Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 54

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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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Episode 54
8. After the Outer Tower Examination—A Winter Without Liriope
“Have you heard? The new Inner Tower candidates are causing quite a stir.”
Early February.
The cold wind descending from the Northern Ice Wall was relentless today as well.
“Well, I’d know about it. One of them lined my pockets nicely—the principal architect of my winnings, you might say.”
Yet the two young men walking through the First Floor Corridor seemed to have forgotten the chill entirely, caught up in the heat of gossip that was currently setting the Northern Magic Tower’s Inner Tower ablaze.
“Ah, so you won your bet this year? There were three who passed, but only two from this cohort made it through, weren’t there? Which one did you pick?”
Each year, when the time came to admit orphans gathered from outside into the Outer Tower, the mages who escorted them would inevitably start placing small wagers amongst themselves.
The terms shifted slightly from year to year, but the usual bet was to each pick a child likely to survive and advance to the Inner Tower.
“The red-haired one. From the moment I first saw them, there was a certain cocky edge—I figured someone like that would tenaciously claw their way to survival. That’s always how the stubborn types last.”
One of the pair of young men, who wore a horsehair topknot and had one and a half pairs of wings embroidered on his cloak, preened at his own judgment.
The handsome man beside him let out an ambiguous sound—somewhere between admiration and exasperation.
“Ah yes, that one…. The one cradling a corpse, right?”
His cloak also bore a single pair of wings, though he appeared to be several years older than his companion.
Yet in the Magic Tower, where everything was determined by ability, the age of the body held no bearing on hierarchy.
“The way they thrashed about like a mad dog just because we incinerated one dead body does show they’re reckless, I’ll grant you.”
“Well, that’s just youth, isn’t it?”
The two female candidates were equally fearless. It’s rare for all the new ones to riot together and receive punishment as a group like that, isn’t it?”
“If it weren’t happening now, they’d make such a fuss. But spend just one year tumbling around in the Inner Tower and they won’t even remember that dead boy’s face. Didn’t we forget things the same way?”
A strange silence fell between the two young men, as if they were briefly touching their own pasts.
“In any case, this year’s examination is done with.”
“These new ones are unpredictable. Cameron will have his hands full managing the lowest levels.”
“Well, what does it matter? It’s none of our concern anymore. It’s cold—let’s get inside.”
With a cruelty that matched the turning of seasons, the young men’s conversation cooled just as quickly, and they quickened their pace.
The long winter of the Northern Magic Tower.
As mages of Belegot, there was much work ahead in the bitter cold season.
* * *
“Belkiers.”
Belkiers sensed an unusual flow of Mana the moment he returned to the Inner Tower.
As expected.
After the Spatial Transfer Magic dissipated, a strange-scented room greeted him instead of his familiar 80th Floor Bedroom.
Pale moonlight filtering through the chill air.
His instinctive wariness activated at once.
“It’s been so long. Where are you coming back from at this hour?”
A murky, low voice carrying the desolation of night clung thickly to his eardrums.
When he turned his head, a dark silhouette looming in the shadows came into view.
Belkiers regarded the person who had summoned him without permission with cold eyes, then slowly parted his lips.
“Magic Tower Master.”
The owner of the Magic Tower, returned after a prolonged absence.
Belkiers’s only blood kin.
Yet the form of address and tone with which he spoke was far too chill and arid for someone he should have called family.
But given that this was how the two of them had always been for as long as he could remember, there was nothing new to be startled by now.
The moment Belkiers beheld the woman standing there as if rooted in darkness, his emotions drained away in an instant, bleached to a murky black like a swamp.
“I heard your return would be delayed.”
“Yes, being unwilling to leave my only precious son alone, I hastened my steps.”
“Concern? For me?”
Belkiers sneered, and the dark shadow within the gloom smiled in return, sliding toward him with languid grace.
Moments later, a hand cold as a corpse stretched out and cradled his cheek.
It traced across his entire face with a sticky deliberateness, as though confirming his form.
The disgust that had been quietly undulating within him like a snake or insect crawling across his skin in chill temperature suddenly surged with intensity.
Belkiers twisted his head away, evading the repulsive touch.
The Magic Tower Master, perceiving his resistance with ease, exhaled a thin laugh.
“That look in your eyes—it never changes. How many times must I tell you that such stubbornness is unbecoming?”
Her gaze, which seemed to regard his resistance as both admirable and contemptible, bore down upon him like a weight.
“Did I not tell you that all I wish to achieve is for your sake? You need only accept it as is—so why do you persist in defying me?”
“You still don’t understand?”
Belkiers let out a sharp laugh from deep in his throat.
“Whatever you offer, it is not what I desire.”
The twilight starlight of the night sky was as cold as thin ice, and it made the heavy air pressing down even more suffocating.
“Very well. Now that I have returned, I must teach you a lesson before I take my leave again.”
In the next instant, a voice devoid of warmth reverberated through the room.
Darkness surged up like a tidal wave, punishing the unfaithful, engulfing the heavens and earth.
Clang, clang!
Mana so dense it was suffocating crashed down with overwhelming force, binding Belkiers’s body and forcing him to his knees in an instant.
Two pairs of brilliant, golden eyes clashed fiercely in the void.
“It is time for instruction, my son. I pray that this time you finally learn proper obedience.”
Belkiers did not avert his gaze.
Even as his teeth clenched and he swallowed his fury, merciless Mana like the harshest winter frost swallowed him whole.
* * *
Evangellin of Belegot bounded up the stairs with urgency.
His silver hair, as though moonlight had been ground and scattered across it, had lost its usual neat arrangement and hung disheveled, and the blue cloak bearing three and a half pairs of wings had long since slipped below one shoulder.
For someone who normally prized dignity and composure, the fact that he was rushing through the Northern Magic Tower with such haste was something that had not happened in a very long time.
In fact, he had not left his room at all in the past month.
The thought of the culprit who had forced him into seclusion made his teeth grind instinctively.
‘Damn that Belkiers…! How thoroughly did he shred that person?’
Over the past month and more, how much grueling labor had fallen to him, piecing together and mending the body as though reassembling carrots diced for stew?
To borrow Leo’s crude language, he thought he’d cough up blood.
Even after all that work, Evangellin’s body was still not fully restored.
Outwardly, certainly, it appeared intact—but only because he had prioritized repairing what was visible.
Had someone opened his flesh, they would have immediately noticed that several less vital organs and bones were still missing.
And the reason Evangellin had left his room today, pulling along a body so far from fully healed, was precisely….
Knock, knock!
“Magic Tower Master, it is Evangellin.”
Before the heavy, dark door, Evangellin hurriedly adjusted his clothing and drew a deep breath.
“I shall enter.”
Then, keeping his back ramrod straight, he opened the wall of a door that stood before him and stepped inside.
“You’ve come, Evangellin.”
But the moment the woman’s voice—sharp as pre-dawn frost—pierced his eardrums, all the composure he had mustered collapsed, and he dropped to his knees at once.
Cold sweat beaded and drenched his spine in an instant.
As though crushed by a heavy weight, his body instinctively sought a lower position, curling itself to the floor, and he did not dare lift his head to meet the face of the person before him.
It was an obedience carved into his very bones—innate and primal.

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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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