I Became the Magic Tower Master's Experimental Mouse - Chapter 79

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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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……A daughter?
Family had never appeared anywhere on the list of outcomes I’d imagined.
I’d never had one, so I couldn’t even conceive of it.
Grandmother had raised me, but she’d never formally adopted me.
So family was, to me, a word that might as well not exist…….
‘What am I supposed to say?’
Refusing is simple. When the Duke’s Residence made its proposal, I didn’t hesitate for even a second.
But why can’t I refuse now, just like that?
“Pipi, you……why did you escape on your own? It must have been dangerous.”
“That’s…….”
“Did you think the Magic Tower wouldn’t look for you?”
I shook my head. Surely I’d thought that if I failed in my escape, the Magic Tower might come searching for me.
But the Tower Master didn’t believe my words.
“You wouldn’t possibly think that if worst came to worst, you might not be discovered, so the Tower might not search for you forever, so you might as well try to escape……you’re certain you didn’t harbor any such thought at all?”
At his words, my head froze mid-shake, my body stiffening awkwardly.
‘It’s not that I thought he’d search for me forever…….’
I’d already tested that hope before the Regression.
The Imperial Guard would find me—surely the neighbors had reported me, and I could leave this Underground Cave.
That hope shattered around six months into my time in the cave. If I didn’t abandon it, my mind would break first, and I’d die.
‘Is that why I tried to escape on my own?’
Because handling things myself, because situations where no one comes to find me, had become so familiar?
“When someone asks about you, I want to say you’re my daughter, and if you fall ill, I want to be the kind of person who runs to you without hesitation, no matter the distance.”
I was suddenly terrified.
That I couldn’t spit out the words—that I’m doing fine on my own, that it doesn’t matter if no one comes looking for me.
‘Do I want to take this hand?’
I stood frozen, clutching the documents, then hurriedly loosened my grip for fear the paper would wrinkle.
“……I.”
My voice cracked strangely.
Was I managing to keep up my usual calm expression? I hoped I was.
Only after clearing my throat several times could I continue.
“Could you give me some……time to think?”
For the first time in my life, I—who could handle anything in a crisis—postponed my answer.
“Of course. Take as long as you need.”
The Tower Master didn’t press me. He took the documents back from my hand, placed them in an envelope, and spoke.
“I’ll leave them on my desk until you answer. There’s no deadline, so think it over thoroughly.”
* * *
With my heart in turmoil and nothing holding my attention, I decided to start a new task.
‘I can’t leave Liz like this.’
Even after the Tower Master returned, Liz still hadn’t left the Magic Tower.
Worried that her condition might become fixed, I requested permission for an outing from the Tower Master.
Of course, it was difficult for just the two of us to go after everything we’d been through, so the condition was that a newly hired escort would follow us at a distance.
“You’re really going?”
“Of course. I’m going too.”
The trauma wasn’t limited to Liz. Cassian had become even less willing to leave my side than before.
The only time he ever separated from me was when he practiced Swordsmanship.
And even then, I had to make sure to open the window wide so Cassian could see me.
In any case, Cassian and I were going out today. Liz was the protagonist of the day, so her participation was mandatory.
“……Do I really have to go?”
“Yes. Would you send me alone otherwise?”
“Isn’t the young lord going with us too……?”
Standing in front of the door, Liz pouted at me for a moment.
I shook my head firmly and whispered, “Think of me as a ghost.”
“I really, really want bread, but I’m too scared to go alone.”
With a face that showed no fear whatsoever, I threw a tantrum at Liz.
At that, Liz nodded visibly, trembling like a leaf.
“O-okay. Let’s go…….”
The moment Liz took my hand, my body began to tremble like an aspen as well.
Swaying like a pinwheel, I squeezed the hand clasped with Liz’s tightly.
“……Eek!”
Liz yelped as she stumbled through the gate without warning. She’d barely gotten one foot outside before trembling visibly, as if seized by cold dread.
“Aaah!”
I screamed even louder than she did and collapsed to the ground.
Liz, startled far more than before, stopped shaking and turned to look at me with concern.
“P-Pipi. Are you alright? What’s wrong?”
“I was just scared for a moment…”
Since I’d warned Cassian about this beforehand, he made no fuss and simply stood quietly beside me.
‘Good. Just as I thought.’
If Liz panics, I need to panic ten times louder—like a fanfare blaring out.
Today my goal was to exaggerate her reactions tenfold and mirror them back.
“S-should we go back inside?”
Startled enough to forget her fear, Liz hauled me to my feet.
“No way! I absolutely have to buy the limited chocolate bread they only sell today!”
I whined and grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the bakery with exaggerated determination.
Whenever it seemed like Liz was about to remember her fear again, I’d let out another shriek and twist my whole body.
By the time I’d repeated this enough, we were standing right in front of the bakery.
“H-ha… huff…”
Seeing the bakery sign, Liz seemed to remember the moment of her kidnapping, and her breathing grew ragged with tension again.
‘Now’s my chance!’
I glanced at Cassian.
“Hey! You’d better buy me five chocolate breads, or I’ll be mad!”
Cassian spoke in a reluctant, mechanical tone.
He was such a terrible actor that even the escorting knight following behind him had his shoulders trembling with barely suppressed laughter.
But seeing someone who wasn’t there that day suddenly speaking with such commotion seemed to break Liz’s tension. She nodded with a softer expression on her face.
We surrounded the brave Liz and entered the bakery together.
She froze for a moment in the doorway, but this time she didn’t tremble—she walked in on her own two feet.
“Chocolate bread!”
I let go of Liz’s hand and bustled cheerfully around the bakery.
Then Liz stopped at a point where she could see me well, and picked out a salt bread.
After choosing bread to give to everyone, we stepped outside and divided the salt bread into three equal portions to share.
“…It really wasn’t such a big deal after all.”
Liz smiled brightly after finishing her salt bread.
‘I can push through this.’
I smiled with quiet satisfaction.
* * *
Back in my room, I sat on the bed, hesitating for a moment.
Now that Liz’s problem was resolved, my own problems came rushing back, pricking at my mind relentlessly.
One was the bombshell the Tower Master had dropped.
The other was the dreams I’d been having every night—which, come to think of it, weren’t entirely unrelated to what the Tower Master had said.
‘Am I cursed?’
I was starting to believe the Tower Master really had cursed me.
Just as he’d said, something had gone wrong with me when I thought everything was fine.
‘A problem of the heart, of all things—what kind of absurdity is this?’
After having nightmares every day, and then hearing from the Tower Master that “your heart must be wounded,” I began to remember those nightmares with perfect clarity.
Every night, I dreamed.
The Underground Cave reeking of soil. The ladder rising, the ceiling closing shut.
‘I like you. I’ll raise you.’
And the image of my master saying such things with a smile, then piercing my body with a dagger.
The moment I heard that voice, my eyes would snap open without fail. My entire body would be drenched in cold sweat, so much so that I’d have to bathe again at dawn.
‘…I’m fine. I got away this time.’
I’m in the Magic Tower now. I’m safe.
But the words my master had spoken as she left—’let’s see each other again next time’—kept ringing in my ears.
No matter how I looked at it, she was clearly taking an interest in me. It was attention I didn’t want in the slightest.
“This is infuriating…”
She was one of the people who had destroyed my life before the Regression, and yet with the Regression, all of that was erased as if it never happened.
She probably has no idea how much I despise her.
The fact that only I remember those days in the Underground Cave and the Guild Training Ground was making me furious in a way I couldn’t help.
‘Ugh…’
If I just didn’t have these nightmares, I wouldn’t need to keep dwelling on this bitterness.
Since this was the one thing I couldn’t control, I truly did feel like I was under the Tower Master’s curse.
But it wasn’t as though things were fine before sleep either.
“A daughter…… I would become a…… ugh.”
My head felt ready to burst, consumed by thoughts of adoption all the way until sleep claimed me.
‘I can’t find the words.’
Every time I tried to rehearse an answer, nothing came out.
My chest only tightened, as though words had lodged in my throat like a caught sneeze.
‘……Is it because I haven’t reached a conclusion yet?’
I was forced to admit the truth.
I’d told Liz it meant nothing, but the reality was that I remained trapped in the wheel of memory, spinning endlessly in place.
‘I’m not certain I deserve to be a daughter.’
One thing was clear: my past self before the Regression had some connection to the Magic Tower.
Given what my profession had been, the fact that I couldn’t recall why I’d come to the Magic Tower at all meant I couldn’t bring myself to answer the Tower Master’s proposal.
‘What if, by some chance, I had meant to harm the people of the Magic Tower……’
Then I would regret my answer—that I would become a daughter—for the rest of my life.
‘I need to know. Who I was.’
I’d avoided it because of the headaches that split my skull like an axe, but I needed to return to the Old Archive and trace my memories again.
‘I need proof of my innocence.’
Evidence that would let me grasp the Tower Master’s hand without shame.

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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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