Home/The Seven-Year-Old Village Chief of Exile/ch 62

Chapter 62

Ian and I stood in front of the entrance.

Ian reached out and touched the door. Unlike with Verity, he wasn't repelled.

When he turned the doorknob, a creaking sound came from the hinges, revealing a dark interior.

Contrary to its dilapidated exterior, the inside had neatly cemented walls and stairs leading underground.

"You two."

Verity said.

"Come back safely."

"Yes!"

"We'll be back."

I answered cheerfully, and Ian answered with his usual composure.

Then we looked at Aunt Nema.

Though she ultimately wouldn't come with us, I didn't feel disappointed or regretful. Ian felt the same.

Aunt Nema also didn't cry or apologize.

I said.

"I'll go first."

---

"I'll go first."

With those words, Hebenia and Ian descended the stairs.

"......"

Nema watched their backs until they disappeared.

"Hah...!"

She released the breath she'd been holding and collapsed to the ground.

"Huff, pant...!"

"You held it in well."

Nema was currently suppressing her madness. Her right hand gripping her chest, and her left hand planted on the ground, were both so tense that the veins were visible.

Cold sweat had formed on her temples, and her eyes were opening and closing painfully.

While Ian and Hebenia had been walking around the square.

Nema had had an in-depth conversation with Verity.

"Are you still scared?"

"I'm scared. I really..."

"What are you afraid of? Being consumed by madness?"

"I'm no longer afraid of that."

She no longer feared losing control.

Because she was now convinced that Hebenia and the villagers wouldn't hate her even if she went berserk.

Hebenia's counsel had worked.

But it had given rise to a new worry.

"Can anyone, stop me?"

"......"

"As soon as I learned you wouldn't be coming with us, I kept feeling relieved. Even now, deep in my chest..."

"You're suppressing it well. You still need to hold on, and you're doing well."

"I'm no longer afraid of my own aptitude. But I'm afraid of hurting Hebenia or others because of me..."

Hurting someone because of her own rampage.

That was Nema's greatest fear.

She'd known early on that she was different.

Once she lost control, she couldn't see anything. Her mind would go blank, forgetting reality, and her body would use that as an excuse to smash everything in sight.

And then her brother got hurt.

Her kind brother, who had tried to help her being bullied, got hurt because of her.

So when Nema was sent to the exile camp, she was secretly relieved.

She firmly believed that if she was imprisoned for life, she would never have to reveal the violence dormant within her.

"I'll go first."

But Hebenia.

Kept trusting someone like me.

Her consideration, beyond her years, stimulated the madness Nema had been suppressing. It tempted her, saying it was okay to let it out.

"...Lord Verity."

Nema, struggling to speak, finally lifted her head.

"Please, teach me how to, to maintain my reason...!"

"That can't be learned in one go."

"......"

"But I can teach you a shortcut. However, it will be quite painful."

"On the contrary, that's much better...!"

Because even now, Nema was struggling enough just to suppress her madness.

Adding more pain to pain—it would only be more pain.

---

Five years ago.

The Antema Research Lab had come under heavy criticism when inappropriate research was exposed, and soon after, it closed due to a fire of unknown origin.

But in reality, the facilities and data had been moved underground and had been operating continuously ever since.

The fire was merely a cover to escape public scrutiny.

"Sigh, it was a waste when I think about it."

"Right. We had to burn all the perfectly good test subjects just to destroy the evidence..."

"As expected, experimenting only on corpses doesn't yield good results. There used to be a lot of live ones."

"Can't they at least get us the freshly dead?"

"Just wait a little longer. Thanks to the herb shortage, people will start dropping dead soon."

"Not dead! Alive!"

"Those peasants are damn tough. It's been almost a month and they're still not dead."

"Speaking of which, who modified the undead we demonstrated today?"

"Ah, that? It turned out really well."

Ethics and morality long discarded, vulgar conversations spread like trivial gossip.

"......"

Amidst the crowd in white lab coats, someone quietly slipped away.

A man with hair greasy enough to make his face shiny clicked his tongue.

"Lowlifes."

The man entered his own lab.

At a glance, it looked like an ordinary lab, but two corpses that had undergone multiple rounds of dissection and preservation hung on the wall like decorations.

The man paid them no attention.

"Oh, you're awake."

He walked toward a bed in the corner.

A woman, her body tightly bound, lay on the bed with a terrified expression.

"You've had a good sleep, so your body should be recovering."

"Mmph! Mmm!"

The woman struggled frantically to avoid the man's hand reaching for her.

But her bound body only flopped in place like a fish out of water.

Her gagged mouth couldn't make a sound, and the only free thing she had—her eyes—kept shedding tears.

The man fidgeted with his tools.

"Let's see, hmm. Our test subject worked at a restaurant for quite a while. There's an old saying that if you have a dumb head, your body suffers."

"Mmph! Mmm!"

"It's not meant to be insulting. The common trait among undead who successfully received behavioral implants is that they only follow commands related to what they did in life. Professions, especially physical ones, work best."

"......!"

The woman's eyes widened.

"Oh, are you interested in the research?"

The man grinned.

Reflected in the woman's enlarged eyes was not only the man approaching with a syringe.

"Close your eyes!"

At the loud command, the woman reflexively closed her eyes.

Thud.

"Ugh...!"

A short gasp, followed by the sound of something heavy collapsing.

"Keep them closed. It's unsightly."

A young voice soothed the frightened woman. Warm and gentle, tears continued to fall from her closed eyes.

"You can open them now."

Slowly opening her eyes, the woman saw a little girl, as young as her voice suggested, smiling at her.

Her eyes, like a summer field of green barley, were the first thing that caught her attention.

But her hair was the color of a ripened autumn wheat field.

Beside the child was a man.

The man, with black hair, casually wiped blood from his sword and sheathed it.

Then he kicked the fallen researcher's corpse under the desk. A pool of dark red blood remained where the body had been.

"It's okay. We've come to rescue you."

Soon, the gag in the woman's mouth was removed.

The man supported the woman's body.

"Stand up slowly."

"You don't seem to have any serious injuries, but drink this just in case."

Now freed from her bindings, the woman slowly drank the light green potion the little girl handed her.

As if by magic, strength returned to her body. The bruise marks from the ropes also began to fade.

The little girl, Hebenia, asked.

"Can you talk?"

The woman nodded.

"Were you brought here alone?"

"I, I'm alone, but..."

"There are other victims?"

"Und, underground. Deeper underground than this...!"

She didn't know the exact location, but she'd seen other people brought in like her.

The woman was desperate to share everything she'd seen, and despite her fear, she spoke quite coherently.

"My feeling is it's the deepest underground. Because the place I was trapped in wasn't finished like this—it felt like a cave dug out of the earth."

"What floor was it?"

"The fourth basement level."

"How many in total?"

"Six including me. Three men, three women. Two of the women are young children."

"Habi."

Ian called Hebenia.

It was an abbreviation to avoid revealing their identity, instead of her usual name.

Hebenia nodded.

'It matches the number of victims we just rescued.'

Hebenia and Ian had taken down ten researchers and rescued five victims on their way here. Two of them were children slightly older than Hebenia.

'As expected, they never do just one thing.'

Hebenia looked at the researcher's body shoved under the desk and swallowed her curses.

'May you never find peace even in death.'

May you suffer eternally in hell.

Hebenia and Ian led the rescued victim to another place.

The other victims they'd found earlier were gathered there.

They cried and genuinely rejoiced in each other's safety.

Hebenia put up a barrier around where the victims were staying.

"I'll come back as soon as we're done, so wait here until then."

"We'll leave food and water. Don't worry. We'll definitely come back."

"This barrier will hold even if the building collapses."

"U-um...!"

The woman rescued last asked.

"Wh-who are you..."

To ask why they'd saved her.

At that unfinished question, Hebenia grinned and answered.

"I'm a village chief!"

---

To be honest.

'I hesitated until the moment I set foot in the lab.'

Could I really kill someone?

But that was a worry I didn't deserve.

"As expected, experimenting only on corpses doesn't yield good results. There used to be a lot of live ones."

"Just wait a little longer. Thanks to the herb shortage, people will start dropping dead soon."

"Those peasants are damn tough. It's been almost a month and they're still not dead."

I'd agonized over universal human values and the prohibition of murder for the sake of such inhuman bastards.

I killed all of them.

No.

'...I tried to kill them.'

But in the end, it was Ian who actually did the killing.

As soon as I closed off their airways with my ability, Ian swung his sword as if he'd been waiting.

Ian's gaze as he cut their throats without hesitation was very cold, and that was frightening.

However, Ian didn't make excuses like "I'll dirty my hands for you" or "You're still young, so don't kill."

"Your method has a problem, Habi."

"Problem?"

"It takes too long. It's not efficient."

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