the Deste Estate?’
Yet he displayed the contemptuous smugness of a petty man to an even greater degree.
Necro spewed cruel words as though determined to wound me.
“That arrogant, insufferable Clavis Household—why would they abandon a mere child and vanish like that?”
“…….”
“Acting as though nothing in the world frightened them, could it be that the Emperor did?”
“…….”
“Frightened enough to abandon a child and flee?”
“…….”
“Well, what use could you be but deadweight? I’d abandon and run too. Ha, and after all that doting on the youngest, throwing them into such a worthless forest…….”
Snap—!
The demon’s head fell with a soft thud.
* * *
The demon’s severed head rolled until it struck the protective barrier.
“Wow, you’ve got some skill.”
Hebennia’s characteristic, taunting voice pierced the silence.
“Making me angry.”
Her face was hidden behind her hair, bound in two thick braids, but Ian knew exactly what expression she wore.
Thanks to his recently sharpened vision, he could see Hebennia’s face clearly reflected in the yellow eyes of the headless demon.
She was smiling.
Quite joyfully.
Yet with unmistakable fury.
Just as he’d seen once before in the head of Clavis Household.
“Be grateful to me. I disposed of that useless ornament for you. Ordinarily you’d have to pay to dump large waste—I did it for free.”
‘Again……!’
The oppressive weight he’d felt in the Village Hall Underground Prison descended upon Ian’s shoulders—no, heavier than before, almost reverential in its suffocation.
He immediately braced his knees against the sensation of collapse.
He was so tense that he could vividly feel beads of sweat forming at his temples, one by one.
His mind accepted his fear of Hebennia as entirely natural.
And yet.
‘Something’s wrong.’
There was one thing that troubled him.
“Ugh, guh……!”
Ian’s brow furrowed as he watched the groaning demon.
‘His neck is severed…….’
Why was he still alive?
And there was no blood flowing at all.
It was as clean as a toy doll’s head simply popping off.
“Guh, keeeeh, uh, uhhehehehe……!”
Gahahaha! Kehehehe!
The demon’s shrieking laughter reverberated dizzily through the space. Amid the echoing cackle, the demon Necro’s lips twisted into a leering grin.
In that instant.
With a sharp whistle through the air, the demon’s spear flew and pierced straight through the protective barrier.
“Hebennia!”
Ian threw his arms around her and rolled them both across the ground.
The spear shot past the spot where the two had been standing and embedded itself in the wall behind them with a piercing whistle.
The wall where the spear struck crumpled inward as though hit by an artillery shell.
Ian couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
‘How is this… how is any of this possible…?’
Hebennia’s Protective Barrier could withstand even a demon’s merciless grip with ease.
Yet it shattered from a single spear. It made no sense.
“It’s not just any spear.”
The demon Necro’s laughter twisted his features. His severed head was now cradled in the hands of his approaching body.
“It’s the Divine Spear, imbued with divine nature.”
“Divine… nature…?”
“To you humans, they’re called ‘Holy Relics’—or perhaps the term ‘Savior’s Relic’ sounds more familiar.”
……
Savior’s Relics.
Artifacts said to hold the power of the divine.
Among them, the Savior’s Relics meant weapons and treasures that God Himself had granted directly to the Savior.
‘I knew the National Religion Central Temple kept relics, but I thought such things were nothing but farfetched legend…!’
Yet it had been real all along.
“No matter how exceptional the great Clavis Household may be, in the end you’re still merely human.”
The spear Necro had just thrown was back in his hand, reattached to his reassembled form.
“Well then.”
Necro’s grin widened.
“Shall we begin again?”
Something blindingly white shot forward and snatched Ian up.
“Ugh!”
Slammed against the wall in an instant, Ian coughed blood and groaned.
“Ian!”
“Now, now, where do you think you’re going?”
The demon blocked Hebennia’s path as she rushed forward.
“How touching—you two look just like siblings.”
Before Ian’s struggling eyes, a cascade of brilliant golden hair fell like a curtain.
“Except you’re not actually family, are you?”
A beauty with snow-white skin and scarlet lips fluttered white wings.
“…You’ve had cosmetic work done?”
“Inferior creatures like you have such base aesthetic standards.”
When Ian kicked to create distance, the angel obligingly withdrew.
Her leather top left her cleavage exposed, paired with impossibly tight leather pants and heels so high they looked one wrong step away from disaster.
Conservative by nature, Ian furrowed his brow and spat out the saliva pooling in his mouth.
“I worry my younger siblings might dress like you. It’s unsightly.”
“Are you the eldest son? All authority and no ability?”
“I’m the lowest in the hierarchy. No authority whatsoever—just the siblings’ punching bag.”
“Yeah, that tracks.”
“I was thinking about what souvenir to buy, but now that’s settled.”
Ian pushed himself away from the wall and recovered his footing.
Slowly, he drew his blade from the sheath at his waist.
“A pillow would be nice. One with plenty of feathers.”
The moment the angel saw the darkly gleaming blade, her brow furrowed in displeasure.
“You……”
……
“So you weren’t an ordinary human after all.”
“Does it appear that way?”
“Where did you get that sword?”
“I couldn’t say.”
Ian tightened his grip on the blade and lowered his stance slightly.
Bang—!
In a flash, Ian’s sword and the angel’s wing collided.
“Ugh!”
The one who cried out was the angel.
She retreated a step, biting her lip as her eyes narrowed with venom toward Ian.
“A mere worm that crawls on the ground—that’s all you are!”
“Your insults barely register.”
Ian lunged into the Angel’s embrace and swung his blade. With a sharp whistle, a red line bloomed across the Angel’s shoulder.
“Ugh!”
The Angel clutched at the bleeding wound with one hand.
“I’ll kill you!”
“Usually the ones who say that die first.”
“If only your mouth would shut!”
“My sister taught me that line!”
Ian and the Angel’s battle had begun.
* * *
“Kekeke, you’ve finally met your match, little Angel.”
Bang! Bang bang!
Successive explosions erupted as pale smoke billowed upward.
The Demon grinned wickedly, brandishing the Divine Spear in both hands.
The smoke cleared in an instant, revealing Hebennia huddled within a Protective Barrier.
“Oh, you dodged it?”
“Huff, huff…!”
She forced her ragged breathing under control and extended her right hand.
“Not a chance!”
The Demon thrust the spear forward with all his might. The Protective Barrier shattered uselessly again, and Hebennia rolled her arm back, slipping away from the strike.
Then, as if in response, dozens of swords erupted from the ground like bamboo shoots.
“Gasp!”
Hebennia quickly sealed the gap between the swords and her body, erecting a fresh Protective Barrier.
But the recoil sent her tumbling across the floor.
“The great Clavis Household, fleeing like a dog with its tail between its legs!”
The Demon, eyes half-rolled back with laughter, deliberately missed Hebennia to prolong his cruel sport.
“Where’s that momentum you showed before?”
Drunk on the superiority of toying with the Clavis Household—whom even the greatest lords could not overpower—he lost himself in ecstasy.
It was precisely this arrogance that kept Hebennia breathing.
In fact, she was dodging quite skillfully.
‘Some of those were genuine attempts…’
She had barely managed to evade attacks vicious enough to claim limbs, but she had evaded them nonetheless.
‘Even young, a Clavis is still a Clavis.’
Yet while she avoided fatal wounds, her body bore countless minor cuts and gashes.
And her stamina was draining rapidly from the endless strain of dodging relentless assaults.
Weapons rained down again from all sides, and Hebennia raised Protective Barriers without respite.
‘Verity, when I get out of here, I won’t let this slide!’
How was any seven-year-old supposed to endure this trial?
‘Even a twenty-five-year-old couldn’t manage this!’
Block the rain of weapons, and the Demon would shatter her barrier with the spear. Now he didn’t even grant her that moment—he pressed his assault without pause.
Without a moment to breathe, without a chance to recover.
The instant her only weapon and defense—the Protective Barrier—proved useless, her vision went black.
‘Think! Come on, think!’
A twenty-five-year-old prodigy trapped in a seven-year-old’s body!
‘…Goddammit!’
Yet even the great Hebennia could find no composure in such circumstances.
‘Is this what a butler’s supposed to do? In novels and manga, butlers carry their young mistress everywhere—her feet never touching the ground!’
Our butler is rolling the young lady around like a ragdoll, for God’s sake!
“That Necro fellow seems quite well-matched with you, Miss.”
“Well-matched, you say?”
“Well, to be precise—advantageous and disadvantageous at once?”
“Do Demons suffer from some curse that makes them weaker when explanations are simplified?”
Both advantageous and disadvantageous at once.
How could two contradictory terms possibly coexist?
What did advantageous even mean in this context?
‘Any idiot can see this is disadvantageous right now.’
The Demon’s ability—Storage—allowed him to draw forth weapons and tools kept in some unseen reservoir and wield them freely.
‘And it’s exactly like a mole-whacking game…!’
Wait.
Could it be…?
“Your mind’s wandering, isn’t it?”
The Demon that had crept close suddenly lashed out with a vicious kick aimed at Hebennia.
In the same breath, it raised the Divine Spear high and brought it crashing down. It wanted to shatter any Protective Barrier she might summon before it could take hold.
“The Emperor said I just need to keep you breathing! So it doesn’t matter if you get hurt, does it? Damn, it’s so fun watching something this weak whimper and cry in pain……!”
What?
The Demon’s body wavered, even as it laughed with eyes rolled back.
‘What is this?’
For a moment it wondered if its head had come loose again, and reached up to touch its neck.
But its head was still firmly attached.
Yet in that instant, having lost its balance, the Demon toppled backward onto its haunches.
The Divine Spear slipped from its grasp with a thunderous clang.
Its pupils went vacant in a heartbeat.
“…….”
Hebennia wiped the blood trickling from her nose with the back of her hand, utterly unmoved.
Then she flexed her blood-stained fingers.
“Get up, vermin.”
Hebennia smiled, a thin smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth.
“Now let’s fight properly.”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————