Adopting the Male Protagonist Changed the Genre - Chapter 144

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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 144

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The day Leo summoned his messenger beast.

Leo, who had headed to the Academy with a dejected face after failing to find his messenger beast, returned home covered in dirt.

So it finally happened. I shouldn’t have believed his words that nothing was wrong, that he was really fine, and just watched.

As I ran to him filled with all sorts of regret, Leo smiled so brightly that his dimples showed and proudly said.

“Belinda! I made a friend!”

It was truly an astounding statement. Anyone could see he’d been in a fight, yet he said he made a friend.

Even while I examined him from head to toe to see if he was hurt anywhere, Leo couldn’t hide his excitement and chattered away about his newly made friend.

“It’s a friend who likes swordsmanship! Ian calls him a blue-haired monkey, but he handles a sword really well. Oh, his name is Asillia, and he’s been pestering me to spar with him for a while, so I consulted with the Knight…”

“Sparring?”

I realized instinctively. That Leo’s return home in a mess on his first day at the Academy was because of that blue-haired monkey.

I didn’t know exactly how they became friends, but I felt like I needed to see that bastard’s face to calm my anger.

So I grabbed Leo’s shoulders and spoke gently.

“Bring him here sometime.”

“Pardon?”

Oops. I had unconsciously clenched my teeth while speaking. I suppressed my anger and spoke again with a smile across my face.

“I said bring him over sometime. He’s Leo’s first friend from the Academy, isn’t he? I should personally give him a warm welcome.”

“Yes!”

Leo was delighted, even blushing, but I clearly saw Terry, who had watched everything from the side, making the sign of the cross toward someone.

And that evening, Leo summoned the weasel he had been so certain wouldn’t be his messenger beast.

Wondering what kind of change of heart this was, I carefully probed, and Leo scratched his cheek and whispered.

“Actually, the Knight taught me how to make friends through letters.”

“Since I was able to become friends with Asillia, I thought I could become friends with the weasel too.”

That Cheri? Really, that AI tin can I know who’s not good with words helped solve Leo’s problem?

I felt an inexplicable sense of defeat, but thanks to that, I was able to deliver mana to Chaser without delay.

After successfully wrapping up the incident like that.

As each day passed, the weather became much hotter, and ice was added to the tea time enjoyed in the annex from some point on.

Vivian, who participated faithfully in the tea time after dinner despite being busy with workshop work and developing new magical tools, sparkled her eyes as she looked at Leo’s messenger beast lying sprawled on its belly in the middle of the tea table.

“Congratulations, Shooting Star! Now you can proudly say you’re a full-fledged mage!”

While Leo and Vivian, who got along well, chatted enthusiastically, Terry, who had been examining the messenger beast from the side, made a disgruntled comment.

“It’s completely… white?”

When I raised an eyebrow at his tone that suggested the problem was the color rather than the appearance, Terry shrugged and answered.

“I’ve only seen white weasels as fur coats.”

“…!”

Shocked by those words, Leo quickly lifted his messenger beast and hid it in his arms, and Vivian’s eyes also trembled wildly.

Terry, who had earned the wariness of Vivian and Leo with one wrong word, hurriedly added.

“What I mean is that it’s that difficult to see white weasels in this Royal Capital.”

Terry’s excuse this time raised my curiosity.

“Don’t white weasels inhabit the Royal Capital?”

Come to think of it, while Leo’s messenger beast was completely white, the weasel I had spotted in the park was indeed a dark cocoa color.

Terry answered uncertainly.

“It’s more like they can’t inhabit here rather than they don’t. Looking at how the messenger beast’s tail tip is black like it’s been dipped in ink, it seems to be a northern weasel, and this species molts to survive winter.”

To summarize Terry’s following explanation, northern weasels are dark brown in summer, but molt to snow-white fur in winter when it snows.

However, since the Royal Capital’s winters are warm enough that it doesn’t snow, the northern weasels inhabiting the Royal Capital and the south don’t bother to molt.

I fell into thought for a moment.

I had thought Leo made a white weasel his messenger beast because the child had seen a white weasel in the past.

But according to Terry’s words, it would be very difficult to see white weasels in the Royal Capital.

“Then where would you have to go to see white weasels?”

“The North, of course. I’ve heard that northern nobles often keep white weasels as pets. Of course, all the fur is imported from the North too.”

The only place to see white weasels was the North.

Only then did something I hadn’t thought of before flash through my mind.

I called Leo and asked carefully.

“Leo, have you ever seen a white weasel before?”

“No.”

“Then have you ever left the Royal Capital to go to the North?”

“Hmm… Only the trip I took with Belinda before. As far as I remember, I’ve been at the Capital Orphanage the whole time.”

“I see. Do you happen to remember when you first came to the orphanage?”

Leo rolled his eyes in thought, then shook his head.

“I think I was at the orphanage when I was five, but I don’t know what happened before that. I don’t remember well.”

I gently stroked Leo’s head as he answered readily and continued my thoughts.

Contrary to Chaser’s words about making familiar animals and plants one’s messenger beast, weasels were very unfamiliar animals to Leo.

Yet the fact that a weasel was Leo’s messenger beast might be because Leo had forgotten seeing a white weasel.

For instance, something that happened before he was five years old.

Maybe he had lived in the North, where white weasels are commonly seen, before coming to the Royal Capital’s orphanage.

‘No, let’s not think rashly.’

I shook my head as if shaking off distracting thoughts.

This wasn’t a matter to conclude with my speculation alone. This was related to Leo’s birth.

When I played 【Hirome】, I was certain the protagonist was a baby angel who fell after losing his wings while flying in the sky. Now that the game has become reality, I realize deep in my bones that couldn’t be the case.

That Leo too would have biological parents.

Just as I was thinking I should separately investigate how Leo came to the orphanage, Terry stretched and spoke up.

“It’s quite peaceful, isn’t it.”

“…”

He was right. The tea time attendance, which had been bustling with the annex’s guests, now consisted of only me, Leo, Terry, and Vivian.

Last week, the Magic Tower had been in complete chaos due to the Magister’s disappearance incident that occurred on Walpurgis Night.

Within the Magic Tower, all sorts of rumors and hearsay ran rampant, claiming it was the work of the Temple, which they usually regarded as their enemy.

Then, when the Magister’s secret laboratory and the chimera that had mutilated the Magister’s corpse were discovered inside, it took a dramatic turn.

This was because evidence of all sorts of experiments against humanity, and above all, traces of research into immortality, which along with time regression is called one of the two great taboos, were found in the secret laboratory.

Perhaps the Magister had dabbled in black magic.

Thinking this, the Mage Republic quickly began erasing traces of the Magister and started looking for new Magister candidates to renew the Gray Tower’s image.

That’s when Chaser stepped forward.

To become a Magister, one had to overcome five trials and gain the consent of the Twelve Elders of the Mage Republic.

In the end, Chaser had no choice but to leave the Royal Capital and head to the Mage Republic, his homeland.

Of course, I didn’t doubt for a moment that he would return as the master of the Gray Tower.

However, apart from trusting him, I couldn’t help but worry.

‘It’s like watching a child left by the water’s edge.’

As I quietly furrowed my brow looking at Chaser’s empty seat, Vivian casually added.

“According to my friend at the Gray Tower, Chaser has already finished the first trial to become Magister. If no major problems arise, he’ll become the youngest Magister ever, they say.”

What pleasant news to hear.

I leaned forward to hear more details about Vivian’s story, when Terry, who had been listening beside me, asked.

“The youngest, you say? How old is he?”

“Hmm… I remember he had his coming-of-age ceremony the summer before last.”

The summer before last. In this world, they hold coming-of-age ceremonies on their eighteenth birthday…

“You mean he’s not even twenty yet?”

“That brat was still wet behind the ears?”

Terry and I, both shocked, exclaimed simultaneously.

Wait, so right now… you’re telling me that Chaser, who sounds guilty with every word he utters, is nineteen years old?

‘Good heavens, what does he plan to become later with such foul language already… Oh wait, he does become a Magister when he grows up.’

I shook my head back and forth.

I hadn’t been wrong to think of Chaser as a child left by the waterside.

In reality, Chaser was indeed an adult who had just barely left his boyhood behind.

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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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