My Disciples Became Scoundrels - Chapter 8

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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 had no real intention of borrowing money. I only needed to draw out the Boss. In the meantime, the Loan Officer gave Cejare a once-over, his gaze appraising.
“Who is this person? Does he have ten billion batus worth of value?”
“Of course. The employee standing next to me would know better than I would.”
The Loan Officer glanced toward his colleague. The other man nodded, his face drained of color.
“He was the one throwing fights at the Dog-Fighting Arena. He retired after just one year, but if he’d stayed longer, he’d have easily made ten billion. He’s also the one who knocked out my teeth.”
“Your teeth?”
The Loan Officer’s expression shifted. So the man beside him was quite formidable. He rose from his chair and spoke.
“This is a major matter. I’ll need to consult with the Boss. I’ll be back shortly.”
The employees left. The moment only the two of us remained, Cejare’s face crumpled and he grabbed hold of me.
“Master, are you going to sell me?”
“Of course not. I was only trying to bring the Boss out.”
Only after explaining the plan did he finally calm down. I studied Cejare for a moment, then spoke.
“Do I really look like such a failed master, selling my own disciple for money?”
“N-no, sir. I was just asking, just in case.”
Cejare gave an awkward laugh and changed the subject, clearly embarrassed.
“Still, they’re willing to loan ten billion. That’s more than I expected. When we’re in a pinch, feel free to sell me.”
“Ten billion. It’s no small sum.”
“…You’re really not going to sell me, right?”
Not long after, the door opened. Along with the earlier staff, a man who appeared to be in his late forties entered.
He wore quite expensive clothing. He sat across from me and smiled quietly.
“I heard a big customer had come. Cejare, it’s been a while.”
“What? You know me too?”
“Yes. I made a good profit thanks to you back at the Dog-Fighting Arena.”
The Boss regarded Cejare with satisfied eyes, then turned his gaze toward me.
“So you came to borrow money? Ten billion batus, fine. Then Cejare will come over to our side…….”
“I have no intention of handing over Cejare. I called you out only to speak with you.”
The Boss studied me quietly, a relaxed smile on his lips. A cruel one, though.
“There was an Orphanage that existed in this place originally. I wish to know the whereabouts of the Director who ran it.”
The Boss pulled out a cigar. A match flared.
“A youngster with blood barely dry, making jokes.”
Through the acrid tobacco smoke, the Boss’s eyes glinted like a serpent’s. Despite his slender build, there was weight to his presence.
“This isn’t an orphanage. We don’t take kindly to children’s games here.”
The Boss snapped his fingers. The moment the sharp sound rang out, employees came flooding in.
A fight. I hadn’t expected this to be brushed aside easily. Rather, I’d been counting on it.
There are essentially two ways to persuade a person.
One is gain, the other is fear.
If someone won’t be moved by gain, then fear will do. Violence, for instance.
If they strike first, I’m justified in return. But the employees froze in place. Someone lost his nerve and his voice faltered.
“Th-the Invincible Mad Hound, Cejare?!”
What kind of nickname was that? My puppy of a disciple was now being called the Mad Hound.
As they hesitated, staring at Cejare, the Boss spoke.
“No matter how strong he is, he’s alone. There’s no way you’ll be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. If it looks like you will be…… you’ll be finding new employment.”
At the Boss’s words, the employees’ expressions hardened. The man I’d first encountered exhaled a bitter breath.
“Knock his teeth out! Smash all his front teeth!”
Crunch!
The gap-toothed employee threw a punch. But Cejare caught that vicious fist easily.
Though the man’s fist was large, once Cejare closed his grip around it, it looked like a child’s hand. Cejare twisted the man’s fist and let out a contemptuous snort.
“Hey, I’m worth ten billion. What are you worth?”
Crack!
Cejare lashed out with his other fist, catching the man’s jaw. I saw another tooth fly out.
“All of you, swarm him!”
Before the command was finished, Cejare grabbed the man by the collar and yanked him up. The opponent, who must have weighed over a hundred kilos, was lifted as if he weighed nothing.
The moment another employee rushed in, Cejare hurled the man he was holding like a cannonball. Both went down with screams.
“Hell, you’re not even fit for the Dog-Fighting Arena.”
Smack!
Each punch landed cleanly on a vital point. The precision in targeting pressure points, the quickness in reading his opponents’ attacks.
And towering over all those advantages was overwhelming, crushing strength.
There was no opening for me to step in. While Cejare conducted his one-sided massacre, the composure drained from the Boss’s face.
The moment the Boss started to rise in panic, I pressed him back down by the shoulder. I looked down at him and spoke quietly.
“If you resort to violence like this, what’s to stop us from defending ourselves? We have no choice.”
“You bastard…….”
“Now that I think about it, you’ve got several gold teeth yourself, don’t you?”
The shoulder beneath my hand flinched. I spoke quietly.
“If you truly don’t know where the Director went, I’ll be back tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that. If this keeps happening every day, what will your customers think?”
“…….”
“We simply need to collect what we’re owed from the Orphanage Director. One piece of information would be far cheaper for you in the end.”
He closed his mouth. I could see the calculation happening in his eyes. A man in the money business would know what profit looked like.
I asked again.
“Do you know where the Orphanage Director is?”
Silence fell. The cigar burned down, ash dropping to the floor. The Boss stared at me, then slowly opened his mouth.
“……That bastard’s at the Crystal Quarry now. He couldn’t pay his debts, so we sent him there. The location is…….”
After extracting the exact location from him, I withdrew my hand from his shoulder. His cigar had burned down to half its length.
“That’s all there is to it, so get out. Don’t come back.”
“Of course. Provided the information is accurate.”
The Boss’s gaze mingled anger and humiliation. Though beneath it all, there was relief as well.
“Let’s go, Cejare.”
“Yes, Master.”
I led Cejare out, though he was still growling at the staff. Once we were outside, he grinned and spoke.
“I fought pretty well, didn’t I? You must be happy having a one-billion-won disciple.”
“You, worth a billion…….”
I laughed silently. Cejare’s expression grew anxious.
“Oh, I was joking! I know. I know I’m not worth that.”
So Cejare had lower self-esteem than he appeared. Yet moments ago he’d been crushing people like they were insects.
“What if you’re worth far more than a billion?”
“……Really?”
“Yes.”
Cejare looked at me skeptically. I didn’t elaborate further and kept walking. He’d come to understand it himself someday.
* * *
―Clang, clang…….
From the moment we entered the quarry’s mouth, the sound of pickaxes rang out loudly.
The quarry was ringed on all sides by towering cliffs, with massive crystals jutting out in places like teeth.
The crystals gleamed with a strange blue luminescence, filling my vision. Cejare spoke in wonder.
“Wow, quite a sight. The sparkling is beautiful. And what’s happening down there is spectacular in its own way.”
While the crystals caught the sunlight beautifully, below them skeletal workers with nothing but bone and skin swung their pickaxes.
The conditions here were truly dreadful. The Director working for ten years straight. I hoped he was still alive.
The energy emanating from the crystals, though, felt wrong. The lower section had been mined extensively, so I couldn’t touch them directly to be certain.
“These are almost certainly Demonic Crystals.”
“Demonic Crystals? Those used mainly for making Magical Tools?”
“That’s right.”
Gems have high resistance to magical energy. That means they won’t shatter easily even when infused with power. The crystals mined here are Demonic Crystals, among the strongest against magical power of all.
Cejare gazed up at them with longing.
“Hmm, if I could make a spear from this, that would be nice. When I channel my power into a spear, it breaks too quickly.”
I remembered the way weapons appeared where Cejare threw them the last time. It’s a fairly useful ability, though the limitations are frustrating.
Gems are brittle, so they wouldn’t work for weapons. Though some application might be possible.
We moved deeper into the quarry. Among the skin-and-bones workers, a man with color in his face approached us.
“Who are you two? What brings you here?”
This fellow had a rough edge to him too. From his clothes, he looked like an Overseer. I nudged Cejare lightly.
Cejare cleared his throat and spoke in a slightly awkward tone.
“The Loan Company Boss sent us. There’s an Orphanage Director here, right? We’ve got business with him, so call him out.”
The Boss said he’d transferred the Director himself. The likelihood of this place being closely connected seemed high, so I borrowed his name.
Once the Boss was mentioned, the Overseer’s eyes shifted as expected. He glanced at me and spoke.
“What about the runt?”
“He’s my henchman. Why? Got a problem?”
That was Cejare’s improvisation. I hadn’t told him beforehand, but he did it well.
The Overseer seemed satisfied and dropped his guard. He pointed to a crevice deeper in the cliff wall.
“He’s working in there. In about thirty minutes, it’ll be break time, so the Orphanage Director will come out then.”
“Wait? Why not just go find him ourselves.”
“The interior’s expansive, and there are spots where the floor’s thin and dangerous. Wait, if you please. If someone from the Boss’s side gets hurt, I’ll be in trouble too.”
The Overseer said as much and left. Thirty minutes was nothing to wait for. That’s when Cejare suddenly spoke urgently.
“You know I don’t think of you as a coward, Master. It’s just that at twenty, all blood and impulse, ‘coward’ seemed like the apt description.”
Is he testing me?
Whether it was genuine or mockery, I couldn’t quite tell. But his expression suggested sincerity.
“While we wait, tell me more about your abilities. You can teleport to places where you’ve left objects carrying your magical power?”
“Yes. Though anything too fragile gets destroyed the moment I channel power into it, so most things are useless for the purpose.”
“It seems like it could be quite useful if applied properly. Have you ever experimented with other applications?”
Cejare blinked and answered.
“Well, most problems get solved with a good punch, so not really? And using magical power makes me tired anyway.”
So when you’re strong enough, there’s no need to think.
He’d managed well enough until now, but Cejare needed to grow stronger. There was no point letting such a gift wither away.
“Magical beasts likely have strong resistance to magical power. Have you ever tried channeling power into one?”
“Huh? No, never. Since a few hits kills them, I’ve never really… considered it.”
Cejare clearly hadn’t thought it through. Perhaps I’d find a magical beast later and run an experiment.
“Your ability could be useful for things other than combat. Logistics, for instance.”
“I’d love to become a mail carrier, but with only a one-kilometer range, it’s not practical.”
As we talked, thirty minutes had passed. Several workers began emerging from the depths of the cave. I turned to the Overseer.
“Who is the Orphanage Director? What does he look like?”
“Thin as a rail, blonde hair. He’s not among the ones who just came out. Strange. It’s break time—why hasn’t he shown?”
I waited a bit longer, but no more workers appeared. Cejare rose with a grumble.
“Man, I’m swamped with work. Where the hell is he holed up? Come on, let’s go find him.”
The Overseer looked flustered but couldn’t easily stop Cejare. We stepped into the cave. The entrance walls were smooth—they’d already extracted most of the crystal here.
The air was quiet, devoid of any sound of people. As we ventured deeper, Cejare stiffened.
“Master, did you hear that scream?”
A sharp cry pierced through from deeper in the cave. The metallic stench of blood came with it.
It might have been the Orphanage Director’s scream.

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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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