I Became the Magic Tower Master's Experimental Mouse - Chapter 92

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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 cafeteria was more crowded than usual that morning.
Everyone was buzzing with yesterday’s victory, and the Tower Master had issued a summons for all hands on deck.
“Is this the reward announcement?”
“Another office party?”
Amid the murmuring, I sat beside the Tower Master and found myself fidgeting with my fingertips for no reason.
The breakfast was running more than three minutes late for the major announcement, but my nerves outweighed my hunger.
‘I wasn’t nearly this jittery when I signed yesterday. Why now?’
At last, the Tower Master rose from his seat.
“As of yesterday.”
He spoke in his usual bone-dry tone.
But I felt his tension through the slight tremor in the hand I was holding.
“Pipi, Epiphany Serpens, has become my daughter. Continuing work at the Magic Tower depends on her own wishes. Public announcement comes after legal proceedings, so keep it quiet until then. That concludes it.”
To end the most important announcement in the world in just three sentences!
A brief silence fell over the cafeteria.
At first, no one seemed to understand—they just blinked.
“Pipiiiii! W-well, that’s wonderful……!”
Lilly burst into tears and rushed at me first. Her twin tails whipped across my face as she threw her arms around me, but it didn’t hurt.
I’d expected she might cry, but I hadn’t known she could manage both words and sobs at the same time.
“I’ll bake you a cake! Three tiers!”
Lilly hiccupped and bounced up and down, hugging me.
“We should throw a celebration!”
Ollie, Leo, and Killian drummed the table in rhythm. Liz stood off to one side, smiling as she wiped away tears.
“You bet we should! Our little darling’s the Tower Master’s daughter now—bahaha!”
The 2nd Elder boomed with laughter, his beard fluttering.
“Well, isn’t that nice, little one.”
“Ow, ow, you old madwoman!”
The 3rd Elder stood beside him, striking his arm repeatedly in congratulation.
Everyone clapped in celebration, but one voice cut through the noise.
“Wait, hold on!”
It was Cassian. He’d been frozen stiff for a few seconds, then suddenly shot to his feet and shouted.
“So her last name is Serpens now?!”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Why not Behemoth?! And nobody told me beforehand!”
“We decided yesterday.”
I answered Cassian’s complaint with a shrug.
“…I’ll be hosting the celebration! Nobody else touches it!”
Cassian’s face turned bright red as he insisted on being the host, then began bickering with Lilly about her three-tier cake plan, demanding five tiers instead.
Truly, it was the noisiest thing in the world.
‘Every prediction came true.’
I remembered the Tower Master’s words from last night and let out a soft laugh.
But the commotion didn’t end there.
“Don’t we need to sort out how to address her now? Since she’s the Tower Master’s daughter, we should call her something different! She’s becoming a noblewoman’s daughter—wouldn’t ‘Young Lady’ suit her?”
Liz, wiping away her tears, clenched both fists and cried out, setting off the chaos.
“What are you saying! Just ‘Pipi’ is fine!”
“Why would you change how we call our cute little test subject?! ‘Young Lady,’ how cold!”
In an instant, the cafeteria split into three factions.
Someone even repurposed three empty soup bowls into a ballot box.
“Raised hands are risky for manipulation—let’s do a secret ballot!”
“3rd Elder, I said put in just one fork! You put in two!”
“Oops, caught.”
“Pipi is just Pipi! This ridiculous vote is invalid!”
Cassian lunged to snatch the bowl, and a fork clattered to the table with a harsh metallic ring.
‘What kind of farce is this.’
I quietly backed toward the wall, pressed my spine against it, and watched the adults scramble to pick up the fork.
For all the fuss over nothing, it was undeniably funny—and utterly us.
It seemed only I could settle this mess, so I had no choice.
“Listen! I’m going to keep running experiments anyway!”
The moment I raised my hand and shouted, everyone’s eyes snapped toward me.
“All correct. Call me whatever you’d like.”
“Oh, a wise judgment!”
Leo cried out.
After that, everyone hurried through breakfast, then stopped all work to prepare for the festival.
It was the first time the entire Magic Tower had come to a halt since Phillian’s death anniversary.
In the kitchen, a five-tiered cake collapsed into four tiers. It was my first time making a cake alongside everyone else, so it was enjoyable regardless.
The Elders, already flushed from drinking since afternoon, began composing celebratory verses, only to dismiss each other’s work as tacky.
Since the verses were expressed in Magical Formulas anyway, I could only be grateful I couldn’t understand them.
Cassian, calling himself the organizer, selected the largest slice of cake and placed it on my plate, yet never once spoke a word of congratulation.
The way he clung to his friend, he seemed deeply regretful that I hadn’t become a Behemoth.
I laughed while holding my belly, and suddenly felt an oddly perfect peace settle over me.
Despite the noise loud enough to keep one awake, I couldn’t shake the unreality of all this belonging to me.
“…Pipi?”
The Tower Master gazed at me steadily.
“Are you bored, perhaps?”
“Why would I be? I’m having a blast.”
He seemed about to say something, then stopped himself and simply stroked my head before moving on.
‘Why does he look at me like that?’
The celebration continued until sunset.
It was the loudest and most satisfying day of my life.
* * *
As deep night fell, Claude went alone to the space where the prisoners were held in isolation.
Since an ordinary Magic Tower had no true prison, they’d hastily constructed one by placing a Barrier around the Storage Room.
Beyond the Barrier, a woman bound to a chair lifted her head.
They had administered only the minimum treatment necessary for interrogation, so her left upper body was wrapped tightly in bandages.
“Oh my, coming in person, are we?”
The woman greeted him in a cheerful voice wholly unbecoming her circumstances.
‘I treated her only because I can’t kill her immediately…’
Even the cheap consumables and reagents spent on her treatment felt wasteful.
All the more so when imagining what this woman, supposedly Pipi’s mentor, had done.
He couldn’t bring himself to ask specific questions for fear of reopening old wounds, yet imagining what state the abducted child had been in made his blood boil of its own accord.
“Answer only what I ask. Who gave you the commission?”
“The Guild Master. We don’t know anyone above him. As you’ve probably guessed, we’re a Cell Organization.”
“What was the purpose of the attack?”
“Me? I was after that kid. The ones who attacked here—it was a warning, see? You keep trying to catch us, after all.”
“How foolish. Did you think I’d drop the investigation quietly if you encroached on my territory?”
The woman shrugged at Claude’s words.
“We don’t think that deep. We have plenty of disposable people anyway. We know we’re going to die regardless—why not?”
“Did you manufacture the poison?”
“Nah, we just deliver. It’s just a commission, you know?”
“The base location.”
“I don’t know either. Like I said, we’re a Cell Organization?”
The woman shook her head as if regretful, then scrutinized Claude with interest.
“You’re not going to ask about that kid? That must be what you’re most curious about.”
Claude didn’t answer.
“Such a waste, that one. If she’d come to us, she’d have become merchandise. Did you pull her out of our Underground Den? She looked like she’d been trained.”
The woman clicked her tongue and looked up at Claude.
“…Underground Den?”
Even as part of him knew he shouldn’t ask, Claude found himself unable to resist. There was a chance he might learn something, anything, about the child’s past.
The woman’s face brightened, as if pleased.
With her left upper body gone, she wouldn’t live long anyway. She understood her situation.
Her life persisted only thanks to some treatment applied under the guise of medical care. The wound beneath her bandages remained a hollow, with blood mysteriously stanched and held at bay.
All that remained to the woman was malice and hatred.
“Dig deep into the earth and gather multiple children, throw them in. Starve them there, show them only minimal light, make them fight each other for scraps. Let them know food comes only when they obey my commands.”
A cracking sound came from Claude’s clenched fist.
“During the day, drag some up for training. That way they depend on each other at first, but gradually they learn the truth. That they could survive if the others weren’t there.”
……
“And the last part—this is the most important.”
The woman laughed with a kind of rapture.
“Once they find something they love about even that miserable existence—something to care for, be it a stone, a doll they brought when kidnapped, a flower, another person—that’s when you teach them to destroy it.”
“……Why.”
The words tumbled from Claude’s lips without thought.
“If you let them know what you care about, that becomes the leash. Strip away their hope and they’ll obey so much better, won’t they? The clever ones learn fast—learn how to erase their expression when they see something they love, when joy touches their face.”
This morning replayed itself in Claude’s mind: a child’s face, stripped of all expression in a moment of happiness.
The child had clearly been delighted, and then—suddenly, utterly blank.
Now, understanding at last, Claude said nothing.
Instead, very quietly, he reached a decision. He would never let this woman live.
Pipi had decided not to kill her, but Claude found himself incapable of such mercy.
“……But you see.”
The woman, reading his silence as hesitation, leaned forward to deliver the final blow.
“You chose to keep her anyway, knowing she’d been trained like that? A child raised that way can never live a normal life.”
The woman smiled with cruel certainty.
“Wherever she ends up, she’s already been made into a tool.”
“No. She’s my daughter.”
Claude spoke the words with perfect calm, then delivered his sentence.
“You’re going to die. Not knowing when, not knowing how.”

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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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