RTGDB 14

Chapter 14

Basil’s face went deathly pale.

“Kid!”

“Huh?”

Her head was spinning. Basil hurriedly caught Haniel as she staggered.

“What’s wrong with you? What the hell happened…?”

“No, I-I’m fi-ne… Cough!”

“Damn it. Camilla!”

“Yes, yes! We need to get down quickly!”

Basil practically flew down the mountain.

Through her blinking, hazy vision, Haniel stared at the man’s tightly clenched jaw.

She had finally been useful…

But someone else’s face overlapped with his.

‘I don’t like this.’

Haniel roughly wiped the blood from her nose.

‘I get sick, and Dad gets worried.’

In the end, she became a bad child who only caused everyone around her to worry…

She really, really hated that.

But…

Without realizing it, Haniel tightly gripped Basil’s clothes. His massive body flinched.

As she rubbed her face against his chest, Haniel thought,

‘…Still.’

Dad’s arms were warm…

And just like that, she drifted into sleep.

“I believe it’s mild exhaustion.”

“Exhaustion?”

At Camilla’s words, Basil’s eyebrow immediately twisted.

“If she’s exhausted, then why was her nose bleeding like a damn fountain? Was she visiting the afterlife or something? Maybe she went there, got offered a house and some land, and then got thrown out at the gates.”

“Reaaally? You get houses and land in the afterlife too?!”

Ah, my ears.

Without realizing it, Basil pushed the kid far away from himself.

“When did you wake up?”

“Just now! Hello!”

“…Haaah.”

Haniel was wide awake in his arms, her pink eyes sparkling.

Seeing those pink eyes, Basil finally felt as though the heart that had dropped into his stomach had begun settling back into place.

Camilla carefully examined the child.

There was no physician here, but Camilla possessed basic medical knowledge and could handle emergency treatment.

Fortunately, the child was perfectly fine.

She suspected that Haniel’s qi and blood had become temporarily disrupted because she had been exposed to the aura of the Mad Dragon, even if only briefly.

Kuuuuuuung. Boom, kuuung!

Large and small tremors continued outside the estate. It seemed to be the result of the previously sealed dragon veins opening.

And despite all that chaos, it still wasn’t even midnight.

“……”

Basil stared out into the pitch-black night beyond the window and clenched his fist.

Was this… actually real?

Not only was the frozen village of Bedel beginning to warm up, but as the purified energy flowed along the dragon veins, all the large and small traces of corruption remaining throughout the region were being cleansed.

There was no other way to explain the sight than as a miracle.

On top of that, Ruden’s confession had left his mind in turmoil.

“……I’m sorry, Your Highness. The truth is, I never went to the south. I just roughly procured the goods nearby in the northwest, and I sold all the crystal portal passes!”

“…What?”

“The kid caught me doing it, so I brought her to the northern mountains in exchange for keeping quiet……. I-I never imagined it would lead to… something like this.”

He had heard the whole story while they were coming down the mountain.

He let out a low sigh.

To be honest, he had vaguely suspected that Ruden was deceiving him.

“You’re going that far, aren’t you?”

The sensation he had felt when he placed a hand on Ruden’s shoulder in the warehouse.

The reaction of his trembling body.

Those had been signs of a liar.

But Basil hadn’t wanted to easily suspect a companion who had crossed the brink of death with him and survived this far.

‘I figured I’d have to deal with it eventually, but…’

He never imagined that the little brat would beat him to it.

Basil stared absently at Haniel’s reflection in the black window. The child was accepting the warm water Camilla gave her like a little chick.

…He couldn’t take it anymore.

“Kid. I want to let you rest, but…”

He rubbed his face with his large hand, gathering up the sharp energy that had risen within him.

“Yes?”

“Uncle’s mental state is kind of falling apart right now.”

He turned toward Haniel.

“How did you purify everything?”

Haniel gulped down her water, then opened her mouth as though she had been waiting for the question.

“Actually, I can gather divine power. So I used that to purify everything!”

“You can ‘gather’ divine power?”

“Yes. I-I don’t really know why either……. I couldn’t use anything like divine power before.”

At least, that had been the case in her previous life.

“But after I came to the north, I suddenly became able to use it!”

“……”

Basil exchanged a look with Camilla.

That…

Anyone could see what it meant.

‘She awakened her divine power on the way to the north.’

Basil and Camilla were both momentarily stunned. Ruden had just been sent out 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’re supposed to report them to the temple.’

People who possessed divine power were rare. Therefore, any child who awakened divine power had to be handed over to the temple.

Naturally, the person who turned them in would receive an enormous reward.

‘The temple’s reward would certainly… be a tremendous help to our household.’

Camilla suddenly became conscious of the back pocket of her dress.

There was an unsent letter inside.

‘The Second Holy Knight Commander, Dantellion Klein.’

She had yet to write a reply to him.

Camilla approached Basil and quietly asked,

“…What should we do, Your Highness? A child who has awakened divine power…”

She stopped.

The Grand Duke’s eyes, which she had caught a glimpse of—

“……”

They were practically bulging out of his head.

“…Your Highness?”

Basil lowered his head. Soon, his shoulders began to tremble.

Heh heh heh…

A villainous laugh soon filled the bedroom.

“Y-Your Highness?”

“Ah…”

Basil roughly rubbed around his mouth. But he couldn’t stop himself from laughing.

“To think I can hit them this hard with one move.”

God.

Are you there?

‘If you are, you’re doing a damn good job.’

He stared at Haniel.

‘You’re really handing me this blessing on a silver platter.’

A child who possessed divine power—the kind the temple treasured above all else.

Children with divine power were exceedingly rare.

Even among the few holy knight families in the Empire, such children appeared only once in a blue moon.

Their power was extraordinary. It was fundamentally different from that of ordinary priests, who could only acquire a faint amount of divine power after years of training.

That was why such children were called blessings bestowed by the gods, and they were highly anticipated as future high-ranking priests or First-Class Holy Knights.

If they knew that he had such a child in his possession…

How badly would their stomachs churn?

“Heh heh heh heh……. They wouldn’t even give me a single decent priest.”

A strange sense of satisfaction, as though he had finally gotten his revenge, took over his entire body.

‘Ah, if the Emperor finds out, his insomnia is going to come back.’

I almost want to see that bastard’s face again after all this time…

“Master, the Grand Duke’s eyes seem a little… strange.”

“He was already a little strange to begin with. Wait a little longer, and he’ll become socially functional again.”

“Yes.”

Camilla had already approached Haniel and was stroking the round-headed child’s hair.

As expected.

‘He definitely won’t send the child to the temple.’

Basil held an enormous grudge against the Imperial Family and the temple for abandoning him.

There was no way he would do the temple a favor.

“Okay.”

Basil took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.

Then he said,

“The excitement time is over. Now then… Camilla.”

“Yes.”

“Send a letter to Dantellion Klein.”

“…Pardon?”

“Tell him there’s a kid with divine power here and he should come take her.”

“……Whaaaaaaaaaat?”

“What? Why?”

“Weren’t you just so happy about having the child here in the north that you were practically going insane?”

Basil looked at his butler as though she had just said something utterly ridiculous.

“Yeah. That’s why I told you. The excitement time is over. She needs to go to the temple.”

“……”

“She’s just had the greatest opportunity of her life. If she goes to the temple, she’ll live a life of luxury. Why would she come here and suffer?”

“……”

“I can’t deprive her of the chance to eat well and live well just because I want her here.”

“You c-can deprive me of it!”

Haniel suddenly jumped into the conversation.

“Please deprive me of it!!”

“What?”

The sudden mention of her father, combined with the fact that everything had gone completely differently from what she had expected, made Haniel look desperately alarmed.

‘The Imperial Family and the temple hate him so much that I thought if I proved my powers, he’d definitely let me stay!!’

Why had things taken such an unexpected turn?!

‘Why, why are you being ambiguously kind?!’

Haniel grabbed Basil and clung to him.

“I… I want to live here! I hate the temple!”

“No…”

“They said… they said they put young priest candidates through incredibly harsh training!”

Haniel blurted out whatever came to mind.

“They lock them in rooms! They yell at them to awaken more power! They say horrible things to them!”

“The temple? There’s no way.”

“I-It’s true……. And besides, I can only use divine power in this weird way.”

Haniel’s eyes welled up with tears.

“They’ll treat me like a halfwit and bully me all the time! Do you really want me to become the temple’s biggest headache?!”

‘Could that… actually be the case?’

Basil narrowed his eyes.

Come to think of it,

he had never heard of anyone manifesting divine power by ‘gathering’ it.

And, in truth, he knew very little about the temple’s inner workings. It was an extremely secretive institution.

How they trained priests, how they treated ‘special’ cases like Haniel…

‘Surely they wouldn’t treat her like a heretic… would they?’

It wasn’t as though this was an era when the temple was obsessed with rooting out heretics like it had been in the past, but one never knew.

While Basil hesitated, Haniel nervously wiggled her fingers and said quietly,

“If you feel uncomfortable about breaking Imperial law, I’ll go to the temple myself once I’m ready.”

“……”

“…When I’m sixteen.”

Haniel murmured,

“When I turn sixteen, I’ll go to the temple to train as a priest…”

“……”

Haniel’s lifespan was sixteen years.

By then, whether she liked it or not, she would have to leave this place.

“So please! Just let me stay here until then! Please?”

No…

Why was she so desperate?

The child who seemed to know nothing but how to smile was now speaking with tears brimming in her eyes, and Basil’s mood strangely sank.

‘Would she really have such a hard time if she went to the temple?’

There was no way Basil could know.

And if—just if—she were treated like a heretic, and that tiny little thing…

were bullied…

quietly endured everything by herself…

and was worked to the bone like a dog…

“Your Highness?”

Once again, Basil felt as though something inside him had snapped.