Adopting the Male Protagonist Changed the Genre - Chapter 100
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 100
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Belinda couldn’t take her eyes off Leo, who was making a wish with his eyes squeezed shut so tightly that wrinkles formed between his brows.
With so many people around, she was worried she might lose the child.
Fortunately, Leo returned to Chaser and Belinda before long, but his face was clouded with gloom.
“Jui-bam-tol, why do you have the face of a loser?”
“My wooden boat… it sank.”
That can’t be. We just launched it into the water?
Belinda quickly looked back at the river water and sighed inwardly.
Because there were so many people launching wooden boats, the area near the upstream dock was truly chaotic.
Countless wooden boats collided with each other before they could go far, losing their balance and sinking.
In that chaos, Leo’s wooden boat had apparently sunk as well.
There was a superstition about wish-sending that a wish would only come true if the wooden boat launched from upstream safely reached downstream.
In the end, Leo’s wish had sunk right after departure.
Seeing the gloom on the child’s face, Belinda was seriously considering buying up all the wooden boats in the area and filling the river with Leo’s boats.
“Sprout, come here. Let’s launch a boat once more.”
Chaser, who had brought an old wooden boat from somewhere, called to Leo.
Soon the mentor and student sat down carelessly on the grass and began carving magic circles into every corner of the boat.
“What kind of magic circle would we need to keep the boat from sinking?”
“A reinforcement magic circle and… we’d probably need a magic circle to help with balance too.”
Though it was a suddenly started magic lesson, Leo thought deeply without showing any signs of boredom.
After drawing a couple of magic circles on the bottom of the boat with Chaser’s help, they loaded the lantern and the paper with the wish written on it onto the boat.
Finally, after even loading Tori as a passenger to serve as the power source for the magic circles, Leo’s second wooden boat was ready to set sail.
“Tori, you have to come back safely.”
The so-called Tori-ship, carrying Leo’s worries and expectations, vigorously cut through the river’s current and moved forward.
Like Leo’s first wooden boat, it collided with other boats here and there, shaking and tilting, but it never sank.
Finally, the Tori-ship escaped the treacherous starting line and leisurely advanced to the middle of the river.
Standing on the gently sloped area overlooking the river and watching it all, Chaser turned to Belinda with a not unpleasant smile.
“You just thought I was a good teacher, didn’t you?”
“You could have been an even better teacher if you hadn’t said that.”
Seeing the Tori-ship moving faster than any other wooden boat, she couldn’t say she hadn’t thought that, even as empty words.
Regardless of Belinda’s curt response, Chaser took off the Magic Tower cape he was wearing and spread it on the spot next to him.
At his gesture of patting it as if telling her to sit, Belinda sat on Chaser’s cape as if she couldn’t resist.
Leo was standing some distance away, absorbed in watching whether the Tori-ship was safe.
And as if he had been waiting for this moment, Chaser opened his mouth.
“Master, you saw how capable I am, right? So if your plan needs the power of magic, please be sure to call me.”
At the unexpected words, Belinda forgot about watching Leo and turned to look at Chaser.
As if he had been watching Belinda all along, their eyes met immediately.
The amethyst necklace around his neck seemed to sparkle particularly brightly in the moonlight.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Sometimes the expression on your face when you look at the main building isn’t ordinary. That’s how I knew. Ah, Master has decided on something.”
Belinda thought that if Chaser hadn’t become a mage, he would definitely have become a fortune teller.
His ability to observe people’s expressions and see through their inner thoughts was that remarkable.
‘Or maybe I was too careless, relying only on the Belinda translator.’
Belinda unconsciously touched her lips and answered curtly.
“Is there magic that can read people’s minds too?”
“I just have good intuition and I’m very interested in you, Master, so I noticed.”
“Chaser, you don’t need to talk like that anymore.”
“What do you mean, like that?”
“You act as if you have feelings for me. This payment too. Don’t make dating excuses and honestly say what you want.”
She wanted to say strongly that she was sick of him acting as if he was testing people’s hearts, but Belinda saw Chaser’s expression and ended up closing her mouth.
Chaser looked truly hurt, his eyebrows drooping sadly with such a pitiful expression that he seemed about to shed a tear at any moment.
“…It makes me so sad when you say that. Why do you think that way?”
“If you have a conscience, put your hand on your chest and think about it.”
“Then Master, you check for me. What my conscience is like.”
And before she could stop him, he grasped Belinda’s hand.
The reason she didn’t shake off that hand was due to a kind of learned response.
To read traces of black magic, or to replenish Belinda’s mana, Chaser had held Belinda’s hand countless times until now.
Since that hand had never once harmed her, Belinda became defenseless for a moment and could only watch as her hand was placed near Chaser’s heart.
Through the thin fabric unsuited for the season, she could feel Chaser’s heartbeat.
The slightly fast beating seemed to confess that Chaser’s words were true.
But while Belinda thought that Chaser was a good teacher to Leo and perhaps had no bad intentions toward him, she considered whether he was lying or not to be a different matter.
Because…
“Chaser, you’re too skilled at lying.”
She had already seen through his true feelings with the lie detector glasses.
“So don’t use such petty tricks and just say what you want. Before I get upset and say I won’t pay any compensation at all.”
The strength left Chaser’s hand that was holding Belinda’s. He smiled bitterly and tilted his head.
“I didn’t know the things I said back then would come back to me like this.”
He lay down on the grass and covered his face with both hands.
While he was confident in hiding his true feelings and crafting expressions as much as casting magic, right now he had no confidence in managing his expression.
“So Chaser, what compensation do you want?”
“Just give me a moment to curse my past self, Master.”
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The reason Terry didn’t like Chaser was simple.
“I don’t like the look in that mage bastard’s eyes.”
Terry had quite good instincts and tended to firmly believe in the first impressions he saw.
Such Terry’s impression of Chaser hadn’t changed from the beginning until now.
‘He’s someone whose screws might come loose at any moment.’
Sometimes he would hide in the shadows and watch Chaser.
At those times, an empty expressionlessness would appear on Chaser’s face, and Terry would read something eerie in that face.
It was an expression he often saw in the back alleys.
A person whose life goal was revenge.
He knew well because he once had such eyes himself.
Such a person couldn’t be left by Belinda’s side.
Of course, that couldn’t serve as an excuse for the reason he was currently tailing Belinda.
Vivian, who had struggled until the end but eventually followed Terry out, held her twin braids in both hands and suffered, pulling them whenever her conscience pricked her.
“Te, Terry-nim, is it really okay for us to tail Belinda-nim like this?”
“It’s fine. We’re not eavesdropping on Master’s conversations. So we just came out to enjoy the festival, and we just ‘coincidentally’ happen to have the same destination as Master every time.”
Is that so? When he put it that way, it seemed like that might be the case.
It was when the strength was gradually leaving Vivian’s hands that had been pulling at her hair.
“Adding such reasoning doesn’t make it not a crime.”
At Cesar’s following words, strength returned to the hands pulling at her hair.
Cesar had followed Terry under the pretext of mediating between Terry and Chaser and not neglecting his duty to guard Belinda from any possible danger.
At first, he seemed to have been faithful to his purpose.
But the moment he saw Chaser’s hand reach toward Belinda, he realized that his decision to follow Terry had been motivated by more than just a sense of responsibility.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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