My Disciples Became Scoundrels - Chapter 71

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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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My disciple has become a seducer, a con artist preying on women. Even for a criminal, this was a category of deception I’d never expected to see.
I still felt dizzy. I’d thought myself inured to seeing disciples fall in every conceivable way, but this kept catching me off guard.
Before I could even process the fact that Hayden had become a seducer, the Lord poured out his words.
“The bastard fled the moment he was discovered, but I’ve issued a Blockade Order, so he’s still somewhere in the city.”
He scraped his nails across the tabletop with a grinding sound. The Lord’s eyes blazed with murderous fury.
“When I catch him, I’ll make sure he never functions as a man again. Bring him to me in one piece, and we’ll be done with it cleanly.”
“…Yes. I understand.”
After hearing more details about Hayden from the Lord, I left the Mansion. The entire journey back, my thoughts tangled into knots.
Was it really Hayden? If it were a fake, the effort would lead nowhere. The real thing would be far more troublesome.
And yet I found myself hoping it was the con artist. I didn’t care how difficult it became—as long as it was truly Hayden….
Returning to my room at the Inn with my unsettled mind still churning, I found the disciples chattering quietly among themselves. Jenia bounded over.
“Master, welcome back. What is this? A painting?”
As I unwrapped the cloth covering the canvas, a portrait emerged. A small murmur of wonder rippled through the room.
“Wow, he’s handsome. Is that Hayden?”
“Presumably. The Lord gave it to me.”
The disciples gathered close to examine the portrait. Arkel withdrew his gaze and asked me a question.
“Why is Hayden being hunted?”
“…There’s been some scandal involving a certain woman.”
I couldn’t tell them the whole truth. The best I could manage was to speak in the most measured terms possible. Bella tapped the portrait with her index finger.
“Did he get caught seducing someone’s wife?”
“How did you know?”
“You can tell from the painting. Look at those eyes—he’s flirting like a fox.”
The eyes were certainly unnatural. Arkel frowned at her observation.
“If the Lord catches him, it won’t end well. What will you do if you find Hayden?”
“We’ll catch him first, then decide.”
I had no intention of handing him over to the Lord. A man had to be allowed to preserve his manhood, didn’t he?
Throughout this, Cesare’s expression had hardened. He looked as if he’d bitten down on something bitter, his disgust plain. He spoke with difficulty.
“Do we really have to find Hayden?”
It was something I hadn’t even considered. The other disciples looked startled. Jenia spoke with bewilderment.
“Brother, why? You don’t want to find Hayden? Because he seduced someone’s wife? Because he’s a seducer?”
“Whether he seduced a wife or a husband doesn’t concern me.”
Cesare clicked his tongue. He clearly didn’t want to speak at all. He glanced at me sidelong.
“Master, do you remember? The con artist who cleaned me out?”
“Yes, I remember. You said it drove you to drink.”
Cesare had lost his fortune and fallen into alcoholism. I had actually thought something was off about it at the time.
One can despair from losing money. But he’d given up on everything—even his name—because of it. Didn’t that seem like more than just the catalyst?
Then Cesare spat out the words.
“That con artist was Hayden.”
“…What?”
Something pierced my chest. It felt as though something were being torn away from inside me.
He’d swindled his own family? He’d betrayed them?
Everyone fell silent. It was as if something in the room had swallowed all the air.
Anger should have come first, but instead, a different feeling surged up. Where had I been while that child became what he is now?
No—I couldn’t afford to waver. I barely steadied my emotions and asked.
“How did you meet Hayden?”
“…I ran into him by chance a few years ago. It was unclear at first, but when I saw his tattoo, I knew it was him.”
Cesare fingered the Necklace, as if trying to anchor himself with it.
“After we met, we spent time together. It was good—I’d found my brother. Then I learned he was in debt. I paid it off for him.”
“You went to the Fighting Arena?”
He nodded. How many times had Cesare gone to that pit? How many times had he bled into that dirt floor?
“The amount was large, so it took a while. Then I found out by accident—he had no such debt.”
The tendons in Cesare’s hands stood out. Deep revulsion colored his every breath.
“He spent all the money I gave him on entertainment in just a few days. When I confronted him about it, he finally showed his true colors.”
“….”
“After all these years, he said he hadn’t expected me to still talk about family bonds. He’d had a good time thanks to me, and then he vanished.”
Cesare slowly released the Necklace. All anger had drained from his face. Everything had burned to ash, leaving only cinders.
“…Hayden has changed completely. Even so, will you still find him?”
I gazed quietly down at the portrait. Hayden wore a smile I had never once seen.
We had been absent for far too long. The Hayden I knew may have vanished entirely, leaving nothing behind.
“I’ll find him anyway. No matter how much has changed.”
I knew it too. That this wasn’t fair. Hayden was my student, and Cesare was my student as well.
And yet I was searching for the one who had betrayed me. I wished I knew how to give up.
There was nothing left to say in my defense. Just as I fell silent, Cesare let out a soft laugh.
“I thought you’d say something like that, Master. You accepted me even when I’d become a worthless drunk.”
He wore his usual smile. I would have preferred his resentment. Cesare turned his back to me.
“I’m going to clear my head for a bit. I’m not upset or anything. Just going to get some air.”
The door closed with a sound. Jenia’s eyes darted about before she asked Bella a question.
“He’s not really upset, is he?”
“He’s definitely upset.”
At those words, Jenia grabbed the door handle. Her face had taken on a determined look.
“I’ll go stay with Cesare. When he’s upset, it lasts a while.”
“…Thank you.”
I was grateful that Cesare had other siblings. My students were filling the void left by my inadequacy.
And so only three of us remained in the room. Arkel asked me a question.
“Have you learned anything else about Hayden? What does he do for a living?”
“A dilettante, or so I heard.”
“A wealthy idler, in other words.”
Hayden had no profession and wasn’t nobility, yet he always spent money freely.
I couldn’t say where that money came from. Or rather, I could. He’d been running con games, just as he did to Cesare.
“How far have the Lord’s soldiers searched?”
“They’ve been searching the homes of nobles who had dealings with Hayden—salons, cafés, taverns, and the like. But they haven’t found him.”
“There’s a chance he’s already fled the city.”
“That’s possible. But the Lord issued the Blockade Order the moment he discovered their connection, and sealed the harbor, so it wouldn’t have been easy for him to escape.”
At those words, Bella gazed out the window. Ships lined the blue waters ahead, row upon row.
“If ships had been moored for a whole week, the complaints would be fierce.”
“Ships have been under attack by monsters even before the blockade, so there’s little resistance even with the harbor sealed.”
It was nearly impossible to leave Kalimera. And yet Hayden remained undiscovered.
He must be hiding in an unexpected place. I paused to think, then asked Bella a question.
“If you were him, where would you hide?”
“The Slums, if I were him. A place a rich man wouldn’t be expected to go. And you, Master?”
“Inside a ship.”
Bella’s eyes gleamed at those words. As if she’d understood something.
“With the harbor sealed, they wouldn’t conduct an additional search inside the ships.”
The point wasn’t to prevent ships from leaving—it was to stop them from sailing away.
While the harbor itself would be under watch, the ships themselves had paradoxically slipped outside the net of surveillance.
“Your Slums idea has merit too. Let’s split up and search.”
I looked down at the Portrait again. Hayden gazed back with nothing but his equivocal, smiling eyes.
Cesare’s hard-earned money had been squandered on pleasures. And he’d left with a smile.
Had everything I taught him vanished? Was nothing left? But even so, I had to find him. He was forever my student.
* * *
The night sea lapped gently. White hulls glowed in the darkness. Dozens of ships lay moored at the Dock.
About ten men stood guard at the harbor entrance. By the look of their clothes, they seemed like ordinary laborers.
We watched them from between the bushes. Jenia whispered from beside me.
“There are a lot of them. Big brother, we can’t kill them, right?”
“One might be manageable, but a group would be difficult to clean up after.”
“So one is fine, then.”
My students chatted away with good rapport between them. Perhaps dividing them into teams like this had been the right call.
“We’ll need to drive the guards away or knock them out. There are many ways, but making it look like an accident would be best.”
Arkel surveyed the surroundings for a moment. The only notable features were a warehouse and piles of cargo. He rose to his feet.
“So I need to make sure no one is killed, that no intruders are detected, and that all the guards either leave their posts or lose consciousness?”
“That’s right.”
“Understood.”
Arkel approached the cargo piles. One moment after he snapped his fingers—
—Boom!
The cargo erupted in flames. Fire spread in an instant and began leaping toward the warehouse beside it. The guards shouted in chaos.
“Fire! Get water, now!”
“Damn it, that’s the oil storage next door! Hurry, put it out!”
The guards rushed over frantically and began fighting the blaze. In that moment, Arkel led us into the Dock.
“Did you scout the oil storage beforehand?”
“Yes.”
“Wasn’t that a bit excessive?”
Arkel sank into thought, and Jenia spoke up in his stead.
“Master, it matched all the conditions. Your method wasn’t wrong. It was just fast.”
Jenia looked at me as if to say there was nothing wrong with it. If Cesare or Bella had been there, they would have cried out in protest.
“……Let us make haste. It will take time for the fire to spread, but we cannot afford to linger.”
We had to leave before the fire died or the crowds arrived. Arkel surveyed the vessels—dozens of them, large and small.
“Searching each one will take time. Shall we burn them all? Then he’ll come out.”
“Good idea. Are you a genius?”
“Please spare me that.”
I found myself missing Bella and Cesare a little. I pointed to a large pleasure vessel nearby.
“If he’s been hiding for a week, he’d have needed substantial provisions. Jenia, focus on the larger ships.”
“Yes. But there are so many large ships. It’s too much. Burning them would be easier…….”
“Start with the rain barrels on deck. The one with depleted water—that’s where Hayden will be.”
Hayden had been hiding for a week. Water, whatever else might be forgotten, would have been essential.
At those words, Jenia’s eyes brightened.
“Yes, I’ll check right away!”
She stepped on the rope wound around the capstan and bolted toward the ships, then nimbly leaped aboard one.
Her tentacles gripped the hull. She scanned the deck this way and that, then bounded to the next vessel with rapid, springy steps.
After a moment, I saw her waving from a ship some distance away.
As I climbed aboard the dim vessel, my words grew sparse without my noticing. Perhaps it was because I was only now beginning to grasp that Hayden was here, inside this hull.
“……Scatter and search. Move quickly.”
I separated from the others and headed toward the galley. A ship large enough to hold hundreds. Ample supplies for living; easy enough to escape once the blockade lifted.
As I searched the lower decks, I felt a faint presence. The moment I spun around, something shot out from beneath a table.
―Crash!
I tackled him. The man writhed, trying to break free. A servile voice came from beneath me.
“Sir, sir! Can’t we settle this with words? Yes?”
I had not been with him through his voice’s breaking, so I could not recognize the altered timbre.
Yet fifteen years seemed to fade in the face of his profile’s contours, which remained exactly as I remembered them.
He turned his head with effort. Violet eyes gleamed faintly between strands of black hair.
My disciple, Hayden.

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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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