Trash of the Count’s Family - Chapter 154

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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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Kale Heniatus opened his mouth as he observed the frozen Alchemist.

“May I come in?”

The Alchemist’s lips moved soundlessly before he glanced around to confirm no one was nearby, then stepped aside and gestured toward the interior.

“Well, ah, come inside.”

Kale stepped into the house immediately upon hearing this. His gait was unhurried, as though entering his own private chambers.

He walked over to a chair with a broken backrest and sat down.
Glancing around, I could see alchemical apparatus scattered about without proper sanitation.

The alchemy here resembled that of Earth as well.
The creation of gold. Though the method differed from Earth’s approach.

Alchemists of the Western Continent sought to extract the essence of nature to create gold. In particular, they attempted to produce gold using five elements: water, wind, earth, wood, and fire.

And these five natural attributes were inseparable from mana.

Thunk!

Kale Heniatus gazed at the table before him. Upon the chipped table sat a single round bowl.

“I’ve only got cold water in the house. I don’t know who you are, Priest, but drink up, settle your nerves, and be on your way!”

The Alchemist thrust a chipped bowl brimming with cold water toward Kale Heniatus, who paid it no attention whatsoever.
His gaze was fixed instead on the liquor bottles scattered among the alchemical apparatus.

“What are you staring at? Good grief, honestly!”

The middle-aged Alchemist, noticing Kale Heniatus’s gaze had landed on the bottles, hastily kicked them aside with his foot.

“Damn it.”

Clang, clang, bang!
The bottles he’d kicked collided with the alchemical apparatus, creating a cacophony. At the sight of the chaos, the middle-aged man’s brow furrowed. Then, the Priest’s voice rang out.

“A drunk fake Alchemist. They make poisons and small-scale bombs for Underworld Organizations to use in their petty squabbles with each other.”

The Alchemist couldn’t match the power of magical bombs, but he knew how to craft small-scale explosives infused with natural forces as close to mana as possible.
However, unlike magical bombs with their perfect success rate, the results depended on whether nature’s forces could channel mana or not.

That’s why the timer-type magical bomb discovered at Maple Castle last time could be considered remarkable.

The weary, alcohol-soaked gaze of the middle-aged man turned toward the Priest.
Kale Heniatus and the middle-aged man’s eyes met.

“You said you’d make anything if the price was right? Isn’t that correct?”

Kale Heniatus didn’t know the middle-aged man’s name. Beyond that, there was little he knew.

He was a figure who hadn’t appeared in “The Birth of a Hero,” and the information that Flynn Merchant Guild’s illegitimate son Bilos had gathered was extremely sparse.

‘Apparently, he’s been posing as a fake Alchemist for roughly the past decade. Among Underworld Organizations, they suspect he’s a fraud because only about half of the poisons and bombs he creates turn out properly.’

A fake Alchemist with a 50% success rate on commissions. Kale Heniatus let out a scoff at those words.

‘That means he actually knows how to make 50% of them.’

That was more than enough.
What Kale Heniatus wanted was very basic ‘Alchemy ability’ and something else. This middle-aged man possessed both.

A fake Alchemist.
Even his name was unknown to those who knew of him.
He was only called by various nicknames.

“So you’re coming to me now with money to place a commission? You, a Priest?”
“That’s correct.”
“…Ha!”

The Alchemist picked up a liquor bottle rolling on the floor. He uncapped the sealed bottle and gulped it down greedily. He pulled the bottle from his lips, wiped away the alcohol trickling down his chin with the back of his hand, and opened his mouth to speak.

“I’ve seen all kinds of crazy Priests!”

Rustle.
The middle-aged man turned his gaze toward the Priest, who moved as if responding to his words. Then he flinched and trembled.

Thud.
Kale Heniatus placed a small vial on the table. A bottle filled with black liquid.

“That, that is—”

Kale Heniatus could see the Alchemist’s fingertips trembling. The Alchemist tore his gaze from the vial and looked at the Priest.
However, the Priest was not looking at the Alchemist’s eyes, but at his left wrist. Where his left hand should have been, there was nothing.

“This liquid is also quite black, just like your left wrist, Alchemist.”

The rounded left wrist, now armless, was peculiarly stained black. It resembled ash left behind after being burned by fire.

“This is… from poison when I was young, I was—”

The Alchemist hastily covered his wrist with his sleeve. Kale Heniatus continued to gaze at the left wrist as he spoke gently.

“It seems you chose amputation over healing when severe poison infiltrated your left hand.”

Kale Heniatus recalled what Bilos had said.

‘He always complains of pain and buys alcohol.’

The middle-aged man avoided Kale Heniatus’s gaze.

“That is none of your concern, Priest!”
“Hmm, I’ve heard that those addicted to dead mana turn black throughout their bodies.”

Those who wielded dead mana developed black veins like spider webs. And those addicted to it withered away, their bodies darkened.
Necromancers and those who possessed dead mana suffered from constant, nagging pain.

“How severe must the poison be to turn black? And you suffer from constant, nagging pain every day, don’t you?”

The Alchemist thought.

This could not continue.

Everything could not fall apart because of this Priest who appeared so suddenly. The Alchemist turned his gaze from evasion and looked at the Priest. In that moment, the blue-eyed Priest looking at him spoke, as if tossing out the words.

“Fifteen years ago.”

The Alchemist’s breath grew shallow.

“Fifteen years ago, the Alchemy Tower claimed they wanted to contribute to the Empire by taking in orphans and children from the Slums, accepting them into the tower. They provided education alongside menial labor. The age range was five to fifteen, if I recall correctly.”

Fifteen years. A considerable span of time, too long to dismiss lightly.

“So the Empire’s people showered praise upon the Alchemy Tower, which they had previously viewed with suspicion, and now the favored disciple of the current Alchemy Tower’s master is one of those children from the Slums.”

Several orphans and Slum-born children went on to achieve success.

“And the Alchemy Tower announced that the remaining children they had accepted back then were distributed to the tower itself and various Alchemy Towers throughout the Empire.”

The people believed it because the few successful children had said so themselves.
Kale Heniatus watched the middle-aged man across from him—now pallid and trembling—and smiled broadly.

“But ten years ago, you stopped doing that.”

That deed.
Kale Heniatus called the once-lauded work a “deed”—a word dripping with contempt.

Thud.
Kale Heniatus threw several documents from his pocket onto the table.

“Because ten years ago, you began collaborating with the Imperial Palace to procure test subjects through slavery and the abduction of commoners.”

He tapped the documents containing the records with his finger as he spoke.

“That’s why you no longer needed children who could die without anyone knowing or caring.”

Kale Heniatus had dropped all pretense of formality. Though seated across from the man, he gazed down at him with contempt. The pallid middle-aged man barely managed to stammer out words.

“P-please st—”

But Kale Heniatus was not one to stop. He continued, addressing this pitiful-looking man.

“And you appeared in this Slums ten years ago.”

This middle-aged man was not from the Capital’s Alchemy Tower.
The Empire had several other Alchemy Towers scattered throughout its lands.
Ten years ago, this man would have been younger.

This was why Kale Heniatus had focused on this man while listening to Bilos’s report.
The ten years contained in the Saint’s information and this man’s ten years aligned with uncanny precision.

Kale Heniatus fixed his gaze upon the Alchemist, whose frame was weighed down by anguish and terror, and opened his mouth.

“The people in the Slums, especially the children, call you uncle or mister, and they adore you, don’t they?”

There were many names by which people referred to this nameless man.
That was why Kale Heniatus had come searching for him.

“I hear that aside from the alcohol you buy with money earned from completing tasks for Underworld Organizations, you spend everything else on food for the children.”

The Slum children adored this drunken Alchemist. He always gave them food and healed their wounds.
Kale Heniatus watched the man’s eyes waver and asked.

“Who are you?”

Who are you, who masqueraded as a false Alchemist, who boldly severed your hand before it could become addicted to dead mana?

“I, I am, I am—”

The middle-aged man could not answer properly. Confusion, fear, terror—a tangle of countless emotions consumed him as his body trembled beyond his control.
To such a man, Kale Heniatus spoke.

“The Alchemy Tower developed dead mana bombs.”

The Alchemist’s trembling body froze instantly. His eyes wavered with disbelief, as if asking: surely not?

“Thanks to the children who died fifteen years ago, and the people used in experiments over the past ten years.”
“Ah, ugh—”

At Kale Heniatus’s words, the middle-aged man released a strangled cry—whether a sob or a scream, none could say—and covered his face.
A junior Alchemist who had fled ten years ago upon learning the truth. Now aged into middle years, the man was engulfed by suffocating terror.

The terror of guilt.

At that moment, the Priest’s voice reached the ears of the man who seemed to be drowning in the swamp of terror.

“I will destroy the Alchemy Tower.”

One more word followed.

“Without fail.”

I will destroy it without fail. That declaration thundered through the man’s ears, piercing through his fear. The cowering man slowly lowered the right hand that had covered his face and looked up at the Priest.
The Priest wore a terrifying expression. No smile, no anger, no reproach—only the emotionless gleam in those eyes was frightening. The Priest’s lips parted.
The Priest wore a frightening expression. It wasn’t laughter, anger, or reproach—it was the blank, emotionless gaze that was truly terrifying. The Priest’s mouth opened.

“I’m asking you again. Who are you?”

Kale Heniatus looked down at the man crouched as low as he could.

A person of mediocre skill, but one who possessed conscience and guilt.
Someone capable of regret. A human with his own standards.
A person who knows how to regret. A human who has their own standards.

Therefore, another force was necessary.
Then another force is needed.

Mages who had not belonged to the Magic Tower and had remained hidden. Those who had secluded themselves in resistance to the Magic Tower.
Mages who did not belong to the Magic Tower and remained hidden. Those who had withdrawn in resistance against the Magic Tower.

They needed to be brought to the surface.
They need to be pulled up to the surface of the water.

Kale Heniatus intended to use this man for precisely that purpose—to establish that center.
What Kale was trying to exploit was this sense of balance.

Raon’s voice echoed in my head.

Did this booze-smelling bastard also conduct experiments on poor children 15 years ago?

I could not know that much. To my eyes, they were all the same.
Then, the voice of the middle-aged man sounded.
At that moment, a middle-aged man’s voice was heard.

“R-Ray Stecker. That’s my name.”

Ray Stecker. An apprentice alchemist with mediocre skills, hired as a trainee at the Southern Alchemy Tower in the Empire—barely a month into the position. He had spoken his name for the first time in eleven years.
The moment those words left his lips, memories from eleven years ago came flooding back like a tidal wave.

“For one month. I was entrusted with children from the Slums for one month as a trainee. They said the children had come from the Capital. I cared for them without knowing anything, and I… grew close to those children.”

We became friends.

“And after that month, there was an experiment. In that experiment—”

Ray’s shoulders trembled. The gaunt frame of a middle-aged man shook as though it might collapse at any moment.
I had grabbed the hand of the child I’d grown closest to. I wanted to save them. Then, the child’s fingernail scratched the back of my hand, and I was poisoned by dead mana.

The Southern Alchemy Tower tried to dispose of me. In a moment of clarity, I cut my own wrist and fled. I ran like a madman. And a year later, they must have thought I was dead—there was no pursuit.

“In that experiment, I witnessed what those bastards were doing.”
“Ray Stecker, I didn’t come here to listen to your story.”

Ray looked at the Priest.

“I came to make a request. You move for money, don’t you?”

At those words, Ray Stecker gradually regained his composure. His gaze fell upon the vial on the table containing dead mana liquid, and beside it, documents harboring the Bell Tower’s secrets.

This Priest before me was not speaking nonsense.

“I’ll give you as much money as you want. Will you follow my request, whatever it may be?”

At the Priest’s question, Ray Stecker asked with a trembling voice.

“…You’re saying you’ll destroy the Bell Tower?”
“Yes. Without fail.”

Ray shot to his feet.
He went to the corner of the room and pulled out a shabby wooden plank. From within it, a box emerged.

Ray opened the box. A small glass vial appeared.

Clink.
The glass bottle was placed upon the table.
Inside the bottle, a blackened hand was visible. A hand that had not decayed.

Fine scratch marks were etched across the back of that hand.
Ray Stecker could not bring himself to discard that hand—the hand the child had grasped, desperately clinging to life.

In Kale’s eyes, I could see Ray Stecker’s pupils blazing with guilt and seething rage.
Kale’s lips parted.

“Wait. I’ll bring the commission document.”
“Money is unnecessary. Please, help me ease my guilt.”

Kale hesitated for a moment but rose from his seat. He spoke to Ray Stecker, who was watching me.

“If that is the price of the commission, so be it.”

Unlike Kale’s measured tone, Ray Stecker’s face contorted. His lips trembled.
Kale left him with a parting remark and departed from the shabby dwelling.

“Drink cold water and clear your head. I don’t work well with men drowning in alcohol.”

Creak. With those words, Kale vanished and the dilapidated door shut behind him.
Ray Stecker stared at the sight for a long while before seizing the bowl of cold water and draining it in one gulp.

“Ahhh.”

Clink.
He set the bowl down loudly on the table and opened his mouth.

“Now I’m awake.”

For the first time in eleven years, I had regained my senses.

* * *

The first day of the investigation.
Crown Prince Albert whispered to Kale as he surveyed the devastated Sun God Sect Cathedral.

“A secret table inside a secret room?”

My guards, secretary, and attendants were curious about such an intimate arrangement, but that was none of my concern. I answered the Crown Prince’s question eagerly and faithfully.

“Yes. They say it’s a treasure trove.”
“Hmm.”

Alberu swallowed hard, concealing his smile.
Watching him, I recalled what Saint Jack had told me.

‘…They may have found the Sun’s Condemnation.’

The Sun’s Condemnation.
The very name was perfect for a Saint to rally believers while standing against enemies.

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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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