My Disciples Became Scoundrels - Chapter 89

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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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Six months. The unexpected number made me go rigid for a moment.
I knew something was wrong with my body, but it was in a state this dangerous? Anaïs pressed a finger to my chest near the heart and spoke.
“Your Mana Pathway isn’t working properly, and neither are the Blood Vessels that carry Blood Energy. And frankly, your body’s been wrong from the start.”
“Wrong in what way?”
“Everything’s a jumbled mess. This is a first even for me, so I can’t explain it precisely.”
Could it be connected to the fact that I came back to life? Meanwhile, Anaïs regarded me the way one studies a fascinating specimen.
“You must be experiencing various symptoms. Tell me everything.”
“Muscle growth is poor.”
“What else?”
“My sense of taste seems off.”
“And?”
“…I cannot sleep.”
Since my resurrection, I hadn’t slept once. Even with my eyes closed through the night, sleep never came. Neither did dreams.
I knew it wasn’t normal. But I’d welcomed that abnormality. It meant I could keep vigil every night. It meant I could watch over my disciples’ sleep in peace.
But if I was to die within six months, everything changed. I had to be treated. I had to.
“Is there a cure?”
“No idea. Like I said, I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
Anaïs fell into thought, then opened her mouth.
“But I can offer a temporary treatment. Stabilizing your Blood Energy and Mana alone should buy you another year.”
One year. Short still, but better than six months. I clenched my fist before asking.
“Would you treat me, Anaïs?”
“I don’t do treatment. I told you that already.”
Her voice was firm. Even facing someone who would die soon, there was no hesitation in it, no pity, no compassion.
I looked at the Locket Necklace. The surface was worn from how often it had been touched.
“Did you stop treating people because of the child?”
“You looked inside?”
“Yes.”
Anaïs was silent for a long time. Then she unfastened the necklace and opened the locket.
Inside was a black-and-white portrait. It was the portrait of a small girl, no more than six years old.
“My daughter. She was taken by a Kiz Eater. I managed to rescue her, but the injuries were too severe.”
I’d once seen the corpse of a child devoured by a Kiz Eater. That small body bore countless bite marks.
“I tried to treat her, but she died anyway. Being a top graduate, a savior—none of it mattered.”
Her voice remained calm. Her eyes were dark and sunk deep.
“Are you afraid of failing at treatment again?”
At those words, Anaïs let out a short laugh, as if she’d heard a joke.
“No? Whether others live or die means nothing to me. I simply don’t want to save anyone anymore.”
The Locket Necklace snapped shut with a click.
“With hands that couldn’t save my daughter, I won’t save anyone else.”
It was a cruel thing to say. Some would call it selfish. After a brief silence, I spoke.
“I understand.”
“…Why?”
“Because if all my disciples were to die, I would not help anyone else or live righteously either.”
I had guided my disciples so they would not become twisted. I had tried not to sin, insofar as I could. I had to set an example.
But if my disciples were to die?
What would it matter if people perished or the world fell to ruin?
My disciples were the reason for my goodness. A person whose reason disappears naturally comes to a halt.
Anaïs was such a person. Someone whose reason had vanished.
“I understand you. But I ask that you treat me. I do not wish to die.”
“….”
“I do not wish to make my disciples orphans again.”
Those children had been orphans for fifteen years, or perhaps longer. I didn’t want to extend that time.
Rain pattered against the window. Dark clouds hung heavy. Anaïs rose from her seat.
“Thank you for finding my necklace.”
Soon the sound of the door closing came. The rain allowed the air in the room to settle quietly. Not long after, Bella and Cesare entered.
“Master. What was that woman saying?!”
“Where are you hurt?”
Both their faces were full of worry. I lowered my voice quietly.
“It’s nothing serious, she said. Since Anaïs can’t treat it, let’s search for another healer.”
I couldn’t tell the children the truth just yet. If I said I would die within six months, they would panic for certain.
Instead, I told him about Anaïs’s daughter. After hearing the entire story, Cesare let out a sigh.
“Damn it, it’s a shame the child is dead, but… that doesn’t bring your daughter back to life, does it?”
“Parents don’t move by reason alone.”
Perhaps parents are more emotional and impulsive creatures than we think. I watched Cesare for a moment.
“I have something to say to you, Cesare. Bella, step outside for a while.”
Soon only Cesare and I remained in the room. He looked at me with evident confusion. A faint unease flickered across his green eyes.
“What? Did I do something wrong? Is it because I used the pretty-boy trick…?”
“Did you instruct the pickpocket to steal Anaïs’s necklace?”
Cesare’s words caught in his throat.
The timing of someone hiring the pickpocket had been too convenient. The fact that Cesare had absented himself that morning was telling as well.
Most tellingly, when the pickpocket appeared, he hadn’t shown much alarm. This boy had no talent for deception.
Cesare’s jaw tightened, as if he were swallowing something bitter.
“…Yes. Because she seemed to treasure it so much, I thought finding it would help us. That it would make her want to help us.”
He gripped his own necklace tightly, looking anxious. Cesare mumbled under his breath, eyes averted.
“I don’t regret it. I’d do anything for you, Master. By any means necessary…”
“I’m not scolding you.”
I took his hand gently in mine. It was large and rough, yet somehow felt childlike.
Among all my disciples, Cesare had the softest heart. He hated doing wrong, hated being called a scoundrel.
“Don’t strain yourself. Don’t bear everything alone.”
Yet Cesare had tried to hurt someone. For my sake.
“I am your master, yes—but I am also someone prepared to be your accomplice.”
My disciples were all my reasons. Both my virtue and my vice.
If my disciple soiled his hands, I was ready to wade into that mire alongside him.
Cesare could only stammer, unable to answer. Still cowed. If he felt this way, why commit the deed in the first place? I spoke in jest.
“You’ve grown clever, devising such stratagems.”
“…I was already clever, you know.”
“Though your execution was sloppy. You should have been more thorough.”
“How can I help it? I’ve never been good at this sort of thing.”
“Then leave it to me or the others next time.”
I ruffled the complaining boy’s hair and stood. When I stepped outside, I found Bella leaning calmly against the wall.
“Did you finish scolding him?”
“Were you listening?”
“Not intentionally. But I could tell earlier—Cesare’s acting was pretty terrible.”
So Bella had noticed as well. She gave a small shrug.
“We should probably find a way to persuade Anaïs. Want me to ask around town a bit?”
“Yes, let’s do that.”
Outside, rain was falling steadily. By the look of it, it was going to get worse.
We wandered through the village asking about Anaïs. We didn’t learn anything particularly useful.
“We didn’t get much. And Anaïs isn’t anywhere to be seen.”
Bella stood beneath the eaves, grumbling. Just then, robed adults began gathering in the Town Square. All wore anxious expressions.
“Children snuck off into the mountains to play? Has everyone come back?”
“We’ve found most of them, but two haven’t returned.”
Garland hung limp with rain. Festival Day. The season when children and the Kiz Eater grow restless.
Then a man arrived leading a crying child.
“One of them came back! It says it saw the Kiz Eater!”
“Where’s the other child? Did the Kiz Eater take it?”
“I-I don’t know. It just disappeared. A woman helped me, but… she disappeared too.”
I had a premonition. These premonitions were never wrong.
I pushed through the rain toward them. Ignoring the bewildered townsfolk, I knelt and asked the child directly.
“What did this woman look like?”
“She had blonde hair and pink eyes…”
It was Anaïs. When I turned back, my disciples’ expressions had changed.
I began running toward the mountains. The sound of splashing through puddles echoed several times over.
Anaïs would know well what the Kiz Eater was. Yet she had gone to the mountains anyway.
Even after saying she didn’t want to save anyone else.
Strange cries echoed through the mountains—calling out as if for a child, for someone.
* * *
Rain-soaked grass and mud clung to my feet. In the downpour, Bella’s hair was drenched.
Cesare wiped his face roughly, grumbling.
“Damn it, the rain washed away all the tracks. Where did this woman go? Miss!”
His cries went unanswered. The world darkened further beneath the brooding clouds. Dein turned to his disciples.
“Scatter. Bella and I will go together. Cesare, if you hear gunfire or anything happens, come at once.”
“Yes, Master.”
Cesare bolted toward the forest. Dein and Bella ran the opposite way, shouting Anaïs’s name into the downpour.
As the rain intensified, traces that had been half-erased began to emerge. Small footprints. The drag marks of something heavy.
“Help!”
A child’s scream. Dein and Bella tore through the brush and burst from the tree line.
That was when they heard it.
The violent rush of the river. Low, ragged breathing. A sound neither human nor beast.
Two creatures stood at the riverbank—things with white fur streaming from their bodies, their pelts matted with blood and mud where they dragged the ground.
The four-legged beasts had front legs far longer than their hind legs, and their faces bore a grotesque semblance to human features—though twisted, as if by a crushed mask.
―Kiiieee!
The Kiz Eaters were fighting over the child, each convinced it was their own kill.
They snapped at each other with bared fangs, yanking at the child’s arms from both sides when—
―Bang!
The gunshot erupted. Blood sprayed from the Kiz Eater’s skull.
But not a killing blow. It bled freely, its eyes rolling back as it wheeled toward Bella.
The moment it charged, another shot tore through the air. The second bullet stopped it cold.
And in that instant, the other Kiz Eater plunged into the river.
―Splash!
Still clutching the child. The rain had swollen the current far beyond its usual strength. In seconds, it vanished downstream.
Too fast to pursue on foot. Dein drew his blade.
“I’ll follow the river. When Cesare arrives, go with him.”
“I’m coming with you. Now.”
“Your gun will be useless if it gets soaked. And the current is too fierce—it’s dangerous.”
“But Master—”
―Crack!
A sharp slash. The thick trunk of a tree fell cleanly in two. Dein looked back at Bella with a smile.
“I am your master. This is hardly my first trial.”
The log splashed into the river. Before Bella could answer, Dein dove in after it.
He used the timber as a float and swept downstream. The rain-swollen current carried him swiftly out of sight.
Bella stood motionless, gazing downriver. How much time passed? Soon Cesare’s ragged voice cut through the rain.
“Did you find her?”
“…I found her, but she’s swept downstream with the Kiz Eater. Go find Master.”
“I can’t sense his presence. He’s gone too far.”
The two of them began racing along the riverbank. They ran and ran, but Dein was nowhere to be seen.
“Damn it. Can’t swim, so I can’t jump in either.”
“What about when you faced the Wing Fish?”
“That’s why I nearly died. Don’t tell Master…”
Cesare’s foot sank into mud. Then he stopped.
The rain had ceased. Sunlight broke through. He stood now in a well-tended Garden. Water flowed from a great fountain, and a grand manor loomed before him.
The Kiz Eaters show illusions, he’d been told. And this illusion was—
“Cesare.”
Someone called his name. He turned. A man dressed as a nobleman stood there.
Cesare’s hand, gripping the Spear, went rigid.
“…Father?”

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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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