I Became the Magic Tower Master's Experimental Mouse - Chapter 56

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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 bound for Serpens Manor was thick with our sweat and heat.
The Tower Master, burning from channeling far too much power, kept Kasian cradled on his lap without letting his hands slip for a single moment.
Even as the carriage lurched and swayed at top speed, his fingertips remained steady and sure.
‘Just hold on a little longer.’
I braced myself hard in case he stumbled, ready to catch him the instant he faltered.
I looked down at Kasian, transformed into the shape of a small Phantasmal Beast.
As I watched the silver scales grow progressively dull and ashen, anxiety crept over me.
‘I don’t want to watch you die.’
This precious friend—the one who first made me feel that I could save a human life.
Somewhere along the way, I had come to think of Kasian as a friend.
I had held and touched dying people before, but never once had I felt this way.
I was gripped by an unbearable terror that this small body’s warmth might grow cold.
‘…I’ll save you. No matter what it takes.’
Fortunately, Serpens Manor was truly close.
The moment the carriage stopped before the manor, the Tower Master leaped out with Kasian in his arms.
“M-Master?”
The Butler came rushing out in shock at his master’s abrupt return. Of course he was startled—the master had left only moments ago.
“Open Phillian’s Room. Activate the Purification Device.”
The Tower Master’s orders were clipped and final.
He sealed everyone’s lips and sent them all away.
“Pipi, gather the reagents. While you’re at it, detoxify Kasian in Phillian’s Room.”
“Yes, I’ll take care of it!”
I took Kasian from him and ran straight to Phillian’s Room.
‘Where is it…?’
After laying Kasian on Phillian’s bed, I continued the Detoxification, my hands on his small feet.
‘This isn’t working.’
I’d thought that when the Purification Device started running, the increased detoxification would throw things off balance, but it wasn’t happening that way.
Fresh poison kept welling up at precisely the rate the Purification Device was drawing it out.
‘…No. The Tower Master will find a way through this.’
I pushed down the rising anxiety and focused only on detoxifying until he returned.
Then the Tower Master appeared, pulling a cart laden with all manner of reagents and Magical Tools he’d gathered while sweeping through the Storage Room.
‘Ah…!’
What a relief.
Seeing the Tower Master’s expression, I felt reassured. The moment he had everything within reach, the precarious strain melted from his face.
“Pipi.”
“Yes!”
“I’ll show you how from here on.”
The Tower Master poured several bottles of Mana Potion into one glass and drank it all at once, then spoke with his brow furrowed.
He placed a hand over Kasian’s chest.
“What you’ve been doing up until now was a somewhat primitive method.”
“…A primitive method?”
“Yes. You were inhaling the Toxic Energy seeping out to the surface and purifying it by drawing it in that way.”
That was indeed the method I knew.
As I nodded, the Tower Master fitted a small Magical Tool onto my wrist.
“What is this…?”
“A Magical Tool that lets you sense Mana. It’s used for basic training, so it should work on you as well.”
Then, with a click, he activated the device and my vision changed.
I gasped, my eyes wide, as I discovered the flow of Mana continually being generated within the Tower Master’s body.
That Mana was being relentlessly pushed into Kasian’s body.
“Could that be… his Core?”
I asked after noticing the Mana hovering around a specific point within Kasian’s form.
The Tower Master nodded with a pleased expression, as if impressed.
“Exactly. That’s it. His Core was damaged earlier, so Toxic Energy seeped in. We need to draw the Toxic Energy out from inside the Core.”
The Toxic Energy would continue to damage the Core, so we had to act as quickly as possible.
Even if Bedel would handle the complete Detoxification later, the crucial task right now was to stabilize the Core with emergency treatment.
“…Do you think I can do it?”
I had never attempted work that required drawing Toxic Energy from a specific area with such precision.
‘What if I make a mistake and something goes wrong?’
Then the Tower Master looked directly at me and answered.
“Of course. You can do this. You’re my test subject, after all.”
Did the Tower Master know that I felt reassured every time he called me his ‘test subject’? He’d called me Pipi for a while there.
I steeled myself and placed my hands on Kasian’s body alongside the Tower Master.
‘……So this is the Core.’
Following the Tower Master’s mana as I traced the poisonous energy was deeply mysterious.
As I ventured deeper along the path he had opened, I felt something weighty thrumming steadily.
‘All I have to do is draw out what’s trapped in that gap.’
I sharpened my senses and aimed at the poison gnawing at Kasian’s Core in one decisive stroke.
I extended the power of Detoxification toward its roots, deep into the Core.
That was the moment.
Thump—
‘……What?’
An unfamiliar resonance arose from deep within my chest.
It was as though something far below in my body was vibrating.
‘What is this?’
I hesitated for a moment at a sensation I had never felt before.
But before I could dwell on that confusion, the Tower Master urged me forward.
“Hurry! If the Detoxification is too slow, the poisonous energy from outside might actually get drawn in faster!”
The Tower Master had created a slight gap in the barrier of mana that protected the Core for my sake.
I reasoned that the strange sensation I’d just felt must have come from first touching the Phantasmal Beast’s Core, and I poured all my Detoxification power into the task.
‘……Wait?’
The Detoxification force flowing from my fingertips suddenly became stronger than I’d anticipated.
As I extracted the poison embedded in the Core with a power incomparably more intense than anything before, the toxin began to gradually separate from the Core.
‘……This is strange. Why am I not tiring?’
I had already expended considerable power today.
Unlike the Tower Master, who had drunk Mana Potions, my abilities came from an unknown source, so I couldn’t exactly use potions myself.
Yet I felt filled with strength in a way that was strangely unfamiliar.
“It’s working. The poison is separating from the Core……!”
For the first time, a faint tremor of emotion colored the Tower Master’s voice. He must have been anxious too.
His words jolted me alert, and I stopped my wandering thoughts, drawing on even more strength.
‘How much time has passed?’
When we arrived at the manor it was night, so the surroundings should have been dark, yet strangely it felt bright.
Only then did I glance out the window and realize the world around us had grown light.
‘……This can’t be real.’
I, who could barely endure about eight minutes at a time, had now lasted through the entire night with a strength whose source I couldn’t fathom.
“Are you holding up?”
The Tower Master looked at me and asked.
Empty potion bottles with their caps removed lay scattered around him.
“I left you alone since you didn’t show the usual signs of fatigue…….”
The Tower Master muttered while looking at me with an expression of bewilderment.
“……The power of friendship must truly be remarkable.”
No matter how I thought about it, the only explanation I could come up with was that I’d drawn on my last reserves of strength out of friendship for Kasian.
“Nothing else is coming from the Core anymore…….”
“We’ve expelled all the poison that was inside it. You did well.”
The Tower Master gave me a gentle nod of acknowledgment.
Only then did I notice my entire body felt as heavy as cotton soaked in water, and I sagged slightly.
As I released my grip on Kasian’s foreleg, I could feel my bodily state more clearly.
‘There is fatigue, but…….’
The sensation that usually came just before I collapsed was absent—I merely felt the way one does from lack of sleep, my body depleted from exhaustion.
“Is he going to be all right?”
I hurried to examine Kasian.
His scales, which had been dull, were gradually returning to their silvery sheen. While they didn’t shine with brilliant clarity, I could sense that he had passed the critical danger.
His small body rose and fell gently with each breath, his plump belly expanding and contracting in rhythm.
“His breathing has stabilized……!”
Once I felt reassured, the Tower Master nodded in agreement.
“Since the Core took considerable damage, he’ll have to remain in this form for now. It will take time for him to recover.”
“But…… he’s alive, isn’t he? Right?”
I asked, my voice trembling.
As I looked at the Tower Master with desperate eyes, he nodded.
“Yes. Thanks to the quick emergency treatment.”
The Tower Master said that once Bedel arrived, he would analyze Kasian’s poison and use an Awakening Poison to draw his consciousness back, ending this strange catatonic state once and for all.
He continued laying out the plan to reassure me.
But I could sense it anyway.
‘Kasian will survive.’

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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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