My Disciples Became Scoundrels - Chapter 99

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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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Quercius Guild.
The guild Jenia had entered. Bella worked her jaw thoughtfully.
“What did you do when you approached her?”
“I spoke with Jenia about something. She told me they were tracking a Demon Hybrid, that it was necessary work……”
I didn’t know why I’d approached Jenia. But I could sense there was more to it than that.
Heat crept up the back of my neck. Anger rose in me. Bella’s expression darkened in kind.
Crack!
The man I’d kicked went limp. Bella turned away, her face lethal.
“Looks like they got to him, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
Jenia wasn’t easily swayed by ordinary things. To extract her would have required countless schemes.
And if they’d taken Jenia because she was a Demon Hybrid, the intentions were likely sinister.
I had to bring her back. Whether right or wrong, a master does what must be done.
* * *
The next day.
I stood before the Quercius Guild building. Magnificent from afar, it was even more so up close.
I grasped the handle and knocked. Someone emerged from within.
“You’ve arrived at the appointed hour. I’ll show you in.”
I stepped inside. A well-appointed lobby greeted me. The atmosphere was quite different from our humble home.
It carried the brisk efficiency of a great merchant house, an administrative office. The guild members reflected it too.
Sharp discipline like that of trained staff. Not a single person slouched in posture or dress.
You could tell just by sensing their auras. All of them were formidable. Their breathing carried weight.
This must be the Black Opal tier, then. Any other guild would have recruited people like these as elite core members. Here they filled the halls.
As I surveyed my surroundings, my guide stopped. A great door stood before us.
“Guild Master. We’re entering.”
“Come in.”
I stiffened. The voice was familiar.
The heavy door swung open. A black-haired man stood in the Office.
Around fifty years old now, perhaps. Lines creased the corners of his eyes, his cheeks hollow, his already sharp features honed sharper still.
When had I last seen that face? Seventeen years ago? Eighteen?
Time had passed, but I could never have forgotten it. I spoke slowly.
“…Kalan.”
Kalan. One of the companions who had founded Balanus with me.
Now I understood why Jenia, who rarely followed anyone, had come here.
Kalan had once been part of our family. Even if he had abandoned Balanus and left.
He was studying me too. It wasn’t obvious, but he seemed surprised. In a way that wasn’t good.
“…So you’re Dein’s son. You really do look just like him.”
His gaze wasn’t one a man gives to an old comrade’s child. It was dry, inorganic, measuring.
As my shock receded, the emotion that surfaced beneath was fury. I clenched my hands behind my back.
“I heard about it at a tavern. Why did you take Jenia?”
I dispensed with pleasantries and went straight to the point. He didn’t bother to refute or make excuses. He answered plainly.
“She’s my student.”
“…My father told me.”
I pushed down the choking sensation rising in my chest, deeper into myself.
“You abandoned your students.”
After he and I founded Balanus, we clashed constantly. We argued nearly every day.
It hadn’t been that way from the start. If things had been truly bad between us, we would never have built the Domus.
The rift between us began when we took on students.
“Dein, why do you keep bringing orphans here? They’re useless mouths.”
He saw the students as thorns in his side. They were strong now, but then they were only helpless children.
“Arkel is useful. Get rid of the rest.”
“I don’t take in children for their usefulness.”
“I didn’t know you were so poor at practical judgment.”
I understood Kalan’s position to some degree. Four people who couldn’t contribute to our strength was a drag.
Still, I’d believed that someday Kalan would soften, that he would become a true mentor to them.
That belief shattered the day he abandoned the children and left.
He’d scattered them to different places so we couldn’t find them. It was a rainy day.
I drew my sword. A Real Sword. After our duel ended, Kalan was defeated, and he left the Domus.
“I should have built a Guild instead of a Domus.”
He vanished, leaving only those words behind. I never learned how he survived after that.
The man who departed in the rain now stands before me, bearing a tempest in his wake.
“He’s finally become useful enough to bring along. Besides, wouldn’t it be better for Jenia to stay with our Guild rather than with Domus?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Domus as an organization has obvious limitations.”
—Tssssss……!
He deliberately released his Bloodlust. There was no killing intent, yet hostility and oppression seeped through my skin. I forced my legs to stop retreating.
“Domus accepts anyone as a member—the weak, the dull-witted. Unlike a Guild, they don’t cull their ranks. The result is that members lose their hunger for growth and grow weaker.”
“…….”
“That’s why Balanus fell.”
The stench of blood seemed to boil up from somewhere. From the ruins of Aspenheim, from my fallen comrades, from the blood pooling on the ground…….
“If left as is, they’ll just collapse among themselves again. It would be better for Jenia to come to my Guild instead.”
My body, rigid with his momentum, slowly began to loosen. Yet Kalan had not withdrawn his Bloodlust.
My blood simply began to boil. Innate fear was swallowed by rage.
Words I could not speak churned violently inside me.
Why didn’t you come to my disciples when Aspenheim fell?
What were you doing when Balanus collapsed?
And now you come to take my pupil?
“If you’re going to say the Guild is more efficient than Domus, shouldn’t you at least be White Jade rank, not Black Opal?”
I swallowed all of it. Instead, I closed my eyes. Then I opened them slowly.
What now stood before me was not the departed comrade, but a living stranger.
“Balanus was White Jade rank, even with children under his care.”
His Bloodlust pierced my skin like needles. The ground beneath my feet felt like a bed of thorns.
Yet he could threaten but not refute. Our strength was the only proof.
He had not reached the heights that Balanus once achieved.
“I need to see Jenia.”
“……I simply respect her wishes.”
He glanced toward the door as if dismissing me. I knew Kalan’s nature, and I knew Jenia’s nature. Neither would yield.
It was right to withdraw today. As I turned to leave without a word, Kalan spoke.
“If you hadn’t taken on disciples, your father wouldn’t have died.”
He was trying to place my father’s death on another’s shoulders. Was his aim to make me resent my disciples?
But I knew well what had caused my end.
“Dein Balanus did not die because there were children.”
I placed my hand on the door handle.
“He died because he was weak.”
The door closed with a heavy thud. As I left the Guild building, I felt many eyes upon me. But the gaze I sought was not among them.
I returned home and gathered my disciples. Even Gai. When I told them what had happened today, they all seemed shocked.
Bella appeared not to have known either. She bit her lower lip.
“I didn’t know Kalan had come to this city. When I sought him out as a child, the Guild didn’t exist yet.”
“……You’ve met him before? And then?”
“He turned me away. I had no special abilities back then.”
Words I had nearly shouted at Kalan earlier churned again inside me. Resentment would have been meaningless. He was a man who had cast aside even Bella when she came seeking him…….
The other disciples, too, bore an uncomfortable air. Gai blinked and asked.
“Isn’t that person your master? Then why don’t you call him that?”
“Kalan told me not to call him master.”
He pushed the children away thoroughly. Gai showed no shock whatsoever. As if Kalan’s response was only natural.
“So what will you do now, teacher? Should we persuade him to come back?”
“I won’t try persuasion. Not with Jenia, and not with Kalan.”
Persuasion wouldn’t work on them anyway. Jenia wouldn’t be moved by words that tugged at emotion. Cesare looked at me with evident confusion.
“If you don’t persuade them, how will you bring them back?”
I quietly drew my blade. My face reflected in the steel.
“By every means except persuasion.”
* * *
The Quercius Guild building contained countless rooms. Many of them were private quarters for Guild members.
To call them personal “rooms” felt almost embarrassing—the accommodations were so fine. One could freely use multiple living spaces and bedrooms.
Jenia’s room was much the same. She lay sprawled across a large bed.
‘Bigger than the Balanus building.’
Her original room had been terribly cramped. The clutter she’d gathered from here and there only made it worse.
Jenia rose slightly and opened her backpack. The large bag contained only her most treasured refuse.
A broken Pocket Watch, a pretty but empty Bottle, dried Lizard Skin, a Hangman’s Rope…….
This room could be decorated however she liked. But Jenia simply closed her pack and lay back.
She stared fixedly at the ceiling when a knock sounded. A moment later, the door opened.
“What were you doing?”
The person who entered was Kalan. Jenia kept her gaze on the ceiling as she spoke.
“Observing the stains.”
“You haven’t unpacked?”
“Dein Balanus visited yesterday. You must have seen him too.”
“Yes.”
“It seems you’ve no desire to return.”
“That’s right. If I go back, it damages Balanus. The work stops coming in. I don’t like causing harm.”
Her voice was unwavering. There was a note of stubbornness to it. Kalan studied her silently before speaking.
“By that logic, harm comes to the Quercius Guild. You’re fine with that?”
“Yes.”
Jenia’s eyes held a look of mild confusion at the odd question.
“The Guild Master isn’t Balanus or my teacher.”
Silence fell. Jenia turned her gaze back to the ceiling, studying the pattern of stains, when Kalan spoke.
“A partisan, then.”
“What’s partiality?”
“Choosing the most inadequate one without regret.”
“Is partiality another word for foolishness?”
“Something like it. Dein Balanus is foolish and abnormal, after all.”
Bewilderment flickered across Jenia’s face.
“My teacher is wise and normal.”
“He’s an abnormal who learned how to appear sane. That one.”
It was said with certainty. When Jenia thought back, Dein had seemed the most sensible of the Balanus family.
He had taught his disciples what common sense in the world meant, and when they strayed, he pulled them back in line.
“He often cunningly played the sensible man. Then at some point he did something absurd.”
“Hmm.”
Jenia paused to think before speaking.
“So you’re a fool and abnormal too.”
“…What do you mean?”
“If you founded the Domus with a madman, you’re a fool.”
Kalan couldn’t immediately refute her. After a moment, he opened his mouth.
“I founded the Domus not for personal character, but because his skill……”
―Boom!
A deafening crash shook the building. The sound of something shattering echoed. Though the distance was considerable, the meaning was immediately clear.
The building was under attack.
Jenia sprang to her feet. She moved to rush out when a large hand blocked her path.
“Don’t go out there.”
“But……”
“Guild Master’s order. This isn’t the Domus.”
Kalan left the room with cold efficiency. Out in the corridor, a cacophony of explosions and shouts filled the air.
A Guild member came running toward him, confusion written plainly across his face. Amid the deafening roar, he shouted at Kalan.
“Guild Master! Balanus Domus has launched an assault!”

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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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