Trash of the Count’s Family - Chapter 471

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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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The White Star, the Bear King Sayehr, and Kale Heniatus.
The Mercenary King Burd Illis, who had been watching the three of them converse from his hiding place, blinked his eyes before opening his mouth.

“Those guys seem to be under some kind of misunderstanding right now, don’t they?”

His head turned sharply, and his gaze fixed on Choi Han, who was crouching beside him.

“Right?”
“…It does seem that way.”

Burd answered calmly, but he could see that Choi Han was unable to hide his peculiar expression.

“…Sigh.”

And he let out a breath.

“I mean, think about it.”

He began to organize his thoughts.

“They think Kale Heniatus has been hiding for years, planning and preparing to stop them, don’t they?”
“That’s exactly it, Mercenary King!”

Raon, who stood beside Burd, flapped his wings in agreement.

“…Sigh.”

Burd sighed once more and shook his head from side to side. Yet he found himself somewhat understanding the misunderstanding they had fallen into.

‘If I were in their position and someone suddenly appeared to obstruct me at every turn, I’d suspect they’d been preparing for a long time too.’

And was Kale merely a minor nuisance?
To be honest, Kale Heniatus and his companions were practically a calamity-level force. He found himself wondering where Kale had gathered such powerful individuals, but whenever he heard the stories of those who had gathered around Kale, he couldn’t help but nod in understanding.

‘He gave me food! He brought me along!’
‘He told me not to come because it was dangerous, yet he gave me so much food!’
‘The human saved me! Thanks to the human, I saw the night sky for the first time!’

Starting from an average age of nine.

‘Well, House Heniatus has been a place we’re grateful to our father for.’
‘I learned cooking at House Heniatus. The young master was reckless in the past, but he was kind occasionally.’

Ron and Vicross.

‘I had nowhere to go. Or rather, I was nothing at all back then.’
‘You showed me the world.’

Choi Han, even Merry.
The more Bud heard each person’s story, the more he wondered how Kale had managed to gather such pitiful souls. And what fascinated him was how Kale had taken these unfortunate people under his wing.

‘It’s unplanned!’

The more he heard, the less Kale’s actions seemed calculated.
Even the few locations where he’d acquired Ancient Powers all seemed to be pure coincidence upon coincidence.

Of course, Kale’s companions had grown in number by happenstance, but he had actually obtained the Ancient Powers quite deliberately.

However, almost no one knew this except Raon.

“…Is it because he’s kind?”

Bud wondered if Kale’s good nature was the reason for his extraordinary luck.
But he quickly dismissed the thought. Kale couldn’t be called simply kind—there was something inexplicable about him, something irritating and exasperating.

‘He’s cold-blooded too.’

As Bud organized his thoughts, he recalled the cold side of Kale he’d occasionally witnessed. A suspicion crept in—’What if?’—and he cautiously asked Choi Han.

“Kale didn’t prepare for this long ago, did he?”

In that instant, Bud saw Choi Han break into a smile. It was an innocent-looking smile, yet somehow chillingly serene. The moment he saw that smile, Bud’s own expression became awkward as he muttered under his breath.

“Hahaha! I should abandon such useless curiosity!”

Then he quickly averted his gaze from Choi Han.
Choi Han watched Bud avoid his eyes with a puzzled expression.

‘That worked out well.’

But it had indeed worked out well.
Choi Han had no proper answer to Burd’s question.
He couldn’t exactly tell Burd honestly: ‘Kale is actually my nephew’s friend Kim Rok-soo from another world, which is why he’s changed so drastically in just two years. And that Kim Rok-soo was always a bit unusual even in the original world, exactly like he is now.’

“But what do we do from here on?”

Choi Han heard Burd’s murmur and opened his mouth to respond.
That was the moment.

“Hahahaha-!”

A booming laugh echoed through the empty Underground City.
Kale quietly observed the White Star, who was laughing with his body bent forward at the waist.

Bear King Sayehr had been glaring at Kale, but upon seeing the White Star’s state, he closed his mouth without saying a word.

“Hahahaha, kuh, haha-!”

Kale’s brow furrowed.

‘Has he lost his mind?’

The White Star laughed to the point where one might wonder if he had truly gone mad. Kale had always called him a madman, a madman, but now he truly seemed like one.

‘His eyes are bloodshot.’

His eyes were bloodshot, and his neck was taut with veins as if swallowing rage.

“Haha- ha, huff.”

After laughing for a long while, the White Star wiped his mouth with his hand and fixed his gaze on Kale.

“Something seemed off.”
“What seemed off?”

Kale answered the White Star’s words with ease while subtly moving one hand behind his back. His signal was transmitted to someone watching his back from afar. Yet Kale gazed at the White Star as if he had done nothing.
The White Star, meeting that gaze, opened his mouth.

“Choi Han is the same way, and your time is twisted just like mine.”

Kale recalled the Alchemy Tower battle that had unfolded in the Mogur Empire Capital.
Back then, the White Star I had first encountered said that time was twisted when looking at Choi Han and me.

“But while I understand your time is twisted, I couldn’t figure out what exactly was twisted.”
“Why would my time be twisted? What nonsense are you spouting?”
“No. I wasn’t spouting nonsense. Rather, you must be hiding something.”

What?
Kale, who had been trying to play along with the White Star’s rhythm, paused momentarily at his remarkably resolute attitude.

What the White Star had said when looking at Choi Han before.

‘That swordsman’s temporal axis is twisted.’

Words transmitted directly into Kale’s mind, audible only to him.

‘He doesn’t belong to this world.’

And then, looking at Kale, what he had said.

‘Moreover, you too, like that black-haired one, and like me.’

The commonality between the White Star, Choi Han, and Kale.

‘Time is twisted.’

Kale met the White Star’s gaze, leaving the memories surfacing in his mind behind.

“The First Dragon Slayer who suddenly appeared in the world. And Choi Han, whose temporal axis is twisted, who also suddenly appeared. When the puzzle pieces fit together, the answer becomes clear.”

The White Star, who knew that Choi Han didn’t belong to this world, was able to immediately connect Neran Berow, the First Dragon Slayer, with Choi Han the moment he was given a small clue.

That clue was ‘writing’.
Writing that no one on this continent except Choi Han and Neran Berow could decipher.
The moment he encountered this clue, he understood.

Neran Berow and Choi Han came from a world where that writing existed.

“That’s why I tried to capture Choi Han.”

Tasha, Burd, Merry, Vicross, On, and Hong—who had been listening from their hiding spots—turned their gazes toward Choi Han’s location with startled eyes.

They were shocked not by the White Star’s incomprehensible talk about the axis of time, but by the fact that the White Star had been targeting Choi Han.
It was something the group had been completely unaware of.

Neither Kale nor Choi Han had mentioned it, and they hadn’t known the detailed circumstances of the illusion that had unfolded at Dubori Lord’s Castle.

“But here’s the thing. Kale, I can’t see you. Time is distorted, but I can’t see what’s been distorted.”

The White Star stared at Kale with all traces of amusement gone from his face.

He wasn’t someone who came from another world like Choi Han.
He wasn’t someone who was reincarnated like himself.

Then what was he?
Why couldn’t the White Star see time around this man?

Forgotten information resurfaced in the White Star’s mind, prompting yet another line of thought.
Then, Kale’s lips parted.

“How are you so certain about time?”

Whether time was distorted or not—how did the White Star know so well?
Even Erhafen hadn’t noticed anything about Kale. Yet the White Star, while not knowing Kale’s true identity, clearly sensed that something was different about him.

‘It’s not just a feeling. It’s certainty.’

The White Star was certain of it.
Suddenly, Kale recalled the image of the White Star caressing the dead tree, discerning the nature of this space.

‘…Could it be?’

Could it really be?

‘Does the White Star possess an ability related to time?’

How?
With what power?

The Ancient Power of the White Star that I had yet to witness was of the wood attribute. But it was related to time?

‘Wood attribute?’

The probability of that was extremely low.
Then what could it be?
I felt an inexplicable sense of unease.

That was when it happened.

Ssssshhh.

I caught sight of the White Star’s lips curling upward.
In that instant, his voice echoed within my mind.

-Who are you?

Goosebumps erupted across my back.
Many had questioned my identity throughout the years.
Albert Crossman had asked, the World Tree had asked, and even when I first met the White Star, he had posed the question.

But this question felt fundamentally different from those before.
The White Star’s voice continued to resound within my mind.

-A possessor? Who are you inhabiting Kale Heniatus’s body?

Damn it.
I was exposed.
Yet despite the urgency that flooded through me, my face remained serene.
Then, the White Star’s voice continued. This time, he spoke aloud.

“Body to body. I’ve been preparing while moving from one to another. For a very long time.”

Huh?
I faltered.

The White Star’s eyes gleamed even brighter at Kale’s hesitation, and he continued speaking with a grinding intensity.

“By moving around for so long, you’ve managed to keep living.”

The White Star grew increasingly confident in his own deduction.
Kale, whose time had been twisted.
Not dimensional travel like Choi Han, nor reincarnation like the White Star himself. That left possession or regression. So he’d probed at possession—the method that would allow for the longest preparation to obstruct the White Star’s plans.

And Kale had reacted.
The one who had worn a serene expression finally faltered at his words.

The White Star had witnessed many of Kale’s false expressions over time. By now, even if he couldn’t discern Kale’s fabricated emotions, he could certainly recognize his genuine ones.

That faltering, flustered face of Kale’s.

‘That’s real.’

The White Star was now certain his reasoning was correct.

And Kale was indeed flustered, just as the White Star had anticipated.

‘Wait, something’s off here.’

How did he arrive at that conclusion?
I was astonished by the White Star’s line of reasoning.

Possession was correct, yes. But I wasn’t someone who had spent an extraordinarily long time possessing different bodies to prepare against his ambitions, as he believed.

I had simply fallen asleep while reading a book, and woke up in a different world.

“Heh heh. That’s right—the actions you’ve taken thus far are far beyond the judgment and reasoning of an eighteen or twenty-year-old.”

Well, that was true.
I had lived a life as Kim Rok-soo, after all.

“Isn’t that right? Everything I’ve said is correct?”

I answered the White Star’s question honestly.

“What?”
“Pretending not to know. Kekeke.”

What’s wrong with that bastard?
Kale had grown so accustomed to the White Star’s antics that he no longer even bothered to react.
But soon, Kale’s expression turned cold and grave. He saw the White Star raising his right arm. It was ominous.

“That son of a—!”

Kale saw flames blooming from the White Star’s right palm. They surged upward as if ready to pierce through the ceiling itself.

—Human! The White Star is trying to destroy the Underground Cavern! Even with the Bear King here, he’s going to destroy it!

That’s the problem!
Dead mana smoke is poison to the Bear King. Without thinking, Kale’s gaze shifted toward Sayehr. In that instant, the White Star’s damp laughter echoed.

“Hehe. I was mistaken.”
“Aaaahhh!”

Sayehr’s scream pierced the air.
Immediately after, the White Star muttered.

“Shut your mouth.”
“Understood.”

Wind formed a square barrier, enclosing Sayehr within it. Sayehr grinned wickedly and fell silent, while Kale watched the White Star’s flaming sword shoot upward like an arrow toward the ceiling.

“Stop!”

Kale’s cry rang out.
The White Star turned his gaze to look at Kale.

“Stop what?”

As the White Star spoke and laughed.

“There’s nothing that can’t be done. But I wanted to do it first.”
“What?”

Boom!
The deafening roar pierced the White Star’s ears. A vast underground city. Its circular ceiling. An explosion erupted at one point along that enormous arc.

“It begins.”

When Kale Heniatus’s words reached the White Star’s ears.
Crack.
Fissures began spreading along the rim of the circular ceiling.

Boom!
A sword of flame plunged into the center of the underground cavern’s ceiling, unleashing a tremendous explosion.
That was the beginning. Detonations followed in succession.

Boom, crash—boom!
Explosions erupted along the ceiling’s rim.

“Kale Heniatus—!”

The White Star could see Kale laughing as he watched the ceiling collapse.

And the ceiling of the abandoned underground city came crashing down.

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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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