I Became the Magic Tower Master's Experimental Mouse - Chapter 75

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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 moment Liz saw me, she thrashed against her captors with desperate fury.
Even as the men pinned her shoulders, pressing their weight down on her bound arms, she screamed something through her gag—over and over.
I couldn’t make out the words clearly, but her eyes told me everything I needed to know.
Run. Pipi, run.
Here she was, trussed up and dragged away herself, and all she could say was that.
‘……It’s because I let my guard down.’
I should have sensed it the moment I came face to face with Deari. There was no way she’d simply let Liz go.
It had all been a careful sequence to separate us, to gather us quietly without resistance.
I knew all too well how cruel these people could become when it suited them.
‘I was careless.’
A hot surge of emotion rose in my chest, but I forced it down.
To show anger here, now, would be the worst possible move.
I had to stay exactly as I appeared—a helpless six-year-old.
“L-Liz……! You said Liz went home!”
I asked the question with a trembling voice.
At that, my teacher said “Quiet,” and shoved Liz toward me before waving the men upstairs.
Then she stood beside Liz, holding a glass bottle up to the lamplight.
A black liquid sloshed slowly inside.
“I asked you before. Whether you were there when the Tower Master used Detoxification.”
“I-I really didn’t see anything…….”
“Right. Whether you’re lying or not doesn’t actually matter.”
She removed Liz’s gag herself.
“What matters is what you can do.”
“Pipi! Run! Don’t worry about me-”
The instant the gag came free, Liz screamed.
My teacher immediately poured the liquid from the bottle into that mouth. It happened without warning.
“Ugh……! Hack, cough……!”
“No……!”
A cry tore from my throat unbidden.
My fists clenched so hard my nails bit into my palms.
While my teacher and Deari were focused on Liz, I glanced down at my own neck.
Through the gaps between the buttons, I could see the gem of the necklace flickering.
‘It’s real. It’s really poison…….’
I hunched over, shielding my chest, despair washing over me.
“What you just swallowed is Scorpion Venom. Your blood vessels will rupture within an hour.”
Unfortunately, Liz seemed to recognize what poison she had ingested.
She looked at me with eyes brimming with tears and nodded slowly. My teacher had spoken the truth.
“And I have no Antidote for you.”
“Why, why in God’s name……!”
“Fix it.”
As I clawed at my hair and screamed, my teacher smiled brightly and spoke. Her voice was almost cheerful.
“I-I can’t do that! I’m not a mage!”
“Then this woman will die.”
Without a trace of regret, my teacher nodded and rose from her seat.
‘……One hour.’
I wept silently, my eyes vacant.
Cassian’s poison—the very toxin the Tower Master alone could not cure.
My teacher was testing whether it was I who had somehow detoxified it when I first appeared at the Magic Tower.
‘If I solve this……then I…….’
My teacher would never let me go.
For the sake of the Assassin Guild’s conspiracy, she would have to eliminate the problem-solver.
“Pipi…… don’t agonize.”
Liz shook her head, her face ashen.
“It’s hopeless…… This can’t be solved without an Antidote. So this is just…… a way to torment you.”
Her voice was strangely calm.
Only her pallid face proved that her serene tone now was nothing but a mask.
“I’m fine. This is all my fault anyway…… Don’t suffer. Please…… please just make it out alive.”
Liz had no idea I possessed Detoxification. To her, death was now a certainty.
That in her final moments, with her last shred of strength, she would reach not for her own salvation but to ease my guilt—it was almost unbearable.
“Deari, I’ll be upstairs. Keep watch and report back in an hour.”
“Yes, understood.”
The Tower Master left, entrusting Deari with the watch.
Liz stared at Deari as though she might kill her.
“Mari…… no, Deari……?”
Her eyes burned with hatred for someone who had lied about even her name.
Deari gave a slight shrug.
“I don’t have any personal grudge against you. This is just my job.”
Liz ground her teeth together.
“Just—please let Pip go. She’s far too young to die here!”
‘Liz…….’
I felt something bitter in my chest watching her struggle to save me. Liz, too, was far too young to die in this place.
And more than that…….
‘They’ll never just let me go.’
This wasn’t some back-alley gang—it was a nest of assassins. The idea that they’d release me out of goodwill was absurd.
Liz’s face grew paler, taking on a sickly blue tinge.
‘Is there any way to save her while keeping my ability hidden……?’
If my power fell into the hands of villains, there was no telling what would happen.
But no matter how hard I racked my brain, a solution wouldn’t come.
‘……Liz’s life matters more than keeping secrets.’
I fixed my gaze on Deari’s back—the source of all this.
She had turned her full attention to Liz, her back completely to me.
‘Wait. If I attack her now while she can’t see it, then detoxify……?’
Resentment was plain on Liz’s face too, and I wanted nothing more than to pay her back for this.
‘Now that the master is gone, this might be our only chance to escape.’
At the very least, Liz had seen the upper levels—maybe we could work together to find a way out……?
‘What can I attack with?’
I turned the problem over in my mind, careful not to let any bloodlust leak out.
If there was a loud noise, the upper levels might detect something amiss. I had to be as quiet as possible.
‘And Liz doesn’t have much time.’
I looked straight at Liz and mouthed the words “get angry.”
A flicker of confusion crossed her eyes as she met my gaze.
But then—
“You awful woman! I should never have trusted you as a friend!”
“Hmm, well…….”
As Deari shrugged, I worked the loose rope around my wrists free.
Then, with a twinge of guilt, I pried the gem from the necklace.
The sound of the necklace snapping was swallowed by Liz’s sharp cry.
‘Forgive me for breaking your gift, Tower Master.’
The gem was glowing faintly now, still sensing the poison nearby.
It had a pointed base, and was wrapped in vine-like metal that made it easy to scratch something—a shape that was, in its own way, quite useful.
‘……in one motion.’
I rose soundlessly.
“Ugh, shut up already. Be quiet.”
Deari’s patience finally snapped at Liz’s continuing curses. She bent down and grabbed Liz by the hair.
Her hand raised, ready to slap her face a few times as a warning.
‘……now!’
I crouched low, gathering my strength, then sprang up onto her back and drove the gem straight into the base of her skull.
I had sworn never to hurt anyone again, but…….
‘Hurting something worse than a beast—there’s no helping that.’
Losing someone precious because I kept a promise wasn’t worth the cost.
“Gahhh……!”
Deari’s body seized up in an instant, and a strangled wheeze escaped her lips.
I didn’t let the moment slip. I clung to her neck, determined to knock her unconscious.
‘Even a skilled assassin can’t withstand a blow to a vital point.’
That was the thought running through my mind.
Then came a sound like a sword unsheathing—
Fire bloomed across my vision.
Acrid poison smoke filled my lungs, and I felt something cold slash through flesh and muscle on my back with vivid, unmistakable clarity.
The moment my cheek hit the floor and I rolled my eyes upward to look—
I felt malevolent eyes bearing down on me from above.
Peep, peep…! No, please…!
And from far away, I heard someone calling my name.
‘…Who?’
Who was it? Who was calling me with such desperate urgency?
The moment that thought surfaced—
Bang!
A headache like the stroke of an axe slammed the door of memory shut.
When my senses returned, I was on my back with Deari cradled in my arms.
“…Peep! Peep! Are you awake?!”
Liz was leaning over me, calling my name with desperate urgency.
‘It was Liz’s voice?’
I found myself breathing hard, staring down at Deari collapsed on the floor.
Through sheer stubbornness during the hallucination, I’d choked her until she fell completely unconscious.
I picked up the gag that had been silencing Liz until moments before and shoved it into Deari’s mouth.
I made sure to bind her tightly with the rope scattered nearby as well.
‘That was…incredibly fortunate.’
If I’d had to face Deari head-on, I never could have hoped for such luck.
Now I had to detoxify Liz quickly and find a way to escape.
“Peep, you did well. Now hurry and run. There are two men upstairs and that woman from before, but somehow…”
Even as Liz rambled through her agony, trying to push me away, I placed my finger against her lips.
And I gripped her hand tightly.
“Liz. I promise I’ll save you.”
We had to escape together.

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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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