Trash of the Count’s Family - Chapter 520

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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 Wyvern slowly lowered its head.
And there, perched upon its back, the White Star came into view.

Gliding leisurely through the heavens, the Wyvern and the White Star gazed down upon Alberu.

‘This is a first for me.’

Perhaps because this was my first true battlefield, I felt something peculiar in the gaze of the enemies looking down upon me.
But the tension suppressed that strange sensation.

‘They’re watching.’

Countless eyes were fixed upon me now.
In my childhood, I had often felt fear when meeting such gazes.

They were eyes that tested me, that scrutinized me.

Perhaps even now, among my own forces watching me, there were those preparing to render judgment.

Albert Crossman.
From the moment I received the Crossman name, it was like a destiny imposed upon me.

But now, after so much time has passed, I understand.
That the eyes upon me contain more than mere surveillance or evaluation.
I can feel it without even looking.

‘Please save us.’
‘I beg you, Your Highness, guide us through this crisis.’

The fervent wishes of the kingdom’s people behind the City Wall.
The desperate hopes of those held hostage.
The expectations of my subordinates.
Now I could feel them without seeing them.
And so I shrugged my shoulders toward the White Star gazing down upon me.

“Don’t you need my life? It seems you have no intention of coming down?”

In that moment, White Star’s mouth opened.

“I believe I suggested we have a conversation.”

A conversation? Hardly.
Alberu let out a soft laugh.

“My younger brother mentioned something about you.”

His right hand, unencumbered by a helmet, pointed toward White Star.

“He said you talk a great deal of nonsense.”

White Star’s brow furrowed slightly, and Alberu continued with unshakeable composure.

“If you wish to converse, then descend and request it with proper courtesy. Otherwise, hold your tongue.”

If one claims to desire conversation with an enemy, shouldn’t one demonstrate the appropriate decorum to match such words?
Alberu regarded White Star as though asking why such an obvious truth needed explanation.

“Hahaha— well, this is something.”

White Star laughed as though perplexed, then adjusted his white mask and spoke.

“So. If I wish to converse, I must show proper respect—is that what you’re saying?”

A thin smile spread across his face.
The mask covered his eyes and forehead from the bridge of his nose upward. Beneath it, the corners of his mouth curved upward.

“I’m afraid I dislike that notion.”

White Star had never intended to converse at all.
It was a trap.
In that instant, Alberu understood.

It was coming.

Flap, flap.
The White Wyvern’s massive wings tilted downward.
Its snout also pointed toward the ground.

In an instant, its body began a steep dive toward the earth—toward Alberu.

The Knight Commander leading the Knights Order surrounding Alberu opened his mouth.

“Protect His Majesty!”

At the same moment, the White Star cried out.

“Kill the Knights Order!”

Half of the wyverns hovering in the sky opened their jaws and dove toward the Knights Order.

“Also, attack the City Wall and the interior of the Castle!”

The remaining half turned their direction at the White Star’s command, flying toward the Castle beyond the City Wall.
Uuuuuung—
Magic began to gather in the hands of the Dark Mages atop the wyverns.

“Commander!”
“Yes!”

Taylor called out to the Magic Battalion Commander, and the commander immediately halted the unfolding of his magic circle and issued orders to several mages.

“The 3rd Battalion will join me in blocking the enemy’s attacks! The rest of you, prepare the magic circles! Don’t stop! Each of you must do your part!”

He was not the only one issuing commands.
Alberu’s senior staff members surrounding Taylor scattered in different directions and began issuing their own orders.

“Archers, shoot your arrows at the wyverns approaching the Knights Order and His Majesty immediately!”
“Pour boiling water outside the Castle to prevent the Bear Tribe from crossing! Throw stones as well! Hurl everything you can outside the City Wall!”

Taylor commanded his subordinates.

“Contact Kaige. And request emergency reinforcements from all the Northwestern Region lords! Concentrate all forces from the Northwestern Region here! We must squeeze the enemy forces from the outskirts!”
“Yes, my lord!”

It happened in that instant.

Boom! Crash! Bang, crash!
Explosions erupted from all directions.

I lifted my head.
Dark Mages in the sky were hurling mana spheres downward, while our allied mages below countered by firing mana spheres upward to destroy them.

In that moment, Taylor’s eyes widened in alarm as he shifted his gaze.

‘…Your Highness!’

The White Star’s Wyvern was diving toward Alberu.
Taylor’s gaze dropped downward, following the massive wyvern’s wings that descended like they would swallow the earth itself, treating Alberu as nothing more than an insignificant speck. Those wings were drawing closer to the ground.

Alberu stared at the shadow cast upon him, and at the white wings that created it.

No—he fixed his gaze on the White Star’s brown eyes glaring down at him beyond those wings.
The White Star’s mouth opened.

“How foolish.”

At the same moment, another wyvern’s foreleg thrust toward Alberu’s side.

Crash!
“Ugh! Your Highness, I will protect you!”

The Knight Commander blocked that foreleg.
The White Star sneered at him as he spoke.

“If you’d known it was a trap, you shouldn’t have come out. Was your pride and justification as Crown Prince truly worth more than your own life?”

The White Star mocked Alberu, who had abandoned rational judgment for the sake of hostages and ultimately left the Castle for the sake of his honor. Had he simply remained hidden in the Capital, within the Castle walls, he would never have faced such a predicament.
If only I had stayed hidden in the Castle within the Capital, I wouldn’t have had to go through all this.

That was the moment.

“You’re being stupid.”

The White Star could see Alberu’s face as he called me foolish.
Alberu stared at the White Star with genuine contempt.

“Why do you think it’s about justification?”

He left the Castle knowing it was a trap, all for the sake of his dignity as Crown Prince, for the eyes of those around him, for justification?
Alberu could not hide his bitter laugh.
He spoke while smiling.

“You see an act of saving lives as nothing more than vanity and social pressure.”

Yet his voice was firm and sharp, aimed directly at the White Star.

“You are a sewer.”

For a moment, the White Star wondered if he had misheard and asked again.

“What?”
“A sewer. A sewer. That’s what you called yourself, isn’t it? A ruler? You want to become a king?”

The White Star’s face hardened.
But Alberu paid no attention whatsoever.
Instead, he continued speaking without a care in the world.

“A king? You? With that rotted state of mind?”

The White Star’s face became completely rigid.
A sword of fire materialized in his hand.

The Knight Commander looked around urgently and opened his mouth.

“…Your Highness—”

Please, provoke him no further.
It is dangerous.
That is what the Knight Commander wanted to say.
The Knights who had been protecting the Crown Prince had already been separated from his side by the attacks of the Wyverns and the Knights and Dark Mages riding upon them.
Only he and a few others remained near the Crown Prince.
They could not afford to provoke the enemy any further.

But before the Knight Commander could finish speaking, Alberu spoke first.

“You’re quite amusing.”

A smirk crossed his face.
Then he laughed.

His grip tightened.
The White Star’s hand, clutching the flaming sword, tensed with force.

“It seems you truly wish to die.”

With those words, the White Star kicked off from the White Wyvern’s back and leaped downward.

“No! Stop him!”

The Knight Commander batted away the White Wyvern’s claws that had been attacking me and rushed toward the Crown Prince.
But with its master gone, the White Wyvern, as if answering the White Star’s will, turned its liberated body toward the Knight Commander and several Knights, unleashing its massive wings and razor-sharp talons.

Crash! Bang!
The White Wyvern and the Knights collided.

“Your Highness!”

The Knight Commander called out to Alberu, his voice seething with urgency.
Before him, I could see Alberu, his gaze fixed on the White Star descending toward me.

“Don’t concern yourself.”

Alberu’s voice reached the Knight Commander’s ears.
At that moment, the Knight Commander saw Alberu’s hands move.

They moved in different directions.
His right hand moved toward his neck.
Even as he did so, Alberu kept his gaze fixed on the White Star.

“I’ll make you beg for your life, spilling information as you plead for mercy!”

The flaming sword grew massive, descending toward me with brutal force as if to cleave me in two.

Clack.
Beneath the armor.
The necklace Alberu had always kept hidden under his clothes caught on his right hand.

Tasha’s words echoed in my mind once more.

‘You inherited your mother’s talents. This is what allowed your mother to survive life in the Royal Palace. With this, I will hide you.’
‘No one, no living creature, will ever sense your power.’

Her words had proven true.
Alberu recalled the moment when the black baby dragon Raon had approached and asked me a question.

‘You’re the kind Crown Prince who gives cookies! But you’re strong—what makes you strong? I can’t really feel it!’

Even the dragon didn’t know.

‘I understand the dye magic now, but hmm! I don’t know this! Won’t you teach me?’

Of course, I apologized and refused to teach him.

‘I never thought there would come a day when I’d need to use this power.’

Alberu moved his right hand.
Click.
The necklace’s lock disengaged.

He suddenly recalled the moment his identity was first exposed to Kale Heniatus.

‘You’re not a demon, and not a dark mage either. Not a Necromancer.’
‘Then could you be the child of a Dark Elf hybrid?’

And with that, he had presented me with a gift—a vial containing dead mana liquid.

‘A most precious item. It is the mana of a dead dragon.’

That was right.
It had been an extraordinarily precious thing.
An item capable of elevating Alberu’s power by several tiers.
Thanks to it, I had grown considerably stronger.

Moreover, Kale continued to pick up dead mana from various places afterward, giving me constant opportunities to grow stronger.

Uuuuung—
The necklace vanished from Alberu’s right hand into thin air in an instant.

“Hmm?”

The White Star’s brow furrowed as he witnessed the sight.
The necklace had disappeared from reality in a single moment.

Uuuuung—
In that instant, Alberu felt the constraints binding his body dissolve, and his insides churned violently.
He closed his eyes, then opened them.

It would be released soon.
The dye magic would be dispelled.
There was no helping it.
I had to use dead mana.

The moment I realized this, my left hand moved.

A helmet covered his face.
Even his eyes were concealed by thin metal mesh.

‘…Still, I cannot reveal everything.’

Alberu closed his eyes, then opened them.
His irises had already shifted to a deep brown.
His skin had darkened to a shade deeper than brown.
His hair as well.
But no one could see it.

The corners of Alberu’s mouth lifted beneath the helmet.
The knights were too engaged in fierce combat with the Wyvern to observe him properly.

“What are you hiding, you wretch!”

With the White Star’s cry, a blade of fire he had conjured came crashing down upon me.

Alberu reached out his hand.

“…You?!”

White Star’s eyes widened.
Black mana swirled around Alberu’s two hands.
White Star did not miss that fleeting moment.

Dead mana.
This fellow, the King of Roun, wielded dead mana.

It was the first moment that surprise regarding Alberu’s existence flickered in White Star’s eyes.
Yet White Star could not halt his blade, nor did he believe he would lose.

Then Alberu’s voice reached White Star.

“I’m known as a high-level Expert. But do you know this?”

Alberu recalled the dead dragon’s mana he had consumed after his identity was revealed to Kale.

“With mana, I can create water, wind, fire, and even light.”

That was what made magic such a wondrous force.

Uuuuuung—
The mana within Alberu’s body surged violently.
Though it was dead mana, not ordinary mana, the unleashed power reveled in its freedom like a beast unchained.
Alberu gathered that power within his grasp.

In an extraordinarily brief moment.
Within mere seconds, the black mana swirling in Alberu’s palm vanished.
Yet White Star had discerned Alberu’s true nature.

‘…Magic!’

That bastard uses magic!
In that instant, White Star recalled that the first military force Alberu had cultivated in Roun was the Magic Corps.

Yet the aura I sensed differed from dark magic.
Unlike dark magic that defied natural order, I felt nature itself willingly lending its power, moving in harmony with the natural flow.

Dead mana, yet aligned with natural order.

Suddenly, the White Star recalled an existence that wielded dead mana without employing dark magic.
But it was not human.

‘Dark Elves!’

The Dark Elves, beings of natural order, included those who cast magic using dead mana.
Yet their method differed from dark magic.

Alberu smiled beneath his helmet, invisible to all eyes.

Why else would I have cultivated the Magic Corps?
Why else would I have chosen that path?

Strengthening a domain I did not fully understand carried tremendous risk.
But a field I knew intimately?
Control was always possible.

“Dead mana is mana nonetheless. No different.”
With dead mana, just as with ordinary mana.
Fire, water, wind.
Anything could be created.

The chaotic battlefield.
Within Alberu’s empty hands, the black aura vanished—unseen by all save the White Star standing before him.

“I too can forge light.”

Light surged forth from that void.
Black mana transformed in an instant into a magnificent sword of radiant light, grasped in Alberu’s hand.

That light shone with a brilliant golden hue, as if mirroring the sun itself.
A sword bearing the same radiance as the symbol of Rowan—the brilliant sun rising between cliffs, engraved upon Alberu’s armor.

The swordsmanship I honed as a human named Alberu.
And the magic made possible and perfected through the Dark Elf blood inherited from my mother.

Spellblade.
It was yet another secret that Alberu possessed.

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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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