Welcome to the Café of the Dark Guild’s Successor - Chapter 86

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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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A café run by the Dark Guild’s Heir.
86
“What did you just say… Lili?”
I dropped the bag of dumplings and rushed forward, seizing the old man by the collar.
“Answer me. What did you just say??”
“Lili… I’m sorry…. If only I hadn’t recognized you…….”
Though his mind didn’t seem entirely lucid, this old man had clearly recognized me and thought of my mother.
It could have been a coincidence—the same name—but the possibility that he knew my mother made my hands tremble where they gripped him.
Then, for the first time, focus returned to the old man’s eyes.
He looked at me with fear, his voice quavering.
“I’ve already told you everything! What else do you want?! Aaah!!”
“Come to your senses.”
I held his head firmly in both hands and met his gaze.
“Lili is my mother.”
But he’d already slipped away—the focus drained from his pupils again, and he clamped his mouth shut.
‘No choice then.’
If someone won’t talk, you make them talk.
After checking that no one was nearby, I retrieved the Truth-Telling Drug from my Artifact.
I’d obtained it long ago, intending to use it on someone, and had kept it all this time.
It was precious, but I’d saved it for a moment like this.
Without hesitation, I pried open the old man’s mouth and forced the drug inside. Fortunately, he swallowed without resistance.
“Tell me everything you know about Lili.”
“I….”
The old man’s eyes grew clouded and his voice faint as he began to stammer.
“I taught Lili at the orphanage. She was… a student I taught.”
“An orphanage? Don’t tell me it was Kimbelhack?”
“Kimbelhack Orphanage…. Lili was an exceptionally… exceptionally gifted student.”
As he spoke, reason and the drug’s power clashed within him—he struck his own head repeatedly, writhing in agony.
But the drug’s pull kept him speaking.
“I’ve never seen a child with such talent for Magic as Lili. We recognized right away that she would be worth a fortune.”
“What kind of talent?”
“She learned anything quickly, but refinement… especially the refinement of Magical Stones was her exceptional gift.”
I recalled Cayan’s words from the party venue.
He’d said the Magical Stone I’d touched in the laboratory had been refined.
If the old man was right, that ability was identical to what my mother possessed.
‘How is that possible?’
Usually, abilities don’t pass down through bloodlines.
They’re said to manifest unpredictably… Something felt wrong.
“I recommended Lili to Lawrence Srophan, who was a patron of the orphanage.”
“And then?”
“We sold her. The orphanage director and I sold her for the highest price among all the children we ever trafficked….”
This was the story of my mother.
This old man was telling me that he and the director had sold my mother for money….
A rage deep enough to kill him seized me, but I gritted my teeth and swallowed the fury.
There was still more I needed to know.
“So Lili wasn’t the first?”
“No. The director and I selected gifted children and sold them to the Srophan Family. But Lili was the only one who was actually adopted.”
“What happened to Lili after that?”
“……I don’t know. We thought she’d been blessed, adopted into such a great Family. We thought she was living well… but then, long afterward, Lili came back to the orphanage.”
Fear filled the old man’s eyes as he recalled the past.
“That day…… the orphanage caught fire. We couldn’t even run—it spread so fast…… Aaaah!!”
The old man’s screams cut off abruptly.
I grabbed his collar as his consciousness slipped away.
“What happened to the director?”
“I was the only one who survived. You might think I’m dead…… but with my whole body burning, I barely made it out.”
The burn scars covering the old man’s face and body were evidence of that day’s fire.
“Do you know who started the fire?”
“I, I don’t know. I really don’t…. It had to be either Lili or the Srophan Family.”
“What records were kept on Lili?”
“They all burned the day of the fire—nothing remained. No, wait.”
“What?”
“That morning…… a box went missing. It contained records of all the children we’d sold under the guise of patronage to the Srophan Family.”
Someone might have known about the fire in advance and removed it beforehand.
Even if the orphanage’s original wasn’t preserved, the Srophan Family would be keeping copies.
The fact that the Srophan Family adopted my mother, unlike the other gifted children, must have been because of her exceptional ability.
‘Was it because of the Magical Stones?’
The Empress’s Map to a great mine.
It would naturally concern the entire Family, and if they’d been secretly mining Magical Stones….
They would have needed someone with my mother’s kind of ability to process them.
A question formed then.
“Why the Dissolution of Adoption?”
They’d adopted her to use her, so why dissolve the adoption at all?
Because she was no longer needed?
When they lost the Map, they couldn’t mine anymore Magical Stones, and perhaps that’s when my mother stopped being useful.
I shook my head and stopped the speculation.
“It’s all just guesswork.”
Imagination alone revealed nothing. I needed concrete evidence.
“I’ve… I’ve told you everything. That’s all I know…. I was wrong. I lost all the money, I’ve been running my whole life. I regret it. Waaah.”
The old man sobbed heavily, then crumpled to the side.
His skeletal frame and face etched with deep wrinkles spoke to the suffering he’d endured.
I debated what to do with him, then decided to leave him wandering the streets until he died.
“Living will be punishment enough.”
I leaned close to the old man’s ear and whispered each word deliberately.
“Never forget it for a single moment—the names of the children you sold, my mother’s name. Keep remembering, keep regretting, keep living in agony. Don’t let yourself forget the pain you felt when the fire consumed your body, when your flesh burned away.”
I repeated the words again and again, embedding them into the old man’s consciousness while the drug’s effects still lingered.
I left him there and turned back, picking up the dumplings I’d dropped.
Carrying a bitter weight, I returned to the shopping district.
I was heading for the Inn where I’d left my horse when I stopped in front of the Grocery Store.
“You were just here. What else do you need?”
“Lettuce.”
“Lettuce? How much?”
“Everything in the basket, please.”
I bought all the lettuce the woman had been selling from her basket.
Loaded with lettuce, sugar, and dumplings, I retrieved my horse from the Inn.
Riding back toward the shop, I recalled my conversation with the old man and slowed the horse’s pace.
“It’s strange that the old man appeared so suddenly.”
How did he show up right in front of me?
Yet this remote Village did see many travelers pass through, so a fugitive drifting in wouldn’t be unusual.
“I should go to Verdian.”
My mother and the Srophan Family.
The Srophan Family and the Map.
If there was a connection between them, the only way to verify it was to break into the Srophan Family Main Estate directly.
***
Early evening.
With preparations made for departure to Verdian, I washed the lettuce clean and placed it in a bowl before leaving the shop.
Then I set it down in front of the Cat that had been trailing after me.
“Eat this.”
But the Cat batted the lettuce with a paw and pushed the bowl away.
“Meow!”
“Don’t like it? I heard you eat this just fine. At least try it.”
Thinking it was unfamiliar, I plucked a leaf and held it to its mouth.
“Ptooey.”
It pretended to chew and immediately spat it out. It even sounded like it spat, though I might have been imagining things.
“……Ungrateful.”
They say if you feed a stray Cat, it repays the kindness.
This one wouldn’t even eat. Maybe it wasn’t someone’s pet.
My chest tightened, but I accepted that even Cats have their preferences.
I stroked the head of the Cat, which sat watching me intently after pushing the lettuce far away.
“I’ll be gone for a few days. Make sure to eat well here and at the Temple.”
I left the window slightly open so the Cat could come and go.
Since I’d be traveling by horse and needed to brace against the wind, I dressed warmly.
And before I left, I stopped by the Temple.
A rich smell of stew drifted out—he must have been preparing dinner.
‘He’s in the kitchen.’
I walked toward the kitchen at the back of the Temple, looking for Cayden.
Sure enough, I could see him from behind, cooking in an apron.
“Cayden.”
Cayden, who’d been stirring the stew earnestly with a ladle, turned to me in surprise.
“Rosia? Are you hungry?”
“No.”
I chuckled and shook my head.
“I have somewhere to go. I’ll be away from the shop for a few days. Can you look after it?”
At the mention of leaving, Cayden’s face darkened suddenly.
But he didn’t cling to me like he used to.
“At least eat this before you go. You need a full stomach for a long journey. And the weather’s cold.”
“All right.”
As I sat at the table, Cayden ladled the stew into a bowl until it overflowed.
“It’s hot, so eat it slowly.”
Just as I was about to put a spoonful in my mouth, Cayden took my hand and blew on the stew instead.
“It’s really hot, I’m telling you.”
I ate the stew he’d cooled for me, slowly and carefully, as Cayden fussed over me more than I would have.
Since meeting the old man, I’d been preoccupied with thoughts of my mother and hadn’t noticed my hunger, but now it rushed back—the stew went down easily.
As the warm bowl soothed my empty belly, the cold that had frozen my heart thawed as well.
Cayden, sitting across from me, watched quietly as I ate, then asked softly.
“Did something happen today?”
“I went to the Village and met the person who sold my mother.”
I hadn’t meant to tell him, but perhaps because of the stew—my lips moved before I could stop them.

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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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