My Disciples Became Scoundrels - Chapter 36

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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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Every step Arkel took, every movement of his body, every glance—all of it let me predict his next action.
Dodging would have been easy. Subduing him, easier still. And yet…….
Crack!
Before I could react, Arkel had my throat in one hand, gripping it with enough force to snap my neck.
I gritted my teeth against the pain. The attack was one I could have evaded, blocked, or countered.
But the moment I did, Arkel would see me as a threat. A serious fight would be all but inevitable.
So I didn’t move. This much pain was bearable. Right now I needed to prove I wasn’t an enemy—not to fight.
“How do you know that name?”
His grip was brutal, but not lethal. If he’d wanted to kill me, he would have used Magic long ago.
I forced the words out through the strangling pressure on my throat.
“Your father told me about you. Arkel Balanus.”
“My father?”
“Dein Balanus is my father.”
Something shifted in Arkel’s eyes. Where caution had gleamed before, now raw fury blazed through.
“His son? You’re lying.”
He stared at me as though he could see through me. All the while, his grip tightened as if to crush my neck.
“He always put Domus first. He never kept personal ties close.”
Arkel hurled me onto the Snowy Field as though spitting me out. I coughed, clutching at my throat, while he loomed over me.
“Who sent you?”
“Dein Balanus sent me.”
Crack!
Arkel stamped on my leg. Pain shot through it like a blade. His voice came low and cold.
“Are you accustomed to torture?”
He pressed harder, grinding his heel down. I clenched my teeth and endured the agony when a voice reached me.
“Fearless as a pup that’s barely weaned.”
He lifted his foot. His eyes remained merciless, yet something flickered in them—an odd hesitation. I recalled what Matteo had said: that Arkel showed kindness to the weak.
“There’s no escape from this place, so you’d do well to speak quickly.”
He walked past me without another word. I called after him, to his retreating back.
“What if Dein returned alive? Would you listen to what I have to say then?”
Arkel didn’t turn around. His voice came back, low and heavy as waterlogged wood.
“The dead don’t come back. Never.”
Never. That single word carried weight—layers of feeling compressed into a single syllable.
Loss, resignation, a grief too vast to measure—it lay on his shoulders like a drift of snow.
The blizzard swallowed his silhouette, and I was left alone on the Snowy Field. Pain throbbed in my leg and throat.
Arkel had refused me. Yet it wasn’t hopeless. His own words echoed in my mind.
“He always put Domus first. He never kept personal ties close.”
Arkel had called him that—”he,” with reverence. With remembrance.
Balanus still lived in him. That was enough.
No matter how long it took, he would eventually understand.
I was his master, and he was my Disciple.
* * *
“Dein, you’ve gotten quite the color palette in just a week. Are you all right?”
Matteo peered at my arm with concern. Sure enough, it was mottled with bruises in every shade.
They weren’t serious enough to worry about, but Matteo’s eyes glistened with tears nonetheless.
After a week of cursing out those nobles, he was acting like we’d been friends for ten years. I pulled my sleeve back down to cover my arm.
“Yes, I’m fine. It hurts less than when those nobles beat me.”
“Those bastards……. Hah, still—it’s strange. I’ve never seen Arkel hurt anyone like this before.”
A week had passed since my arrival. Every day during the recreation time, I sought out Arkel.
And every day, I took a beating.
He asked the same questions: Who sent you? Name your backer. I gave the same answer: Dein Balanus sent me.
The same exchange, over and over. I tried to convince him by speaking of things only we’d know, but he never yielded an inch.
The stubborn bastard. He seemed to have forgotten the lesson about showing kindness to the weak, judging by how systematically he was beating me.
I never thought Arkel would do this to me. I decided it was the price of my sin—leaving my Disciples behind and dying early.
“What did you say to Arkel that made him hate you so much? I heard you’re going into Solitary Confinement today—this is serious…….”
Matteo looked at me with genuine worry.
“I want to help, but honestly, I don’t think I can beat Arkel. I could bribe Gaston to protect you, but……. You’d rather die than that, wouldn’t you?”
“Who is Gaston?”
“The Prison warden. A noble with airs and graces. He’s obsessed with money.”
A noble. I couldn’t blame Matteo for hating them.
The sound of military boots echoed from outside. A guard approached and hurled several envelopes into the cell.
“Matteo, Dein. Mail. Check it.”
The envelopes were already torn—they’d been censored once already. As I opened mine, Matteo leaned over casually. “What is it? Who sent it?”
“Who sent it?”
“My disciples.”
It was my disciples who had written. Only a week had passed, and yet here were letters. Truth be told, I’d been missing them too. I read through the first one.
“It’s Zenia. Are you well? I’m worried about you. We want to help. If you’ll allow it, we’ll act at once.”
“Don’t give permission. I don’t want to know what method Zenia might use to get in. I’ll wait.”
I laughed quietly. The censors had struck out any mention of Arkel, but a small drawing had been left at the letter’s end.
It was me, Cesare, Zenia, and Arkel. Had Zenia drawn it? I reached out and touched the sketch gently.
“Well, well, Dein. That’s quite the expression. Did your lover send this?”
Matteo observed me with amusement. Seen this way alone, he seemed almost normal.
“No, my siblings. Who wrote to you, Matteo?”
“My fiancée. Six months in, and she hasn’t abandoned me yet. She’s a good woman.”
Matteo held up several sheets of paper, laughing. The back of the paper obscured the letter’s contents, but something felt odd about it.
There was a faint, distinctive magical current emanating from it—so subtle that an ordinary person wouldn’t notice.
Sometimes secret letters were written using Mana. His fiancée had sent a secret letter like this?
“Let’s grab lunch, Dein. I’m starving.”
Matteo casually slipped the letter into his desk drawer and stood. I’d have to look into that later.
We made our way to the Dining Hall. It was already packed. After receiving our thin bean porridge, we barely found empty seats.
“Ugh, I can barely breathe during mealtimes,” Matteo said, clicking his tongue.
With dangerous criminals everywhere, even the dining hour carried a bloodthirsty atmosphere.
I spooned down the bean porridge. Black bread, wizened bacon. The meal was as harsh as the weather outside.
Arkel must have eaten like this for fifteen years. When he got out, I’d make sure to prepare something warm and generous for him.
“Agh! What—?!”
Matteo let out a short yelp. A massive man shoved him aside roughly and took his seat.
It was the same man I’d seen on the first day after arrival—the one Arkel had stabbed in the belly multiple times. A man nearly as broad as Cesare fixed his gaze on me.
“So you’re really taking a beating from Thirteen, huh? Your body’s in pretty rough shape.”
“Is there something you need?”
“I wanted to have a word with you.”
Interest colored his voice. I could guess the reason well enough.
“Is it about Thirteen?”
“Yeah. I heard you’ve been getting beaten by him since your first day here.”
He twisted his lips into a smile.
“He’s not usually the type to harass anyone. So what did you do to earn his hatred?”
A man’s anger was often rooted in his weakness too. Was he asking this because he wanted to retaliate against Arkel?
I glanced to the side for a moment. Matteo was watching me with concern.
“I was dining with Matteo. If you have something to say, say it after we’re finished.”
“What?”
He looked bewildered. I met his gaze steadily through the tense air.
“And apologize to Matteo as well. Shoving someone away like that—did nobody teach you manners?”
The words had barely left my mouth when he stood up on the table. His eyes blazed as he glared down at me, trampling his food tray beneath him.
“Manners? Your mother taught me some.”
Strange—I don’t even know who my mother is.
A snort escaped me. In the same instant, the man threw a punch.
I leaned back immediately. The table toppled, and trays clattered loudly across the floor.
The sound of chains rattled. My wrists weren’t free, but it didn’t matter.
I didn’t need my fists to handle men like this anyway. I planted my hand on the ground.
Crack!
Using my arm as a brace, I swung my leg hard. The man’s jaw took the blow and he careened backward with a gag.
“You… bastard…!”
With the leader down, his cronies rushed forward. I pushed off from the ground and flipped backward.
Their faces were slack with astonishment. I kicked the nearest one in the solar plexus with my heel.
He choked.
Then I sensed movement behind me. An ambush. I lowered my body quickly, and a fist whistled through the empty space above my head.
Crack!
I twisted my body and swept his shin. He lost his footing and crashed down.
The last man charged with a roar. I spun hard and drove my heel into his temple.
Bang!
His head snapped back with a sound like something breaking. I’d held back enough to keep him alive—though he’d suffer for a while.
The commotion around us subsided. As I brushed the dust from my hands, whispers rippled through the gathered prisoners.
“How… how did this newcomer take down all of them?”
“He’s a fresh fish, isn’t he?”
The inmates watching had gone rigid. If I pushed much further, the guards would come. This was enough.
Then I saw the fallen man twitch. He’d already drawn a Dagger. I was about to pin him down properly.
But someone got there first.
Crack!
Someone’s heel came down hard on the man’s head. He convulsed and went limp. Standing beside me was Arkel.
Had Arkel just helped me?
He scanned the area—sprawled gangsters, me still standing. His eyes narrowed, and he grabbed the back of my neck without warning.
“Come with me.”
His gaze was glacial. I didn’t resist as he dragged me along. Once we reached his Room, he slammed me hard against the wall.
Thud!
The Desk toppled in the struggle. My cheek pressed against cold stone.
Arkel wrenched my arm behind my back. I heard the joints creak. His voice was ice against my ear.
“You fight well. Were you deliberately playing weak in front of me?”
“I… I wasn’t fighting because I’m not your enemy, Arkel.”
“Then what’s your purpose?”
He threw the same question at me again—one he’d asked countless times. I gave him the same answer.
“I came looking for you.”
He went silent. I couldn’t see his expression. Then came a question slightly different from before.
“Why?”
There was still wariness, but we’d moved forward somehow. Had he accepted that I wasn’t sent by anyone else?
“My father’s Disciples are like brothers to me.”
Crack!
My arm bent further. A little more pressure and it would snap. His voice came low and bitter.
“Are you still going to lie about being his son? If he’d had children, he wouldn’t have hidden them. He would have taken responsibility—that was who he was.”
I was grateful his Disciples thought well of me, even if it was awkward. I spoke through the pain.
“He didn’t know I existed. I only learned who my father was after my mother died.”
“He never even dated anyone, let alone got married.”
That was true. But I’d already claimed to be Dein’s son, so I couldn’t admit otherwise.
“There are circumstances an adult must keep private.”
“What circumstances?”
“My father’s personal matters…”
The pressure on my arm intensified. I didn’t need to turn around to feel Arkel’s rage, sharp and clear.
“He had no such matters.”
Everyone has a private life, Disciple.

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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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