My Disciples Became Scoundrels - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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1. The Settling of Drift
Everyone needs a home.
For some, home is a person; for others, it’s a song, or the moment they glimpsed starlight passing overhead.
Whatever surfaces in your mind just before death—that is your home.
In that sense, my home was my disciples.
I wanted to protect them, raise them right, and one day close my eyes while standing at their side.
But I never thought I’d die at forty.
“Ugh, cough….”
The ground was littered with corpses and blood trails.
Sprawled before my eyes were what must have been a hundred or more bodies—some of Magical Beasts, some of men. Blood spilled from them had soaked the earthen floor black.
While the Invaders rampaged, the city descended into chaos, and as we fought them, my fellow masters fell one by one.
Shrieks echoed around me as I stood sword in hand.
My whole body felt as though it might shatter, yet I could not flee. Buildings crumbled all around, but the one behind me stood intact.
My disciples were inside that building behind me.
My disciples.
Still nothing but small, wailing children. The youngest was five, the eldest perhaps eighteen, but to my eyes they were all children.
Even now, in this hell, my disciples were giving everything they had. The children screamed and threw their whole bodies against the enemy.
My eldest disciple, barely come of age, continued Casting even as he spat blood.
His entire body was covered in wounds.
Cesare, only twelve years old, wept as he staunched a fallen master’s wounds—the most fearful and gentle child among my disciples.
He must have wanted to run. He must have wanted to hide.
The others felt the same. Not one of them hid. Just as their masters did, they were giving their all to protect our home.
In those small bodies, they stood and endured this tempest together.
—A roooooar—!
Before me stood a colossal dragon. With each exhale, acrid smoke billowed forth.
Then, from its maw, flames burst upward. The breath ignited into a wave of inferno that crashed down upon me.
All around grew bright. All around grew hot. A force and reach that could burn an entire village to cinders in a heartbeat.
Dodging would have been simple. But my disciples stood behind me. As their master, I could not show them my fleeing back.
All I could show them was a back that shielded them.
—Screeeech—!
I poured all my mana into my blade. My body shrieked in protest. Blood erupted from my mouth.
The Sword Storm cleaved the inferno in two. As the great fire scattered into embers.
I leaped onto the dragon’s head. I brought my blade down again and again. My blood and the dragon’s blood sprayed in all directions.
Not a single hair on my disciples’ heads would be touched.
—Boom—!
The mangled dragon collapsed. But this was not the end. A groan sounded from ahead.
“So Balanus truly is different.”
A man stood mere paces away—one who had brought countless humans and Magical Beasts in his wake.
A formidable foe. My comrade had lost his life trying to sever this man’s arm. The Invader bled from every part of his body, yet he did not stop fighting.
My own condition was little better. Blood seeping from my side burned hot against my flesh.
I raised my sword to face him. At the cost of many lives, fortune had turned to our side. His underlings fell without number.
Yet he neither raged nor despaired.
“I should have come sooner.”
The man murmured. Half regret, half satisfaction. It was an expression I could not fathom.
There was no time for questions—who was he, why was he doing this? Neither he nor I possessed the leisure for such answers.
The wind howled. The man charged toward me. Behind me lay our home, our lives, our disciples.
I would not allow anyone to breach this place.
—Slash—!
The wind roared. As my sword carved horizontally across the man’s neck, crimson mist bloomed. Through it came his voice.
“I have severed the tree’s trunk. One day I will reach the roots and the new sprouts as well….”
With a dull sound, the man fell. Though I had barely managed to cut through his neck, he continued to swing his blade until the very end.
—Gush—!
A long wound opened across my chest and belly, and hot blood poured forth. The slightest movement risked spilling my entrails. I collapsed to the ground.
At least there were no enemies left standing.
Relief came before fear of death. As the world fell silent, the children’s voices became clear.
“Master—!”
“Master Dein—!”
“Hurry, get a doctor—!”
My disciples came running toward me. All of them were young faces. All of them were weeping.
It was a relief that they were all unharmed. If even one had died, I could never have forgiven myself.
I tried to speak, but my body wouldn’t obey.
Ah, I’d wanted to call each of them by name.
I could only manage a fragile smile. How could I leave these children behind? To soothe their crying faces, I forced the words out.
“Someday I’ll come home.”
Yes. Someday.
If there was a next life, I wanted to return here then too—to our home.
The wind fell still.
* * *
The smell of dust and darkness, of ages long past, filled the air.
That alien scent made me open my eyes—or so I thought, but only darkness greeted me. I closed them again and opened them once more; nothing changed.
……What is this situation?
It’s strange. I was just now fighting the Invaders—I didn’t die, did I?
I felt the back of my neck and found Balanus’s Necklace clasped there. Was it true that I hadn’t died? Had I been treated and brought back to life?
Even as confusion swam through my mind, I realized I was trapped in something narrow and long—like a coffin. It didn’t make sense. If I’d been treated, I wouldn’t be in a place like this.
And I couldn’t feel my vitality. My mana was barely a wisp.
Still, it was something to be grateful for that my wounds had healed. The situation was strange, but I couldn’t simply lie here any longer.
I pushed against the ceiling with what strength I could muster, and it opened surprisingly easily. Yet the darkness still surrounded me.
Feeling my way forward, I found stairs. I climbed them and pushed open a door, and moonlight poured down.
Turning back, I was startled. It was the Underground Cemetery—a place I’d visited before. The lid of the coffin I’d emerged from lay open.
Had I died and been resurrected? I felt my abdomen, but there was no wound.
The thought struck me that I had to find my disciples. I opened the door of the Underground Cemetery and climbed out into the night.
The night sky was clear, as if no tragedy had ever occurred. I quickened my pace. I missed the faces I’d parted from so briefly.
What had happened to the children after my death? Were they safe?
With such thoughts, I hurried forward. I entered the city and walked along a long road before turning into an alley.
But something was wrong. The atmosphere had changed. What should have been a quiet residential district was now filled with drunken men wandering about, and it was noisy despite the late hour.
There were shops I’d never seen before. Filthy smells wafted from various corners. And at the end of the street, I saw our house.
As I drew near, raucous voices leaked from within. They weren’t the voices of children. They were the curses and shouts of men drunk on drink.
As I wondered what on earth had happened, I saw a Dried Flower Wreath hanging above the entrance. My blood ran cold.
This meant it was a tavern where prostitution took place.
What had happened here? I opened the door with trembling hands—the door to our house, which I had never once permitted to be invaded.
But the moment I stepped inside, the first floor came into view, packed with tables and drunken patrons.
The home the second had kept so beautifully was gone. All that remained was a man vomiting on the floor in his drunkenness and an employee scolding him for it.
I staggered across the first floor.
Where in the world were the children?
As anxiety surged up my throat, an employee approached me. He looked me up and down, then smirked.
“Coming to a place like this already. First time?”
I passed the employee and climbed to the second floor. As soon as I reached it, hazy smoke poured down. The scene was even more sordid than below.
People clustered together here and there. Smoke of unknown origin—tobacco or something else—and the reek of alcohol. As shock and rage froze me in place, my gaze suddenly caught on a mirror mounted on the wall.
There I was. And yet I wasn’t. What should have been reflected was a man of forty years. Not a youth barely past boyhood.
Why had I grown younger?
I couldn’t understand what was happening. The employee had followed me up. He spoke with arms folded across his chest, his tone casual and dismissive.
“Looking for someone in particular?”
“This is Balanus’s residence.”
His face showed no recognition. He didn’t know the name Balanus—as if it meant nothing to him. Though there wasn’t a soul in this city who didn’t know of us.
“Balanus? I don’t know if you’ve got the wrong place or what, but if you’re not here to drink, then I…….”
―Bang!
The moment he spoke those words and grabbed my shoulder, I drove him straight into a table.
Every eye in the room snapped toward me. Both patrons and employees alike.
Guards—or what looked like them—drew the swords at their hips.
“What are you doing, you bastard!”
When I didn’t answer, they roared and rushed at me. I dodged a blade falling from above, then struck the man’s throat hard.
“Gack!”
He went down. I twisted my body and drove a kick into the next man’s solar plexus.
They all looked fine on the surface, but their attacks lacked any real foundation. Dealing with men like these required nothing more than bare hands.
Screams erupted and patrons fled in a panic. Then more guards emerged from deeper within.
Three of them, perhaps.
Even at a glance, they were small-time rabble.
“Grab that bastard!”
Blades flashed as they caught the light from various directions, but none of them truly gleamed. I let the dull steel pass by and counterattacked while screams echoed from all around.
Six of them were already crawling across the floor.
As I surveyed the now-empty building after the patrons had fled, the house I remembered had been reduced to nothing but its skeleton frame.
Shock and despair washed over me, but there was no time for that now.
I moved toward the office. The door was sealed shut.
Bang!
I kicked the door to pieces and stepped inside. A man who appeared to be in his fifties stood there, pressed flat against the wall. His voice came out in a trembling stammer.
“Who—who are you? Is this about money? Or is it—?”
“Tell me what happened here. This was supposed to be a Balanus building, wasn’t it?”
The man’s expression went blank with confusion, and he stammered his reply.
“Balanus? Balanus being here—that was fifteen years ago. What are you talking about?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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