I Became the Magic Tower Master's Experimental Mouse - Chapter 26

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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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“Oli, Oli! Come back to me!”
Lili shook him desperately, her voice trembling.
Then Oli’s eyes fluttered open, dim and unfocused.
“……Lili?”
“Oli! Thank the gods—you’re alive!”
Tears welled up in Lili’s large eyes.
She knelt beside him, her voice breaking as she examined his injuries.
His body was a ruin. Blood had dried in streaks across his head and limbs, and his entire frame was mottled with deep bruises.
The club lying scattered on the floor bore the same blood, testament to the violence he’d endured.
Leo fumbled urgently with the ropes binding Oli’s wrists and ankles, trying to free him.
Meanwhile, Lili moved with frantic purpose, gathering splintered wood and broken boards to fashion a makeshift splint, tears streaming down her face.
“How could anyone beat a person like this……!”
Leo’s jaw clenched, but Oli laughed weakly at the sight of his anguish.
“I knew you’d come looking for me…….”
He smiled faintly, his face streaked with dried tears and grime.
“You fool, you should have run and hidden right away!”
Lili scolded him in her usual manner, even as tears spilled down her cheeks.
Oli’s voice wavered as he muttered a response.
“But they said this one was a real professional……. How was I supposed to escape from an Assassin like that…… Wait!”
The moment Oli’s eyes fell on the doorway, all color drained from his face.
The false Oli, dusted with spice, stood in the entrance with a grimace, limping slightly.
‘Oh…….’
It was only then that Lili, overwhelmed by the shock of seeing the real Oli, realized with an inward curse that she’d forgotten to lock the door.
True to his claim of being a real professional, the fake Oli—despite being crushed beneath an impossibly heavy shelf—had suffered only minor injury and had followed them here.
Leo positioned himself and Lili behind the real Oli, shielding them with his body.
“D-don’t come any closer.”
Leo picked up the club from the floor and pointed it at the fake, his voice wavering.
Lili hastily grabbed a broken chair leg from the scattered debris, and the fake let out a cold laugh.
In the next instant, his arm shot out like lightning, sending Leo flying backward.
“Aaah!”
Leo crashed into a pile of chairs stacked against the wall, the impact knocking the wind from his lungs as he fell.
“Leo! N-no…… you monster……!”
Lili threw the chair leg with all her strength, tears streaming freely down her face.
But her trembling hands made her aim terrible, and the leg clattered uselessly to the floor.
“I hope you know something new, at least.”
The fake dropped his timid act entirely, and with casual ease, seized the real Oli by the collar and hoisted him up.
“Talk. Where in the Mage Tower could someone be hidden? A quiet place with few visitors.”
“I—I won’t tell you! I don’t even know anyway!”
Lili cried out, trembling, but the fake struck Oli across the face.
“Gaaah!”
“Oli!”
Lili screamed in horror.
Oli’s cheek, already bruised, swelled further with each blow.
“There must be restricted areas you’re not allowed to enter?”
“I don’t know!”
When Lili cried out again, the fake unleashed a killing intent so palpable it seemed to suffocate the air, and struck Oli’s cheek once more.
“Huuugh……!”
Oli’s body shuddered like paper caught in a gust.
“Stop! Please stop!”
Leo tried to rush forward, but the fake kicked him down again, leaving him powerless to end the assault.
One blow. Then another.
The wound on Oli’s head reopened, blood dripping steadily to the floor.
With each strike, the whimper escaping Oli’s lips grew quieter, fainter.
“……T-the Basement!”
At last, Lili broke, her voice torn from her throat.
Her face flushed crimson from sobbing, she spoke through her tears.
“There’s a restricted zone in the Basement……. It’s always locked…… no one can get in…… Please, please let Oli go……!”
Finally, the fake’s hand stilled.
He drew a small Magical Device from his pocket. When activated, it glowed red, pulsing softly in the darkness.
“……The target is the restricted basement access area.”
The signal flickered once and vanished.
Why on earth would this person want to know about the restricted zone?
Unable to fathom it, Lili’s instincts screamed that crucial information had slipped into the wrong hands. Her body went limp.
* * *
Everything went red.
Following the sound of noise mingled with spice, I finally spotted the four of them.
The moment I emerged from the Snack Research Room, traced their path, and arrived at the decrepit Warehouse, killing intent erupted through me at the sight before my eyes.
Lili’s hair, always neatly tied in twin braids, hung loose and disheveled about her face.
Oli hung limp as a puppet, beaten senseless, eyes shut against the blows.
And Leo sprawled across the floor.
‘Why am I so furious?’
I’d buried the past beneath regression and built a life of peace and quiet, and yet……
“You bastards!”
Even Killian lost his composure and lunged forward.
I didn’t hesitate. I yanked a fork from my pocket and hurled it.
Whish—
The fork cut through the air with a whistle, and lodged itself with a soft thunk directly into the Assassin’s shoulder.
Though I’d thrown a fork instead of a blade, the Knife Throwing Art I’d honed my entire life did not fail me.
“What the—”
The Assassin muttered in confusion.
Then, as pain flooded through him, he tore the fork from where it was embedded above his shoulder blade.
“Arrrgh!”
The fork, driven in with exacting force, was agony to remove. Once he wrenched it free, blood spurted from his shoulder.
The Assassin’s eyes wavered as he stared at the ordinary fork in his hand.
“You……”
He hadn’t considered that the person who threw a fork like a blade was me.
The Assassin’s face twisted with shock. He hurled Oli aside and charged at me.
“Killian!”
Killian yelped in alarm and moved to shield me.
“Get clear! Lili, Leo—take Oli and fall back!”
I slipped smoothly past Killian, whose presence only blocked my line of sight, and drew the other hand from my pocket.
‘Not getting away with this.’
In my pocket lay one more fork—borrowed from the dining hall without permission.
“Hck, hngh!”
Killing someone would mean I could never set foot in the Mage Tower again, so I avoided fatal zones—the throat, the eyes—and aimed for disabling strikes instead……
With cold precision, I threw the second fork at his legs.
“……Ahhhhhhhhh!”
The fork sank in, and the Assassin shrieked.
Realizing his window to escape cleanly was closing, he rolled his eyes desperately, searching for a route.
But before he could limp away, Leo and Killian—rope in hand—threw themselves at him from both sides with all their strength.
Their faces had gone pale as they glanced at me, but they managed to wrestle the Assassin down and bind him.
‘If he’d been a nastier sort, tying him up might’ve gone wrong……’
But he’d already lost the will to fight.
Bleeding freely from his leg and shoulder, wrapped tight in rope, the Assassin stared at me with a ghastly expression.
I knelt and wound the loose rope more firmly, then rushed to Lili and Oli.
“Lili, Oli! Are you both all right?”
“Killian! K-Killian! Waaahhhhh……”
Only after the Assassin was bound did Lili finally give way, her tears flowing freely.
‘The shock must be terrible for a child like her……’
I gripped her small hand firmly.
“W-what do I do…… I…… I gave him the information……”
Lili clung to my hand, sobbing.
“He’s caught now—it’ll be fine. The Master may even acknowledge how dangerous this is……”
Leo tried to comfort Lili while shaking Oli awake.
“……It’s already too late. The message went through.”
The fork still embedded in his leg, the bound Assassin laughed through gritted teeth.
His face twisted in pain and rage, he stared straight at me.
“By now, he’s already reached the Basement.”
A chill ran down my spine. My fists clenched tight.
There was another one besides this fellow?
And what’s more…… their target was Cassian all along!
“Hmm, is that so?”
Then a cool voice cut through the air.
With a ripple of violet mana, the Mage Tower Master appeared at the entrance to the Warehouse.
Teleportation—a skill he rarely used for fear of colliding with Protective Barriers, but the crisis called for it.
In the Mage Tower Master’s grip hung another man, his neck seized, drooping like a sack of grain.
Like the impostor bearing Oli’s appearance, he too wore the robes common to mages.
“You mean this one?”
The sneer faded from the fake’s face.
“He was already captured before you could even send a signal.”
The Mage Tower Master’s voice remained businesslike as always, yet beneath it seethed an anger that had never fully subsided.
While we staged our pursuit, the Mage Tower Master had been tracking the other assassin.
“……How dare you—two insects crawling into my domain.”
“For you to come out personally…….”
“There’s no reason I shouldn’t deal with vermin that burrow into my tower with my own hands.”
The Mage Tower Master’s violet Killing Intent undulated, pressing down on both assassins.
At that, the two exchanged a glance.
“No!”
I caught sight of what was about to unfold and cried out, lunging forward—but this body, stripped of all the muscle from my prime years, couldn’t move as sharply as I willed it.
Still, before I could even stop them, both assassins’ bodies began to crumple.
They’d detonated their suicide poison almost in unison, before the Mage Tower Master’s Killing Intent could even touch them.
‘Of all the—’
I swallowed a sigh and sank slowly to the ground.
Following the Guild’s protocols, they’d killed themselves to keep their identities hidden—but we’d gained nothing in terms of information, and that stung.
“Huh.”
The Mage Tower Master looked down at the two corpses with palpable exasperation, then swept his gaze over all of us.
And his eyes settled on—
“This…… whose handiwork is this?”
—the Fork lodged in a body like a gravestone.

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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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