Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 66

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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 66
But Liriope’s expression was so naturally gentle that the mage failed to notice the fierce resistance and hatred burning in her eyes.
Liriope followed behind him, watching his retreating figure with a gaze sharp as winter frost.
The man’s long bronze-colored hair gleamed with a desolate radiance even in the darkness.
His pale, navy-blue eyes—deep and frozen as the abyss—and his angular face with prominent cheekbones stirred something ancient in Liriope’s memory.
Her hand, which had hung at her side, clenched slowly, then relaxed again moments later.
At that instant, her cold gaze shifted to the hem of the cloak that had brushed her arm.
[Right, now that I think about it, that girl Stella had a strange reaction earlier. Wasn’t this cloak left behind by that silver-haired one? But why did that girl make such a fuss like she’d had her own things stolen?]
Ode, it seemed, had arrived at the same conclusion as Liriope, for he spoke with a voice full of questions.
Doubt flickered briefly across Liriope’s mind as well.
She’d borrowed Velkius’s cloak just to look presentable for Caliona, but now it felt like she’d gotten tangled up in something troublesome.
Of course, whether or not she’d worn this cloak, she would have ended up involved with Stella anyway.
When she’d been at the Outer Estate, her senses had been too dull to notice, but now that she’d arrived at the Inner Estate, she could see just how eye-catching this fine garment truly was.
Liriope thought it would be better to simply dispose of the cloak now.
[You’re getting rid of it? It looks pretty expensive. You don’t plan to have that bastard pay you back for it later, do you?]
‘He left it behind on his own whim, so surely he won’t be petty about it.’
Besides, she was confident that Velkius wouldn’t be so stingy as to haggle over a mere scrap of fabric.
“But it seems you were lucky enough to meet a distinguished person before even arriving at the Inner Estate, weren’t you?”
Had the mage not turned to face her at precisely that moment, she would have acted on the thought immediately.
“Ordinary folk fresh out of the Outer Estate don’t act without hesitation the way you do. Yet not only did you boldly tear away the central tree of the Outer Estate and wreak havoc on everything around it, but you’ve also had the audacity to wander through the tower on your own, claiming to have someone to meet. Moreover……”
A sharp gaze swept over Liriope from head to toe.
“That outfit is a quality rarely found even in the Magic Tower. And the spells woven into it are all equally exceptional. Has some capricious noble in the upper ranks of the Magic Tower, one fond of charity, taken an interest in backing you?”
Unlike the girl in the white dress, he didn’t seem to have pinpointed exactly who the cloak’s owner was.
In any case, his words weren’t entirely wrong, but that didn’t mean they were right either.
There was indeed someone with a powerful presence behind Liriope, but strictly speaking, he wasn’t backing her.
Yet for some reason, at that very moment, Liriope hesitated.
She then feigned a flustered expression as if caught off guard and stumbled slightly over her answer.
“I’m not sure……? I don’t know who you’re referring to by ‘distinguished person.'”
“Hmph, playing dumb with a lie that wouldn’t fool anyone. Cases like yours aren’t unheard of, so there’s no need to deny it so vehemently.”
Liriope rolled her eyes to the side, watching them flicker uncertainly, and then fidgeted with the cloak as if deliberately avoiding the subject.
To anyone watching, she looked like someone who’d been caught off guard and was now flustered.
Seeing Liriope’s oddly awkward demeanor, the mage’s expression grew half-convinced of his own suspicion.
[Hmm, your acting has improved. But what is it? You’re not suddenly changing your mind about the cloak on a whim and deciding to keep it, are you?]
‘Actually, thinking about it, now might not be the right time to get rid of it.’
[What? Don’t be ridiculous! What makes this cloak so important that you’d go back and pick it up after deciding to throw it away?]
‘Appearances don’t put food on the table, Ode. If something has value, I should extract as much benefit from it as I possibly can.’
Look at what’s happening right now. Just because of a single cloak, two already-notable figures from the lowest level of the Inner Estate are already paying attention to Liriope, aren’t they?
Of course, that girl from before seemed to harbor strong hostility toward her, but what mattered more was the reaction of the man standing before her now.
The adult mage was observing Liriope with eyes that had grown subtly more cautious than before.
“The high-ranking members of the Northern Magic Tower are all prone to whimsy. So it would be wise not to become complacent just because you’ve caught the eye of one of them right now.”
By then, Liriope had also regained her composure, and she answered him with a composure that had returned.
“Yes. Thank you for the advice, Overseer Cameron Rosay.”
“……What did you just say? How did you know my former position? Did that distinguished person tell you even that?”
This time, instead of answering, she simply offered the man a meaningful smile.
It was nothing more than that, yet the mage’s face darkened and he spun around abruptly, striding forward with quick, heavy steps.
Liriope watched his retreating back with a smile tinged with mockery.
She knew more than others not because of some distinguished person in the Magic Tower, but thanks to Time Regression—something he could never know.
Having unintentionally allowed her counterpart to mistake Velkius as her backer, Liriope followed the mage with a lighter step than before.
* * *
“L-Liriope……. It really was Liriope. It wasn’t an illusion. This time, it really, truly…….”
“Be quiet, Milena. Stop babbling and come along.”
Milena, who had been muttering incessantly like someone unmoored from reality, was led out of the Warehouse by Caliona, whose face was utterly expressionless.
Milena’s appearance—her hair and clothes disheveled, her eyes flickering with an eerie light—was so bizarre that no one present dared stop her.
Meanwhile, the girl in the white dress, Stella, had her mind occupied not with Milena or anything like that, but with something else entirely.
‘That cloak that girl was wearing just now……. It wasn’t my imagination. It’s definitely ‘his’ cloak!’
A mysterious girl who’d appeared like a whirlwind. And because of the black cloak she’d been wearing, Stella was now on the verge of losing her mind.
As she made her way from the Warehouse to her room, she searched her memory obsessively, only to grow more certain.
She clearly remembered whose body that cloak had originally been draped across—the one that hung too long at the hem and too broad at the shoulders on the girl with violet eyes, as if she’d merely borrowed it.
The precisely carved obsidian buttons, the elegant larch embroidery woven in gold and silver threads and pale blue silk that had enhanced the perfect appearance and physique of a fifteen-year-old boy—and the rare dark gray lynx fur lining that couldn’t be easily found anywhere.
And even the subtle, deep forest-like fragrance that had faintly seeped out when the girl’s clothes fluttered with Mana Wavelength, a scent so profound that even Cleansing Magic couldn’t erase it—it was all so achingly familiar…….
Yet if it was Stella who saw it, and Stella alone—someone who secretly cherished a certain person—there was no way she could have mistaken something related to that person.
But if what she’d seen wasn’t a delusion, then her suspicions only deepened.
‘If what I heard earlier is true, that naive child just arrived at the Inner Estate……. So why in the world would that wench be carrying Velkius’s clothes?’
Anger and suspicion churned endlessly in her chest, making her nerves razor-sharp.
But what good would it do to agonize alone a hundred times over?
Since her beloved was away at the Defiled Holy Ground with no telling when he’d return, it was better to confront the girl who’d dared offend her sensibilities directly for answers.
There was only one way to meet the newcomer who would undergo intensive training for at least a month as soon as possible.
Stella made her way to Cameron’s room—the Overseer of the lowest level—to enjoy a privilege granted only to her.

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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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