I Became the Magic Tower Master's Experimental Mouse - Chapter 50

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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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When the two of them screamed as if something were boiling up from within, the room rang with the sound.
Usually they growled at each other, but this time they seemed perfectly aligned.
‘……I absolutely cannot go through with a rise in status.’
Of course, even if I were told to, I wouldn’t particularly want to.
‘The thought of calling Cassian my brother makes my entire body prickle with goosebumps.’
As I shuddered at the thought, the Duchess covered her mouth and burst into delighted laughter.
“Oh, you two. Why are you both jumping about like that? I was only joking, dear—only joking.”
The Duchess wiped the laughter from the corners of her eyes and regarded me with an expression of apparent regret.
“But it’s true—you’re so endearing I’d love to take you with me. Pipi, I shall repay this kindness many times over.”
“I wouldn’t dream of refusing, ma’am.”
After the young Duke, even the Duchess had saved my life—so it was only right that our house owed her a debt of gratitude.
I answered while mimicking Cassian’s arrogant gesture.
The Duchess immediately noticed that I was imitating her son’s manner and burst into laughter once more.
“Cassian, if you don’t move quickly, someone other than your mother will snatch Pipi away from you.”
‘What on earth is she talking about?’
I tilted my head in confusion, but Cassian clenched his fist and fixed me with a piercing, rigid stare.
“Let’s go. I’ll show you something fun.”
Then, in the same coaxing tone he’d used in the carriage, he grabbed my arm and began leading me away.
After Cassian had dragged Pipi away, only Claude and the Duchess remained in the sunroom.
“Are you quite well? You seem lost in thought.”
“……No.”
Claude denied it outright at first in response to the Duchess’s words.
Yet beneath the surface, turbulent waves were indeed stirring within him.
‘Become my child?’
The Duchess’s single phrase refused to leave his mind.
Parent and child.
A relationship he had never once allowed himself to imagine.
He had remained unmarried, and since his younger sister had passed away long ago, he had resolved never again to make room for family in his life.
Employee. Ward. Guardian.
Unable to define her by any of those terms, he had deliberately avoided thinking about it—until an entirely new form of answer appeared before him.
‘Family. Child. Daughter. My own child…….’
They were words so steeped in futurity.
It was utterly mesmerizing, filling his heart with turmoil, and it felt like the perfect puzzle piece he had long been seeking.
A lingering trace of guilt that remained in his heart kept trying to suppress this newly budding emotion, but…….
“Sometimes the fear of losing something becomes the very answer itself.”
The Duchess spoke again to Claude, who sat in silent thought.
“……Does she ever burden you, sir?”
Pipi was an extraordinarily kind and composed child.
Yet for that very reason, she was also the most vexing—for she constantly made him envision the future.
Without understanding his true intentions, the Duchess responded with serene composure.
“How could she? Yet precisely because I wish to glimpse that child’s future and pave that path with these own hands, I raise her.”
“……Ah.”
Claude sighed, for her words seemed to speak for his own heart.
“I fear she will become far too formidable a barrier to our son’s advances, but given how deeply we are indebted to her, I offered the counsel as a means of repaying our debt.”
The Duchess smiled lightly and spoke, then deftly changed the subject.
* * *
On the day we were preparing to depart for the Serpens Marquessate.
Cassian unexpectedly announced he would not be coming with us.
“……I’ll stay here.”
“Pardon? Suddenly?”
I was puzzled, remembering how Cassian had been making all sorts of plans—about cleaning out the Marquess’s residence once we arrived in Serpens, and such.
Had his mind changed now that he was actually home?
As I tilted my head in confusion, Cassian turned his gaze away awkwardly.
“……Mother has only just freed herself from her addiction, after all.”
“……Ah.”
“I want to stay by her side for a while. I’ve been away from home far too long.”
It was an unexpected answer.
I spoke my thoughts aloud in surprise.
“Unexpectedly mature of you, sir.”
“What do you take me for?”
“A gentleman, sir.”
Cassian watched me shrug, his expression growing tight. And yet—it was true that he’d once been impossibly reckless.
Still, seeing his mother fall ill seemed to have matured him. Here was a son who now knew how to care for his own mother.
“You chose wisely. Being at her side—that’s what matters. People always find something to regret later, don’t they?”
“……Isn’t that a bit of an ominous thing to say out of nowhere?”
“I don’t mean the Duchess will pass, sir. It’s only that my grandmother—the woman who raised me—left suddenly one day. If you wait too long, you never learn what regret truly feels like.”
I shook my head gently as I offered the counsel.
Cassian hesitated for a moment, then suddenly gripped my hand tight.
“But listen!”
“Yes?”
“On your way back, you have to stop by again and take me with you. Understood?! If you slip away to the Magic Tower alone, I’ll chase after you!”
His tone was so resolute, as though he were extracting some monumental oath.
“If the Tower Master permits it.”
“Could you just agree to it willingly for once?”
“But the responsibility isn’t mine, is it?”
I couldn’t make a promise I had no authority to keep.
When I answered with another shrug, Cassian pouted his lips like a duck, clearly sulking.
“I suppose I’ll have to get the promise directly from the Tower Master.”
He muttered his complaint, insisting he wouldn’t rest easy with just my word.
* * *
And so I left Cassian in the Marquessate, with only the Tower Master and myself climbing back into the carriage to depart.
But as we drew closer to the Serpens Territory, something about the Tower Master seemed off.
‘He’s come a bit loose, like a screw not quite tight.’
The man who was always composed and unshakeable now seemed unable to find his center, visibly tense.
He drew long breaths at intervals, tapped his leg absently, gnawed at his lip.
‘……What’s waiting for us in the estate?’
Now that I thought about it, the whole thing was strange.
Why had he needed to bring me all the way to his territory at all?
What he’d asked at the Magic Tower hadn’t been a command—it had been a request.
This journey to the estate clearly held profound meaning for him.
I was quietly studying his face when—
“……Pipi.”
After a long silence, the Tower Master spoke first.
I’d noticed recently that he no longer called me his “experiment,” and I nodded, a little tense.
“There’s something I should tell you beforehand.”
He chose his words carefully.
“In the estate…… there are Phillian’s belongings.”
The Tower Master’s voice grew quieter.
“Everything he used and his research materials—it’s all there. I couldn’t bear to keep them at the Magic Tower, so I had it all sent to the estate.”
Then I understood why I had been needed.
When we restored the rooftop garden to its proper state, we’d forged a kind of bond with the person named Phillian.
Before he could face what lay locked away in those boxes, he needed my presence—to draw courage from that connection.
I took his hand without speaking. It was my way of saying I would be at his side, no matter what.
“……Would you mind if I held you for a moment?”
He then opened the arm not holding my hand, making the request.
‘He really is terrified.’
For someone like the Tower Master to ask for an embrace—how profound must his fear be?
I understood that his brother’s death had been a deep wound…… but.
‘Why does the Tower Master fear this so much?’
A family member’s death was an enormous pain, yet he didn’t seem the type to remain tormented by it even after all these years……
At last, the carriage rolled through the gates of the mansion.
The Tower Master’s ancestral home was grand, yet somehow desolate.
It was well-maintained and held a mysterious beauty, but it lacked warmth.
Perhaps it was because the master had abandoned it.
“……It has been long since we’ve seen you, sir.”
An elderly butler greeted us in a trembling voice.
His reddened eyes told me much about the years the Tower Master had been absent.
“……Yes. You’ve been well?”
“I always knew you would return eventually…….”
The Butler bowed deeply before the Master of the Magic Tower, his eyes glistening with emotion.
“Master, who is this young lady?”
“This child is…….”
At the Butler’s question, the Master of the Magic Tower turned to look at me, hesitating for a moment.
“Are you a Mage of the Magic Tower?”
When the Master of the Magic Tower did not answer for some time, the Butler asked again.
“……No. For now, think of me as you would a head of household.”
At his words, my eyes widened in astonishment.
To treat me, a mere commoner, as though I were a noble house-head—it was a courtesy reserved for the most distinguished of guests, and even then it would be strange.
Though his words made no sense, the Butler glanced at our tightly clasped hands and broke into a gentle smile.
“I shall show you inside, Miss.”
“Please call me Pipi.”
“Very well, Pipi.”
The Butler led us into the Mansion.
‘I hope the Master of the Magic Tower might find it easier to face Phillian here.’
Though Phillian is family, he has suffered under the phantom of grief for years, even after death.
I followed the Butler with the Master of the Magic Tower, holding this wish close in my heart.

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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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