Home/The Seven-Year-Old Village Chief of Exile/ch 63

Chapter 63

According to Ian, my method risked giving the enemy a chance to counterattack.

"If they have even a little consciousness left, they can fight back, so you need to kill them in one blow so they can't do anything else."

I nodded at his serious advice.

'There's not a single wrong word.'

It's all sound reasoning.

'But with my ability, isn't that my limit right now? All I can do is open and close...'

Even as I thought about it, we continued searching the lab.

Fortunately, we'd rescued all the victims.

But we still hadn't achieved our true goals: finding out the lab's purpose, and finding the summoned demon.

"Oppa."

I finally suggested.

"Let's capture a few and interrogate them."

"Yeah, that would be faster."

Before entering the lab, Verity had done as much as he could for us.

One of those things was the fist-shaped pouch we wore at our waists.

It was a subspace pocket containing Aunt Elva's improved truth serum.

We captured two researchers we encountered during the search and took them to a nearby secret room.

I knocked one out by closing off his airway, and force-fed the other the truth serum.

"Guh, gak...!"

After taking the improved truth serum, the researcher was in tremendous pain.

"It feels like I made it by looking into the monster in my own abyss..."

Aunt Elva had said she abandoned her morality when she made this medicine.

'She really did.'

Veins bulged all over his body as if they might burst, and his eyes turned blood-red in an instant.

'But honestly, I don't feel sorry for him.'

The pain he was feeling now wouldn't even be half of what he deserved.

"Let's play an up-down game from now on. You answer whether what I say is on a floor above or below this one. You're not a peasant, so you can do that, right?"

"G-guh...!"

"The research data storage—above or below here?"

"B-below...!"

"Oppa, what floor are we on?"

"Basement 2..."

"Th-this floor...!"

"......"

"......"

Ian and I were speechless.

"Crazy bastard..."

That was the only word that came to mind.

'Why are you reacting to "oppa"!'

This trash, who looked like he'd be forty-eight the day after tomorrow, was truly something else.

"...Then it must be basement 3."

Ian finally composed himself and let out a scoffing breath.

"Basement 4 was supposed to be the prison for the victims."

"Good. Then the demon and the angel—above or below basement 2?"

"Ah, below..."

"...Tell me exactly where the demon and angel are."

"B-basement 3, the dee-deeepest...!"

The researcher's veins bulged as he stammered.

"Ugh, guuuh...!"

Unable to breathe, he clawed at his throat and writhed, eventually collapsing to the ground like a crushed insect.

Then he stopped breathing.

"Dee, deep..."

I stared at the corpse and muttered.

"Deep, deep—a word that starts with 'deep'..."

"The deepest part."

At Ian's words, I snapped my fingers.

"Basement 1 is supply storage, basement 2 is the researchers' quarters and personal labs. And on basement 3, the deepest part, is the main lab."

"The demon and angel must be there too."

"They're probably guarding it."

To verify, we woke the other researcher we'd knocked out and gave him the truth serum.

"I-it's on, basement three...!"

Again, we got the same answer as the previous interrogation.

I rummaged through the dead researchers' clothes.

"Oh."

I found something interesting.

It was a pentagonal brass plate.

The plate had different engravings on each side. One side had a clenched fist, the other had two diagonal lines spreading outward from top to bottom.

'What is this?'

I showed the brass plate to Ian.

"It's a keycard."

"Keycard?"

"If you hold it up to the entrance, the plate spins rapidly, creating an optical illusion where the front and back engravings merge."

"Is that, like, something with a special effect?"

"Just for show."

This lab really only did useless things.

"For reference, the one who developed this was the Mage Tower Lord."

"Oh right, the Mage Tower Lord made a contract with a demon."

He's still just a pest that will eventually be crushed by Libby, who will become an archmage someday.

In front of the stairs leading to basement 3, Ian and I reviewed our final plan.

"According to Verity, there are a total of thirteen suspected demons currently summoned to the Empire."

This information was obtained by interrogating the 'General' demon we'd met on our first trip to Deste.

It was said to be highly reliable, extracted by a skilled Lord-class demon.

"Among them, only one has access to high-level curse magic."

Verity called this demon 'Necro.'

Necro is a notoriously radical supremacist in the demon world. Despite possessing great power, he was deeply dissatisfied with the demon ecosystem, which only grants the wishes of the inferior.

"He's a fool who wants to do whatever he wants but doesn't want to take responsibility. Unfortunately, there are many young demons like him these days."

"This guy's a NEET, but his father works at a tower that stores forbidden magic."

"His father is a hardworking, good demon. A model civil servant."

"Tch, he was up for a promotion this year..."

Verity genuinely lamented that the innocent father would suffer because of his child.

This filial impiety's ability is 'Storage.'

He can store anything that meets the conditions in a designated place and retrieve it later.

"Verity said this ungrateful brat also smuggled out some military weapons."

"I don't think his father's promotion is the issue here."

"The son is bringing shame to all demons—he can't even show his face at work."

If there's only a demon, we fight together.

If both a demon and an angel are present, the demon is my share.

For reference, the division of roles was decided by Verity.

"Habi—no, Hebe..."

"Just call me Habi."

Habi was originally the nickname the Clavis used for me.

Because I'd studied abroad in Korea for so long, where nicknames weren't familiar, I'd grown used to being called Hebenia.

But when my brother in my dream called me 'Habi,' it felt a little ticklish.

'I'd been secretly hoping for it since then.'

That the villagers would call me 'Habi.'

"Being called Habi makes me feel like real family—I like it."

"...Now?"

Ian chuckled and patted my head.

But his smile quickly faded.

Mine did too.

"Oppa, let's go."

"Yeah."

Thud, our footsteps echoed heavily.

---

The basement 3 main lab was filled with various equipment and books.

Ian and I packed the ones that seemed important into the bag connected to the subspace.

'The herbalist grandfather said he needed equipment for his research.'

So I decided to grab various items—graduated cylinders, beakers, pipettes, everything.

But the path to the deepest part was unpleasant.

True to its reputation as a place researching undying human weapons, there were bound corpses and skeletons scattered throughout the lab.

Some places were covered in red, viscous liquid.

Others were packed with faded skeletons.

"Habi, look over there."

Ian pointed to a lab filled with a mountain of herbs.

The herbs the imperial family had been buying were here.

'Did they ship them to the capital and then send them back here?'

And so we arrived at the deepest part of basement 3, where all the research data and the demon were believed to be.

[Data Archive]

The lab's typical tacky double doors and silver doorknobs.

And an authentication lock installed on the right side of the door.

Ian held up the brass plate he'd been carrying to the lock.

The plate floated in the air and began to spin rapidly.

'Sigh, I personally hate this kind of inefficient show-off...'

Huh?

My head tilted slightly as I watched with half-lidded eyes.

'That's...'

As the brass plate spun rapidly, the engravings on both sides merged through an optical illusion, creating a strange image.

'A ray of light?'

A natural phenomenon—a beam of light from the sky, often called a divine radiance.

'Ah, so those two diagonal lines spreading outward were that.'

A fist receiving a divine radiance.

'That makes even less sense.'

My head tilted again involuntarily.

'If I force an interpretation, it's either a fist chosen by God...'

Or a fist opposing God.

'That's not chuunibyou—that's cult vibes.'

Either way, neither was appealing.

The rapidly spinning brass plate suddenly stopped, and we heard the sound of the silver doorknob turning with a click.

Ian deftly caught the falling plate.

Creak—.

The archive door opened inward.

Inside, endless rows of massive iron bookshelves with glass doors stretched out. They were filled with documents and books.

Ian gently pushed the glass door of a bookshelf with his sword.

But it wouldn't budge.

Even when he held the brass plate up to it, it didn't work.

"Should I try opening it with my ability?"

"There might be traps, so let's not act rashly."

"Then..."

Our gazes naturally turned to another door at the end of the archive.

Judging by the circumstances, the demon was probably behind that black door marked 'No Entry.'

'So in the end, as Verity said, we have to catch the demon like a rat and twist its limbs to get to the data.'

I vaguely heard Verity's indignant voice saying, "Huh? I didn't ask you to go that far," but I ignored it.

Tap.

Just then, Ian tapped my shoulder.

His expression as he stared at the black door was unusual.

"Two people."

Thanks to his training, Ian's senses had developed to a monster's level, and he detected the presence beyond the door.

Which meant both the demon and the angel were present.

"Oh, come on."

Damn Clavis!

A crazy family that arranges a trial like this for their seven-year-old youngest in the face of their own destruction!

'I feel like crying for the first time in a while...!'

But thanks to this frustration, I didn't have time to be scared.

'Not that I was scared in the first place.'

Is being fearless really a Clavis trait?

"Alright..."

Ian stood in front of the door and grabbed the handle.

"Open it?"

"Yeah."

The moment Ian opened the door, I put up a barrier.

But nothing happened.

We slowly entered.

The restricted area of the archive was a large, wide cavern carved from solid underground rock.

It was so completely different from the typical labs we'd passed that it felt jarring.

In the center of the vast cavern.

On a pillar-like pedestal where statues would be placed.

A muscular man with bronze skin sat crookedly, one leg resting on the pedestal.

"Hmm."

The man rested his chin on his knee and let out a strange laugh.

"So you really are alive?"

The young Clavis.

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