I Became the Magic Tower Master's Experimental Mouse - Chapter 38

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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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The carriage rolled smoothly down the road.
It was my first outing since arriving at the Magic Tower.
“The season was different when I first came to the Tower…….”
I murmured, gazing out through the carriage window.
At that, Cassian tilted his head.
“What? You’ve been at the Magic Tower less than a year?”
“Um…… yes? Since you were at the Magic Tower before me.”
“What, I was tricked.”
Cassian sat beside the Tower Master with a derisive smirk, eyeing him pointedly.
“So it was just a trivial relationship?”
At that, the Tower Master’s fingertips twitched with displeasure as he sat with folded arms and closed eyes.
He half-opened his eyes and glared at Cassian steadily.
“I never managed to dress the young master as I wished, but the lab rat wears the Magic Tower Robe. That’s how affiliation is shown.”
Then Cassian wiped away his sneer and trembled as he glared at the Tower Master.
“I’m also wearing the Hair Ribbon you gave me?”
“The coverage is different…… well, believe what you want.”
I honestly couldn’t understand why, after such a successful detoxification, they remained so poorly disposed toward each other.
Though admittedly, it was mostly Cassian who initiated the needling.
“Where is your family home originally?”
“Beyond the outskirts of the Imperial Capital. I took a ride on a carriage to get here so I could work at the Magic Tower.”
“Ah…… and your family? I should pay my respects.”
He seemed delighted to have reason to be grateful to my family as well.
I answered with a smile.
“I’m an orphan. The grandmother who picked me up from the street has passed away.”
“……Oh.”
For a moment, Cassian’s expression shifted to startlement as he studied my face.
He seemed so surprised that his eyes rolled around visibly.
The Tower Master, who knew my circumstances, clicked his tongue softly, but I didn’t feel offended.
I knew Cassian wasn’t asking to deliberately torment me.
“So, the introductions are done. Now the only person preventing us from living at our house is that person.”
He glared at the Tower Master as he muttered.
“One must learn to abandon what cannot be, young master.”
The Tower Master lifted his chin as he replied.
Watching the Tower Master respond seriously to a nine-year-old’s provocation made me sigh involuntarily.
“Please don’t keep needling the Tower Master.”
I supposed I had to side with my employer.
As I tried to dissuade him with that thought, Cassian’s lips pouted and he stared at me menacingly.
‘Ah, here comes the backlash.’
I hurriedly turned my gaze toward the window.
The carriage had traveled quite far by now, and the surroundings had transformed entirely.
The paving stones beneath grew steadily denser and whiter.
The scenery of the streets was truly beautiful—a sign that people maintained it constantly.
‘……I’ve only ever come here at night.’
This was the district where the townhouses of the nobility clustered.
As a commoner, I had no reason to come here except when on a request.
“Wow…… is that a park?”
We were passing by the edge of a rather spacious forest park.
I gazed in amazement at the endless park walls.
“Oh, look. We’re almost there?”
“Huh?”
Following my gaze out the window, Cassian murmured casually.
“This is our house’s garden. See the pattern on those bricks?”
Indeed, the Behemoth emblem was subtly carved into the wall bricks.
What I had taken for a park was actually the garden of the Behemoth Ducal House.
In the prime location of the Imperial Capital, there existed a townhouse with a garden so vast it felt like a public park.
It was proof of the ducal house’s power and wealth.
‘What on earth…….’
Soon the carriage passed through the main gate and stopped at the entrance to the residence.
The moment I stepped out and looked up, my jaw fell open without thinking.
‘Calling this a mansion instead of a palace doesn’t make any sense.’
Growing up in a place like this was bound to make her temperamental.
I caught myself glancing sideways at Cassian and bit back a smile.
* * *
The moment we arrived at the familiar estate, the master of the house complained that Cassian was only just now showing up, then whisked him away to the servants.
Soon after, we stepped into the Banquet Hall.
“Goodness.”
I gasped at the sight of the enormous crystal chandelier and the beautiful fresh flowers adorning the space.
The scent of blooms was so vivid it was hard to tell whether this was a ballroom or a flower shop.
‘So this is how wealthy people throw parties…….’
If the goal was to enjoy the fragrance of flowers, they might as well have gone to an actual garden.
Still, surrounded by exquisite decorations and nobility dressed in gowns and formal wear worth the price of a small castle, the eye candy was more than sufficient.
Through the crowd, the Tower Master walked in with unhurried grace, a deep emerald Magic Tower Robe worn over his black uniform.
I kept pace just behind him in a matching green robe, careful not to lose sight of him.
“Well.”
The Tower Master let out a small sigh.
“Quite the crowd. It seems all the nobility of the Imperial Capital has gathered here.”
He extended a hand toward me.
“Will you take it?”
“Yes. I’d hate to lose you in this throng.”
With tables towering well above my head and surrounded by adults, I’d certainly lose him in an instant if I let my attention slip.
I nodded and stretched out my hand to grasp his.
In that moment, every eye in the hall turned toward me at once.
‘……What, what is this? Why are they all staring?’
Startled by the sudden attention, I flinched and gripped the hem of my robe tightly. I had the distinct feeling I didn’t belong in a place like this.
In a room where I’d have no trouble hitting a wine glass held by a nobleman from across the distance, if that were my task—there would be no nerves at all. But this……
“That jewel is the one that Lady…… was after…….”
“That one went for quite a sum at the auction…….”
“I heard someone saw Madame Shaylep’s atelier making a child’s robe…….”
I caught snatches of whispered conversation from people watching me.
‘A jewel?’
I glanced down at the brooch fastened to my chest.
The jewel on the robe the Tower Master had prepared seemed small enough, and I’d thought it was merely pretty the way it glimmered with transparent clarity.
‘Could it be something significant……?’
A sense of foreboding crept over me, but somehow I didn’t want to acknowledge it.
If it became too burdensome, I might never wear the robe again, and that would be a disaster.
But the real trouble came next.
The Behemoth Duke himself emerged from the center of the hall.
“Ah, you’ve finally come, Tower Master. I welcome your visit most sincerely.”
“Thank you for the warm welcome, Duke Behemoth.”
The Tower Master bowed respectfully as he offered his greeting.
The Duke then extended his own hand and grasped mine firmly.
“And the dear little benefactor who saved my son’s life has come as well. I’m deeply grateful you could make it.”
One of the Empire’s most distinguished nobles was making eye contact with me, calling me his benefactor, and holding my hand.
The Banquet Hall erupted in commotion.
“Didn’t she wear a Protective Emblem? I thought it would have suited her outfit nicely.”
“That’s…….”
I fidgeted with my fingers and blinked.
The more the Duke treated me as a benefactor, the more the weight of it pressed down on me.
‘I’m just a commoner child!’
Given that my profession demanded discretion above all else, the more eyes fixed upon me, the more uncomfortable I felt in my own skin.
The Tower Master gently extracted his hand from the Duke’s grasp in a way that wouldn’t seem rude, and answered in his stead.
“This is my child’s first appearance in society. It would be improper for her to bear the symbol of another house.”
The commotion in the Banquet Hall grew louder still.
“……Is the Duke really saying that?”
“A Protective Emblem, you say? Has anyone of this generation actually received one?”
“Who in the world is this child?”
The whispers rippled through the crowd like waves, and soon an absurd rumor took root.
“Could it be…… the daughter that Marquis Serpens has been hiding away all this time? Since he’s unmarried, keeping her concealed…….”
“There’s no other way it could be—not if these two are treating her with such reverence.”
“Now that I look closer, there’s something uncommonly dignified about him…….”
It was nonsense.
I caught the moment Serpens seemed to gesture toward the Tower Master, and my stomach dropped.
‘……Dignified, my foot.’
I was just a laborer who’d worked hard to care for a dying child for a thousand gold pieces, and yet somehow I’d become the Tower Master’s secret bloodline.
‘Unmarried? But if I block his marriage prospects, what then……!’
I looked up at the Tower Master, utterly exasperated.
But the Tower Master didn’t seem inclined to correct that absurd misunderstanding.
Instead, with an oddly upturned mouth, he simply drew my shoulder toward him as if we were close.
‘……No, please clarify this!’
Was this man using me as a shield because he didn’t intend to marry?
The same person who’d flatly said I wasn’t his daughter at the Magic Tower company dinner — why isn’t he denying it now?
“Pipi!”
And it was Cassian who poured water into the roaring flame.
Cassian, dressed in dazzlingly formal attire befitting a minor prince, rushed toward me with a bright face and swiftly claimed the space on the opposite side from the Tower Master.
On Cassian’s chest hung a Jewel Brooch the same color as the Hair Ribbon tied in my hair.
“Could it be that the major announcement today……?”
Someone murmured, glancing back and forth between Cassian and me.
Soon the Banquet Hall erupted into a clamor.
* * *
Meanwhile, in a corner of the Banquet Hall.
In Young stood holding a wine glass, watching Pipi from afar for a long while.
‘……I thought things were proceeding well.’
It was a poison even the great Tower Master couldn’t cure.
Cassian was certainly dying slowly.
Yet the moment I saw Cassian appear one day with a perfectly sound face, something twisted inside me.
‘That child she calls her benefactor…… could her appearance truly be mere coincidence?’
Whether it was mere chance or an unforeseen variable he hadn’t accounted for.
He felt the need to investigate once more, his gaze clinging tenaciously to Pipi.
Beyond the crimson liquid in his wine glass, Pipi wavered as if stained in blood.

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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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