I Became the Magic Tower Master's Experimental Mouse - Chapter 11

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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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Behemoth’s bloodline is born with hair that gleams in golden hue.
But years later, when the young Duke Behemoth inherited the title and emerged into society, his hair had turned white.
Come to think of it, in his life before the regression, suspicion and curiosity had always trailed behind him.
‘It must be the aftermath of childhood poisoning that turned his hair white.’
The tips of his hair, bleached pale, still glimmered faintly with gold.
From the small body lying on the bed rose an intense poison aura.
It was strong enough to wonder where such severe poisoning could have come from.
“……Mm, his condition has worsened.”
The Magic Tower Master sighed quietly.
That the young Behemoth had been poisoned, and that even the Master of the Poison Magic Tower could not easily resolve it—these were tidings best kept from the outside world.
This was apparently why the Magic Tower Master had isolated the young duke in the section least frequented by people, attempting treatment there.
The fact that the poison aura the boy was expelling could not be managed from the upper floors was also a contributing reason.
Even now, the Purification Device was visibly drawing in the poison aura that continuously rose from his body.
‘He looks like he’s in such pain.’
His forehead was hot as embers, his cheeks flushed a livid red.
In stark contrast, his lips had turned a sickly blue, and his entire body trembled uncontrollably.
I leaned in closer to examine the glimmer. Silver scales were piercing through his skin at his collarbone and the nape of his neck, protruding outward.
Blood seeping from the torn skin burned holes in his clothes and bedding as though eaten through by acid.
‘Ah, so that’s it.’
I became certain that damage to the barrier and Purification Device had occurred as this child thrashed about and coughed up blood.
That he was holding on even now was surely because his bloodline—that of the mighty Behemoth—was so powerful.
“Don’t get too close.”
And as if to prove my thoughts, the Magic Tower Master stopped me as I tried to approach nearer.
“His body fluids will corrode any surface they touch, so be extremely careful not to let them contact you.”
“Can a person’s body fluids really change like that?”
“……Apparently they changed like this after exposure to a poison of unknown origin.”
The Magic Tower Master’s expression looked somewhat wounded in pride.
Being Master of the Poison Magic Tower was, in the least, no different from governing all poisons manufactured across the continent.
Yet now, he did not even know the poison’s identity, and could not prepare an antidote.
“For now, all I can do is help this child endure it day by day.”
The Magic Tower Master bit his lip firmly.
I know that whether the Magic Tower Master resolves it or the patient endures on his own, in a few years he will be healthy.
But I also clearly understood how frustrated he must feel now, so I simply clenched and unclenched my fists.
“That……, well, you see.”
This is cheap pity.
I’m clearly intoxicated by apple juice.
It’s not even a task, and there’s no money in it—yet here I am, meddling in someone else’s affairs.
Even as I knew this, the moment I recalled the newspaper photograph of the future Duke Behemoth, radiant and brilliant—
I blurted it out impulsively.
“Can I come by sometimes to see him?”
“Why?”
“We’re about the same age. If he’s stuck here alone in a place this dark like this……, it must be lonely.”
At my words, the Magic Tower Master frowned for a moment.
Then, after carefully observing that the boy’s poison aura did not invade me, he finally granted permission.
‘Honestly, I thought he’d refuse.’
No matter how much of a “reward” I was, if it were me, I wouldn’t have allowed an outsider access to a place with such an important secret.
Why was that? When the Magic Tower Master dealt with me, he seemed to have softened somehow, like butter left out at room temperature.
* * *
I said I’d come by sometimes……
But worried as I was, I found myself slipping in to see the boy again the next day, and the day after that.
‘What’s that sound?’
The air felt oddly turbulent somehow……
As I rushed over, I saw the child on the bed convulsing, his body arched like an inverted bow, bucking upward.
“Hh—haaagh……!”
As I stood momentarily speechless, a desperate, ragged breath tore from the boy.
His body, thrown back so violently, seemed rigid from the intensity of the pain.
The small body pushing against the bed with head and heels had turned deathly pale. Scales erupting across his entire frame suddenly bristled upright, tearing through his skin all at once.
The poison aura bursting from his small body flowed instantly toward the Purification Device.
“Uh, uh……”
The deep furrow between the boy’s brows showed no sign of easing. Tears streamed from the corners of his closed eyes.
His thin fingers twisted, clawing at empty air.
Watching the frantic, grasping movements—as though he were begging someone to hold him—I found I couldn’t simply stand by and do nothing.
‘The Magic Tower Master was clear about it: all he can do during a seizure is prescribe a Poison Analgesic.’
That’s why the area near the bed was stocked with powerful poisons.
I pulled out one of them and placed it in the boy’s mouth.
Poison meeting poison—there came a sharp hissing sound as the boy exhaled something like white vapor.
“You’re going to be all right. You’ll heal. Just hold on.”
I took the child’s hand.
Then came a strangled cry.
As though he were insisting that he was still alive.
He gripped my hand so hard my fingers went pale.
‘I can’t quite remember what poison that was.’
All I felt was a vague sense of something foreign.
The nagging feeling—”this seems familiar somehow, but I can’t place it”—kept gnawing at the back of my mind.
“……Hhhhhh.”
A longer breath emerged suddenly, and I stopped my thoughts, coming back to myself.
‘What?’
Then I realized I’d been unconsciously drawing the Poison Aura from the boy’s body into myself.
Because of it, the child’s breathing—which had seemed about to shatter—had stabilized enough that he could endure.
I reflexively checked my body’s condition and tried to pull my hand away.
But the boy’s hand followed after mine desperately, like a thirsty traveler grasping for water in an oasis.
“Who… are you…….”
His unfocused, hazy eyes stared directly at me.
In that moment, deep within those dim golden irises, a small flame-like light flickered once.
Then, as his golden eyes settled again, they proved without question that this was Behemoth, a Fantasy Beast of undeniable bloodline—and despite his condition, they revealed the predator within him.
Every time I shifted even slightly, his gaze tracked me.
“I’ll call the Magic Tower Master for you.”
The Magic Tower Master had said clearly that the boy had been unconscious all this time.
This moment, at least, was when he needed to check the child’s condition.
“Don’t go—”
“I’m getting the Magic Tower Master for you.”
I gently pried the boy’s hand away.
* * *
The Magic Tower Master came running at my call and examined the boy’s condition in silence.
Then he turned to look at me with an incomprehensible expression.
“This is quite…”
His eyes—unusually confused—swept over my body thoroughly.
“It’s clear that this poison hasn’t affected you at all.”
“……Yes.”
Still bearing the weight of his furious scolding for recklessly drawing in the Poison Aura, my voice was weak.
“More than unaffected—it’s completely gone.”
The Magic Tower Master’s eyes gleamed with the brightness of someone who’d encountered precious experimental material.
“When you absorbed the poison from the Purification Device, you suffered from its aftereffects. But this time, it vanished without a trace in an instant.”
He explained that there were currently no poison components remaining in my body.
Last time there had been at least a process of detoxifying the absorbed poison, but this time it had vanished in an instant as though I’d been purified.
“Theoretically, you’re no longer merely immune to poison—you’re essentially a living Poison Neutralization itself…….”
The Magic Tower Master looked me over with interest, then suddenly caught himself and spoke with a stern expression.
“That doesn’t mean you should keep absorbing every poison that comes your way.”
“I have no intention of consuming poison except when my work demands it.”
I said flatly.
Poison wasn’t some delicacy, and there’s no reason I’d drink it unless my position as a subject required it.
But when it came to the boy’s condition, my thoughts were somewhat different.
“Then, according to what you’re saying…….”
“Hm…”
“I could treat the child, couldn’t I?”
I hadn’t extracted all the poison with a single contact.
But if I made contact this frequently and expelled all the Poison Aura from his body, then wouldn’t the result be no different from a full cure?
At my words, the Magic Tower Master’s expression grew strange.
It looked worried and twisted, yet somehow also seemed proud.
“That’s strange.”
“What is?”
“Why… I can’t bring myself to approve of you handling poison.”
“But that’s my job…….”
Which was precisely the problem.
The Magic Tower Master fell silent, his words trailing away into a murmur.
* * *
A darkened room.
The man ran his fingers over a crystal orb that rested on the desk, its surface glowing a deep crimson.
It had been carved from a single piece of Red Crystal, stone found only on the Eastern Continent.
―Has the contract been fulfilled?
At the appointed hour, a voice came through the crystal orb—distorted beyond clear recognition.
“She’s already poisoned. I confirmed her heading toward the Poison Magic Tower, but it’s unlikely she succeeded in stopping it.”
―A prototype, but it should be more than sufficient to consume something as small as young Behemoth. I’ll visit within a day or two.
Even through the distortion, satisfaction rang clear in the other’s voice.
―He’ll be pleased. I’ll send the remainder of the payment once her death is confirmed.
“I’ll await word.”
As the man replied, the light emanating from the crystal orb died away.
“Not even a proper goodbye. Arrogant drakes, the lot of them…….”
Irritation gnawing at him, the man lit a cigarette and let curses spill from his lips.
Unknown to him, that ‘young Behemoth’ had—
encountered an unexpected variable named Pipi.

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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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