Trash of the Count’s Family - Chapter 20

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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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Chapter 6. A Debt Repaid

I gave Choi Han a perfunctory nod as he arrived early in the morning, then picked up the glass of cold water Ron had left behind. The cool touch of the glass brought back Ron’s words from earlier.

‘Young Master, it’s not good for you to take night walks for too long. This Ron worries greatly.’

Without even drinking the water, I felt a chill run through me, sharpening my senses. I carefully set the glass back down and spoke to Choi Han.

“You’ve cleaned up all the traces?”
“Yes.”

After bringing me back to my lodgings, Choi Han had immediately erased their tracks, created false traces leading westward, and returned.
I yawned and opened my mouth while watching the cats contentedly tearing into jerky. I needed to explain to Choi Han about the city that would serve as our midpoint.

“The next city is called Pursulsi. That’s our midpoint.”

Once we left the Heniatus Territory, which was surrounded by mountains, the roads from this Baron’s Estate all the way to the Capital were well-maintained.

‘Thanks to that, the Heniatus Territory has remained safe until now, but it’s also made its location rather ambiguous.’

Even if there’s plenty of marble, if the roads are poor, it’s difficult for the Merchant Guilds to come. However, once you leave the Heniatus Territory, the roads are good, so everyone is willing to bear that level of inconvenience and make the trip.
Moreover, thanks to these roads, the powers of the Northeast Rowan Kingdom could frequently gather. Because of this, unlike other regions, even without any nobles of Marquis rank or higher, they could still voice their opinions about this region to the Capital.

“Our territory required crossing mountains, which took considerable time, but now that won’t be necessary anymore.”

Pursulsi wasn’t a midpoint in distance—it was a midpoint in time.

“But, Young Master Cale.”
“Yes?”
“On my way back, I went to check on the Baron’s Estate.”
“And?”

Choi Han’s expression grew troubled as he looked at my indifferent face.

“Everyone seemed in disarray, and there were soldiers and knights leaving the village.”
“They must have gone to report.”

Those who had regained their senses would have sent word to Benion and been occupied with searching around the cave. Yet Choi Han’s words suggested there was more.

“But…”
“Why do you keep dragging out your words?”

I furrowed my brow and asked curtly. Despite my tone, Choi Han continued slowly, his expression still troubled.

“The area around the secret exit of the cave we escaped from had been completely devastated by an explosion. The cave entrance, the nearby trees, grass, earth—everything was overturned.”

The cats dropped the dried meat they’d been chewing. But I remained unmoved.

“The dragon did it.”

Choi Han stood silently with his mouth closed. I let out a small laugh and rose from my seat.

Even at four years old, it had enough sense to suspect someone might use that exit, so it destroyed it. And being the most mana-sensitive creature, its destruction of the area was likely an act to dismantle magical devices.

“At least it hasn’t killed anyone there yet. It’s still young and frightened, so it’s probably holding back, don’t you think?”
“I see. I could certainly feel the immense power of its mana.”
“Don’t underestimate a young dragon. You’ll regret it.”

Dragons were arrogant creatures with hearts as narrow as millet seeds. I praised myself once more for leaving the dragon behind and asked Choi Han a question.

“Now get going. Oh, and will you be alright until we depart?”
“No. I need to go help Vicross.”

Who? Vicross? I perked up and spoke hastily.

“Oh, so you’ve become close?”

In that moment, I saw Choi Han’s face show displeasure for the first time. He was absolutely firm.

“No. We are certainly not close.”
“…Right, right… Go ahead.”

I replied with a displeased expression, and Choi Han simply bowed his head and headed toward the door. As he opened it, I gave him one instruction.

“Oh, on your way out, tell Hans to set up some drinks outside.”
“Pardon?”

Choi Han’s eyes widened in surprise as he turned back to look at me. Alternating his gaze between my composed expression and the clock showing seven o’clock, Choi Han heard me speak cheerfully.

“You don’t know what a hangover cure is?”

Choi Han left the room without answering, but I paid it no mind. He and On and Hong had given me looks suggesting they couldn’t believe I’d drink this early in the morning, but I ignored them and checked myself in the mirror.

“Absolutely magnificent.”

My face was thoroughly drenched in alcohol and exhaustion. Satisfied, I descended to the first floor.

‘As expected.’

Seven in the morning was early, but for someone, the day still hadn’t ended. The Vice-Captain, looking pristine despite having drunk yesterday, was engaged in a serious conversation with someone.

I could see Choi Han had gone rigid. Well, it made sense—the person speaking with the Vice-Captain was likely one of the knights that bastard had knocked unconscious yesterday, so stiffening up was only natural.
I walked over to Choi Han and gave his foot a subtle kick.

“Why are you so nervous?”
“Ah.”

At my discreet remark, Choi Han seemed momentarily flustered, then laughed awkwardly and replied quietly.

“I intended to render him combat-incapable for at least a day, but he’s recovered faster than anticipated. It appears I misjudged the fragility of the human body. I believe I can apply greater force in future encounters.”

I turned away from Choi Han. True to form—a protagonist who destroys everything in pursuit of his own sense of justice. And there was one more thing I hadn’t anticipated: On and Hong, the kittens who had followed me downstairs, were swishing their tails with sinister expressions, eyeing the knight with obvious enjoyment.
Before long, On and Hong had followed down, and the baby kittens wagged their tails with sinister expressions, glancing at the knight. It was clear they were enjoying themselves.

‘…Am I the only one with any restraint here?’

As I settled into my chair and pondered this, the Elderly Man who ran the inn approached with a bottle of liquor.

“Young master, I’ve prepared the same drink you had yesterday.”
“Old man, the more I see you, the more I think…”
“Yes?”

I grinned at the nervous innkeeper and spoke.

“You’re quite the shrewd businessman. That’s a compliment. Perfect for a morning hangover cure.”

With a crisp pop, the bottle cap came free. I poured a glass and downed it in one gulp. My face flushed crimson almost instantly. I deliberately narrowed my eyes and glanced toward the Vice-Captain, who was still speaking to the knight.

“Yesterday, we held a gathering to shake off the fatigue of our journey. Everyone rested while drinking. No one even left the inn. I’m not sure why someone from the Baron’s Estate would be curious about that.”

The Marquis Household knight seemed to have introduced himself as someone from the Baron’s Estate. Despite the Vice-Captain’s piercing gaze, the knight smiled but answered with a serious expression.

“Thieves broke into the Baron’s Estate yesterday, you see. Several of us stood guard, but we lost a few items. When I heard that the Heniatus Count Family was staying here, I came to check if you suffered similar damages.”

Thieves? Well, a dragon thief is still a thief. I nodded in agreement and took a long swig of alcohol straight from the bottle. At that moment, my eyes met with the person conversing with the Vice-Captain—the knight who had been at the Marquis Estate yesterday.

“What are you looking at?”

The knight immediately lowered his head and averted his gaze. Seeing this, the Vice-Captain cleared his throat and spoke in an overly bright, defensive tone.

“Ahem, our young master doesn’t feel refreshed in the morning without a drink, so that’s why he’s having one. Moreover, it’s a hangover cure—he’s a man of grand ambitions who demonstrates his true spirit through such remedies.”

I couldn’t tell if the Vice-Captain was insulting me or trying to defend me, so I looked at him disapprovingly before taking another drink.

“I see. You’re quite a cheerful person.”

The knight responded graciously to the Vice-Captain’s words and bowed politely to me.

‘We’ve eased their suspicions.’

I thought there was no reason for me to be suspected by the Marquis Household knight who had come so early in the morning. The dragon had disappeared precisely when our group arrived, and we were leaving today, but it would be difficult to suspect us.
Benion’s subordinates remaining here would think of the six-starred uniforms that seemed to represent some organization, the traces heading westward, and above all, that a madman like me could never do such a thing.

“Then I hope your journey today is safe.”

Besides, with the Marquis, Benion, and the Baron all absent, there was no way to capture the heir of the Count Family. And wasn’t he a noble youth traveling to the Capital under the Royal Court’s orders?

‘And who would think a noble youth drinking while traveling under the Royal Court’s orders is normal?’

Being a madman was truly a convenient position. I drank contentedly.

‘Even if Benion finds out, he won’t suspect us.’

Those who knew best that there was no connection whatsoever between the Secret Organization and the Heniatus Count Family were Benion and Marquis Sten. Especially when it came to matters concerning dragons.

I watched the Marquis Household knight slip out of the inn, then drank the lemon honey tea that Ron offered me.

“Ron.”
“Yes, young master.”
“Honey tea really does seem to be the best cure for a hangover.”
“Indeed, sir.”

Ron gazed at me with a satisfied smile, but I turned away from his look and settled my roiling stomach. By the time my nausea had subsided, we set out on the road once more.

Our next destination was Pursulsi. A city that served as the hub of transportation in the Northeast Region, it was quite renowned for its archaeological site where countless stone towers stood.
And I had to visit the incomplete stone tower located in Pursulsi.

“Are we camping tonight?”

I nodded at On’s question as she chewed on dried meat.

“Yes. We’ll be camping intermittently from now on.”

I had drawn up a tight schedule. I wanted to spend a generous amount of time in Pursulsi. I turned my gaze away from the cat siblings whispering amongst themselves and looked out beyond the moving carriage.

‘Vitality of the Heart.’

It was the name of an ancient power that would strengthen the unbreakable shield. This power specialized in regeneration and life force.

‘That’s why he sought it out.’

The Marquis Household’s abandoned eldest son, Taylor. He was the only one in the Marquis Household with a properly functioning mind, but Benion’s scheming had left him paralyzed from the waist down.
He had scoured countless documents searching for a power that could heal him. In the process, he happened upon an ancient manuscript at a used bookstore, and though the ancient script was difficult to decipher, through persistent effort he finally managed to translate a few characters.

Regeneration. Stone tower.

Those two words became seared into Taylor’s mind, and he immediately set out for Pursulsi, a city that could be called the city of stone towers. He would still be there now. And a month later, he would find that power.

‘But it was all for nothing.’

Vitality of the Heart could not regenerate a body already damaged. After obtaining the power, regeneration only manifested in future injuries. Even then, the extent of regeneration had its limits, and there was a price to pay.

Taylor fell into despair at this truth. He had no time, and this had been his last hope. He never knew when Benion would come to kill him.

‘In the end, he died a month later.’

He was assassinated by an unidentified group while the Capital was in chaos from the terrorist attack. Of course, it was at Benion’s behest.

The reason I remembered this fleeting figure—someone who occupied far less significance than the original version of myself—was because of the friendship and loyalty I shared with my companion.

The Mad Priestess. Taylor’s closest friend, the sole survivor at the assassination scene, who killed half of the assassins before being excommunicated for murder. She bore a massive scar across her back from that incident, yet she spoke boldly in the Temple about what she had done.

‘I simply chose loyalty and duty as a person over the will of the gods. I believe that was right.’

And she added:

‘Now I am free!’

After that, she became known to people as the Mad Priestess. Her specialty was curse magic using the power of the god of death. Though the Temple excommunicated her, the god did not abandon her.
When war later erupted, she became renowned not as a hero, but as a spirited volunteer militia member.

‘This time, things seem like they might be different.’

A month from now, the probability of Taylor dying was quite low.
Benion would be too preoccupied cleaning up the dragon theft incident and flattering the Marquis. His successor position would likely be precarious because of this, forcing him to pay more attention to his younger siblings beneath him rather than his abandoned eldest son.

‘And since I’ve taken away Taylor’s last hope, I should give him a new one.’

Even if Taylor didn’t need the vitality of the heart as a power source, I wasn’t the kind of bastard who would strip away someone’s final hope.

I found myself oddly curious about what these two unlikely partners might accomplish if they survived without injury. Perhaps they would transform the Marquis Household itself. If that happened, it would benefit me in the long term.

But then a thought occurred to me, and my expression hardened.

‘Didn’t Vicross say he was exasperated by her curse magic?’

The moment the torture specialist Vicross’s assessment of that priestess came to mind, I erased the Mad Priestess from my thoughts. Along with her, I erased the noble Taylor—the one with an upright disposition, simple tastes, and affection for his territory’s people.

‘They’re not compatible with me.’

They were fundamentally different kinds of people from me. Virtuous, deeply loyal, trusting of one another. I preferred Ron and Vicross to them.

‘…No, wait. What a terrible thought.’

I quickly erased Ron and Vicross from my mind as well.

Tap, tap. I lowered my head at the sensation of something patting my thigh. The cats’ golden eyes gleamed as they spoke to me.

“We heard it from Hans earlier.”
“Hans said so.”

Hans, still unaware that the cats were of the feline race, had been chattering away to himself in front of them. It seemed these were the stories the cats had overheard.

“What?”

The sibling pair paid no mind to my curt question and continued undeterred.

“If you go to the stone tower and make a wish, it comes true.”
“The stone tower is beautiful.”
“We want to go. But if it’s bothersome, that’s fine.”
“We’d like to go together, but if it’s inconvenient, that’s okay.”

I stared at the hesitant cats for a moment before asking bluntly.

“What wish would you make?”

Hong’s lustrous red fur, now beautifully groomed and radiant, rippled with excitement as she spoke.

“For our youngest brother to come alon-”
“Rejected.”

I dismissed them outright and turned my gaze away from the cats. At that moment, the carriage came to a halt. We had arrived at our campsite for the night.

“So we’re camping again starting today.”
“Indeed.”

I gave Hans a perfunctory reply and surveyed the area around our campsite. The forest breeze swept past me. I spent the night in relative peace.

And the next morning.

“Young master.”
“…What is this?”

I stared at the deer lying just beyond the boundary of our campsite. It had been hunted. Hans reported to me as I gazed at it.

“Someone left something at the campsite.”

Hans pointed beside the deer. Kale was looking at the same spot. On the ground were drawings of a fork and spoon.

It looked exactly like venison left behind for someone to eat. A strange thought crossed Kale’s mind. He turned his gaze away. The cat siblings nestled in Choi Han’s arms, and Choi Han was grinning at Kale.

“…This feels ominous.”

It definitely felt ominous.
Whoever had left the venison seemed to understand speech but not writing.
Choi Han, who had been on watch last night, clearly knew who it was but had pretended not to notice their presence.

…It had to be a dragon.

I turned my head to look at On and Hong, who were still watching me, and at Choi Han, and made myself perfectly clear.

“Let’s pretend we don’t know.”

Meow.
Meow.

The siblings seemed to be mocking me, but I pretended not to notice. Yet every time we made camp, new food supplies were delivered to me. Wild boar meat, rabbit meat, various fruits, and more.
I became certain that a dragon was following me.

With that certainty, I arrived at Pursulsi.

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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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