I Became the Magic Tower Master's Experimental Mouse - Chapter 67

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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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I caught sight of Camilla’s glossy, gleaming eyes and instinctively took a step back.
She advanced with a long stride, pressing her question.
“Have you ever gone into hibernation?”
“Hibernation?”
“You’re a Winter-sleep Beastkin. How long do you sleep in winter?”
I blinked in surprise at how freely Camilla was digging into my personal details, and quickly ducked behind the Tower Master.
“H-how did you know I was a Winter-sleep Beastkin?”
“What do you mean how? I can tell just by looking. I’m a specialist in Beastkin Ecology. You’re not a squirrel, but you have that luxuriant tail.”
“Wow…….”
I let out a small exclamation of wonder, then shrank back when I saw Camilla’s eyes light up.
“Don’t look at the child like that.”
“What business is it of yours?”
Camilla shoved the Tower Master aside and approached me.
The Tower Master was pushed back by the slender Camilla’s strength in an instant, his expression turning irritated.
‘What incredible strength…….’
I marveled quietly while wondering what on earth she was doing, when Camilla grinned and fired questions at me like a volley from a crossbow.
“I’m curious about Winter-sleep Beastkin hibernation. Among hibernating beastkin, they feel the most similar to the Royal lineage—! Hey, would it be all right if I measured how much your body temperature drops when you sleep?”
“I’ve never actually slept long enough to call it true hibernation. In winter, my movements just slow down a bit and my sleep time increases, that’s all.”
“Is that so? Mixed-blood then? If you were pureblooded, you’d hibernate all winter long.”
Camilla tilted her head and muttered.
“Damn. I thought a living specimen had rolled right in on its own two feet.”
“A sp-specimen?”
I shook my head uncomfortably.
The remark did remind me of the Three Elder Mages, but the fact that Camilla wasn’t from our Magic Tower stirred something strange in me. There was something oddly reassuring about the word ‘our’.
“Put such thoughts aside. It’s an impossible thing anyway.”
The Tower Master cut the conversation short and, urging Camilla to give us a tour, grasped her shoulder and spun her toward the doorway.
“Stingy! I’m just curious. I want to research the mechanism by which the body heals during hibernation. It’d be perfect for Core Recovery Research.”
Though I suppose asking the Royal lineage to become experimental subjects would be pushing it…….
In any case, my hypothesis that all mages are research-obsessed lunatics had been proven once again.
“Come along then.”
Camilla guided us to the Tower Master’s private reception room in the Healing Tower.
‘Now that I think about it, the fact that she came to greet us directly…… they must be very close.’
Childhood friends, as the saying goes—and their affectionate bickering proved it.
Just now, she’d even poured me a sweet juice, treating me like a child.
Once we were seated, we opened the lid of the basket that Cassian had been carried in.
“Cassian. Why won’t you come out?”
Cassian glared at Camilla with anxious eyes and refused to emerge from the basket.
In the end, I had no choice but to lift Cassian out myself and place him on the examination table.
“My, he does seem to be in a particularly foul mood today…….”
Cassian climbed onto the examination table in his beast form, draped in a Navy Cape, and settled onto his haunches.
His eyes, full of grievance, fixed firmly on me.
“Oh my. How adorable.”
Camilla’s eyes widened. When she cried out “Adorable!” once more, Cassian’s face turned sullen and he slapped his tail sharply against the examination table.
“Roaarrgh! Grrrrgh!”(I am Behemoth’s heir! Take your hands off!)
Cassian flailed his short front paws desperately, but unfortunately they didn’t reach Camilla.
“What’s he saying?”
“He appreciates the compliments but says to hurry up with the examination.”
“Grrr, grrrreek!”(You liar!)
I exercised the full discretion of a translator to hurry Camilla along.
Camilla stopped laughing and gently laid both hands over Cassian’s body.
Soft, spring-green light flickered over Cassian’s fur like new shoots.
“……Hmm. What’s this? He seems perfectly fine?”
“Right? The cracks in his Core have definitely healed, and his vessel is filling back up, but for some reason he won’t shift from beast form back to human form properly.”
The Tower Master explained to Camilla with a serious expression.
Since I couldn’t even see the flow of mana without a Magical tool, much less the Core itself, this was beyond my understanding.
‘So he’s almost completely healed?’
Then why is he still like this?
I found myself growing worried, gazing at Cassian’s despondent form.
Curled into a round ball on the examination table, Cassian let out a deep, defeated sigh.
“Strange, though……I’ve seen this symptom pattern somewhere before.”
Camilla stroked her chin, murmuring with deep concentration.
“Usually it’s malingering, but no beastkin would deliberately maintain this inconvenient form…….”
“H-hiccup……!”
Cassian, startled, suddenly erupted in hiccups and turned to me in alarm.
“N-no! I’m not faking!”
“Right, of course. You’re certainly not that sort of……person.”
“That s-sort……?!”
I nodded, exonerating Cassian from the accusation.
Yet still he trembled, shock written across his face.
In pain, when crucial bodily functions were needed, or when showing oneself to a companion.
Why would any beastkin needlessly reveal their beast form to strangers?
‘It’s like…… a taboo. Walking naked through the streets.’
Cassian answered flatly and exhaled a long sigh.
“Yeah…….”
“Come now, I trust you, don’t I?”
I patted his back briskly to cheer him up.
Meanwhile, Camilla swept her gaze meaningfully over Cassian’s frame, then smiled and spoke.
“He’ll recover soon. All the indicators point to it!”
“What a relief, Tower Master. Don’t you think?”
I turned to him with a bright smile.
At that, he scrutinized Cassian with a suspicious eye, nodded, then pulled Camilla into a corner of the room and whispered something to her.
‘What are they discussing?’
While I tilted my head in confusion,
the two soon ceased their whispering, and as their voices grew louder, they began quarreling about debts paid and debts unpaid.
* * *
The next morning.
The moment we finished eating, the Tower Master broached his business.
“Prepare yourself to go out.”
“……Again today?”
Somehow my schedule kept falling to pieces…….
Unable to overcome my employer’s stubbornness, I grumbled softly once we reached the Plaza.
“Tower Master, I have a schedule too, you know. Please give me some advance notice.”
The Tower Master, hearing my complaint, faltered briefly, then nodded.
“You’re right. I assumed you naturally enjoyed outings.”
“Well, I do. But an announced outing can be exciting for longer than a sudden one, don’t you think?”
After all, having grown up as an assassin, I don’t favor sudden events. Most assassins tend to be control freaks, anyway.
“I see. I’ll keep your preference in mind.”
The Tower Master nodded with gravity.
“So why did you bring me to this plaza?”
“A walk, and……I have something to do.”
The Tower Master revealed no more than that and began strolling through the Plaza, taking me with him.
I followed at his side with quick steps, and to keep from losing him, I simply grasped his hand.
“……Hmm.”
The moment I took his hand, the Tower Master looked at me with eyes bright with joy for a moment, then squeezed my hand firmly and continued walking.
“But why are you taking a walk all the way out here?”
The Plaza the Tower Master had brought me to wasn’t near the Magic Tower.
We’d ridden in a carriage to the Plaza in the Townhouse District, where many nobles lived.
“……Well, for a noble to conduct adequate socializing, this is an ideal place.”
“Socializing?”
“If I establish some light acquaintances here, invitations come more easily.”
“Invitations from whom?”
“……The elderly members of the Nobility Chamber’s legal division.”
The Tower Master explained no further.
Was he plotting something?
‘Come to think of it, he’s been looking up legal documents constantly…….’
The Tower Master walked beside me with an awkward expression, muttering to himself.
“No matter how I look at it, bringing me along will only make invitations harder to come by…….”
At my words, the Tower Master flinched as if I’d struck a nerve, then averted his gaze in embarrassment.
‘Huh?’
A scent brushed the tip of his nose, and his steps came to an abrupt halt.
He’d caught this smell before, he was certain of it.
Reflexively, he turned his head—and spotted a maidservant some distance away.
‘Who…?’
He narrowed his eyes, watching as she turned toward them and took her place naturally at the Tower Master’s side.
“My apologies, sir. My mistress mentioned she’d lost a handkerchief here.”
“Do as you wish.”
The Tower Master, who had been standing near the flower beds, stepped aside to make room for the maidservant.
‘…That doesn’t feel like a maidservant.’
The way she moved was suspicious, and judging by the scent…
“The transaction records are longer than expected. The Eastern Continent Route you requested will require additional compensation for time and hazard pay.”
“No matter.”
…Of course!
Hearing her voice, memory clicked into place.
It was unmistakably Emily from the Information Guild—the one who’d infiltrated the Magic Tower last time.
He’d nearly spoken up in surprise, but not wanting to interfere with her work, he deliberately turned away.
‘Ah, that explains it! The Tower Master’s collecting information from the guild.’
I nodded to myself in understanding.
Picking up the handkerchief, Emily bowed at the waist like a true servant and backed away in quick, graceful steps before disappearing from sight.
‘Hmm, that work does seem rather interesting.’
If I were older and hadn’t come to the Magic Tower, it might have been a profession suited to me.
“Shall we head back now?”
“Not yet. Wait a moment.”
Though his business was finished, the Tower Master lingered, circling the area restlessly.
Then, far off across the plaza, an ornate carriage came to a stop.
The Tower Master’s shoulders tensed ever so slightly.
‘…Is that carriage the target?’

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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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