It wasn’t advice that could be thought of as anything other than short-sighted and foolish meddling.

“…?”

The old man closed his eyes tightly. Many struggles appeared and disappeared on the old man’s wrinkled face.

Perhaps, Sharti’s revelation of the illness, predicting a looming shadow of great death in the village, might have made it irrelevant to logically judge right from wrong at that moment.

“So, Doctor, you must take responsibility.”

As he had been boasting about cowardly destiny all along, the old man decided to be cowardly until the end.

With a confused face, the village chief, who had been awkwardly watching the decisions made by his father, pulled out a small wooden box from the table.

It was an elegant wooden box with a carving of the Newton Empire emblem.

Sharti cautiously rummaged through the wooden box.

‘What’s this?’

In the solemn atmosphere, the retrieved wooden box seemed to have been buried in the ground for a long time, far from being clean.

“This is the reason for the village’s secret and the hidden village.”

“……!”
As Sharti took a sharp breath, the village chief opened the wooden box.

Sharti tightly sealed her lips.

Then, discreetly, she glanced at the old man and the village chief.

‘…A scorpion?’

Forced to see the secret, Sharti couldn’t precisely identify the items inside the wooden box.

‘Is there an engraved picture? It’s incredibly intricate… strangely familiar.’

A scorpion was engraved on the long brooch.

It looked like the crest of a noble family.

When her thoughts reached that point, the village chief spoke.

“There is a noble family representing the Newton Empire that uses the scorpion emblem.”

…!

Reflexively, Sharti thought of Viretta.

The only family Viretta planned an assassination against without any commission, the skilled and never-before-failing Viretta failed for the first time with that family.

Moreover, Sharti knew about the secret where Virena secretly brought out Tane’s mortar.

‘Why, why is this emblem here too…’

Encountering a symbol she absolutely didn’t want to be involved with unexpectedly, Sharti was taken aback.

As Sharti remained silent with her mouth covered, the old man let out a sly smile.

“That’s right. Do you want to find out who is hiding this village from the eyes of the world?”

…!

“This village is managed like an estate by the noble family with this emblem.”

Sharti, belatedly regaining her composure, massaged her forehead.

The unexpected confusion over the village’s secret aside, Sharti quickly grasped the situation.

‘The hidden village is said to be a village implicitly permitted. Moreover, under imperial management.’

However, it didn’t make sense for a mere noble family to manage it like an estate.

If they managed it like an estate to escape the eyes of the world, there was only one way.

“…You intercepted it in the middle.”

In other words, there was a missing document in the village registration.

‘The reason is probably… the enormous mana of this village?’

Without informing even the Mastaba and keeping the enormous mana a secret from the empire had only one purpose.

If it was a noble family, and the one Sharti knew as ‘that’ viscount family, it allowed her to make premature speculations.

‘That’ viscount family was a place with all the power, authority, and influence in the empire.

“A long time ago, they handed over this village, saying it would be a valuable resource used later.”

…!

Sharti almost bit her tongue.

She was quick-witted.

Though she was speaking as vaguely as possible right now, the secret they were talking about was clear.

‘It’s a resource of betrayal!’

Sharti pressed her heart, which thumped heavily.

Perhaps due to the sudden shock, her head was slightly dizzy.

However, the old man continued speaking, paying no attention and lost in distant reminiscences.
“These villagers were refugees who lost their homeland due to the war, and for us, weary in body and mind, this isolated village, cut off from the outside, was an irresistible offer.”

“Just a village, there was no need to scrutinize, just a place to live a normal life.”

The village chief recalled the past with shaded eyes.

“Even if they were nobles, they didn’t harm us in any way, so we could think lightly of them. We didn’t have the leisure to think deeply about anything. Even if we knew that the decision back then would eventually devour our lives, well, who knows. Maybe we would have willingly accepted that secret.”

Sharti lowered her gaze, bowing her head.

What she had to take responsibility for was a secret as vital as their lives.

Sharti deeply reflected on her reckless judgment of their secret and hasty hostility.

“We are paying the price of our choice. That is perhaps the true order of things.”

…

In the heavy atmosphere that settled, silence lingered for a moment.