A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 95
Chapter 95
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Translated by Sylph
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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‘To think that wasn’t hide-and-seek….’
Inside the hideout they had entered following Adeline.
Tie quietly rolled her eyes.
‘I clearly said I know you’re there.’
‘I told you. That they know we’re here.’
It really had sounded like a hide-and-seek conversation, and yet it wasn’t.
The more he thought about it, the more flustered he felt.
Meanwhile, in front of him, the members and Adeline were talking.
“You mean they have to offer a fixed amount of tribute every week? All the people of this village?”
Adeline nodded.
Behind her, the villagers were treating the torn cheek of the pickpocket brat, Zen.
“The tribute goods are coal?”
Veil cut in.
Adeline looked at Veil with a dazed face.
“…That’s right.”
Caldenvine Ridge was a village located in the middle of a dense mountain range.
Now, with even the beasts they could hunt mostly gone because of monsters.
They depended for their livelihood solely on the coal mine around the village.
“It didn’t feel like a coal mining village.”
“Because the scale of the mine is small. It hasn’t even really been developed.”
It had once been developed long ago, but the nearby coal vein was so small that it was hard to even call it a coal mine.
Thus, up to now, the residents of Caldenvine Ridge had been mining coal by hand from start to finish.
It was literally a reality in which they went in carrying pickaxes and shovels and dug out coal themselves.
But even so, it had been all right.
In the past, even a small mining yield had been enough for the whole village to live on.
“As you can see, it’s a small village. And the nearby Populosa Weapons District paid well for coal too.”
But the problem began a few years ago.
“…These problems started when the lord changed.”
Veil arched his brow.
Adeline let out a deep sigh.
The lord who had changed a few years ago, Reginald, was a man of extreme extravagance.
It would have been nice if it had stopped there, but the lord’s wife was equally extravagant.
The two of them squandered all the wealth the previous lord had built up, then soon began to squeeze the territory’s residents dry.
“You saw the chests in the plaza, right? A levy order comes down saying every house has to offer enough coal to fill those every week.”
The shafts of the Caldenvine mine were narrow, and the coal seam was broken off here and there.
Unless they invested money to widen the mine and open new seams, that is.
With the current method, they absolutely could not satisfy the lord.
“Moreover, these days even the accessible shafts have almost disappeared. Only ones remain that are so narrow and low that supports can no longer be installed.”
Veil, who had been listening, asked,
“What happens if they can’t meet the tribute amount?”
“That….”
Adeline closed her mouth.
Instead, one of the villagers behind her stepped forward.
“What would you do if you knew? Are you going to take it in their place?”
“Take it?”
“…Yeah, they end up suffering something very ugly. If they can’t fill the tribute amount.”
Basto, who had been sitting on the table, narrowed his brows.
Raul and Enzo’s expressions likewise turned cold.
That was only natural, because the nuance of the words ‘suffer it’ implied some kind of violent situation.
Basto asked in an even voice,
“Is it not possible to raise a rebellion and drag the lord down?”
At the unexpected words, the villagers looked flustered.
But soon they all answered in weak voices.
“…Impossible because of the lord’s army.”
“Yeah. You saw those knights too, didn’t you.”
The villagers had already grown sick and exhausted from the lord’s tyranny.
Meanwhile, Reginald already possessed many private soldiers with the money earned from selling coal.
In this situation, even if everyone joined forces, they could not defeat Reginald.
And on top of that, the levy order that came down every week hammered in the point so that not even the slightest hope had room to sprout.
“Troublesome.”
It was when Basto muttered that.
“When we were at the inn, it looked as though they had still filled most of this week’s tribute amount.”
Quiet until then, Nordix spoke as he looked around at the villagers.
When he had left the inn, most of the chests encircling the plaza had already been filled.
It was a sight that contrasted with Adeline’s words that the mining yield could not keep up with the tribute amount.
The inn old woman answered calmly.
“Because Adeline helps.”
In her usual gloomy voice, she continued,
“Every week, when the levy ends, Adeline pays extra and buys coal back from the lord’s knights. And then the following week, she distributes it to those whose tribute amount falls short.”
Raul tilted his head. If that were true, then Adeline was
“Are you spending your personal money every week?”
Adeline avoided Raul’s gaze.
Silent, she soon nodded.
“…It’s not burdensome to that extent. Not yet.”
But something was strange.
A shabby village.
To think that, while running such a small pub, she was spending enough money every week to make up the tribute amount for all the villagers.
It was just as Raul, who had frowned, was about to ask something more.
Bwoooooooo-
Suddenly, the long sound of a horn pierced into the hideout.
At the same time, the villagers’ complexions turned deathly pale.
“Wh, what? Why is the summons this early?”
“It isn’t time yet….”
To the flustered villagers, Adeline said firmly,
“It must be because Zen ran away. For now, let’s hurry out.”
The villagers, nodding, began moving busily.
The young children and the children left the hideout first, and the men each thanked Adeline and then went outside.
Inside the hideout, where only the members and Adeline remained.
Letting out a deep sigh, Adeline pulled the cord hanging by the wall and turned off the lamp.
And then, in the darkness, she opened her mouth while looking back at the members.
“When are you leaving? If you come to the shop before you go, I’ll give you each a free drink.”
Then she showed a faint smile.
“…Thank you for bringing medicine to treat Zen.”
Though she put it indirectly, it was an expulsion order.
* * *
Inside the inn after they returned.
“Change into this.”
Lucarion tilted his head at the sight of the ash-gray cloak Nordix held out to him.
“When I went down to the first floor, the inn old woman gave it to me. She said the clothes you’re wearing now stand out too much.”
Lucarion pulled the cloak over himself without a word.
She had been just at the point of thinking that, so long as it wasn’t Astie’s dress, she would wear any clothes at all.
Meanwhile, in one corner of the room, Veil and Basto were arguing.
“Veil. Do you not know what danger your actions could bring?”
“What danger. You know it too. Those lousy knights are nothing much against us.”
“Even so, it is the lord’s army. If we cause friction for nothing and something troublesome happens….”
“Did I say I was going to wage war against them or something? I’m just saying I’ll watch by myself from a corner of the plaza, so why are you being so annoying about it?”
“Because I cannot accept the reason you need to watch.”
Veil closed his mouth as if suppressing his anger.
Then, after taking a deep breath, he lowered his voice.
“…If those so-called knights try to harm people, we have to stop them, don’t we.”
Basto rubbed between his brows.
It was not that Basto had never thought along those lines.
The villagers’ meaningful testimony and, now that he roughly understood the situation.
Basto too did not want to watch the blameless people of Caldenvine Ridge suffer.
But.
“They are people unrelated to us.”
“Are you seriously human trash?”
“Call me trash if you want. We have Tie, and Tie already went through a near-death ordeal in the weapons district. Is it strange that I don’t want to take unnecessary risks?”
At words that left no room to refute, silence fell between the two.
It was when fierce gazes were passing between the two pairs of blazing eyes.
“Um, Sir Basto. Sir Veil.”
Enzo, who had approached, called to the two of them.
“What.”
“The Commander….”
Instead of answering, Enzo pointed somewhere.
There stood Lucarion and Tie facing each other in the hallway.
Tie was carefully tying Lucarion’s cloak strings before anyone knew it.
“All done! Let’s go!”
Soon, the child, holding Lucarion’s hand tightly, started going down the stairs.
Ppuppu was lying leisurely sprawled out atop the kindergarten bag that had been neatly tied on.
Basto, who had blanked out for a moment, immediately called Tie to a stop.
“Tie!”
“Uung?”
The child turned around with a very innocent face.