I Became the Magic Tower Master's Experimental Mouse - Chapter 8

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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 next morning.
Unlike usual, Liz came to fetch me.
“What’s the occasion today?”
“Ah, today we’ll need to eat at the Common Dining Hall, so I came to get you.”
At her sudden announcement, I tilted my head in confusion.
“The Common Dining Hall?”
“The Master is away on business today.”
So I wouldn’t be able to eat in the Magic Tower Master’s quarters.
I nodded and followed Liz down the corridor.
‘I wish she’d told me yesterday.’
At that sudden thought, I realized I’d grown quite fond of the time spent eating in the Magic Tower Master’s presence.
Even though we weren’t eating together, there was something oddly pleasant about having someone watch over me while I ate.
‘No, that’s not it. Eating noisily with familiar faces would be nice too.’
I shook my head.
These thoughts lately ran counter to my nature—frustratingly irrational.
During my assassin days, life was nothing but hardship, so all I needed was to think optimistically however I could.
But now that things weren’t hard, my emotions swung wildly up and down without warning.
‘Ah, right. Yesterday the Magic Tower Master promised to watch over me, and then broke that promise within a single day.’
Though I was certain he wasn’t the type to abandon his duties for personal reasons, I couldn’t explain why I felt so frustrated about it.
“Ah! It’s Pipi! Did you oversleep too?”
As we entered the Common Dining Hall, Lily, who was already eating, called out cheerfully.
The spacious dining hall was filled only with apprentices.
“Lily, Pipi is only six years old. That’s why she naturally wakes at this hour.”
Liz, who had guided me to a seat across from Lily, replied matter-of-factly.
At the mention of oversleeping, I tilted my head.
“Did everyone oversleep?”
Was this a place where apprentices could collectively ignore the daily schedule and regulations?
As I asked, bewildered, Leo laughed brightly.
“Today the Magic Tower Master isn’t here, so we got special permission.”
The Magic Tower Master didn’t seem like the type to be considerate enough to grant such lenience.
‘Or is he?’
I suddenly recalled how he’d changed my furniture, provided new clothes, bought me books, given me a doll, and spared no expense on holy water, and tilted my head in confusion.
“Since the Magic Tower Master isn’t here, today feels like we can finally breathe!”
“Ahem.”
At Leo’s words, Liz’s face grew stern.
“But all the senior mages seem relaxed too, don’t they?”
“……Well.”
At Killian’s remark, Liz found herself at a loss for words and closed her mouth.
Since I hadn’t yet encountered anyone else today, I remained alone in my confusion, unable to grasp the full situation.
“Wow, the food looks delicious.”
“It’s the Magic Tower Master’s orders.”
My meals were certainly different in composition from the apprentices’.
For some reason, I felt embarrassed and hid my face behind my milk cup.
The mages I passed in the hallways after finishing my meal were undeniably slack.
They were louder than usual, and though I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what they were doing, there was a definite sense of halfheartedness.
“Is it really all right for everyone to be this relaxed?”
As I moved to my next scheduled task, I quietly asked Liz.
At that, Liz whispered, looking rather flustered.
“Well, normally the Master is so strict that there’s a bit of… a rebound effect, I suppose.”
“But even so, Liz seems normal enough…….”
At my words, Liz’s embarrassment deepened and she turned her head away slightly.
“Somehow I’ve gotten a little giddy too…….”
On the back of Liz’s head was a pink ribbon I hadn’t seen before. Now that I thought about it, I remembered she usually tied her hair with a black ribbon!
Though far more subdued compared to the others, it was clearly a change for Liz.
‘Hmm…….’
I felt the loosened atmosphere of the Magic Tower and clicked my tongue inwardly.
Before my return, if someone had attacked while things were this slack, they could have targeted the Magic Tower with ease.
“It’s only now and then…… so it should be fine. Surely nothing will happen today?”
Liz’s offhand remark left me with an inexplicably unsettled feeling.
* * *
‘What?’
I was heading back into the tower to shower after finishing today’s training.
Suddenly the tower seemed to blur for an instant, then sharpen back into focus with vivid color.
‘Did I imagine that?’
I blinked hard.
The Magic Tower looked as it always did, so I figured I’d just been seeing things.
But then—
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
An urgent-sounding alarm rang out five times.
“……What?”
Liz, who’d been following beside me, dropped her jaw.
“Oh no, don’t tell me……?”
“What’s happened?”
I looked up at Liz to grasp what was going on, and she stared down at me with a tense expression.
“It’s serious. Five alarm bells means there’s a problem with the Magic Tower’s Purification Circulation Device.”
“The Purification Circulation Device……?”
“It continuously purifies toxic particles in the air…… Anyway, I’ll explain later.”
She said everyone would likely be gathered to inspect the Upper Layer systems, so she needed to go check on that too.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t leave you alone…… Oh! Oli, come here and take Pipi back to her room.”
As if on cue, Oli appeared at the far end of the corridor, apparently looking for Liz.
“I can manage on my own…….”
“If I get scolded for leaving you unattended, what then?”
It was a path I walked every day anyway, so there’d be nothing difficult about it.
But I was satisfied enough by her comment that the Magic Tower Master wouldn’t forgive her for abandoning me, so I waited obediently for Oli to approach.
“Is there anything else I can help with?”
“No, just go quietly to your room, shower, and relax.”
Liz disappeared in a hurry, clearly anxious.
‘A problem with the purification device?’
It was a brief explanation, but I could roughly grasp what the issue was.
The Poison Tower constantly handled toxic substances, so harmful particles would naturally accumulate in the air. That’s why they’d need a device to purify and circulate the air throughout the entire tower.
Once I focused, I detected a faint, acrid odor in the air—the distinctive scent of poison.
‘I wonder if the others are all right?’
Something I’d learned living in the Magic Tower was that magicians who work with poison don’t necessarily have Poison Immunity.
If time passed like this, everyone could end up being poisoned.
I looked at Oli, whose face was etched with worry.
“Um…… let’s hurry. I need to take you to your room and get going too.”
Oli urged me forward as I lost myself in thought.
“Mm…….”
Since something was weighing on my mind, I obediently followed in Oli’s footsteps.
‘But why?’
A pure question kept nagging at me.
The purification device must have been running continuously all this time, and if something had gone wrong, the Magic Tower Master would surely have noticed.
So the problem must have developed after he left.
‘Could miasma have accumulated that quickly?’
That didn’t make sense…….
Besides, as we climbed higher, the poison smell gradually faded.
“Where is the purification device located?”
At my question, Oli tilted her head for a moment before answering.
“As far as I know, there’s one in the Upper Layer and one in the Lower Layer—they circulate the air through mutual exchange.”
With that, I grasped the situation clearly.
“The smell is stronger coming from below.”
“Huh?”
“Isn’t the Lower Layer device backflowing?”
Oli’s eyes went wide at my words.
“You can smell that……?”
“Yes. My sense of smell is quite keen.”
I stopped walking, keeping my arms folded.
“Let’s go downstairs and check it out.”
“…Us?”
Oli flinched at my suggestion.
“N-no, the Basement is a section we absolutely cannot enter…! They’ve even issued a complete access restriction order recently!”
The word “order” made me tense.
I didn’t want to disobey the Magic Tower Master.
‘I don’t want to see that same expression he wore when I was hurt.’
But at the same time.
When I thought of people like Liz, Oli, Leo, Lily, and Killian, my chest grew tight.
Imagining them greeting me each day, laughing, talking — and then collapsing under the poison gas, succumbing to poisoning — something caught in my throat.
‘The Magic Tower Master wouldn’t want his subordinates to fall or die either.’
Shouldn’t I do this in his place?
This time, I had to protect the Magic Tower.
‘Why am I doing this?’
Because it’s something only I can do.
‘It doesn’t even pay. I don’t have to step forward.’
Still, I couldn’t just leave it alone.
I hadn’t even found the source of this strange feeling, and if the Magic Tower collapsed, I’d have nowhere to go.
‘Fine. That’s reasonable enough.’
I nodded to myself, then spoke to Oli.
“I have to go. I’m the only one in the Magic Tower with Poison Immunity.”
If someone approached carelessly and got poisoned, it would waste time on the cure.
Besides, only I seemed able to pinpoint the source by scent. Everyone else had a worse sense of smell than me.
“If it seems too dangerous, don’t follow me. You could get poisoned.”
“Pipi…!”
Timid Oli called out to me with a sorrowful expression, but I bolted toward the Basement regardless of whether she followed.
As I descended deeper, the smell grew stronger.
Unable to bear the poison gas, Oli’s footsteps ceased.
I ran without hesitation through the dim corridor I’d seen yesterday.
When the cool air touched my skin, my hair stood on end.
‘Magic Tower Master, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to deliberately disobey your orders.’
I apologized silently, then shoved open the door at the end of the Basement corridor with my whole body.
“Oh…?”
A thin Magic Barrier shimmered with mysterious golden light.
One section had a crack. Wisps of poison gas seeped through it.
‘Here it is.’
I estimated the size of the hole, then stepped inside.
The peculiar poison smell I’d caught yesterday enveloped the entire space, along with various other toxins I’d sensed above.
I moved about, sniffing, tracing the source of the odor.
Soon I found a device pulsing with a deep rhythm.
‘Something reddish about it….’
What looked like dried blood had splattered on the device’s lower section.
I noticed the area had corroded strangely, the material melting and hardening in a jumbled mass, and realized that various poisons were leaking from this spot.
‘So, in other words….’
I’d thought perhaps I could fix it by turning the device on and off, or tapping something.
But what if the device itself was corroded?
“Hmm……”
I circled the area, growing frustrated, and thoughtlessly touched the corroded section.
If it had corroded from poison gas, I was certain it couldn’t harm me.
‘Come to think of it.’
I’d been fine even after breathing in gaseous poison.
What if I absorbed all of it? Then it wouldn’t spread to the Upper Layer, would it?
‘I just need to hold on until the Magic Tower Master arrives….’
The problem was not knowing when that would be.
Curious to see if my idea would work, I took a deep breath of the surrounding air.
And then.
The poison gas was genuinely drawn to me.
Since it was gaseous, my stomach didn’t feel full or anything….’
I settled on the floor and began to inhale the poison gas steadily.
It was as if a hole had opened in my body to consume the toxin.
“Ah.”
The alarm that had been ringing periodically fell silent.
* * *
With a face rigid as stone, the Magic Tower Master returned to the Magic Tower using Teleportation Magic.
He had stepped out to brief the Behemoth Ducal House on the situation and come straight back.
‘The matter was sensitive enough that I had to go myself, but…….’
He never imagined a crisis would erupt in the Magic Tower during his absence.
‘Of all times, something like this happens while I’m away.’
After receiving an urgent report that the Purification Circulation Device had malfunctioned, he deduced the situation without difficulty.
If it had broken due to external causes, it would surely have occurred in the Lower Layer.
In the Lower Layer — where ‘the boy’ was.
The young noble of the Behemoth house.
The moment he returned, he rushed toward the Basement barrier.
“What are you doing here?”
At the Magic Tower Master’s question, he noticed Oli pacing anxiously near the stairwell, and the boy’s face crumpled.
“Pipi, Pipi is…….”
The moment that name—the one that had been troubling him of late—was spoken.
The Magic Tower Master bolted downward like a madman.
Fast. Inside.
What met his eyes upon entering the barrier was the sight of a small child, breathing in poison gas continuously, alone.
Seated on the stone floor in exhaustion, when he saw her face, she smiled faintly.
‘……So it is.’
The man who had lost his emotions long ago acknowledged the fact that something new was blooming within his heart.
He swept his hand to restore the device while scooping the child into his arms.
The body of the girl who had sat on the stone floor protecting everyone was terribly cold.
He shielded her from the chill within the folds of his robe, and felt an unbidden regret wash over him.
“I should have been here.”
His fingertips trembled faintly.

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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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