Welcome to the Café of the Dark Guild’s Successor - Chapter 15

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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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It’s a cafe run by the Dark Guild’s heir.
Chapter 15
Seniel’s older sister, no less.
“Just as I thought. The two of them are definitely hiding something.”
“Excuse me? Professor, what do you mean……?”
“Now then, everyone head back to your duties! The weather is absolutely beautiful today — take some air breaks when you can. Understood?”
Kayan, suddenly beaming to himself, rushed straight toward Seniel.
“Seniel! It’s me!”
Seniel, who had been sorting through documents in the basement of the Separate Palace, flinched at the sight of Kayan and stepped back.
“What is it?”
“I’ll ask directly without beating around the bush since we’re pressed for time. Where is Rosia right now? Can I meet her?”
At the sudden mention of his sister’s name from Kayan, Seniel’s expression hardened to ice.
Though he’d heard that Kayan had helped Rosia, it was only after seeing her once that he began tossing around her name so freely — wariness rose unbidden.
“That’s not possible.”
“Don’t be like that. Just once. There’s something I want to confirm. It’s possible your sister might be an Ability User, just like you.”
Even as eager Kayan came rushing over, he held up the Mana Stone he’d carefully carried with him.
“Look at this. It’s taken on a red glow. Rosia touched it and it changed like this. You know what that means, don’t you?”
Converting a Grade 1 Mana Stone into a state suitable for becoming an artifact is impossible without a mage of Class 5 or higher.
Hearing that Rosia — who hadn’t even awakened her abilities — had achieved this, Seniel’s eyes wavered for a moment.
“Did you directly witness the moment the Mana Stone changed?”
“Hm? No, not exactly… but based on the circumstances, I’m certain.”
“Then that’s what I thought. It’s your misunderstanding, Kayan. My sister couldn’t possibly have such an ability. You’re busy, so go.”
“Don’t be that way. Let me meet her just once. This is extraordinary talent! Are you going to let it waste?”
Despite Kayan’s persuasion, Seniel insisted it was impossible and ushered him out.
Watching Seniel’s unusually resolute refusal, Kayan judged that pressing him further would never get him to Rosia.
“That kind of stubbornness is even more suspicious. I’ll have to meet Rosia directly and convince her myself.”
With Kayan holding a high position at the Research Institute and hailing from one of the Five Great Houses, there was no one he couldn’t find if he set his mind to it.
Kayan put out feelers through other channels, buoyed by the expectation that he’d meet Rosia again within days.
Unaware that his hopes would soon be dashed.
***
At dawn, when the sky was veiled in twilight’s soft gray.
I confirmed that the carriage driver I’d hired the day before had arrived in front of the house, then stepped outside.
I could have ridden a horse directly, but I chose the carriage to reduce the chance of being noticed.
The destination I intended to reach today was a place few people ever traveled to, so if I encountered anyone at all, they might remember me.
“Take me here.”
When I told the arriving driver the location marked on the Land Deed I’d picked up from the bank the day before, he eyed me with suspicion.
“That’s mountainous country, sir. I’ll try, but if the path becomes impassable, I won’t be able to go the whole way.”
“Just getting close is enough.”
“Hm…….”
I recalled having to push through rough terrain myself before, so I’d anticipated the driver’s hesitation.
To the reluctant driver, I tossed a heavy purse.
The driver peered inside and, confirming the amount was far more than promised, his lips curved upward.
“Well then, why not? Let’s go. They used to say Magical Beasts roamed those parts, but it doesn’t seem to be the case anymore….”
Catching the driver’s mutter, I narrowed my brow and questioned him.
“Magical Beasts appeared there? In that place?”
“Only carriage drivers like me would know. People hush up anything about Magical Beasts. Even ten years ago, there were quite a few who claimed to have seen them in that region.”
Having spent years in the mountains without once encountering a Magical Beast, I found the driver’s words hard to believe.
Yet thinking back, I did seem to recall an unusual number of injured travelers and customers visiting the shop.
‘Surely not?’
My parents wouldn’t have run a shop there unless they were desperate.
Deciding to investigate this matter more thoroughly later, I climbed into the carriage for now.
“How long will it take?”
“If we ride without stopping, roughly a full day? Then let’s depart.”
After boarding, I stared out the window the entire journey to calm the restless anxiety churning inside me.
When my parents passed away so suddenly and I left with Auntie, I hadn’t managed to gather much from the house.
The Cabin where I’d spent my childhood often drifted into memory, but I deliberately turned away.
I feared that comparing my current reality to the happiness of that time would make me want to abandon everything.
“I wonder if the Cabin is still standing.”
More than ten years had passed with no one maintaining it, so even if it remained, it couldn’t be in good condition. I resigned myself to this.
After stopping to rest several times and taking simple meals, the carriage finally slowed and came to a halt.
I stretched as I descended from the carriage, and immediately a broken path and dense forest came into view.
“This is it?”
“Yes. It’s near the location marked on your deed. The road ends here — the carriage can’t go any further. But is there really something out here? Are you sure you have the right place?”
The driver seemed skeptical, but the moment I stepped down from the carriage, the forest air wrapping around me felt both familiar and comforting.
‘So Auntie really did pass my parents’ land on to me.’
I’d braced myself not to be disappointed if it turned out otherwise, but now that I was confirming it, my heart began to race.
“I’ll have a look inside and come back.”
“I’ll wait here. I’ve been driving the horses hard — I’m exhausted…….”
I left the driver behind and crossed the broken path. Pushing deeper into the forest and scanning the surroundings, I confirmed it:
This was undoubtedly the area where I’d spent my childhood.
When I thought about it, since my father had been indebted to Auntie, it wasn’t strange that she held the deed to the land where our shop had stood.
“I suppose I should thank her.”
For keeping it instead of selling it elsewhere.
Or perhaps, given this location, the land wouldn’t have sold anyway.
I continued deeper into the pathless mountain. I didn’t know the way, but somehow my feet moved of their own accord.
Then, realizing this could no longer be called a passable path, I stopped partway.
In my memory, it had been nothing but a place with clean air and pure water, always peaceful.
Going further didn’t seem likely to reveal such a place here.
With regret, I was about to turn back when I spotted an Old Cloth bound to a tree.
“That……!”
It was a marker I’d tied myself as a child, clinging to my father’s neck as he carried me.
‘From here on is our territory. You must never go beyond the tree with the cloth tied to it, not even alone. Do you understand?’
‘I want to! I want to tie it myself!’
The memory of my father giving me scraps of cloth, and how I’d tied them to several trees without knowing what they were for, remained vivid even now.
“I found it right. I can’t believe that’s still there.”
I’d thought time had withered my emotions as thoroughly as it withers all things, but I was wrong. The moment I saw that cloth, something clawed at my chest.
Unable to contain this tempest of emotion I couldn’t even name, I touched the tree.
Beyond this point was where I’d run and played every day — the path was clear to my eyes now.
“Did Father set up a Seal around this area? Is that why I never encountered a Magical Beast?”
The thought occurred to me that I was too young then and had overlooked much.
In any case, I pushed through the thorny underbrush beside the tree and entered, only to be struck by the peacefulness — if I’d been seeing this for the first time, I’d have gasped in wonder.
A modest Cabin set in a clearing, the thick, sturdy tree standing guard beside it, the spring water flowing behind the Cabin, and various plants scattered about.
This impossibly peaceful atmosphere seemed like a paradise itself.
“I found it.”
Truth be told, the greatest reason I wanted to return here was my parents’ grave.
My parents, who had left so suddenly in an accident ten years ago, were buried behind the Cabin.
The people who brought my parents’ remains dug the grave for us, and I later learned they too were Auntie’s people.
I pressed down my racing heart at the thought of facing their grave and walked toward the back of the Cabin.
My lips were so dry from tension I barely felt them.
Walking a bit further up the slope, I saw a mound beside a tree and the gravestone that Seniel and I had built with our own hands.
We’d had neither the time nor the people to prepare a proper marker, so we’d made do with a large branch and carved my parents’ names into it with a knife.
‘I cried like I’d lost my mind that day. My hands were covered in wounds from the wood being so hard to carve.’
Seeing the gravestone that still bore the traces of that day, the emotions of that time rushed back to life.
But something was strange.
“……How is it that the cut wood hasn’t rotted at all?”
The wood that should have decayed long ago from years of neglect looked far too intact. As if we’d cast Preservation Magic over it the day we left.
The grave itself was the same. I’d expected it to be overgrown with weeds and barely recognizable, but it was nothing of the sort.
It was immaculately maintained, as if someone had carefully tended it.
Seeing not just the grave but the whole surrounding area kept in neat condition, I grew confused.
“Who’s been maintaining this?”

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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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