My Disciples Became Scoundrels - Chapter 15

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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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Zenia’s eyes held nothing but murder. Yet the moment she saw Dain standing in the distance, she froze.
Dain. A man she’d first laid eyes on only yesterday, and yet something about him had drawn her inexplicably. A man who wore the same Necklace she did.
Then Gainak’s voice cut through the air.
“Kill those two men in front of you. Dissolve them completely.”
Her eyes flashed with violent resistance for an instant before the rebellion shattered into agony. Zenia’s mouth opened, her gaze turning hollow and doll-like.
“…Yes, Master.”
Countless Tentacles erupted from Zenia’s body. She charged forward between Gainak’s volleys of Lightning and razor-edged wind.
Unlike anything seen before, the tips of her Tentacles had been honed to blade-sharpness—keen enough to pierce and kill in a single stroke.
The Tentacles themselves were already lethal, but where the caustic slime dripped, it hissed and melted away with the stench of burning. A powerful acidic secretion. It would dissolve flesh and metal alike.
Cesare wheeled away from the Tentacles, his voice sharp with urgency.
“Master! What do we do about Zenia?”
She was the cruelest adversary imaginable. Against an ordinary Monster, one could simply sever its core. But he could not bring himself to kill Zenia.
Restraining her and flooding her with Mana was out of the question as well—not with Gainak’s attacks raining down. The instant Cesare pinned her, he’d be caught in the Mage’s fire.
Gainak’s expression had shifted. Where before there’d been grim urgency, now he smiled. The air reeked of char and singed flesh, the very atmosphere crackling with malice.
“Cesare.”
Even now, Dain’s voice remained perfectly steady.
“I’ll neutralize Gainak. You hold the line against Zenia—buy time. Can you manage?”
Cesare laughed sharply.
“Of course.”
The moment those words left his lips, Dain bolted straight for Gainak. Zenia pivoted to intercept him, but a massive form suddenly planted itself in her path.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Out of my way.”
Zenia unleashed a torrent of attacks at Cesare, her eyes devoid of all feeling. Tentacles writhed and twisted like some grotesque creature, caustic slime trailing in their wake.
Cesare slipped through the barrage coming from every direction, barely evading. Then something odd caught his notice.
Cesare was unarmed. His spear remained strapped to his back, untouched. Zenia regarded him with puzzlement.
“Dodging alone won’t beat me.”
“Who said I was just dodging?”
Then, Cesare seized one of the Tentacles hurtling toward him, gripping it with raw strength. The reek of his flesh searing against the acid was overwhelming.
Pain twisted his features, yet Cesare bared his fangs in a grin.
“I’ll play with you. The way an older brother should have, all these fifteen years.”
Crash!
Cesare yanked the Tentacle hard and drove Zenia straight into the rock face with brutal force. Even as her eyes blazed with feral light, he didn’t release his grip.
“Bear with the pain for now. Once this is over, I’ll listen to everything you have to curse me with.”
While Zenia was locked in Cesare’s grasp, Dain advanced toward Gainak without hesitation.
Even as his disciples clashed in fury, his gaze remained unwavering. His focus had only one target.
Gainak.
Under that stare, Gainak felt his blood freeze. He unleashed every spell he knew to block the path. Lightning, wind, flame—a torrent of calamities howled from all directions.
Yet Dain did not slow. No such devastation could stop him. With each blink of his eye, he drew closer.
Ten paces separated them.
Five paces.
Then mere inches.
Dain raised his blade to cleave Gainak in two.
Clang!
A sharp metallic ring echoed out. Yet Gainak did not bleed, did not cry out.
Dain’s sword hung suspended in empty air.
A translucent sphere had materialized around Gainak. A Protective Barrier, woven from pure Mana. Gainak’s face had gone deathly pale, yet he smirked.
“Ha, haha…! This is no Protective Barrier that crude physical force can shatter!”
Dain raised his blade again and struck. The sound rang out sharp and clear, yet the barrier didn’t yield an inch.
Gainak had poured every scrap of Mana he possessed into its weaving—so much so that even the mightiest Mage alive could not easily break through.
Dain studied it for a moment, then swung his sword once more. It seemed he didn’t truly understand what this barrier was. At that realization, Gainak’s smirk deepened.
“Do you think your sword can shatter this just because it carries Mana? You’re a swordsman. You lack the overwhelming force of Mana that I possess!”
“Most swordsmen would be helpless, true.”
He had crossed the line between life and death countless times against countless foes. He’d faced Mages, Protective Barriers—worn them down with bitter repetition.
In Dain’s eyes, the flow of Mana was visible. He could see the barrier’s hairline fractures.
Dain swung his blade again. A sound like metal and shattering glass rang out together.
Crack…!
Gainak watched as a thin fissure appeared in the once-perfect sphere.
A gossamer crack, fine as a root system, yet unmistakably there. With each stroke of Dain’s blade, those roots branched and spread in all directions. Gainak’s pupils began to shake.
‘He’s breaking the barrier apart with nothing but a sword?’
The metal shrieked as fractures spiderwebbed outward, growing deeper by the second. The Protective Barrier looked ready to crumble into shards at any moment. It was only a matter of time before it shattered completely.
Gainak wanted to call on Zenia for help, but she was in no better shape. Without the strength to command her Tentacles, she could barely sustain a single one now.
‘Have I drained her mana too much?’
Even as Gainak pulled upon his own mana reserves, Zenia had to contend with Cesare. His relentless grip had already worn her down severely.
Cesare himself was scorched black and hung in tatters, yet he showed no intention of releasing her.
The sound of the fractures spreading grew louder, more distinct.
He couldn’t die like this. Gainak’s mind raced, stretched taut as a wire. Just before his thoughts shattered from the strain, he shouted.
“Zenia! Jump from the Cliff and kill yourself!”
At his words, Zenia went still. From the silence came her voice.
“Yes, Master.”
Zenia severed her own Tentacle from Cesare’s grasp and ran toward the Cliff without hesitation.
Cesare tried to follow, but he couldn’t—acidic blood was soaking through his legs.
“Zenia…!”
Toward the black, bottomless void beyond the Cliff, Zenia threw herself. Darkness. She closed her eyes and fell.
In mere seconds, she would strike rock. Even half-Demon as she was, in this state she would die.
Death was inevitable.
But Zenia did not die.
Her eyes opened slowly. Her feet hung suspended in empty air. With one hand, Dain gripped her waist; with the other, he held a root jutting from the cliff face.
The moment Zenia leapt from the Cliff, Dain leapt after her—without a moment’s hesitation, without a flicker of doubt. Confusion clouded eyes that had been so placid before.
“Why did you save me?”
“Because I’m your master.”
“But my real master—”
A strange sense of déjà vu washed over Zenia.
There had been someone who spoke this way. After she had caused trouble, this person had gone around apologizing in her stead.
She had asked him why he apologized for her. Why he never grew angry. And then he had said—
“Ha, you mad old fool…! Hack…!”
Cesare’s cry of agony cut through the air. Gainak drove a Mana Arrow into him where he lay sprawled on the ground, then staggered toward the Cliff.
“Haha… ha! Yes, I knew you’d leap after her without thinking.”
Victory gleamed in Gainak’s gaunt face. As he chanted a spell, a Mana Arrow began forming in the empty air.
It was smaller than anything he’d conjured before, meager and insignificant. Dain fixed him with a hard stare.
“You’d order suicide on a child you’ve raised for fifteen years?”
“It’s time Zenia repaid her debt to me. I’ve fed and sheltered her for fifteen years—surely I deserve compensation?”
Once the casting finished, Gainak drove the Mana Arrow straight into Dain’s shoulder.
Blood spilled down the arm that held Zenia. Dain tightened his grip, drawing his pupil closer.
“In Domus, a master is also a parent. Does a parent expect repayment from their child?”
“Of course.”
Gainak only laughed.
“Why else would a parent raise a child? To collect what’s owed in the future.”
Zenia watched him quietly. As Gainak’s own core mana began to dwindle, the Seal binding him started to creak.
Memories surfaced—fragments of long ago, someone who had spoken to her. Someone who gave her a Necklace, a place to live, a family.
My master.
When she’d asked why he did this, whether he expected repayment, he had said he wanted nothing of the kind.
My master.
A puzzling person. She had wanted to know him better. Curiosity had kindled, and curiosity had become affection. A person she’d always wanted to understand more deeply.
My master…
By now, Gainak was nearly done casting. Three Mana Arrows floated in the void as he grinned, his voice rough and bitter.
“Next, where should I pierce? The eyes? The tongue? Or perhaps—”
“Master.”
Zenia spoke. Gainak’s brow furrowed as he looked at her.
“I remember now.”
Zenia gripped her Necklace tightly. Emotion kindled in eyes that had been still as a frozen lake.
“You gave me this Necklace. You went around apologizing for me. You taught me how to live with other people. You did it all without asking for anything in return.”
“What? What nonsense are you—”
In that instant, a Tentacle pierced Gainak’s chest. Blood bloomed instantly; acidic fluid began to seep. He shrieked and thrashed.
“Aaaaah! Zenia! Stop this instant! What are you doing to your master—!”
Zenia did not hesitate. If anything, the Tentacle drove deeper into his gut. She clung to Dain while speaking.
“The master I truly wanted to know more about—”
Her voice was resolute, her gaze unwavering.
“It was never you. It’s always been Dain Balanus.”

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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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