Trash of the Count’s Family - Chapter 68

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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 15. Against Intention

Kale Heniatus tapped Bilos on the shoulder. Anticipation gleamed in Bilos’s eyes. He could hear the words Kale was about to offer him.

“So if you need treasure, work for it.”

It was an indifferent command. Yet Bilos answered with unmistakable clarity.

“As much as you need, hehe.”

Kale Heniatus shook his head at the sight of Bilos looking like an excited schemer. He was deliberately acting this way—Bilos’s mind must be churning with complexity beneath the surface.

‘I didn’t explain in detail.’

He had merely conveyed a single word.
Magic device. At that word alone, Bilos had simply acknowledged his understanding. Kale watched Bilos depart to work, then his gaze found another person.

The one member of the group who required the most caution in the Wipper Kingdom right now.
Rosalind.

If a mage wished to avoid injury—or death—she had to be careful. Kale Heniatus spotted her standing on the deck and approached her. It was to offer a warning.

“…Rosalind.”

But there was no need. Kale Heniatus paused, considering what to say.

“Young Master Kale, what is it?”

At her composed voice, Kale Heniatus simply asked her directly about what he observed.

“Is that a club in your hand?”

The club in Rosalind’s grip was being swung with fierce force, cutting through the air. The motion looked quite practiced and possessed a certain elegance. Beneath her robe, light leather armor was visible. She answered Kale Heniatus with refreshing candor.

“Yes, it’s a club. Swinging a magic staff or swinging a club—it’s all the same, really. The hitting part is identical.”
“How wise.”

Kale Heniatus offered genuine admiration, giving her a thumbs up. There was no need for him to warn her about the dangers of moving about as a mage in the Wipper Kingdom.

“I’m being sensible about this. I won’t be a burden to everyone. Even so, I learned the basics of combat when I was young.”

Tap. Tap. Rosalind lightly struck her other palm with the cudgel in her hand. As a member of the Royal Family and first in the line of succession, she had learned several fundamental martial arts, including self-defense techniques.
Her eyes grew cold and sharp as she gripped the cudgel.

“And I want to see this place properly for myself.”

Kale Heniatus’s lips curved upward slightly. Rosalind—the figure whose name was most prominently mentioned as the future master of the newly emerging Magic Tower. Like Choi Han, she possessed a virtuous heart. So they must have grown together as comrades.
But fundamentally, she possessed a clear vision and cold rationality. The Wipper Kingdom would offer her complicated emotions and opportunities to learn.

Kale Heniatus gazed at the harbor alongside Rosalind.

Being the smallest harbor, it had suffered the least damage. And since the tribal people primarily used this harbor, it remained relatively safe. Yet few ships came and went, and those disembarking wore dark expressions. Only those living in the harbor itself seemed quite cheerful.

‘This was a place where the Magic Tower had enslaved many of the tribal people.’

In the distance, black smoke rose into the air. In the aftermath of civil war, only destruction remained.

“Young Master, you may depart now. The carriage is prepared.”
“Very well.”

Kale Heniatus nodded at Bilos’s words and disembarked. Setting foot on Wipper Kingdom soil for the first time, Kale Heniatus spoke.

“The air here smells rather unpleasant.”

Breathing in the acrid stench that only came from places burned and destroyed, Kale Heniatus headed toward the lodging Bilos had prepared. Upon arriving at the residence, Kale Heniatus faced Bilos in his room.

“You’ve made quite thorough preparations.”

Kale Heniatus offered words of praise to Bilos, who had prepared the quietest lodging near the harbor, a carriage disguised with the Flynn Merchant Guild’s emblem, and countless other details.
Bilos shrugged. To him, Kale Heniatus posed another question.

“Did you prepare everything quietly, without word spreading?”
“Of course I did.”

Bilos answered with a serious expression.

“Why would I share my gains?”

With eyes brimming with avarice, Kale Heniatus spoke with a smile.

“You truly are to my liking.”
“The feeling is mutual, sir.”

Kale Heniatus leaned back against the sofa and asked, his tone casual and dismissive.

“Victory?”

Bilos nodded slowly, his expression grave and measured.

“Yes, sir. Just as you predicted.”
“I see.”

In the end—or rather, as expected—the Non-Mage Alliance had emerged victorious. Kale Heniatus had arrived at precisely the moment the civil war concluded. And there was only one marker that signified its end.
The criterion for the war’s conclusion was singular.

The shattered Magic Tower.
The collapse of the Magic Tower, the final bastion of the mages, marked the end of the civil war. Of course, minor matters of cleanup would remain.

“The Non-Mage Alliance proved far more aggressive than anticipated, sir.”

Bilos began speaking of the civil war, his brow deeply furrowed.

“They showed no fear of death and seemed focused solely on killing. Nothing more.”

Bilos shuddered slightly. He had witnessed only the aftermath of the civil war, or the landscape before it began. Those times had been ideal for buying and selling goods. Yet even that was enough for him to observe much.
And from those observations alone, he could discern a great deal.

“Especially when tribespeople with magic resistance appeared in great numbers and took the vanguard—it was truly terrifying.”

In the clash between the Non-Mage Alliance and the Mage Alliance, the greatest variable had been “magic resistance.”
Among the tribespeople, those born with magic resistance had emerged one by one across generations.
They were few in number, and unable to learn magic themselves, they faced even greater oppression within the Wipper Kingdom.

Yet in this generation, many tribespeople with magic resistance were born, and this circumstance transformed what had been a curse into an advantage.
The tribespeople saw it as nature’s revelation—a divine mandate to slay those arrogant mages who believed they could command nature itself through mana.

“Most notably, the Non-Mage Alliance is led by a man named Tunka.”

Kale Heniatus listened silently.

“That man and his direct subordinates truly move according to instinct alone. I saw him once from a distance, and at that moment, he was tearing a mage’s throat out with his bare hands. It was absolutely brutal.”

Bilos sighed and shook his head vigorously.

“I couldn’t sleep properly that night. Even now, when I think of Tunka and his direct subordinates, my stomach churns.”

Bilos resolved to avoid and be cautious of those men at all costs. They didn’t seem like they could be reasoned with. At least Tunka’s advisors were intelligent and communicated well enough.

“It sounds like he was quite cruel.”

At Kale Heniatus’s blunt remark, Bilos nodded vigorously.

“Yes, extremely cruel. The corpses of mages torn apart alive were displayed in front of every fortress.”

However, Bilos did not say it was wrong.

“Well, from the perspective of the people of the Wipper Kingdom, even that wouldn’t be enough.”

Bilos understood that sentiment. And he, who was profiting from the aftermath of the civil war, was hardly in a position to judge who was worse or better.

“But you see, Young Master.”

Bilos smiled faintly at the corners of his mouth and subtly broached the subject with Kale Heniatus.

“What?”

Kale Heniatus asked bluntly, in a way that could seem cold, but Bilos remained unfazed.

“So where are we headed now?”

What was the destination, and what exactly was this treasure? Bilos was intensely curious. He could see a smile forming at the corners of Kale Heniatus’s mouth as he calmly listened to his story.
That smile filled Bilos with anticipation. Then Kale Heniatus’s voice rang out.

“To meet Tunka.”
“…Pardon? Who?”

Bilos momentarily wondered if he had misheard. Sleep deprivation throughout the civil war had left him exhausted—perhaps he was hearing things.
Kale Heniatus, observing Bilos’s dumbfounded expression for the first time, had said all he needed to say.

“We’re going to the Magic Tower.”
“Pardon?”

A small harbor. Kale Heniatus’s choice of this location was deliberate. It was a harbor positioned at an awkward distance from the Magic Tower—far enough to remain outside the range of attack, yet populated enough with tribespeople to serve his purposes.
Kale Heniatus, his expression both vacant and complex, spoke to Bilos across from him with unhurried ease.

“Trust me.”

Bilos opened and closed his mouth several times before abruptly rising, retrieving a bottle of liquor from the cabinet in Kale Heniatus’s residence, uncorking it immediately, and drinking deeply. When the bottle was half-empty, he finally answered.

“I’ll trust my instincts.”
“What instincts are those?”

Bilos handed a fresh bottle to Kale Heniatus.

“My instinct is to follow you, sir.”

Kale Heniatus accepted the bottle and took a sip directly from it.

“You have the makings of a truly excellent merchant.”

He appeared remarkably composed and detached. Bilos, clutching the bottle, gazed out the window beyond Kale Heniatus’s shoulder. Though the official civil war had ended, the Wipper Kingdom still echoed with screams of death as remnant mage factions were hunted down. This place was a space where madness, despair, and sorrow coexisted.
The official civil war had ended, but the Wipper Kingdom still hadn’t captured all the remaining Mage forces, so screams of death echoed throughout the land. Madness, despair, and sorrow—this place had become a space where all of it coexisted.

“This drink tastes good.”

Bilos decided to trust his instincts more than Kale’s indifferent tone.

* * *

A few days later, Kale Heniatus stepped down from a carriage bearing the symbol of the Flynn Merchant Guild. Behind his carriage, there were three more carriages in total.

“Master Kong, this is the closest point we can reach to the Magic Tower by carriage.”

In Kale Heniatus’s eyes, the shattered Magic Tower appeared in the distance. However, it was less destroyed than he had expected.

‘He kept his word about causing less destruction.’

Tunka had followed instructions quite well.

“A magnificent Magic Tower.”

A flicker of intrigue crossed Bilos’s eyes as he spoke from beside me. In that instant, I withdrew something from my garments and revealed only a portion of it to Bilos.

“Gasp!”

Bilos drew in a sharp breath.

A golden badge.
Though only partially visible, it was unmistakably a golden badge. The merchant Bilos’s eyes transformed.

“I hold you in the highest regard, Young Master.”

I dismissed the remark lightly. Hans, my vice-butler, approached me.

“Young Master, what shall we do next?”

Hans surveyed the surroundings as he asked my intentions. We stood near the entrance of the sprawling Encampment erected before the Magic Tower.

Countless tents and structures dotted the landscape. It was more accurately described as a Village than an Encampment in scale. And among them moved people in distinctive garb—tribespeople.
Beyond them, a diverse array of others was visible. Hans’s pupils trembled.

“Ugh!”

He instinctively covered his mouth with his hand. Warriors, drenched in blood, were dismembering corpses. The clothing on one body was faintly visible—a robe. A Mage, surely.
Beyond that, the severed heads of Mages lay clustered together, rolling about.
The stench of blood and decay suddenly assaulted Hans’s senses, while the sound of burning corpses reached his ears.

“Rest if your stomach troubles you.”

At that moment, Hans turned to me at my calm voice. And he soon understood. Everyone present remained composed. Even the children, including Mess, whom I had discovered was of the Wolf Tribe, stood quietly, their eyes taking in the scene.

“Hans.”
“…Yes, Young Master.”
“This is a battlefield.”

Hans felt the weight of that word. Simultaneously, he could clearly see Kale Heniatus’s pupils as he calmly observed the scene.

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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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