Youngest 239

Episode 239

“I feel a strange gaze on us.”

With narrowed eyes and a sharp look on his face, Father scanned the surroundings.

“For now… we should hurry.”

Liam tightened his grip around my shoulders, drawing me deeper into his embrace.

The sanctuary was lined with several antechambers.

Passing closed prayer rooms and meditation chambers, I arrived at the large central nave.

“……”

Behind the altar on the podium stood a magnificent statue of the goddess.

Quickly, I cast a fleeting glance at the statue of the goddess Wistal, who smiled with gentle compassion as she watched over humanity, then moved on at a hurried pace.

“Ugh.”

Suddenly, my forehead collided with someone’s broad, sturdy back.

“Someone’s trailing us.”

Kal whispered as he rubbed my forehead.

“That must be what Father sensed.”

Up ahead, Licht was already circling the perimeter of the nave, heading toward the entrance.

“Leave this to me, Rubian.”

Wait, is it really okay for the prince to be doing this?

Doesn’t the future of the empire rest on his shoulders?

“So this is what infiltration feels like. It’s more exhilarating than I expected. I think I’ll crave this again.”

Ah, addicted to dopamine, are we. What are we to do.

“Ruby, over here.”

Just then, Father, who had been inspecting behind the altar, called out. Crunch. With a single powerful motion, he tore away a thick chain, revealing a straight passage stretching beyond.

Liam stayed behind to help Licht, while I headed deeper into the antechambers with Father and Kal.

My eyes widened.

“It’s a portal!”

Inside a small antechamber, we discovered a sturdy arched gate set against one wall.

“Yaa—ah… p?”

I ran toward it, ready to pour in my mana—but then my face contorted in dismay.

“What is this!”

“What’s wrong? …Ah.”

Father clicked his tongue low and furrowed his brow.

“What happened to this?”

The portal’s wall, built of stacked bricks, was missing pieces here and there, like a corn cob with its kernels plucked. The segments of stone believed to hold the magic circle had vanished.

Worse, the magical apparatus needed to activate the portal was nowhere to be found.

In short, it was a complete ruin.

“This can’t be. Benjamin said entering the ruined sanctuary was forbidden, so at the very least, this portal would be intact!”

I’d thought maybe it would simply take some time to repair the unused, broken mana circuits, but I never imagined actual physical damage.

“But this looks… like someone forcibly pried parts out.”

Khalid murmured beside me.

Now that I looked closer, there were rough scratches around where the apparatus and stone had been removed.

As if someone had used crude tools to hack them out.

“We have no choice. We’ll have to use the portal in the nearby village.”

“Ugh, so we’ll have to pose as locals…”

Father declared our days in disguise over, shedding his priestly robes.

Then, it happened.

“Rubian! The prince!”

Licht’s urgent voice rang out.

No! The empire’s future!

We rushed outside.

“Huh?”

And were met by a surprising sight.

“Villain! Villain! Get away!”

A young boy, squirming in midair, was being held by Licht at his side…

When his eyes met mine—the one clad in priestly robes—the scruffy boy hiccuped with a gasp.

“He seems to be the one who was following us.”

Licht scratched his cheek awkwardly.

“What should we do?”

“You came to take us back to the palace for experiments! I won’t go! Never, ever!”

As the child screamed and flailed, the heavy doors of the prayer room burst open. Only then did I notice a mana-suppressing circle was etched on the inside of the prayer room door.

“Stop! Let go of Arennnn!”

From the entrance leading to the corridor, a group of people flooded out, each wielding a different weapon.

“Damn palace bastards! We won’t take it anymore!”

A blade of brilliant blue magic flared.

My mana moved on instinct.

---

“Mister, what’s your name?”

“Leviathan.”

“Wow.”

“How old are you? I’m four!”

What?

“That’s a secret, kid.”

“Hehehe. Mister Tan is so cool. Isn’t he, everyone?”

“Yeah! We love cool misters!”

Father’s stolen.

I clamped both hands over my mouth.

Inside the prayer room, Father was surrounded by a crowd of young mage children.

When our eyes met, Father mouthed,

‘Mage children really do know what to look for.’

When he first met the children,

Father alone had shed his priestly robe, and so… inadvertently, he must have made a good impression on these little ones, who usually feared palace mages.

The same duke who always, with his mere presence, drew tears from children upon their first meeting.

“Well. It can’t be helped.”

As the very first mage child to know what to look for, I decided to let Father off just this once.

My eyes swept around the prayer room.

Inside the spacious chamber, dozens of people had gathered—mostly families with young children.

“Um, I’m sorry about earlier… I thought you were trackers from the palace…”

A woman with her hair twisted up approached us. She was the one who had tried to attack us earlier, only to be stopped by my binding spell.

“No, it’s us who should apologize for startling you! But, do they really force people to go from the palace?”

“Yes. They claim it is a summons from the Mage King, but in truth…”

“It’s experiments! They say everyone taken for those experiments comes back dead!”

Aren, who was clinging to Mother’s side, burst out loudly.

“Even the children?”

At my question, the woman nodded with a devastated expression.

“They primarily target the children. Simply because their mana is the purest.”

“……”

“We abandoned our village and fled here to hide. Most of us have gathered like this. I didn’t realize… you were in the same position. I’m so sorry for attacking you so suddenly.”

The woman looked at Father and me, one after the other.

Learning that these people were residents fleeing palace persecution, we claimed to be in the same circumstances.

“Please, have some of this at least. And use this medicine if you’re unwell.”

Licht offered, and Liam, standing beside him with a less-than-thrilled expression, pushed up his glasses; but, at Licht’s insistence, he and the prince both produced food and medicine from Licht’s wagon.

The people, who had been living on thin gruel, hurried over to receive bread, butter, thick ham, and milk.

In the center of the prayer room stood a small brazier, once used to burn ritual incense. The mages deftly lit a fire and managed the surrounding airflow to keep the smoke contained.

The cozy aroma of boiling milk spread through the room. The children sniffled and sipped from heated cups of milk sweetened with honey.

“Sigh, all of this should be going into our house fairies’ mouths…”

“Wow, do fairies really live in your house? I once saw a glowing fairy-like magical beast near our old home!”

“Kid.”

Liam’s eyes shone.

“You’re to have five cups of milk and two helpings of ham. And what did that fairy beast look like?”

“Um. Like this.”

“Aha. It’s called ‘Like This’.”

Swish, swish. Leaving Liam absorbed in gathering new magical beast information, I leaned against one wall.

‘Hmm, now what?’

According to the woman, palace mages were already stationed in the nearby villages.

“The magical apparatus and stones set in the sanctuary portal… We dug them out and traded them for food.”

“Haaah. So that was it…”

“May the goddess forgive us…”

“……”

“Perhaps the gods abandoned us long ago.”

Recalling the words of the weary-faced woman, I fell deep into thought.

‘Hmm?’

At the entrance to the prayer room, I sensed something odd in the flow of mana.

‘Teleportation?’

I whipped my head up just as—a slick, tapping sound echoed in the air.

“What? New runaways?”

A voice, rough as gravel, boomed out.

Slick, tap. Slick, tap. Someone was drawing rapidly closer, tapping a staff on the floor.

“Elder!”

Out from among the people emerged an elderly woman mage.

“T-this mana, it can’t be…”

Her eyes slowly filled with horror as she sensed my mana.

“You’re…the Seventh…! Kh!”

Just then, a sudden arm shot out, pressing a blade to her throat.

“Kal!”

“And who are you?”

His voice was low, chilling.

At the same time, someone seized my shoulder and pulled me behind him—it was Father.

“W-what are you doing! That’s our elder!”

The adult mages rushed to restrain Khalid, but he didn’t budge an inch.

Meanwhile, Liam and Licht had circled in, swords drawn, surrounding the mages. The tension was razor-sharp.

“S-so you ARE palace people…!”

“Let our elder go!”

Khalid looked to me for direction, and I frowned slightly at the trickle of blood at the woman’s throat.

‘She was going to call me the seventh.’

Could she be someone I met at the palace?

‘My face has always been concealed—she must recognize me by my mana.’

If so, this was a mage of considerable rank.

Despite a blade pressed to her throat, the woman didn’t utter a sound—her gaze locked steady on me.

Then, suddenly, my eyes caught sight of a crest engraved beneath her chin.

‘That location of the crest… She’s a palace elder?’