Chapter 14
Vasily’s face went pale.
“Kiddo!”
“Huh?”
Haniel’s head spun. Vasily hurriedly caught her as she staggered.
“What’s wrong with you? What the hell…”
“No, I-I’m fi-ne… Cough!”
“Damn it. Camilla!”
“Y-yes! Let’s get down quickly!”
Vasily flew down the mountain.
Through her blinking vision, Haniel stared at the man’s tightly clenched jaw.
I finally managed to be helpful…
Someone’s face overlapped with his.
‘I don’t like this.’
Haniel roughly wiped her nose.
‘Me getting sick, and Dad getting worried.’
In the end, becoming a bad kid who only makes everyone around her worry… I really, really hate this.
But…
Without realizing it, Haniel tightly clutched Vasily’s clothes. Vasily’s large body flinched.
Rubbing her face against his chest, Haniel thought.
‘…But still…’
Dad’s arms are warm…
She fell asleep just like that.
* * *
“It seems to be mild exhaustion.”
“Exhaustion?”
At Camilla’s words, Vasily’s eyebrow immediately twisted.
“If it’s exhaustion, why was there so much blood pouring from her nose? Did she go all the way to the afterlife and back? Maybe she even asked for a house and land there, only to get thrown out at the door.”
“Reeeally? They give you houses and land in the afterlife too?!”
Ah, my ears hurt.
Without realizing it, Vasily moved the kid far away from him.
“When did you wake up?”
“Just now! Hello!”
“…Haa.”
Haniel was sitting in his arms, her eyes wide open and sparkling.
Seeing those pink eyes, Vasily finally felt like the heart that had dropped into his stomach was slowly returning to its place.
Camilla carefully examined the child.
There was no physician here, but Camilla had basic medical knowledge and could handle emergency treatment herself.
Fortunately, the child seemed perfectly fine.
Perhaps her qi and blood had become disrupted because she’d been exposed to the mad dragon’s evil energy, even if only briefly.
Kuuuuuuung. Boom, kuuung!
Large and small earthquakes continued outside the mansion. It seemed to be the result of the sealed dragon veins opening.
Despite all that commotion, it wasn’t even midnight yet.
“…”
Vasily clenched his fist as he stared out the dark window.
Is this… for real?
Not only was Bethel Village, which had been frozen over, growing warmer, but the purified energy was flowing through the dragon veins and cleaning away the large and small traces of contamination left throughout the area.
There was no other way to describe the sight than a miracle.
And then there was Luden’s confession, which had left his mind in even more of a mess.
“…I’m sorry, Your Grace. The truth is, I never went to the south. I just roughly procured the goods from the nearby northwest, and I sold all the crystal portal passes!”
“…What?”
“I took the child to the northern mountains in exchange for her keeping quiet after she caught me… I-I never imagined it would turn out like this…”
He’d heard the whole story while coming down the mountain.
He let out a low sigh.
In truth, he’d vaguely noticed that Luden was deceiving him.
“Was it really necessary to go that far?”
The sensation he’d felt when he placed a hand on Luden’s shoulder in the warehouse.
The reaction of his trembling body.
Those were the signs of a liar.
But he didn’t want to easily suspect a comrade who had survived alongside him through countless brushes with death.
‘I thought I’d have to deal with it eventually…’
Who would’ve thought that little brat would beat him to it?
Vasily stared blankly at Haniel’s reflection in the dark window. The child was drinking warm water from Camilla like a little chick.
…I can’t take it anymore.
“Kiddo. I’d like to let you rest, but…”
He rubbed his face with his large hand and suppressed the sharp energy that had risen within him.
“Yeees?”
“Mister’s mental state is kind of falling apart right now.”
He turned toward Haniel.
“Purification. How did you do it?”
Haniel gulped down her water and opened her mouth as if she’d been waiting for the question.
“Actually, I can gather divine power. So I used that to purify it!”
“You can ‘gather’ divine power?”
“Yeees. I don’t really know why, I-I don’t know… I couldn’t use divine power at all before.”
That was how it had been in her previous life.
“Then suddenly, I could use it after coming to the north!”
“…”
Vasily exchanged glances with Camilla.
That…
Anyone could see…
‘She’s saying she awakened her divine power on the way to the north.’
Vasily and Camilla were momentarily stunned. Luden had just been sent away after being sworn to secrecy, so there were only three people in the bedroom.
Camilla looked at the child’s round profile and thought.
‘Under imperial law, if we discover a child who has awakened divine power, we have to report them to the temple.’
People with divine power were rare. Therefore, children who awakened divine power had to be handed over to the temple.
Of course, whoever handed them over would receive an enormous reward.
‘If it’s a reward from the temple… it would certainly help our household tremendously.’
Camilla suddenly became aware of the back pocket of her clothes.
There was an unsent letter in it.
‘Captain of the 2nd Holy Knights, Dantalion Klein.’
She hadn’t written a reply to him yet.
Camilla approached Vasily and quietly asked,
“…What should we do, Your Grace? A child who has awakened divine power…”
She stopped.
The look in the grand duke’s eyes, which she’d caught a glimpse of.
“…”
They were blatantly gleaming.
“…Your Grace?”
Vasily lowered his head. Soon, his shoulders began to tremble.
Heh heh heh…
A villainous laugh soon filled the bedroom.
“Y-Your Grace?”
“Ah…”
Vasily roughly rubbed around his mouth. Even so, he couldn’t stop himself from laughing.
“Who knew I could hit them this hard.”
God, are you there?
‘If you are, you’re doing a damn good job.’
He stared blankly at Haniel.
‘To roll out your blessing this openly for me.’
A ‘child with divine power,’ whom the temple cherished so dearly.
Children with divine power were rare.
Even among the few holy knight families in the empire, they appeared only once in a blue moon.
The powers of those children were special. They were fundamentally different from ordinary priests, who only gained a faint amount of divine power after years of training.
That was why they were often called blessings bestowed by God, and were regarded as promising candidates to become high-ranking priests or Class 1 holy knights in the future.
If they found out that… he had such a child in his possession, how furious would they be?
“Heh heh heh heh… They wouldn’t even give me a single proper priest.”
A strange sense of satisfaction from getting revenge filled his entire body.
‘Ah, if the emperor finds out, his insomnia is going to flare up.’
I kind of want to see that bastard’s face again after all this time…
“Housekeeper, the grand duke’s eyes look a little strange…”
“They’ve always been a little strange. Just wait a little, and he’ll become civilized again.”
“Yeees.”
By then, Camilla had moved closer to Haniel and gently stroked the round child’s head, thinking, ‘Just as I thought.’
‘He absolutely isn’t going to send the child to the temple.’
Vasily had an enormous grudge against the imperial family and the temple for abandoning him.
There was no way he’d do the temple a favor like that.
“Okay.”
Vasily took a deep breath and let it out. Then he said,
“Thrill time’s over. Now then… Camilla.”
“Yes.”
“Send a letter to Dantalion Klein.”
“…Yes?”
“Tell him there’s a baby with divine power here, so he should come take her.”
“…Yeeees?!”
“What’s with you? Why?”
“Didn’t you just go crazy with happiness at the thought of keeping the baby in the north?”
Vasily looked at the housekeeper as if she’d just said something ridiculous.
“Yeah. That’s why I said thrill time’s over. She has to go to the temple.”
“…”
“Her life’s about to turn around. If she goes to the temple, she’ll live comfortably and be well taken care of. Why would she stay here and suffer?”
“…”
“I can’t deprive her of the chance to live a good life just because I want her to stay.”
“Y-You can deprive me of it!”
Haniel suddenly jumped in.
“Please deprive me of it!!”
“What?”
Haniel’s expression became desperately anxious. Not only had Dad’s name suddenly come up, but everything was going completely differently from what she’d expected.
‘I thought they’d definitely accept me if I proved my power because they have such a huge grudge against the imperial family and the temple!!’
Why is this going so wrong?!
‘Why, why are you being so ambiguously kind?!’
Haniel grabbed Vasily and clung to him.
“I… I wanna live here! I don’t like the temple!”
“No…”
“They said, they said they make young priests undergo really harsh training there!”
Haniel blurted out whatever came to mind.
“They lock you in rooms! They yell at you to awaken more power! They say mean things!”
“The temple? There’s no way they’d do that.”
“I-It’s true… And I use divine power like this too.”
Haniel’s eyes filled with tears.
“They’ll treat me like a half-baked failure and I’ll be bullied 100% of the time! D-Do you really want me to become a problem for the temple?!”
‘Could that… be true?’
Vasily narrowed his eyes.
Come to think of it.
He’d never heard of anyone ‘gathering’ divine power to manifest it.
Besides, the truth was that he knew little about the temple’s internal affairs. It was an extremely closed institution.
How they trained priests, how they treated ‘special’ cases like Haniel…
‘Could they really treat her like a heretic…?’
It wasn’t an era when they were obsessed with purging heretics like they had been in the past, but you never knew.
While Vasily hesitated, Haniel fidgeted with her fingers and quietly said,
“If you’re really uncomfortable with breaking imperial law, I’ll go to the temple on my own when I’m ready.”
“…”
“…When I’m 16.”
Haniel mumbled,
“When I’m 16, I’ll go to the temple to train as a priest…”
“…”
Haniel’s lifespan was 16 years. By then, whether she wanted to or not, she’d have to leave this place.
“So please! Just let me stay here until then! Pleeease?”
No…
Why is she so desperate?
The child who seemed to know nothing but how to smile was speaking with tears welling up in her eyes, and Vasily’s mood strangely sank.
‘Would she really have a miserable time if she went to the temple?’
There was no way Vasily could know.
And if, just if, they really treated her like a heretic, and that tiny thing… got bullied… quietly endured it all alone… and was worked like a dog…
“Your Grace?”
He felt his eyes turn wild for an entirely different reason.14
