I Became the Magic Tower Master's Experimental Mouse - Chapter 84

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

‘It was just a dream…….’
I lay still with my eyes closed, suspended in the afterglow of recovered memory. The skin around my eyes felt stiff where tears had dried.
There was no headache, but a fever still wrapped around my entire body.
I had always been sensitive to cold, struggled with it even, but now my whole frame felt like a meteor ablaze, burning bright and hot.
I felt light, omnipotent—as though I could do anything at all.
I turned my head and opened my eyes. Cassian lay asleep on the bed, breathing softly and deeply.
As I looked at his snow-white hair, I found myself overlaying the face from my dream upon it.
Suddenly my breath grew hot.
‘No.’
I shook my head inwardly.
That person I once loved had vanished.
That winter was a future that no longer existed, one that would never come—and I was no longer the version of myself from that moment of revelation.
‘But still…… I want to protect this.’
The bond we’ve built anew now is more than enough.
‘Wait—where exactly am I right now?’
Everything around me looked so large…….
“Squeak, squeak-squeak?” (What, when did I become a mouse?)
The moment I realized I was huddled inside a basket, I lurched up to get out.
And at that very instant.
Boom—
That familiar thrumming echoed through my chest once more.
‘No, not again—how annoying!’
My entire body trembled like a tuning fork, resonating with the vibration.
Something had opened—an instinctive knowing flashed through my mind. And the moment I exhaled, the air turned crimson.
‘……What?’
My breath came out bright red.
Thinking I was spitting blood, I rubbed around my mouth as if washing my face, but it wasn’t wet at all.
‘How…… is my breath turning red?’
The scarlet haze that had been rising from my breath soon began seeping from my fingertips as well.
‘Eek!’
The basket I was lying in began to melt away.
As if someone had splashed a strong acid on it, the basket’s surface corroded, and smoke rose along with a charred smell.
I was careful to keep my head and paws from twisting in strange directions as I stared into empty space.
‘This is poison.’
My soft little paws showed no damage. But the basket I’d just brushed against and the side table both had holes eaten straight through them.
The way the surface had half-melted made it clear this was an extremely potent toxin.
‘I, I can’t look toward Cassian.’
If the poison touched his body by accident, it would be terrible.
Instead, I tried to wake him quietly.
“Squeak, squeak-” (Cas, Cas-)
But the moment I opened my mouth to call him, the extreme poison poured out relentlessly, so I clamped my mouth shut and blinked my eyes.
The air was visibly turning toxic.
What on earth was happening to my body?
In my panic, tears began to well up—and then the door burst open.
“Pip-pip!”
The Tower Master rushed in, clutching a water bottle.
He did not seem alarmed. He set the bottle down on the floor and spoke to me calmly.
“It’s alright. Don’t be frightened. Try to gather it back into your body the way you do when practicing Detoxification.”
I tried not to look at him while attempting to swallow the crimson-dyed air.
Strangely, as I followed the rhythm of his voice, the thrumming in my chest gradually subsided.
Breathe in, breathe out.
His advice to recall the Detoxification practice really did help.
As the drum-like sound diminished, the red tint staining the air was slowly drawn back into my body.
“……Squeak, squeak-squeak.” (……I’m, I’m…….)
Once I’d gathered everything back, I turned a pathetic expression toward the Tower Master. I had no idea what was happening to me.
“Is it that you cannot use Transformation?”
I shook my head at his question.
And to signal him to turn away, I fluttered my paws and leaped out of the basket.
‘Oh no!’
At the same moment, we both transformed, and in an instant I was human again.
“Put these on.”
The Tower Master turned and handed me a pair of pajamas.
‘……What? Have I gotten fat?’
I fumbled into the clothes, which seemed to pinch here and there, then turned back to look at him.
“Hmm, it seems fine. That was just a temporary discharge at the end of hibernation.”
The Tower Master said this calmly, examining my body.
“The body startles when waking from a long sleep. There’s nothing to worry about.”
A hand touched the top of my head, trembling slightly. But when I glanced up, the trembling had vanished—I must have imagined it.
“Wait—I was in hibernation?”
“Yes. Though you woke up far earlier than usual, so it’s ambiguous…… but your appearance has changed enough that it must have been hibernation.”
I tilted my head and walked toward the full-length mirror placed on one side of the room.
‘Gasp—what?!’
My hair, which had been a short bob, now fell to my chest.
And my small frame—smaller than most six-year-olds—now looked properly proportioned for my age.
“Did I…… sleep for about a year?”
The Tower Master shook his head at my question.
“Four days.”
“Why has my body changed like this…… And why hasn’t Cassian woken up with all this noise?”
“He was awake nearly every night for those four days, so he can’t hear you—or at least he can sleep through it.”
At the Tower Master’s words, I turned in alarm to look at Cassian.
I was the one who couldn’t wake up, so why hadn’t he slept as if he were taking my place?
Separate from my usual judgment that such a thing would be inefficient, the thought that he’d done it out of concern for me brought a small warmth to my chest.
“The clothes are a bit tight. I’ll have them adjusted tomorrow.”
“Yes…… I thought I’d gotten fat.”
I smiled bashfully.
“It’s still dawn, and our guest is sleeping here, so sleep in my room tonight.”
The Tower Master came closer and extended his hand to me.
I hesitated, wondering if he wanted me to hold his hand and walk, but as if he’d made a decision, the Tower Master suddenly scooped me up in his arms.
“Wait—I can walk on my own!”
“I know.”
The Tower Master, as though following his own will, held me tighter in his embrace.
* * *
Claude stood in the darkness with the lamp extinguished, gazing at Ollie’s sleeping face, which was finally at peace.
Though dark, the moonlight streaming through the window was enough to make out her features.
He pressed his forehead, trying to calm the ceaseless turmoil in his mind.
‘Ollie…….’
He thought he could do anything as long as the child woke up.
As long as this sudden hibernation wasn’t caused by a health abnormality.
And that resolve had been shaken by what he’d witnessed in Ollie’s room just moments ago.
‘Ollie didn’t fall into hibernation because of a health problem.’
Something that shouldn’t exist had appeared in the child’s body.
A Core.
She’d fallen asleep as a Core—something only Mythical Beasts could possess—manifested within her.
“Sigh…….”
Claude exhaled deeply.
He hadn’t slept properly for those four days either, but the shock of discovering the Core had driven sleep away entirely.
‘Ollie was definitely in the form of a Winter Dormouse back then.’
Because of that, he’d thought the hibernation wasn’t unusual.
But now that a Core had been discovered?
A Winter Dormouse is not a Mythical Beast.
Then only one hypothesis made sense: Ollie was a hybrid of a Winter Dormouse and some Mythical Beast.
‘If it’s a Mythical Beast of this kind…… only one comes to mind.’
A body that directly produces poison of an overwhelmingly dense quality that surpassed anything else in this world.
Dragon Poison, signified by a crimson color more vivid than blood, was unmistakable proof of bloodline to anyone who saw it.
And if one considered not merely hibernation to endure winter, but hibernation for the growth of body and abilities…….
‘Only a Basilisk makes all of this possible.’
But there was one thing he couldn’t make sense of.
A Basilisk could produce every poison, but never had there been one with the ability to neutralize toxins.
Yet having witnessed the crimson Dragon Poison mixed with mana being released, he couldn’t deny Ollie’s bloodline on account of a single anomaly.
And it was precisely that bloodline that tormented Claude.
‘Pipi, being a commoner, would be a difficult choice for adoption.’
Yet at the same time, he was confident that once adopted, he could provide her with abundance and happiness.
But if she were a Basilisk.
If she were of the Imperial Family, standing at the pinnacle of this continent…….
‘The current Emperor has no heir.’
Could he rob a child of her birthright—a child who might one day become the next Emperor—simply because he wished to protect her?
True, entering the Imperial Household and living as one of the Imperial Family might bring other dangers. After all, what he was currently pursuing was connected to matters of treason.
Yet most people, ordinarily, would regard becoming Imperial Family as the measure of happiness itself.
‘Living as a Princess might be the child’s happiness as well…….’
Claude’s expression darkened.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————