Youngest on Top - Chapter 42

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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 42

Helene flinched and looked toward Ilay.
Ilay was smiling.
It appeared sweet at first glance, but it was a smile that carried a sense of distance.

Edmund also added his comment with indifference.

“By the way, which house did you say you were from? I’ve never heard of it.”

Helene’s face showed panic.

“What? I, I am…!”
“Ah, you don’t need to answer. I don’t remember houses that are beneath my notice.”

‘Hmm? Is Edmund deliberately speaking informally?’

He was originally the type to look down on others with arrogance, but he wasn’t one to speak informally to a Sacred Maiden from another temple.
He valued propriety too much for that.

Edmund’s current attitude sounded as though discourtesy wasn’t something only I was guilty of.

Dmitri didn’t even glance in Helene’s direction.
He simply approached me and began examining me from every angle.

“By the way, honey bun, why do you look like that?”
“Huh?”
“You’ve been looking like a squashed bun ever since you arrived at the Trainee Priest Quarters. Did someone bother you?”

Saying that, he grabbed my cheeks with both hands and rubbed them vigorously.
My cheeks compressed, and I let out a groan.

‘You’re the one squashing me!’

Dmitri was unexpectedly perceptive in these situations.
I was seething with anger because of the rotten meat.
I had tried not to show it in front of the children, but somehow he saw right through me.

In any case, Dmitri’s cheek pressed against mine, and my lips puckered out like a crucian carp’s.
Seeing my pathetic state, Ilay and Edmund approached as well.

“You really do look like a squashed bun.”

Edmund stifled a laugh,

“Stop it.”

Ilay seemed to be restraining them both, but his eyes were crinkled with amusement at my fish-like appearance.

Everyone was completely ignoring the Sacred Maiden.

Helene bit her lip and twisted the hem of her skirt.
As though experiencing such humiliation for the first time, she trembled visibly.

Well, that made sense.
Since becoming the Sacred Maiden, she had never received such treatment.

The Reyatan children watching her reaction suddenly erupted.

“How dare you ignore the Sacred Maiden’s words?”
“You’re being disrespectful to the Sacred Maiden—are you out of your minds?!”
“Bow down and apologize this instant!”
“Show proper reverence to the Sacred Maiden!”

As those children squawked, Dmitri snorted derisively.

“The Reyatan children are idiots.”
“What did you say?”
“She’s your Sacred Maiden, not ours. Why should we revere her?”
“You—!”

Edmund, who always countered Dmitri’s remarks as nonsense, raised an eyebrow.

“That’s not wrong this time.”
“You bastards—!”
“Ah, you’re jealous because you don’t have a Sacred Maiden of your own, aren’t you?”

Dmitri burst out laughing with a puff.

“Will you do it?”
“This bastard really…!”

The children’s atmosphere began to sharpen once more.

That’s when it happened.
Helene clapped her hands sharply.

“Stop it! Don’t fight because of me….”

Helene looked at the children with a sorrowful expression.

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

Then she approached me and bent her knees lightly.
The girl who kindly met my gaze spoke.

“You must be upset thinking you’re losing your older brothers, hmm? It’s alright since you’re still young.”
“That’s not it. (It’s not that.)”

Though I denied it, Helene smiled gently as if she understood everything.

“But you can’t do that. You shouldn’t sow discord between people, can you?”

Sow discord?
It sounded as though I had deliberately made the children fight.

“You need to conduct yourself with dignity. Aren’t you a member of the Temple, no matter how young?”
“….”
“There’s no child this young in the Temple, so I understand you’re accustomed to receiving special treatment.”
“….”
“But if you only whine and act spoiled, you’ll become a child everyone dislikes. Everyone will hate you.”

Helene smiled brightly as she said this.

“I’m telling you all this because I care about you.”

‘What is this?’

She was speaking as if offering wise counsel, but it was complete nonsense.

All I had done was correct Helene’s words.
She was laying groundwork to exclude the children.

It was Ilay, Edmund, and Dmitri who had actually clashed with the Reyatan children.
Yet she was speaking as if I had orchestrated all of it, conveniently leaving out the boys.

Helene placed a gentle hand over her chest and wore a soft expression.

“I truly wish to get along well with everyone from Artemisia.”
“….”
“Reyatan genuinely desires harmony with Artemisia.”

Oh, is that so?
I lifted the corners of my mouth in a bitter smile.

“Then why did you bring rotten meat?”

A sudden silence fell over the Trainee Priest Quarters.
Helene, who had been quiet for a moment, widened her eyes.

“Rotten meat? What do you mean by that?”

Her expression was innocent, appearing completely blameless.
But I saw it.

The moment I said “rotten meat,” I caught the slight twitch at the corner of Helene’s lips.
The other children couldn’t even hide their smirks.

‘They all know.’

Seeing the reactions of the Reyatan trainees made it certain.

They had deliberately brought the rotten meat.
And the children knew about this entire scheme!

At first, I thought it was just the scheming of worn-out, corrupt adults.
But these brats were in on it too.

‘Then I don’t need to hold back either.’

They dared to feed rotten meat to our children?

* * *

While the children were occupied, a conference was underway among the adults.
After the conference ended, the Priesthood who heard the news rushed into the kitchen.

“This is….”

When they opened the box, the condition was exactly as terrible as they’d heard.

Spoiled meat reeking of a putrid stench.
Vegetables rotted and completely mushy.
By any measure, it was food that could never be eaten.

In that moment, the words spoken by the Reyatan Priesthood during the conference came to mind.

“We’ve brought all the meat and food provisions ourselves, so surely you wouldn’t serve our guests dried grass or stale, hardened bread, would you?”
“Haha, what are you saying? Surely the esteemed Artemisia Temple wouldn’t do such a thing?”
“Yes! Would we really hide what we brought and serve our guests such garbage?”
“Even if someone had never tasted fine food and harbored greed for it, they wouldn’t stoop to that level.”

Words exchanged as if deliberately meant to be heard.
Now I finally understood why they’d been so sarcastic about the food provisions.

“Ah. So that’s what this was.”
“Those rotten bastards. We should mix all of this together and shove it down their throats!”

Such an insult.
How could they bring completely rotten food as a gift!
What must they think of Artemisia!

The Priesthood clenched their teeth.
Rage surged within them, but damage control took priority now.

“There’s no way around it. We’ll have to discard this beef and vegetables entirely and use the lamb we prepared beforehand instead—.”
“If you serve lamb, I’ll repeat everything I said at the council meeting right in front of the distinguished guests!”

Tomorrow, in front of the distinguished guests, I would say exactly that.

‘We brought premium, expensive beef so we could dine together. So why are you serving us mutton that reeks?’
‘Are you hiding away the beef we brought?’

Of course, all the lamb prepared by Artemisia was of excellent quality.

But it was strange not to use the ingredients the guests had specifically brought for the banquet.
The guests would find it suspicious too.

“Let’s tell the distinguished guests about this. Tell them we deliberately brought rotten meat to insult us.”
“What good would that do?”

Sirius Elder cut off the conversation with a cold voice.

“Reyatan will jump up and deny it.”
“But still——!”
“Who will the distinguished guests believe?”

The priesthood fell silent.

[A temple notorious for being poor hoarded premium beef.]
[Priests brought rotten meat as a gift to the Harmony Council Chairman. Food that the distinguished guests might even eat.]

It was obvious which story sounded more credible.

“It would seem more plausible that Artemisia hid the meat away….”
“Right. Even if they believe our words, it’s still a problem.”
“Yes, no distinguished guest would want scandal to arise at the festival.”
“Controversy will erupt and we’ll all be torn apart together.”
“Sigh….”
“Even if we brought rotten meat, displaying it in front of the distinguished guests would make it look like we deliberately created a scandal.”
“Then what do we do about this?”

I couldn’t cook this.
I couldn’t serve the lamb that Artemisia had originally prepared either.

Sirius Elder furrowed his brow and murmured.

“…From now on, we have no choice but to procure beef in multiples and prepare it. We’ll need to prepare the same amount of vegetables as well.”

That would double our costs.
On top of that, there was the problem of whether we could even obtain the same ingredients in such a short timeframe.

“To avoid being caught, we’ll need to source the highest grade beef available….”
“It’s infuriating, but there’s no help for it.”

The Young Priest let out a heavy sigh as he spoke.

“Still, we’ll manage to catch those Reyatan fools off guard.”

He was deliberately looking at the brighter side of things.

“Weren’t they shocked when they saw our temple?”
“Yes. They were even boasting that we scraped together every coin we had to renovate the building to entice our believers.”
“Exactly. They must have thought we couldn’t afford to serve proper meat at the banquet because we’re so poor.”

Hadn’t they said as much during the council meeting earlier?
That we’d be serving dried grass and hardened bread.

“They were planning to serve us this spoiled meat and then complain about the lack of proper meat.”

To show the distinguished guests that “Artemisia is on the brink of ruin, so desperate they’d even hide gifted meat.”

“Imagine how shocked they’ll be when we serve them pristine beef.”

All this carefully laid trap was coming to nothing.
It was like throwing cold water on those who were about to raise their glasses in triumph.
Thinking about it made my mood improve somewhat.

‘Of course, we’re the ones taking the biggest loss.’

The expense was one thing, but I’d have to rush around frantically to source food ingredients immediately.

But that was when it happened.
A chick-yellow head popped up suddenly from the direction of the table where the spoiled meat box sat.

“No problem!”

It was Saelika, the youngest of the Artemisia Temple, speaking with characteristic liveliness.

The rigid expressions of the priests transformed instantly into broad smiles.
Saelika opened her eyes wide as she spoke.

“Reyatan gave us meat. Why do we need to spend money to buy more meat?”
“Well… Sae, this meat is in a state where it cannot be eaten.”
“But Reyatan asked us to cook with this and make food.”
“What?”
“So cook with this and serve it.”

‘I would like to do that, certainly…’
‘My heart yearns to do so…’
‘But I just want to put it straight into mouths without any cooking…’

The priests sighed.

“There will be other customers. We cannot serve such food in that setting—”
“If we make the customers like it, that’s fine!”

Saelika spread her small, chubby arms wide.

“This meat.”

Make them like this meat…?

The priests looked at Saelika, wondering what she meant.

“There’s a way. It’s something we do well!”

Then several of them gasped, their eyes widening.

“Surely not!”
“Ah, yes! That method exists!”

Even the elders opened their mouths in realization.
The High Priest, who had shown no disturbance upon seeing the spoiled meat, now stared at the child with widened eyes.

“Isn’t that right, High Priest?”

As Saelika giggled, the High Priest’s expression grew hollow.

“Yes, with that method… you’re quite clever.”
“Sae did well.”

Saelika gently stroked the crown of her own head, just as the High Priest had done once before.
The High Priest flinched at the sight.

‘This is strange.’

My chest felt oddly ticklish, my fists clenched tight—a peculiar sensation…
Without realizing it, the High Priest slowly extended his hand toward the child’s crown.

But in that moment.

“My, my little blessing!”

Devon suddenly bellowed and hoisted Saelika up, shaking her back and forth.

“Oh my, well done, well done! Our little blessing! How do you manage to be so impressive every time!”
“Kyaaaah…!”

The startled Saelika squirmed, but Devon merely laughed with glee.

“Come now, let me carry you! Let me hold you! Our precious little one.”

Love, love, my love. You’re my love. My precious love. Hehehehe!

Devon nuzzled and nibbled at Saelika playfully.

“How can our little blessing’s cheeks be so soft?”

Nom, nom!
So adorable! So impressive!

“Sae’s cheeks aren’t for eating— ugh…”
“Bahahaha!”

Devon found even that endearing and chuckled heartily. But then….

‘Huh? Why is there such a chill….’

Goosebumps prickled across my skin.
It was because I could feel killing intent emanating from somewhere.

‘What is this?’

When I subtly turned my head, Sirius was glaring at me.

‘That’s the same expression he had when he found out that mad Priest had been embezzling the Temple’s already scarce funds.’

Meanwhile, Randel beside him was smiling.
But,

‘That’s not the smile he used to wear back when he had that temperament.’

It was exactly that expression when I kicked that fool’s groin and caused permanent damage to his reproductive function….

But there was an even more terrifying gaze.
It was a gaze that made me feel as though I were facing a colossal monster.

‘The, the High Priest?!’

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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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