Trash of the Count’s Family - Chapter 390

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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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“Human! I can’t connect to Clophe Seka’s video communication channel! He must be busy!”

Unfortunately, Kale Heniatus couldn’t establish a video call with Clophe Seka right away.

‘Should I try contacting Witira?’

The Whale Tribe’s Witira and Paseton came to mind, but I set the thought aside for now.

“Then let’s head to the Singten Merchant Lord first.”

Kale Heniatus set down the spinning top he’d been holding and unfolded the map Rosalind had given him. The night of Mogur Capital filled my vision.
I had to return before morning came.

* * *

“Damn it!”

Crash!
A wine glass shattered against the wall into countless pieces.

Flavin Sinten, the lord of the Sinten Merchant Guild, felt his breath catch as he stared at the shattered glass fragments—they looked like the very image of his own crumbling future.
Those sharp shards seemed poised to cut at his throat.

‘How could it come to this?’

Flavin Sinten clutched his head between both hands.

“…Lord Merchant.”
“Be quiet.”

Flavin Sinten didn’t even glance at his loyal subordinate’s call, only gripping his head more tightly.
The loyal subordinate fell silent, observing how the merchant lord—once renowned for his cold pragmatism and unwavering pursuit of profit—now seemed to have reached his breaking point.
His own circumstances mirrored the lord’s predicament.

The loyal subordinate sitting across from the merchant lord quietly set down the wine glass in his hand.
He and the Singten Merchant Lord had been having a late dinner accompanied by wine.

Flavin Sinten wandered through his complicated thoughts without sparing a glance at the silent subordinate.

‘…The Imperial Family— the Alchemy Tower has collapsed!’

The Sinten Merchant Guild.
A merchant guild that had risen to become one of the five great guilds of the Mogur Empire in just ten years.
The Sinten Merchant Guild was famous for its close ties with the Imperial Family.
But their sudden growth wasn’t simply because they were pro-Imperial.

‘Dark magic! I shouldn’t have become involved with that!’

The Sinten Merchant Guild had sold people to the Imperial Family and the Alchemy Tower for experimental purposes.
Those people were slaves captured through human trafficking from various foreign lands on the Western Continent, not from the Empire itself.

Through these slaves, Flavin Sinten had been able to forge connections with both the Imperial Family and the Alchemy Tower while simultaneously accumulating vast wealth.
His mouth opened.

“You’ve destroyed all the evidence, haven’t you?”

Immediately after the battle at the Alchemy Tower ended, Flavin had ordered his subordinate to eliminate all evidence of the human trafficking and slavery.

“Yes, we’ve destroyed everything.”

The evidence in the Capital had been eliminated long ago, and his subordinate’s answer now meant that every trace had been erased so thoroughly that not even a thread remained.

“Did you confirm whether anyone was watching?”
“Merchant Lord, of course I confirmed that no one was there.”
“…That’s not what I meant.”

Flavin’s eyes turned cold.
The subordinate immediately bowed at the Merchant Lord’s words and answered.

“Yes, we’ve eliminated them. They’ll all be ruled as missing persons.”

Only then did the Merchant Lord smile.

“That’s right. Of course that’s how it should be done. People are evidence too. No matter how loyal they are to us, they must be eliminated.”

The Loyal Subordinate swallowed hard.
Even if it were called a secret, erasing all evidence of work conducted covertly within the guild for over a decade was not something a single subordinate could accomplish alone.

Flavin Sinten had commanded his loyal subordinate to eliminate all those who participated in destroying the evidence—in other words, everyone who had been involved in this clandestine operation for over ten years.
And that task had been completed today. Those who assisted were assassins, another set of Flavin’s loyal subordinates.

‘…A terrifying man.’

The Loyal Subordinate found Flavin Sinten terrifying—a man who had erased not only material evidence but also human evidence.
Such a fearsome individual must have engaged in the abominable practice of human trafficking for over a decade.

‘How absurd.’

The Loyal Subordinate barely suppressed a bitter laugh.
After all, he himself had participated in that very abominable act.

‘In the end, this is the consequence of that work—hiding like this.’

He glanced furtively at his master. The merchant lord remained lost in thought, his head cradled in both hands.

Currently, Flavin Sinten was in hiding at a secret residence known only to this loyal subordinate and the assassin subordinate.
He feared that the Sun God Church and Sir Rex’s faction—those who had toppled the Alchemy Tower and the Imperial Palace—might turn their blades toward the Sinten Merchant Guild.

‘Still, if we can just endure now, we’ll be fine.’

The Loyal Subordinate forced himself to think positively.

‘Yes, all the evidence is gone now. We—’

His body trembled at a sudden thought.

‘…We? Did I just say we?’

The Loyal Subordinate knew the Sinten Merchant Lord quite well.
Would he, as a subordinate, even be included in that “we”?

The Loyal Subordinate’s hands began to tremble violently.
His gaze fixed on the merchant lord, who appeared consumed by anguish. Slowly, Flavin lowered his hands from his head and met the subordinate’s eyes.

“Why are you looking at me with such eyes?”

The Loyal Subordinate could see the Singten Merchant Lord’s serene face.

“…Merchant Lord.”
“Yes, what’s wrong? Your complexion looks terrible.”

The Singten Merchant Lord drew his expression into something sorrowful before continuing.

“You look like someone about to die.”

At those words, the Loyal Subordinate’s mouth went dry. He drew a slow breath to steady his mind.
That moment.

“Cough!”

His body twisted violently from within.
A searing agony swept over him as if his entire frame were being turned inside out.
The Loyal Subordinate saw the Singten Merchant Lord’s smiling face. In the merchant lord’s eyes was reflected the image of the Loyal Subordinate collapsing, blood dripping from his lips.
The Singten Merchant Lord watched the Loyal Subordinate collapse onto the table where dinner and wine had been laid and spoke.

“All evidence must be erased.”

The Loyal Subordinate’s face contorted.
Over a decade of unwavering loyalty—doing what must be done and what must not be done—had earned him only death.

“D-damn, ugh, damn it, cough!”

Only then did the Loyal Subordinate realize that poison had been placed in the dinner food, in his own plate.
But he could not express that realization to the world.
His body, ravaged by the virulent toxin, rushed toward death in mere moments.

“Are you well?”

When the Loyal Subordinate had become a corpse unable to answer the Singten Merchant Lord’s question, the merchant lord gazed at the ceiling and spoke.

“Clean it up.”

Whoosh.
Two assassins descended silently from the ceiling, and one of them began disposing of the Loyal Subordinate.

Clink.
The Merchant Lord watched the scene unfold and filled a fresh glass offered by the other assassin with wine. Then he took a sip.
Gone was the anguish he’d displayed before the Loyal Subordinate moments ago.
Instead, his demeanor was cold and composed.

“Keep your activities minimal for now.”

He issued orders to the two men—the assassin and the subordinate.

“And send proper funds to the south.”

His subordinates nodded silently in acknowledgment.

The south.
He recalled the Alchemy Tower that existed there.
There was a member of the Imperial Family backed by Flavin Sinten.

He leaned back against the sofa and contemplated the situation with cold clarity.

“…There’s still time. There’s still possibility.”

There remained a chance that his power and wealth could be preserved.

There was a reason he remained in this Mansion within the Capital, even if it served as a hideout.
While other merchants with guilty consciences fled to the provinces, Flavin Sinten stayed in the Capital.
Of course, it was partly because this Secret Residence was unknown to the public, sealed tight with magic so that from the outside it appeared merely as an ordinary single-story dwelling.

‘The military forces haven’t moved yet.’

He needed to monitor the movements of the Capital’s military forces. And he had to maintain control of the purse strings.
Through these two means, he could establish close ties with the Southern Alchemy Tower.

And the final reason for remaining in the Capital.

‘I have connections to the Sun God Church as well!’

Flavin Sinten’s eyes gleamed with intensity.

The VIP auction house of the Caro Kingdom.
There, he had reached an agreement to purchase the ‘Flame Crystal’ for 30 billion Counds from someone whose identity remained unknown.

When the man with the white mask covering his face presented the Flame Crystal to the Merchant Lord and urged the transaction, Flavin had initially been quite flustered.
After all, the ‘Flame Crystal’ he had secretly offered as a bribe to the Former Pope—a treasure and evidence connected to the Imperial Family—could never be exposed.

But now, the conversation he had shared with that man back then reassured Flavin’s anxious heart.

‘Flavin Sinten, which has a longer history—the Empire or the Sun God Church?’

The man had said.

‘Flavin Sinten, you’re skilled at politics, aren’t you? Then you should understand well. What the calamities befalling the Empire signify.’

The Flame Crystal.
In exchange for returning the bribe he had secretly given to the Former Pope without the Emperor’s knowledge, the man demanded an astronomical sum of 30 billion Counds.

‘Think carefully about who I am, why I sought you out specifically, and whether the sum I mentioned is merely the price of this trinket.’

And with those words, the Sinten Merchant Lord grasped the true value of those 30 billion Counds.

That money was meant to solidify his ties with the Sun God Church once more.

“It was the finest move.”

Flavin savored the memory of that moment.
Before the Imperial Family crumbled, he had woven new threads connecting him to the Sun God Church, and thanks to that, he could believe he would survive even as Saint Jack and Sword Master Hana worked to restore the Sun God Church.

‘Perhaps I might even gain greater power.’

If the Imperial Family from the Southern Alchemy Tower were to become Emperor afterward.
With one thread connecting him to the Sun God Church, and another to the Imperial Family, the Sinten Merchant Guild’s power and wealth would likely become the greatest among all Empire Trading Companies.

“Crisis is opportunity.”

So he waited in the Capital.
Someday, the Sun God Church would seek him out.

It happened in that instant.

Beep beep beep— beep beep—

“Hm!”

Startled, he bolted upright from the sofa.
An alarm sounded throughout the mansion.
This meant someone had breached the defensive magic circle of the mansion, which was disguised as an ordinary three-story residence.

Who could it be?
Who had infiltrated this place?

“Lord Merchant!”

When the Assassin’s Loyal Subordinate spoke for the first time that day, the Merchant Lord’s lips curved into a smile. And he spoke.

“It’s fine.”

The second-floor terrace where he stood.
There, a man with ordinary brown hair and a white mask suddenly appeared.

He had come.

Flavin Sinten smiled.
The existence who would become his lifeline—no, who would elevate him to an even higher position—had arrived.

The masked man standing on the terrace extended his hand and opened the terrace window.

Creak.
As the door swung open, he stepped into the mansion and spoke.

“It’s been a while, Singten Merchant Lord.”

The Assassin Loyal Subordinates surrounding Flavin Sinten moved to shield him from the white-masked figure.
But Flavin greeted him warmly with a smile.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

Flavin Sinten waited for the white mask before him to guide him to an even higher place.

-Human! The one about to be stripped bare was waiting! How strange! Why would he wait when everything will be taken from him?

The man behind the white mask.
Kale Heniatus ignored Raon’s words and extended his hand to Flavin Sinten.

“You’re quite skilled at politics, aren’t you?”

At those words, the Merchant Lord grasped Kale’s hand with both of his own and answered.

“Indeed. Quite skilled, I assure you.”

To climb higher on this new rope, he spoke as though he had become the most devoted of retainers.

“Whatever you require, simply say the word. I shall prepare everything for you.”

Kale lifted the corner of his mouth slightly, the part of his face not hidden by the mask.
Of course, to Flavin Sinten, who stood before him radiating a subtle aura of dominion, that smile appeared remarkably dignified and formidable.
Kale spoke gently to Flavin Sinten, who had become like a devoted retainer.

“Then shall I test the sincerity of your devotion?”

Sincerity would freeze to death.
All that remained for that wretch was utter annihilation.

In that moment, Kale heard Raon’s voice.

-E-evil smile! Even the White Star would be startled!

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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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