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Translator: penny
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: The Fifth Heir
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The slaves had already chosen the masters they would serve and moved into position.
Divided into four factions, they knelt at each master's feet, bowing their heads so deeply that their foreheads touched the stone floor as they swore their loyalty.
That was when it happened.
"Hey."
A low, subdued voice.
"Ah, yes. Master Wolfram."
The slave trader reflexively bent at the waist.
Wolfram's gaze went beyond the slaves prostrated in a line before him.
It was fixed on the orange silhouette sprawled on the floor like a single blemish of contamination.
The child hadn't chosen any master—no, she hadn't even had the possibility of being chosen from the start—and lay collapsed on the floor.
Vomit mixed with blood stained her mouth black-red, and the mark of one ear torn off was blatantly visible.
A young slave so broken that even calling her a beastkin felt embarrassing; she seemed fully justified as waste to be discarded.
Wolfram pointed at the slave trader with a single finger.
"The one who brought that thing, step forward."
One slave trader stepped forward, cold sweat trickling down.
The next moment.
Slash—
"Argh, aaaargh!!!"
The scream was all too short and wretched.
The slaves instinctively trembled, and the slave trader clutched his right arm—now missing everything below the elbow—and dropped to his knees.
The blood splattered on the floor evaporated with a hot sizzle.
Yet the person in question didn't so much as twitch an eyebrow.
"To dare shove such filth before us, the next heirs of Argent."
His voice was as cold as a honed blade.
"It's trash that wouldn't fetch a price even in an ordinary slave market. Be grateful it ended with just one arm."
"O-of course! In the process of selecting slaves for the training grounds, due to my negligence... it seems I brought it along without properly disposing of the defective. If you wish, I'll remove it right away. So it never crosses your eyes again!"
The slave trader trembled with his head bowed deeply.
But his eyes held no fear. Instead, a completely different fury blazed like flames, directed elsewhere.
A cruel impulse, sharper than the pain of his lost arm.
A savage desire to vent his rage on that 'defective' beastkin lying face-down on the floor.
As if to pin the cost of his own spilled blood on that worthless waste—as if he just needed to stomp and crush her—he lifted the tip of his foot.
But that was when it happened.
"She's burning with a high fever. The wound's already infected... Her condition isn't good."
An unfamiliar voice.
"Wh-who...?"
When the slave trader turned, his view filled with clothing far too neat for a slave and a docile face.
It was a boy.
No, a presence that felt somehow off even to call a boy.
He knelt on one knee beside the fallen beastkin slave, carefully examining her body.
His touch was delicate, utterly unconcerned with the filthy stains or the dirt and blood soiling his suit sleeve.
The slave trader fell momentarily speechless.
Instinct whispered to him.
This child is no ordinary being.
"This place is one only the legitimate heirs of Argent may enter."
A voice as sunken as ice.
It was Wolfram.
His brows furrowed far deeper than when he'd first seen the defective slave.
It wasn't mere cold words. He was unmistakably angry.
And he wasn't alone.
The other three heirs, who had been inspecting their own slaves from behind, slowly raised their heads.
Seratina's smile had vanished, Walter's eyes wavered, and Syl stood frozen, fingers rigidly extended as if holding her breath.
The one who admired beauty.
The one who sought only knowledge.
The one who pursued nothing but pleasure.
All three wore the same expression.
Disgust.
Unmistakable disgust.
As if they'd beheld some forbidden sight they should never have seen.
"Have you lost your mind, oblivious to your station?"
Wolfram's voice thinned like a blade from a torture chamber.
"Answer me, Lucas Argent. Why have you broken the family's rules and set foot in this sacred place—you, a bastard born of dirty blood?"
Then that word cleaved the air.
Bastard.
The filthiest, lowliest, most concealed stain in noble society.
For a house like Argent—one even the imperial family couldn't touch recklessly—the very existence of a bastard was a crime.
The slave traders didn't dare breathe loudly.
They knew a single errant breath here wouldn't end with just an arm.
In the midst of that razor ice, a completely unperturbed voice rang out.
"Ah, it's nothing much. It's my birthday today."
Silence flowed.
"...Birthday?"
Wolfram slowly raised his head.
"So, you're saying you've come here expecting us to celebrate the day a wretch like you was born?"
Lucas gave no answer.
Instead, he carefully lifted the one-eared beastkin slave cradled in his arms.
It was the very being the now-armless slave trader had tried to trample to death moments ago.
The boy gently scooped up the fallen beastkin—like a princess in his arms—and spoke.
"No, brother. How could a bastard dare hope for celebration?"
Lucas smiled faintly.
"I just... wanted to salvage at least one slave you four would soon discard, under the pretext of a birthday gift."
"Birthday gift...? You mean that fox beastkin on the verge of disposal?"
"Yes."
Lucas nodded nonchalantly.
"Lately, I've been quite lonely without a conversational companion. So while talking to myself... well, I've banged my head against the wall a few times."
He pointed to his nose.
Beneath the white suit decoration, a faint scar lingered from incomplete healing.
The instant they saw it, all four heirs' pupils shook.
Not from concern.
Lucas Argent.
A bastard, yes—but a top-tier human asset for the family's future marriage alliances.
Valued as a slave, a rarer specimen than the bloodlines monopolized by the royals.
The issue was him developing 'flaws' at such a young age.
If the family head learned of it, the blood staining the mansion floor might not belong to slaves.
And if he presumptuously brought along a healthy slave to rear, acting as if he shared the Argent bloodline?
Clutching a defective on death's door, wearing an expression like playing house with trash?
Wolfram stared down at Lucas for a long moment before finally speaking.
"...Fine. I understand. A birthday gift, was it? I'll allow that much."
"Y-yes?!"
"Brother?"
"Brother, are you in your right mind?!"
The moment Lucas was permitted to own a slave for the first time in his life.
The reactions of Seratina, Walter, and Syl diverged sharply.
Especially Seratina—the next family head candidate after Wolfram—couldn't hold back.
The being before her was neither beautiful nor valuable, utterly unqualified to play 'master' like them: an ugly defective.
For such a bastard to ape the master's role as if they were equals?
That alone was utterly repulsive.
But.
"Brother, no. That child is already—"
"Enough."
A single firm word.
Seratina clamped her mouth shut as if her breath had stopped.
Wolfram's gaze pinned her like lightning.
"Regardless, Lucas Argent shares half our blood. And you heard: he couldn't endure the loneliness and self-harmed."
"E-even so! If that thing somehow enters our heir competition—"
At that instant, Wolfram's eyes curved coldly.
"Seratina. Your words make it sound like pure-blooded Argent nobility 'fears' a mere bastard owning one slave."
"...!"
"Shameful. To rank as next family head candidate after me with such guts. Truly disappointing."
Seratina's nape stiffened.
Her lips trembled, but no words emerged.
Walter and Syl, witnessing it, didn't dare draw deep breaths.
And amid it all, impossibly, one person hadn't lost his smile.
The one who ought to be most pathetic here.
Lucas Argent.
"Thank you, brothers and sisters."
Lucas bowed deeply, still cradling the near-death beastkin slave.
"Thanks to you, this wretched body of mine... can cling to life a little longer."
His tone was less noble heir and more self-loathing slave.
An expression that seemed content—almost satisfied—with abasing himself in humiliation.
'...Just months ago, he was clutching the annex bars, wailing for Father's gaze.'
A quiet sneer flickered in Wolfram's eyes.
'Looks like he finally grasps his place.'
If this bastard kept that attitude quietly until sold off later?
His own merit in granting this defective slave today—to steady the boy's mind—would surely count.
Wolfram smirked, lifting the corner of his mouth.
Then flicked his hand dismissively.
"Understood. Now scram. Live on like a dead rat, as always."
"Yes!"
Without hesitation, Lucas replied and turned toward the mansion, carrying the beastkin slave in his arms.
But up to that point, no one knew.
That fox beastkin with one ear severed, barely clinging to life in his arms right now.
How thoroughly she would upend the Argent family's world thereafter.
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