Welcome to the Café of the Dark Guild’s Successor - Chapter 150

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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 café run by the Dark Guild’s heir.
Chapter 150
***
At the same moment.
Desikan, a high-ranking official of the Demon Realm and the Gate’s keeper, opened his eyes within the ice.
The ice that had bound him motionless for centuries was finally beginning to thaw.
A vast Magic Circle sprawled across the ground surrounding the frozen wall where he’d been imprisoned, and through it the lifeforce of humans flowed into Desikan, absorbed without remainder.
As Desikan’s power recovered, the speed at which the ice melted accelerated dramatically.
Soon, with his face and upper body now mobile, joy blazed in Desikan’s eyes.
“An unbearably tedious age of endurance behind me at last.”
The voice was beautiful enough to sound like song, yet shifted eerily between masculine and feminine tones.
With long, hardened nails, he raked away the ice clinging to his upper body, sending chunks cascading down.
But then—click.
As the ice melted, Shackles around both his legs became visible. Desikan gazed at them with displeasure.
“Unsightly.”
Even as he spoke, lifeforce continued to flow in, and new wing feathers rose along his back.
He spread his dark, massive wings lightly and shook them, sending powerful wind rippling outward.
“Still woefully insufficient.”
He had found four of the Seal Mediums imbued with his power, but without all five intact, the seal could not be broken.
The fact that he lacked even enough strength to remove the Shackles from his legs gnawed at him with irritation.
Yet the reason he had acted today was that the Red Moon was rising.
It came once every ten years, and if he missed it, he would have to wait another decade.
Though the outcome fell short of his hopes, melting the ice had given him enough power to hold the Red Moon in place with his will.
Now, if only he could recover the last remaining Map, the seal would break.
Desikan accepted it as a matter of time and steadied his agitated mind. Then he spoke to those waiting for him.
“You’ve labored well. You did excellently.”
His voice carried through the Magic Circle to Juliano and the faithful in the Cave.
“It is an honor to be of service. We regret the additional ten years of delay.”
“I shall not forget your effort. When the Shackles break, I will share my Authority with you. You shall gain great power and eternal life.”
Watching Desikan form a body from mist, Juliano and the faithful pressed their foreheads to the ground in reverence.
“Juliano.”
“Yes. Yes, my lord.”
At the sound of his name from Desikan’s lips, Juliano’s eyes glistened with tears of emotion.
“Find this girl.”
Using his Authority, Desikan manifested the face of a woman beside his form.
As Juliano examined it with curiosity, he realized it was a face he already knew—and started in shock.
It was Rosia.
“I… why do you need this woman?”
“She is necessary to open the Gate that connects the Demon Realm to this world.”
Desikan’s eyes flashed dangerously as he spoke.
“Find her and place her in the Magic Circle. I will create a Gate here.”
“I shall obey.”
After Rosia, Desikan used his power to trace the Map’s whereabouts.
But a stronger force was blocking him, and he could not sense its exact location.
“The Map eludes me. If something can hide its location from me… it must be held by an Upper Class sorcerer or high priest. Search their surroundings.”
“Understood. We shall find it without fail.”
“I trust you. Now do as you will. I shall be your strength.”
Speaking in that entrancing, beautiful voice, Desikan’s form vanished from the Cave.
Juliano and the gathered faithful erupted in cheers, embracing one another.
“We were right.”
“The day the world turns upside down is near.”
The number of people who fell victim to the Dark Magic used by Juliano and the faithful that night was beyond counting.
They drove villagers from settlements near Alein and those they’d prepared there into the Magic Circle and sacrificed them all.
They slew so many without a shred of remorse, rejoicing only in their own success.
“Now have the villages cleaned up and concealed.”
“Yes. And that woman from before—I know her face. This works perfectly. I know where she is.”
After rallying the faithful and giving his orders, Juliano emerged from the Cave.
He left the building disguised as a workshop without locking the door behind him.
He walked through passages thick with dark, pungent smoke and entered the Mansion proper.
Knights stood guard throughout, but none moved to stop Juliano.
When he reached the bedchamber of Isaac, the house master, a masked figure emerged from the darkness.
It was Ken, currently Master of the Sailing Guild and entrusted with Isaac’s secret protection.
“The hour is late. The house master is asleep. Perhaps you might return tomorrow….”
“The time has come.”
At those words, Ken’s yellow eyes trembled slightly. Without a word, he stepped aside.
Entering the bedchamber, Juliano woke the sleeping Isaac with a bitter smile.
“Father.”
At that quiet voice, Isaac’s eyes opened—and the moment he saw Juliano’s face, he frowned sharply.
“…To enter my chamber without permission? Did I raise you so carelessly?”
“You’ve always looked at me that way. A lacking, incompetent son. A pathetic wretch—that gaze of yours.”
“What?”
“I could bear how you constantly compared me to Clione. I could endure your striking me for being slow to learn. But one thing—that eye with which you looked at me. It made my skin crawl. You, Father, you made me what I am.”
“Juliano!”
Instead of answering, Juliano stared at the picture frame resting on the side table.
In it were his mother, who had died of chronic illness, Clione, and Isaac, all smiling brightly.
“You’ve aged much. It’s time you rested.”
He seized the frame and hurled it hard against the wall. It shattered, glass scattering in all directions.
“What are you doing!!”
As Isaac erupted in fury, he caught sight of Juliano holding the Mace and flinched, trembling.
“Have you… have you been drinking?”
“My mind is clear. Clearer than it’s ever been.”
Juliano traced the hollows beneath his sunken eyes, his grip tightening on the Mace.
“Now I will enter a new world. In that world, there is no place for Father.”
“Ken! Are you out there? Get in here! Is anyone here? Steward!!”
Isaac called out desperately for the people who usually protected him, but no one came.
Shortly after, Isaac was struck by Juliano’s Mace and slain.
Juliano watched his father—eyes never closing, blood spilling from his lips—with a look of profound relief.
“This is the world I believe in.”
His eyes glittered with twisted desire as he withdrew the House Master’s Ring from his dead father’s hand and slipped it onto his own.
“Ken, are you there?”
Ken, who had not come when Isaac called, entered at once when Juliano summoned him.
Isaac had never known that Juliano had long since seized actual control of the Sailing Guild.
“Go and tell everyone. I am now the house master of Strophane.”
“I recognize you as house master.”
Ken cast a brief glance at Isaac’s corpse, finished his salutation to his new lord, and left the room.
Juliano retrieved the Whiskey Isaac favored from the cabinet and poured it into a glass on the table.
Then he sat in a chair, crossed his legs, and began drinking the Whiskey at leisure.
All the while gazing at Isaac’s corpse growing cold on the bed.
***
When Biedler arrived in the Capital using the Teleportation Magic Stone, it was dawn.
Rather than force open the Imperial Palace gates, which closed at night, he had rested briefly in the nearby area.
As morning broke, Biedler emerged outside, preparing to enter the palace, and looked up at the sky with a grave murmur.
“I cannot tell if the sun has risen or not.”
Thick, dark clouds still blanketed the entire sky.
A red tinge showed through gaps in the clouds, but it had looked the same last night, so he could not distinguish morning from night.
Biedler entered the palace without delay and sensed that its atmosphere had grown turbulent, unlike its usual calm.
Despite the early hour—too early for training—knights rushed about in apparent chaos.
To understand the situation, Biedler went to his quarters and asked Roy, his aide, what had occurred in his absence.
“Why has the mood changed so drastically overnight?”
“I’m still investigating. But the contents are so absurd that….”
“Tell me what you’ve heard as it is.”
“It’s… reports have been coming in all night that Demonic Beasts have attacked throughout the empire. Demonic Beasts—it makes no sense. I suspect someone is impersonating them and orchestrating this.”
“Throughout the empire? This is grave.”
Roy, though nominally Biedler’s aide, spent most of his time at the palace and knew nothing of what Aiden did.
So unlike Roy, Biedler—who had faced Demonic Beasts himself—understood the gravity of the situation.
“Surely you don’t believe it, sir?”
“It will be true. In the worst case, war with the Demon Realm may break out again.”
“Ha ha. Your Highness—the Demon Realm War? As if that were some legend from long ago….”
Roy stared blankly at Biedler with a skeptical expression before realizing this was no jest, and his knees gave way beneath him.
“Demonic Beasts have truly appeared? And attacking people?!”
As Biedler tried to decide where to begin his explanation, an Imperial knight came running with a pallid face.
“Your Highness! The Emperor seeks you urgently. We heard you had arrived and rushed over.”
“Where is he?”
“In the Conference Room.”
The three of them quickened their pace and reached the Conference Room far faster than usual.
The moment the doors opened, multiple gazes converged upon Biedler.
Though the hour was early, the Emperor, the Empress, the Crown Prince, the Knights Commander, and all major officials were gathered in the Conference Room.

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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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