They Say an Age Gap Like This Doesn’t Even Need Matching - Chapter 107

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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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They say an age difference of a few years doesn’t even warrant checking compatibility.
Chapter 107
Among those still clinging to life were Marquis Ramon and the Imperial Army knights, yet none dared speak a word.
Fearing the Reaper might come for me, they choked back their anguished moans.
Iserna glanced briefly at Elhart standing beside me, then turned my gaze back down toward the Empire Noble.
“So, what will you do?”
“I’ll tell you everything!”
The terror-stricken Empire Noble cried out convulsively.
“Good.”
Iserna warned with an icy expression.
“If you speak even the slightest falsehood, your fate won’t end with mere death.”
“Y-yes… I understand…!”
The nobleman, unaccustomed to pain, hastily nodded and began spilling information.
“The slave transport route… extends through this forest to the Imperial Border. When Marquis Ramon contacted us, we would come directly and conduct the transaction….”
Iserna twisted the spear tip as if urging me to continue.
“The slaves we brought… we kept only some and sent the rest upward…”
“Upward?”
At the question, the nobleman’s lips trembled as he answered.
“To the higher-ups… there’s a mandatory quota we must deliver. Recently, the numbers they demand have been increasing….”
“You have to deliver slaves? What’s the purpose?”
“I don’t know that much….”
“You don’t?”
Under Iserna’s chilling gaze, the nobleman hastily added more.
“There are conditions for delivery…! They must be young and healthy, brimming with vitality…. If they possess high mana reserves, we receive special compensation worth one hundred ordinary slaves…!”
“So there are selection criteria.”
The wretch nodded urgently.
“Yes. They cannot be too young or too old.”
The fact that vitality and mana reserves were conditions for slavery implied one singular truth.
“…Do you know where it flows to?”
“According to rumors… to the Imperial Palace….”
Iserna’s spear tip wavered.
Elhart turned to look at me.
In those wide, sky-blue eyes, cold fury roiled and surged.
It seemed as though I might freeze everything around me white or burn it all to ash in the next moment.
The startled nobleman shrank back, trembling violently.
“Tell me the names of everyone involved in this. Everything you know.”
“Y-yes….”
At Iserna’s demand, the wretch rattled off a list of nobles’ names.
As I had suspected, Marquis Libran was among them.
“From the beginning, I believe Marquis Libran from the Bardia side first proposed this supply arrangement to our superiors. Someone like me merely follows orders….”
Elhart quietly committed to memory the information that the man continued to spill forth.
“That’s all? There’s truly nothing else?”
“Everything I know… I’ve told you everything.”
Iserna, who had been studying him for a moment as if weighing truth from falsehood, lowered his spear.
The nobleman exhaled a sigh of relief, believing he would live.
He seemed unaware that with Iserna and Elhart’s identities revealed, there was no possibility of survival.
“Then, now….”
Iserna’s gaze turned toward Marquis Ramon, who had been pinned to the tree the longest.
“Your turn.”
“Ser Brin, I’ll handle the interrogation of this one.”
Iserna stared intently at Elhart as he spoke.
Then he nodded shortly after.
“Understood. I’ll take this one to the manor and return.”
“Very well.”
The Empire Noble’s manor supposedly held correspondence exchanged between the Nobility of Bardia and the Empire.
Iserna seemed intent on obtaining those documents and bringing back any remaining people from Bardia still at the manor.
Elhart inwardly thought this was fortunate.
Regardless of whether these men deserved death, he had no wish to show her the brutality of torture.
Elhart bound the Empire Noble securely and threw him into the carriage.
“Travel safely.”
“I will.”
Elhart remained standing, watching the carriage recede into the distance.
Only after it vanished completely from sight did he slowly turn his body.
Suddenly, those who had nearly been dragged away as slaves entered his vision.
Freed from despair, they were engulfed in the belated flood of relief and sorrow for those already lost.
“Your Highness.”
At that moment, the child whom Iserna had rescued approached him.
Elhart, seeing no reason to correct the improper address, quietly observed the child.
“Did the Goddess come to save us?”
Though one might expect fear from the horrors that had transpired here, the child’s eyes held light.
“You came to judge the wicked and save the good, didn’t you?”
That light was fierce hope.
It was also joy and wonder.
“I read it in a fairy tale. If you pray earnestly, a spear of light falls from the heavens to punish the wicked.”
Elhart gently stroked the child’s head as they spoke of their unwavering faith and devoted prayers.
“You speak the truth.”
A soft smile bloomed at his lips.
Bathed in sacred light, she truly resembled a goddess.
One who heard the prayers of those groaning in agony and descended into this world to save them.
‘There’s no falsehood in that.’
She had saved him.
And she would save Bardia.
Had I ever trusted someone so completely, yearned for them so desperately, gazed upon them so blindly?
To Elhart, Iserna was already indistinguishable from a goddess.
“The Goddess must have heard both your prayers and mine.”
The child’s face brightened.
“Did you pray too, Your Highness?”
“Of course.”
Elhart met the child’s eyes as he answered.
“I prayed without fail, every single day.”
Please, I begged anyone who would listen, help me.
I was terrified that if I collapsed, everyone standing behind me would crumble alongside me.
Death itself did not frighten me, but the thought of what would unfold after my death drove me to pray with desperate fervor.
Even as I doubted whether gods existed at all.
“I apologize for being late. But I swear I will do everything in my power to ensure this never happens again.”
Had I fought alone, this child would have been sold into slavery.
If my suspicions were correct, he would have died with his life force drained away.
Similar horrors were likely unfolding across all of Bardia, and I would always arrive too late.
Yet now I was no longer alone.
By now, the members of the Expedition Team would be rescuing people.
Before it was too late.
Before everything was lost.
And so I was no longer crushed beneath the weight of fear.
For the strongest and most beautiful castle wall across the entire continent’s history stood to protect me.
“Then please take revenge for us.”
The child clung to his blood-stained hand and whispered softly.
Though one might expect fear, the child showed no hesitation whatsoever.
“Don’t let them live. Don’t spare a single one.”
Elhart gazed into the child’s eyes.
The emotion burning within them pierced sharply into his chest.
“I will.”
He straightened the knee he had bent and rose to his full height.
“You can rest assured—I promise you this.”
The child finally smiled brightly, then returned to the adults.
Those still huddled in that spot pulled the child close and covered his eyes.
Then they gazed at him with fierce, unwavering eyes.
As if to say they would witness clearly the revenge he would exact in their stead, the punishment he would deliver.
“It will be satisfying.”
Elhart murmured low and moved forward.
Marquis Ramon, meeting his gaze, trembled with a face drained of all color.
“The resentment I carry is far too deep, far too vicious.”
A face twisted like a malevolent spirit, hands stained with cruelty beyond measure—I couldn’t bear to show her such a thing.
Elhart’s hatred toward those who had sold their nation and people knew no bounds.
“Slowly, methodically, I’ll make them pay. Until they beg for death instead.”

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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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