Trash of the Count’s Family - Chapter 4

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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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‘Thrown out at the city gate so early in the morning?’

After burying all the villagers he had grown close to, Choi Han moved in the direction he remembered from what the villagers had told him. That direction was toward Western City.

Choi Han had crossed into the Dark Forest in his first year of high school, but he had lived for decades since then. Of course, those decades were survival time spent enduring the Dark Forest, so his maturity had developed in a somewhat unusual direction, but regardless, he remained surprisingly rational.

‘I’ll go report to the Lord’s Castle.’

A remote village. But Harris Village was part of the Heniatus Count Family’s territory. So Choi Han first sought out Western City, hoping to hold even a modest funeral service.
He also intended to gather information about those he had killed in a moment of lost reason—those he had slaughtered without asking anything. But honoring the spirits of the dead came before revenge.

‘Come to think of it, I’m quite sentimental.’

But having lost precious people he had grown attached to over decades in a single moment, his emotional state could only become twisted. It was then that Cale had occasionally provoked him, and once struck a nerve that ran deep. He recalled what the Cale in the book had said.

【”What does it matter if dozens of those pathetic insects die? A single cup of wine I drink is worth more than the lives of you insects.”】

At those words, Choi Han laughed and spoke.

【”An interesting thought. I’m very curious whether that belief will change or remain unchanged.”】
【”Shall we test it?”】

That experiment involved beating Cale to the brink of death without actually killing him. Remarkably, even as Cale was beaten so severely, his convictions never wavered.

“Ugh, chills.”

Cale watched goosebumps rise across his arms and rubbed them, then quickly took a sip of the tea Bilos had left behind. The moment he glanced out the window, chills ran down his spine once more.

‘It’s him.’

Early in the morning, the moment the city gate opened, a young boy entered wearing clothes covered in charred black marks as if burned in places. It was Choi Han.

Cale did not rise from his seat immediately but observed Choi Han.

The speed at which he had ridden a distance that would normally take a week by carriage was remarkable, but as a result, Choi Han’s appearance was deplorable. Of course, it was also wretched from what he had endured in the village.

Choi Han entered with his head bowed and his steps heavy, only to be blocked by the guards. Though he could not understand what they said, he shook his head in response to their words.

‘They’re asking if I have an identification badge.’

The guards of Western City were generally docile. But they followed the rules with meticulous precision—a reflection of their lord, Count Derth, and his exacting nature.

“I’m being turned away.”

As expected, Choi Han complied without resistance, turning back toward the City Gate. He did not protest. The thread-thin rationality that had kept him alive after a full day of running whispered that he must not kill the innocent.

‘Choi Han will wait until nightfall, then scale the city walls and slip inside under cover of darkness.’

That night, he would encounter Cale, who was drinking and making merry in a tavern.

The chair scraped loudly as Cale rose—he was alone, so the sound echoed sharply through the space. He descended and informed Bilos at the counter.

“I’m stepping out for a moment. Don’t clear my table.”
“Yes, Young Master. Until we meet again.”

Cale ignored Bilos’s radiant smile, which seemed all the brighter against his round cheeks, and left the Tea Shop.

“Not a single thing was broken!”

Someone’s voice echoed from within the Tea Shop, but Cale paid it no mind. Tonight, he had groundwork to lay for acquiring an unbreakable shield.

An unbreakable shield.
Not a physical object. If forced to draw a comparison, it resembled a mage’s barrier—an intangible shield. Yet its nature differed vastly from a mage’s barrier. It was a power closer to telekinesis than to mana itself.

And the human who had created this power was now dead—ironically, one who had been excommunicated for serving a god.

‘A strange amalgamation of things.’

As with all fantasy histories, this world possessed an ancient past. In that antiquity, magic had not yet flourished, nor had the martial disciplines of swordsmanship and spearcraft developed into refined forms.
Instead, it was a society where supernatural talents—those obtained by chance or learned through study—held dominion. The greatest powers were telekinesis, divine force, and the primal energies of nature. Primitive, one might say.

Some of these ancient powers had been left behind in certain places and objects, scattered across the continent for eons. They could be obtained if only a few conditions were met.

Ancient powers.

Heroes typically claimed them, wielding them not as their primary strength but as occasional supplementary abilities.
This was the power Cale sought to obtain.

‘Of course, I’ll exclude divine power.’

I had no desire to entangle myself with gods, angels, demons, and such ilk.

In the end, the power I sought was innate and natural—something that required no effort to obtain.

‘That way, I wouldn’t have to exert myself.’

It suited my desires perfectly. Swordsmanship and magic demanded constant effort, after all. I despised such things.

Unlike other books, the ancient civilizations in “The Birth of Heroes” were not particularly formidable.
Compared to the spirit arts that humanity had refined through progress—the magic of harnessing nature and establishing rules—the primitive natural forces left behind by ancient civilizations were negligible. Psychic abilities were no different. Mediocre psychic powers crumbled under a single sword strike.
It was no accident that heroes merely dabbled in such things as secondary tools.

‘And by gathering those mediocre powers and combining them appropriately, I’d become reasonably strong.’

A satisfying objective.
Moreover, I also knew of ancient powers that could amplify these mediocre abilities.

To achieve this goal, I began searching for the ancient power buried within Western City. I knew exactly how to obtain it.

“Y-Young master, welcome.”

I acknowledged the Baker’s greeting with a mere nod as he bowed so deeply his head nearly touched the ground. He gasped, but I pretended not to notice his trembling—a consequence of my notorious reputation—and proceeded with my business.

“Give me bread.”
“Pardon?”

I pointed decisively at all the bread displayed in the shop’s window.

“From here to there.”

A gold coin I produced spun across the counter with a metallic ring.

“Wrap it up.”

I added to the Baker, who had gone rigid:

“By the way, a couple more gold coins should cover a week’s worth of bread, yes?”

The Baker’s eyes, fixed on the gold coins, shifted toward me. It was more than enough to cover the bread. I spoke flatly to his wavering gaze.

“If you don’t like it, go somewhere else.”
“Ah, no, sir! I’ll prepare it as quickly as possible!”

The Baker moved with unusual deference and remarkable speed. I soon shouldered a burlap sack filled with wrapped bread and left the shop.

Even bread carried considerable weight. The burden made me grimace. I ignored the Baker following me out and stepped into the street.
I observed those whose eyes met mine flinch and avert their gaze, while most deliberately avoided eye contact by moving toward the corners. I strolled leisurely through the streets.

‘This is certainly different from Korea. Truly a fantasy world.’

I wandered through the market, which exuded a typical fantasy atmosphere, observing my surroundings.

“Mm.”
“Uh.”

Each time, merchants whose eyes met mine startled and avoided my gaze. Tsk tsk—I must have caused quite a reputation as a troublemaker. I cursed myself as I left the market and headed west from Western City.

To the west lay the Slums. Even the wealthiest territories harbored the poor.

Ordinarily, people might think:
Ah, sharing food with the unfortunate must be how one gains fortune?

But unfortunately, that was not the case.

The moment I entered the Slums, I felt eyes glancing at me. It was a space where people lived in the most indolent and the most fierce ways simultaneously.

While the poor might not recognize the Lord’s face, they certainly knew mine. Those with nothing had to know better than anyone who caused trouble in the marketplace, the tavern, or the square.

“Tsk.”

Yet the savory aroma emanating from me drew lingering gazes despite my reputation as a troublemaker. I ignored them entirely and quickened my pace.

The toe of my expensive leather shoes gradually became soiled by the filth of the streets. As an indescribable stench lingered at my nostrils, my face naturally contorted.

My pace accelerated further. Dilapidated houses clustered together on the slope of a small hill, forming the Slums. I headed toward the summit. The lingering gazes and footsteps gradually diminished. My sharp eyes contributed to this as well.

‘This place is somewhat better.’

Freed from the stench at last, I paused at the hilltop to gaze down upon Western City. It was amusing, really—the hill was smaller than the Lord’s Castle itself. Then again, it would be absurd to place the Slums higher than the Lord’s Castle.

I shook off the pointless reverie and approached the tree nestled within a remarkably tall circular stone wall. The wall, stacked in a perfect circle, reached roughly to my waist height. A wooden gate that might have granted entry had long since rotted away, crumbling to dust in my hands.

It was an ancient tree—one that had surely lived for centuries. Trees in the Slums typically met one of two fates: reduced to firewood or stripped of their bark to be rendered into something pitiful. This one had suffered neither.

The reason was simple, and its answer reached my ears. It was the sole gaze among all those that had followed me from below the Slums—the only one that had persisted to the very end.

“P-please! You mustn’t go near that tree!”

I ignored the voice. Then it came again, trembling with urgency.

“You can’t! It’s a man-eating tree!”

A man-eating tree.
Those who had hanged themselves from its branches became mummified within a single night. Blood that touched it vanished in an instant. And near this tree, only dust swirled—not a single blade of grass or wildflower dared to grow.
All those who hanged themselves from this tree became mummified overnight. When blood touched this tree, it vanished in an instant.

It was the tree that Cale was looking for.

A long time ago, ancient times. Even though he was a person who served God, he was obsessed with eating to the point where he was kicked out of the place due to his gluttony. The man died of starvation.
From the distant past—the age of antiquity. A servant of the divine who had been cast out from their station for gluttony, so consumed by hunger that they starved to death. This tree had grown upon their grave. Within it dwelt the resentment and power of that ancient being. The power of an unbreakable shield—precisely what I sought.

How primitive, indigenous and mysterious this is. Ancient powers were often mysterious like this.

Cale took the bread out of the bag and closely observed a hole the size of an adult head at the base of the tree.
I retrieved bread from my satchel and examined the hole at the base of the tree—a cavity as large as an adult’s head.
But first, I would need to drive away the owner of that voice before I could begin my work.

“I’m dying! I can’t do it!”

Cale pressed his finger between his eyes.

“Ugh.”

As we headed towards the people-catching tree at the top of the hill, the number of people following us decreased. The person with that voice continued to follow.

‘I heard that wherever you go, there are strange and wide things.’

Cale turned his head with a frown on his face. Then, a girl who looked about 10 years old was looking at Cale while holding her younger brother’s hand. Those eyes were full of restless nervousness.

As Cale stared at her with a frown, the girl hesitated and mumbled.

“I catch people. Lord, I’m dying.”
“The man-eating tree. We’ll… we’ll die.”

He took two breads from the sack and threw them near the girl. Since the bread was packaged, it didn’t matter if it rolled on the ground.

“Get out of here.”

The boy quickly picked up the bread, but the girl still hesitated. In the end, Cale had to use his strengths to his advantage. He jumped up and stuck his face out of the wall.

“You idiots don’t know kale?”

The girl’s face turned white. The younger brother looked at the kale, then picked up his sister’s share of bread and pulled the girl to him.

“Sister.”
“Sister.”

The girl looked at the tree and kale alternately as she was dragged away.

“I shouldn’t die.”

Cale clicked his tongue as he watched the girl continue to say such things, and then, after confirming that no one was nearby, he sat down under the tree. People outside the wall could no longer see what he was doing unless they came close to the wall.

“Let’s get started.”

As an experiment, he opened the package and put a piece of bread into a hole at the base of a tree. The hand soon disappeared into the darkness inside the tree, and Cale felt the bread disappear along with a cool breeze.
I unwrapped one loaf as a test and placed it into the hollow at the base of the tree. My hand soon vanished into the darkness within, and I felt a cool sensation as the bread disappeared.

The darkness in the hole at the base of the tree remained the same.

“Of course, if someone dies unjustly, you have to let go of their resentment.”

A tree that eats people is not a tree that eats people, but a tree that eats anything.
The man-eating tree was not a man-eating tree at all—it was a tree that consumed anything.

[UNTRANSLATED LINE 238]

The darkness in the hole at the base of the tree was not the darkness created by the shade. It was a darkness created by Han.

It is not possible for one person to share it with another person, and as one person provides more than a certain amount of food, the darkness gradually disappears. It is said that then the light hidden in the darkness will finally appear.

If you eat that light, the power of the ‘Unbreakable Shield’ becomes Kayle’s.

“Eat a lot.”

Kale put the mouth of the sack right into the hole in the tree and shook out the bread. Under normal circumstances, the small hole in the tree should have been filled with bread, but when the sack was removed, the hole was still empty and filled with darkness.

“I guess we can add about ten more bags.”

The darkness of the hole became fainter than before.
The darkness within the hollow had grown fainter than before.

Ugh-

A strange howling sound echoed from the trees. It sounded like he was hungry and asking for more. It felt like the darkness was pulling him in.

“…It’s a little scary.”

Cale quickly stood up. I didn’t think I should stay for long.

“What is that damn grudge?”

Appetite was a scary thing.

“I’ll come again tomorrow.”

Kale greeted the humming tree as if it were a human being and came out of the circular wall. As soon as he entered the slum outside the wall, he could see a brother and sister eating bread at the entrance.

At one point they said they couldn’t eat trees because people eat them, but they were eating bread very well. As if it was delicious, both the girl and the boy had very nice faces.

“Oh my.”

Kale snorted at that and ignored the two siblings’ staring eyes. Those eyes were focused on the bag that had bread in it, but was now empty. You might be curious.

But what will they do? What can you do?
But what could they possibly do? What could they even attempt?
They were children too frightened to venture anywhere near the man-eating tree.

【Children in the slums are fearless. This is because a grain of rice was more valuable to those children than a flying sword. And death is always close by. So I am not afraid of death. Rather, I’m just afraid of being hungry. 】

It was a phrase from ‘The Birth of a Hero.’
It was a passage from “The Birth of a Hero.”

“If you want to eat bread tomorrow, keep your mouth shut.”

The two siblings didn’t say anything. I was already closing my mouth. As if wondering who had hesitated earlier, the girl covered her younger brother’s mouth and pretended not to see Cale. Thinking that he was quite clever, Cale smiled secretly and easily left the slums.

People in the slums who knew that Cale had been to the top looked at him as if he was doing something crazy, but Cale liked their gaze.
The people of the Slums, knowing I had ventured to the top, regarded me with eyes that asked what madness I was committing now, yet I found their gaze oddly satisfying.

“Have you been there?”

When we entered the teahouse we found again, Billos greeted Cale quite warmly.

“Yes. A new cup of tea. Something cold this time.”

Cale returned to his seat on the third floor and sat down. It was a busy time, but there was no one on the third floor. Everyone must have avoided the idiot.
I returned to my usual seat on the third floor and sat down. It was the busy hour, yet the third floor was completely empty. Everyone must have been avoiding the madman.

“Here’s tea. I’ve also brought you some desserts.”
“Here is your tea. I’ve brought some desserts as well.”

Cale took a sip of the cool tea while looking out the window at the castle gate. Billos observed Cale’s face as he said thank you with a strange look in his eyes, and then quietly left the third floor.

After that, Cale ordered tea and dessert several times and looked out the window, and when the sky slowly turned scarlet and night fell and it got dark, he stood up.

Now it’s time to go and deal with the scary guy coming from outside the castle.

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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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