My Disciples Became Scoundrels - Chapter 32
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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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Were the disappearances connected to the Cartel as well? Zenia watched the frightened children in silence before speaking to Dain.
“Master, should I break the bars and get the children out?”
“Leave them in the bars for now. It seems safer that way.”
—Bang!
The door burst open violently, and more than thirty armed figures poured in, blades glinting with lethal edge.
Cartel operatives. Among them was a man who radiated an unusually sharp aura.
From the pressure alone, he appeared to be at least a 3-grade warrior—comparable to Cesare or Zenia.
The man glanced at Dain and Zenia with indifference before turning to his subordinate. “When did you last feed Tusbery?”
“We threw one in last night, Boss.”
Boss regarded Zenia and Dain with a steady gaze—the way one might observe livestock rather than people.
“Then today I’ll feed it these two.”
Even at those words, Zenia didn’t flinch. She simply extended her Tentacles. They emerged writhing from her body, caustic fluid dripping steadily.
The organization members visibly recoiled at the sight of her otherworldly form, their postures defensive.
Only Boss remained unmoved. Zenia spoke in a flat, measured voice. “You fed people to your Tusbery? Made Blue Moon from that?”
“No. Normally we feed them pigs. Using humans would be too costly.”
Boss answered readily, though his eyes traced over them quickly, assessing their capabilities.
“Then why kidnap the children?”
“Pig blood makes decent liquor, but human blood produces something far more refined.”
He smiled, goading her. “Why? Thirsty for a taste?”
“Curious, actually. What it might taste like.”
Zenia’s voice was even. But her eyes, which normally gleamed with curiosity, had grown cold and distant.
“My master told me something, though. He said I shouldn’t act on curiosity alone. That if I hurt others to satisfy my own desires, I can’t live alongside them.”
She tilted her head slightly.
“You’re older than me, but you don’t understand something so basic? Is your mind dull?”
At her response, Boss’s expression shifted to something like bewilderment. He let out a hollow laugh. “Crazy bitch. A monster playing human now, are we?”
Monster. At that word, Zenia stilled. Her fingertips trembled faintly before Dain stepped forward.
“You prove my student right—your minds are dull indeed.”
“What nonsense is this?”
“My student is not a monster. She’s simply a child with tentacles. She’s not playing human—she is human.”
Zenia’s trembling ceased. Her gaze, which had been lost and confused, turned toward Dain.
Dain’s expression was more fierce than she’d ever seen it. His blank eyes were filled with a blade-sharp Killing Intent.
“This child speaks truth, yet you can’t even refute her properly. You’re adults yet fumble for answers. Worse still—you don’t recognize the gap between us and bark anyway. Had you been wiser, you’d be kneeling by now.”
There was no reason to spare those who had driven a blade through Zenia’s heart. Dain drew his sword and whispered to her. “I’ll handle this. Guard the children until it’s finished.”
Zenia knew Dain could kill no more than three in a single day. Knowing this, she still stepped back. Her eyes shone with absolute faith in her master.
“Yes, Master.”
The moment Zenia withdrew and Dain advanced, the operatives surged forward with roars.
“Kill this bastard first!”
Unlike Zenia, whose nature was inscrutable, Dain appeared an ordinary young man—clean-faced, untouched by hardship.
Yet he was the one in this room who had endured the greatest suffering.
Blades converged on Dain. He evaded with minimal movement. He didn’t draw his sword once.
He had no intention of meeting steel with steel. There was no point. His purpose was singular.
In his path stood a Fermentation Vat. Dain’s blade traced a line. Silence—no blood, no screams.
Then the Fermentation Vat exploded with a deafening sound.
—Crack!
Tusbery poured forth. Not a single one bore a sword wound.
Dain had carved only the outer surface of the vat—mere centimeters—with absolute precision. Destroying the vat along with the creatures inside would have been trivial. It required only strength.
What he’d done required intense concentration and years of experience. The finesse to sever only the target. Boss’s brow furrowed as he recognized it.
—Shriiiiek!
The released Tusbery snapped their jaws open. The freed beasts had only one goal.
“Aaagh! Get away!”
Tusbery teeth tore into flesh. The operatives had no time to spare for Dain now.
Human and beast tangled in chaos. Through it all, Dain didn’t stop.
Ten Fermentation Vats were destroyed in succession. No matter how many operatives there were, they were nothing compared to the swarm of Tusbery.
Among those being devoured alive, only a handful clung to survival.
“Damn it! I have to get out of here—!”
In this chaos, escape was the only option. The Boss happened to be standing near the exit, and an operative bolted toward it.
That’s when their eyes met.
Slash!
In a single sweep of the Boss’s blade, the operative’s head flew from his shoulders. The subordinates stared in horror. The Boss kicked the corpse aside and spoke.
“Did I give you permission to retreat?”
His gaze made it clear—flight was not an option. To his men, the Boss was far more terrifying than Tusbery.
Only one place remained. The warehouse where that strange girl was.
The operative fled toward Tusbery to escape. But the moment he glimpsed the warehouse, he could only hold his breath.
Tentacles were bursting from Zenia’s body. Could they even be called tentacles anymore?
The tentacles, which normally had the thickness of a wooden staff, grew progressively thinner. From staff-width to arrow-shaft width, to needle-thin, and now—thread-like.
Hundreds of thread-thin tentacles stretched in all directions like a spider’s web. They pierced through the floor, walls, and ceiling.
It resembled a defensive barrier woven from thread. Or rather, more like steel wire than thread.
When Tusbery rushed at Zenia, they screamed and began to dissolve.
The moment they touched the thread-like tentacles, their bodies burned away. Corrosive liquid dripped down the tentacles.
A sharp, acrid smell—like burning bone. Zenia fixed the operatives with an eerie stare.
“Want to try?”
The men recoiled in terror, shoving one another, some stumbling into Tusbery, but none could break free from the panic.
“M-Monster…!”
At that word, Zenia’s tongue flicked out. Her playful voice carried a vicious edge as she addressed them.
“Heh, never seen a monster before?”
The operatives had nowhere left to run. Chaos erupted between them and Tusbery.
Dain stood on the scaffolding, gazing down at this hellscape. Even as bodies fell around him, his eyes remained steady.
‘If this goes as planned, the Cartel’s complete annihilation will look like an accident.’
Dain intended to frame it as a monster attack. Make it appear a tragedy rather than murder, slip away clean.
‘Zenia’s Magical Power has grown far more than expected.’
He glanced toward her briefly. He’d known for some time that her Magical Power had surged since consuming the Transcendence Stone.
But to divide her tentacles into hundreds and control them all simultaneously—that was beyond what he’d anticipated.
Tusbery and the operatives couldn’t so much as touch Zenia. Then Dain’s gaze shifted toward the exit.
The air trembled with raw Magical Power. A dense, lethal aura emanating from the Boss. His power had clearly intensified since their first encounter.
“An Expensive Liquor that should fetch a high price, wasted on these rats……”
The Boss was drinking straight from the bottle. Unlike the Blue Moon, this liquor had a dark, murky gleam.
After draining it, he hurled the empty bottle away. The Boss’s veins swelled grotesquely, blackened and engorged. Dain observed from above.
“So that’s the expensive liquor you mentioned. The kind that feeds on human flesh.”
The drink radiated intense Magical Power. And now, so did the Boss who had consumed it.
Even Tusbery sensed something; they kept their distance from the Boss.
But the Boss remained motionless, simply staring up at Dain with quiet intensity.
“Your Vital Energy doesn’t ring clear to me. Your rank seems lower than mine too. And yet…you are stronger than I am.”
While his subordinates watched Zenia warily, the Boss had been studying Dain. And now he understood—Dain was a different order of strength entirely.
“But there’s something peculiar about you. You haven’t laid a hand on a single Tusbery. We won’t either—you’re not killing them.”
The Boss raised his sword, its blade tacky with monster ichor and human blood. He smiled with a cold laugh.
“Can’t bring yourself to kill, can you?”
It was a sharp observation. Yet Dain’s expression remained unmoved, his gaze from above as cold as ice.
“And what will you do with that knowledge?”
The Boss ground his teeth and charged toward Dain. He swung his blade with fury. But his target was not Dain.
Crack!
The Boss cleaved through the scaffolding’s support beam. The platform collapsed beneath Dain, leaving him airborne with nothing beneath his feet.
The floor below was carpeted with Tusbery. There was nowhere to land without crushing them.
Dain leaped swiftly to the opposite platform. The Boss trampled Tusbery to death as he pursued.
Slash!
The stairs shattered again. Even the abandoned Fermentation Vats exploded into fragments. The destruction was catastrophically swift.
‘He’s channeling all his amplified power into speed.’
The Boss’s pace outstripped Dain’s by half a beat. But that margin was all that mattered.
With each strike of the Boss’s blade, the wooden stairs crumbled helplessly. Dain’s footing dwindled with each passing second.
He planted himself on the final remaining platform, but it too gave way beneath him. The Boss bared his teeth in a grin.
“The liquor made from him will fetch an extraordinary price.”
Dain hung suspended in mid-air, surveying the abyss below. The ground had become a lake of monsters. Then he cried out.
“Zenia! Make me a path!”
Zenia’s expression transformed. Her master needed her. He required her aid.
She swiftly withdrew her upper tentacles and fired a thick, staff-sized one downward with tremendous speed.
“Master! Step on it!”
Dain landed atop the Tentacle and fixed his gaze on Boss. The distance between them was still too great.
“Zenia, more!”
She gritted her teeth and drew all the Tentacles together. She had to forge a path for Dain to advance.
Each time Dain charged forward, a foothold materialized beneath him. The gap between him and Boss narrowed with each stride.
The disciple forged steps for her master to walk upon. The master ran forward, trusting in the path she made.
Boss raised his blade. Even in his panic, something anchored him—his mouth twisted into a grin.
“It doesn’t matter. I know you can’t kill……!”
―Crack!
Dain’s blade passed clean through Boss’s chest. The heart was pierced, and blood sprayed outward.
The emotion reflected in Boss’s eyes was confusion. Beyond that confusion, Dain’s blank expression met his gaze.
“You would never take a life…….”
He fell before he could finish his final words. The moment Boss died, a light ignited in Dain’s mind.
“I told you before.”
Dain stood over the corpse, looking down at it. His eyes held the indifference of one regarding a stone in the road.
“Just as my disciple said—you really are stupid.”
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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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