My Disciples Became Scoundrels - Chapter 45

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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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“I’ve got something on my mind,” Jenia said.
“What is it? Do you need the bathroom?” Arkel replied.
The disciples were walking down a single passage—nearly identical to the right corridor Dein had taken earlier.
Arkel followed behind his younger companions. He’d joined them on the Master’s orders, but he was exhausted. Tired of pointless conversation, tired of hearing it.
“Do you think the Master’s Doppelganger will be strong? Could we fail to catch it?” Jenia asked.
“Are you scared? Frightened?” Arkel asked.
“No. I want to bring it home.”
At least she wasn’t addressing him. Arkel let their voices wash over him as he glanced back.
There was no one behind them. Of course there wasn’t. Yet he kept turning to look. Then he heard Jenia’s voice again.
“What’s wrong, big brother? I don’t hear anything behind us. What are you thinking about?”
That bright-eyed girl, always questioning everything about him—Arkel saw Jenia watching and opened his mouth.
“I’m worried about the Master.”
“Why?”
“When we face our Doppelganger, he won’t be able to lay a hand on it.”
Jenia tilted her head, puzzled.
“Because he can’t kill more than three monsters?”
“No. Because it’s wearing our face. No matter what we say—that it’s a fake—he won’t touch it. He’s too good a man.”
The Master was ruthless to everyone else, yet he smiled warmly at his disciples.
Would Arkel himself be able to strike the Master’s Doppelganger if it appeared? Probably not. So the Master…
“What are you talking about? The Master would cut it down without hesitation,” Chezare interjected, his scorn evident as he snorted.
Arkel’s voice turned ice-cold as he rebutted. “The Master would never do such a thing.”
“You don’t know him at all. He’s probably relieving stress right now.”
At those words—*you don’t know him*—Arkel’s brow twisted faintly. When he spoke again, his voice was even colder than before.
“There is no one as noble and just as he. Even if it’s a monster, if it wore our faces—if it were his Doppelganger—he would never strike it. That’s absurd.”
“Ugh.”
Chezare made a retching sound as he listened. From his expression alone, it looked like he might actually vomit.
“God, I hate it. All this Master this, Master that—like a fanatic. Do you have room for anything else in your head?”
“Don’t speak carelessly. You have no idea what I’ve been thinking to survive these fifteen years.”
“About the Master, obviously. You probably can’t think of anything else.”
Chezare stopped mid-sentence. Both Jenia and Arkel turned their eyes toward the end of the corridor.
A familiar presence emanated from that direction—warm, gentle, and stable as an ancient tree.
Arkel walked forward. As he emerged from the passage, a man stood among the cracked pillars scattered throughout the space.
Golden hair framed eyes that shone like warm sunlight. He smiled with an unlined, pale face.
“Welcome. So the side passage connects here. I encountered some traps on my end—were you all unharmed?” Dein asked.
It was Dein. He wore an expression Arkel knew well—kind and composed.
Looking to the side, there truly was a door. So he was safe. Relief washed over Arkel, followed immediately by doubt. Was this really the Master?
He looked like the Master on the surface, but one could never be certain. The moment Arkel opened his mouth to ask him to show the mark on his inner arm—
“You’re not the Master.”
Jenia drew forth her Tentacle and took a defensive stance. For the first time since arriving here, a sharp killing intent radiated from her. Yet Dein only smiled.
“I see. Why did you think I was a Doppelganger?”
“The Master’s been in a bad mood lately because of my brothers. You look too cheerful.”
Arkel was taken aback. Had the Master seemed that way? Now that he thought about it, shadows had indeed been gathering beneath the Master’s eyes recently.
At Jenia’s words, Dein laughed—flawlessly, without the slightest crease in his expression.
“I see. I misunderstood the situation.”
No one answered. A silence hung like time had stopped—but only for a moment. Literally a moment.
And in the instant that moment passed, blood erupted from all three disciples’ bodies simultaneously.
―Spray!
The disciples scattered in panicked alarm, spreading out in three directions. Dein, who had been several meters away mere moments before, now stood among them.
He regarded them quietly. Fresh blood clung to his blade.
“Fast. I aimed for instant death, but you managed to dodge the vital points.”
Dein spoke as a kind Master would. Like the Master Arkel remembered.
Blood dripped from Chezare’s chest as he leveled his spear at Dein. The spear sang as it bounced back from deflecting the blade. He gritted his teeth.
“Jenia, bring him over here!”
With those words, Chezare lunged forward, driving Dein back. His spear, charged with Magic Power, shrieked through the air.
Steel struck steel with a sharp ring. It was a strike fueled by desperation. Dein deflected the spear’s edge with ease and spoke.
“Buying time, then? How touching. Even though you’re all going to die.”
At the moment the spear was about to reach him, Dein planted his hand on the shaft and vaulted upward.

It was acrobatic, the way Chezare’s body moved. He raised his spear to block Dein’s strike, but Dein’s true target was not him.
Slice!
The tentacle reaching for Arkel was severed. Jenia’s brow twisted in pain. Yet she kept struggling to grab Arkel with the remaining tentacles.
“Hold on, big brother——!”
Each time, the tentacles were cut down mercilessly. Chezare ground his teeth and hurled his spear at Dein.
Whoosh!
The spear shot past Dein and was about to reach Jenia’s side when Chezare teleported. In that instant, Dein’s voice came from behind.
“Your attacks are too honest. Did you forget what your master taught you?”
Slice!
Chezare’s right arm was cut deep, blood spraying forth. Dein now stood like an iron wall between Jenia and Chezare.
“Such loyalty to your siblings—beautiful to see.”
Dein laughed. Even as his disciples bled.
Chezare gasped for breath, then cried out toward Arkel.
“Brother, snap out of it!”
Arkel stood rigid as an ice statue. Knowing he was a doppelganger, still Arkel’s feet would not move. He could not even step on the shadow of his master. Merely seeing someone who resembled Dein made him deferential—and now he was supposed to attack a face identical to Dein’s?

“Ahhh!”
In that moment, Jenia screamed. The thickest of her tentacles was being severed.
The instant Arkel heard Jenia’s cry, his body moved of its own accord. An Ice Barrier rose before her.
Crash!
The barrier that erupted from the ground shattered under Dein’s blade. But it bought them precious seconds.
Chezare pulled Jenia into his arms and scrambled backward.
Dein rushed forward as if to sever her limbs as well. Each time, an Ice Barrier blocked his path.
Boom!
Thunder-like crashes echoed in succession. Shards of ice scattered helplessly in all directions.
The distance between Dein and his disciples was widening bit by bit. The puddles pooling on the floor ceaselessly caught at the master’s ankles.
Then Dein stopped. Standing amid ice fragments that gleamed like crystal, he turned to face Arkel. His expression remained gentle.
“You work hard to protect your siblings. Just as you have for fifteen years.”
That voice. The same voice that once melted his tears in the Snow Field. A warmth so intense it could thaw any ice.
“You must be exhausted. Haven’t you done enough? You can stop now. You deserve to be rewarded.”
“A reward, you say……?”
“Don’t you want to become my only disciple?”
Arkel faltered. Memories of childhood surfaced—when he first met Dein. Fresh blood dripped from the edge of Dein’s blade.
“When your siblings die, you alone will be my disciple. You will become even more special.”
My only disciple. Arkel’s lips trembled. Seeing this, Dein smiled softly and turned his body.
Before him stood Chezare and Jenia. Both faced their master, cold sweat pouring down their faces.
“That’s a pathetic imitation of Master. If it were the real one, he’d have used that move on you already.”
Chezare charged forward, spear gripped in his left hand. The collision of spear and blade sounded sharp and perilous.
Crash!
Chezare’s spear bounced back. In the moment he lost balance, an opening appeared. Jenia was visible in that gap. Dein’s eyes curved with amusement.
“You shouldn’t hide behind your brother, Jenia.”
Dein twisted his wrist and drove the blade straight at Jenia. Or tried to.
Slash!
Chezare stepped in front of Jenia and received the blade instead. Jenia cried out.
Blood spilled. Chezare’s blood. And Dein’s blood. Dein glanced at his own side.
“I thought you came closer to help. How ungrateful.”
Arkel had closed in behind Dein without warning. An Ice Dagger bit deep into Dein’s flank.
Arkel’s hand trembled. His face showed he didn’t understand what he’d just done.
Crash!
Dein swung his blade at Arkel. The Ice Dagger blocked the strike and shattered helplessly. With each successive wave of Dein’s assault, wounds multiplied across Arkel’s body.
“Fight back, brother!”
Chezare shouted, spitting blood. But he could not bring himself to attack him.
All he could do was defend. Before long, a thick wall of ice began to rise before his siblings.
Seeing this, Dein stopped. His expression hardened, the smile gone, as he looked at Arkel.
“Flee, Arkel. I will spare only you.”
The words he’d spoken in the Snow Field overlapped with these. That tender voice remained the same. Arkel steadied his stance despite his wavering.
“I refuse.”
“You have no attachment to them.”
The tone was as if he knew everything. A doppelganger replicates memories. Had the master already known this fact?
“It’s true—I have no attachment to them, as you say.”
―Squelch!
In that instant, a cold blade pierced through Arkel’s abdomen. Warm blood spilled forth. Arkel seized Dein’s wrist, the hand that gripped the sword.
His grip was iron-tight, refusing to yield. Dein looked down at him and laughed quietly.
“You claim to feel nothing for me, yet here you are. Your mind contains nothing but me, doesn’t it?”
Chezare’s mocking words echoed back, layered over Dein’s voice. Had he not spent fifteen years thinking of his master? Wasn’t that all that filled his head?
For fifteen years, each time Arkel felt himself dying in darkness and cold, he remembered.
Jenia, placing a flower crown on his head, fragrant with fresh blooms.
Chezare, slipping tart raspberries between his lips.
Bella, singing him a birthday song in her steady, gentle voice.
Hayden, offering a small, warm hand on a winter’s day.
It was not Dein who kept him alive. Had he truly dwelt on his master, he would have chosen to freeze to death in sorrow.
For fifteen years, Arkel thought only of his siblings. He rose, bleeding among corpses. He drew breath in the solitary cell, where nothing lived but darkness.
They were the ones who saved him.
He would not release the hand that held his master. He sought to extinguish Dein’s warmth, but it was hopeless. The gap between them was too vast.
Dein drove the blade deeper. His voice carried the tone of someone who could not comprehend.
“You’d die protecting them, and yet you don’t even love them?”
“Yes.”
He did not know what love was. But of one thing he was certain.
Beyond Dein’s form, he could see his siblings. They were changed from how he had imagined them through fifteen years of longing.
He knew what he had to do. Arkel’s silver eyes blazed with fierce resolve.
“I will shield my siblings with everything I have.”

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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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