My Husband Is Not the Magic Tower Master - Chapter 22

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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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Chapter 22

I forced my wavering gaze to settle and kept my head bowed.
My body understood it, but my mind could only marvel at the sensation.
Why did something so new feel so familiar?
Since Concealment Magic was no longer effective, the only way to deceive the Demon Beasts’ eyes was to synchronize my own breathing with the flow of Mana in the Demon Realm.
Before triggering the Return Magic, I had quickly mastered the new Breathing Technique and adapted it to my body.
Only after confirming my progress did Carlo withdraw his hand from me.
Unexpectedly, he knew a great deal about the Demon Realm.
Well, he was always intelligent.
I dismissed the fact without much concern and gradually completed the Return Magic Circle.
But there was always an exception.
Even if Carlo could manage it, I was not particularly skilled at controlling pace and timing.
It was the moment I lost focus for a breath, and we had just broken contact moments before.
“Roooaarrr!”
A massive Demon Beast resembling a bear suddenly appeared from somewhere and rushed forward, tearing apart a portion of the Magic Circle that was nearly complete.
“What—”
“Stein—”
Carlo reached out to me with alarm written across his face, but he was a step too late.
Crackle.
I managed to avoid injury by instinctively stepping back, but sharp claws raked through the garment wrapped around my body.
The clasp on my Robe came undone and fell away; the buttons of the Blouse just below my shoulder tore loose one by one with soft pops.
“…!”
My eyes widened in shock, and in my vision I saw Carlo’s startled face. He immediately threw himself toward me,
and at last the Return Magic, now fully designed and completed, properly activated.
Whoooosh—
“Roooowwwwl!”
Leaving the loudly wailing bear Demon Beast behind, our vision flashed in a dizzying blur, and we made a turbulent return to the Human Realm.
Splash!
“Ugh…”
“…Mmph.”
The moment I came to my senses, we were in the middle of muddy water.
Held against Carlo’s body, I flailed my arms.
Was it because we’d returned so abruptly?
We weren’t inside the Base Camp but rather submerged up to our waists in a drainage ditch surrounding it.
The arrival point had shifted.
“Carlo, are you all right?”
“…”
“I—if you could just loosen your arms a bit… No, wait. Don’t let go.”
Just… stay like this for now.
I took fright at the sight of white clothing muddied by the brown water, but after belatedly grasping the situation, I simply gave up trying to speak.
“Would you… hold me tighter?”
“…Yes.”
A beat too late, my vision went dark.
We were surrounded by spectators with wide, astonished eyes—myself and Carlo looking like drowned rats.
“Oh my.”
“Um, Mother?”
“Oh, our daughter…”
“Ah, Father too?”
Among the onlookers were our parents.
The reason Carlo had said nothing from the start was that he’d already sensed this situation. With his eyes rolling slowly in his frozen expression, he whispered just loud enough for me to hear.
“Don’t move. Stay just as you are.”
He tightened his grip around me.
“It’s muddy water, yes, but you’re soaked through. It would be embarrassing.”
“Ah.”
Nothing ever goes right. I wanted to disappear into a mouse hole somewhere.
“Stein, the Stein Territory’s young lady…?”
The people gathered in a circle around the Base Camp murmured amongst themselves.
What’s more, Mother’s eyes—her hand covering her mouth—glinted with something deeply troubling.
Father, meanwhile, had already spun some narrative in his head and was nearly wiping away tears.
“Our daughter, from the time she was little, learning one hundred and one ways to seduce handsome men from high society while shuttling back and forth to the Capital—I knew it from then.”
“Please, Father….”
I learned only later.
While I’d been trapped in the Demon Realm for over an hour, nearly four days had passed in the Human Realm.
* * *
In the Human Realm, where the ambient Mana in the air was relatively scarce, every mage left traces whenever they manipulated Mana.
It meant that even without conscious effort, one’s distinctive Mana lingered like a trail—as naturally as breathing itself.
But when the Mana signal from the Security Division’s reconnaissance vanguard—which should have reported in minimum twelve-hour intervals after being dispatched to the Demon Realm—suddenly cut off, the Mage Tower, rather than hastily dispatch a follow-up team, sent forces to the perimeter around the barrier where the signal was lost to ascertain the vanguard’s situation.
And at fifty-eight hours in, when confirming whether I and Carlo were alive or dead remained impossible, they judged the situation grave and contacted our families.
Before a formal search party could even be dispatched, the Stein Territory was thrown into chaos.
My parents, who treasured their daughter deeply, disregarded others’ objections and climbed this mountain where I’d supposedly vanished, without hesitation.
“You two didn’t climb directly, did you? You used a Teleportation Magic Scroll? The paths here are unusually treacherous.”
I asked, thinking of Father who’d been complaining of lower back pain recently, but Mother immediately struck my back hard.
“Oof.”
“Is that what you have to say to us, sweetheart?”
“Sweetheart, she says.”
…Your hands are really harsh.
I’d climbed into the carriage draped in a thick Blanket the servants had prepared, but Mother’s fan—of all days—happened to be unusually large.
Great jewels studded its edges, making each blow feel like a strike from a pressure-point hammer.
I rubbed my struck shoulder with one hand and stuck out my lip.
I understood that they were reproaching me for taking on such a dangerous mission without my parents’ knowledge, but it had been a classified operation—I couldn’t contact them before departure to explain the situation.
Even if I could have, I wouldn’t have called them out of sheer reluctance to cause worry.
‘Fortunately I stopped by the Estate last week.’
Just in case, I’d entrusted a few Teleportation Magic Scrolls I’d bought long ago to my parents for emergencies.
I hadn’t expected an urgent situation to arise so suddenly, but I was grateful they’d used them so effectively.
‘Since we used a two-person scroll, two months’ worth of expenses… I’ll manage if I work hard.’
Wiping away the water dripping from my wet hair, I quietly cursed to myself.
And thus, the present.
The temporary camps that served as makeshift conference halls were finally dismantled.
Somehow word had gotten around, and it seemed the Demon Realm expedition plan was ultimately shelved.
Honestly, I’d seen it coming.
From beginning to end, it was fundamentally wrong to get excited about an uncertain plan based purely on hypothesis and simply start sending people in.
‘Even if I’ve caused the female lead to skip ahead through some of her predetermined hardships a few times, a progression this divergent doesn’t make sense.’
I nodded inwardly and cast my gaze out the carriage window.
Due to insufficient Scrolls, I shared the carriage with my parents.
Somehow Carlo ended up traveling with us as well.
Quietly observing my parents’ bickering from the rear seat, he quickly closed his eyes when I glanced at him sidelong.
“Are you sleeping?”
Carlo had ended up in the carriage because my parents had actively urged him to join.
We’d both exhausted ourselves with excessive Mana use, and Carlo was my lifesaver, after all.
“Don’t wake him. He must have been utterly drained, protecting you too in a place where it’s hard enough to look after oneself.”
“True, that makes sense. When we arrive, we really ought to give him a proper meal at the Estate.”
On top of forcing him into the carriage in the first place, he now had to share a meal with his awkward colleague’s family.
‘The poor man is pretending to sleep just to escape this.’
I was relieved, at least, that the carriage had front and rear seats separated—but only briefly.
Another crisis arrived.
“…We should ask what he thinks too. He seems quite uncomfortable.”
I glanced toward the rear seat where Carlo was sitting.
My face flushed immediately, and I turned my gaze back to the window.
‘…I’m still embarrassed about it.’
The implications of what happened earlier had already sunk in.
What had Carlo’s expression been like then?
His pallid face materialized in my mind, slowly playing back how he’d immediately dunked me in the muddy water the instant we touched ground in the Human Realm.
Come to think of it, there were many things I’d wanted to ask him when the Return Magic activated.
“Still, it’s fortunate the magic worked properly on the way back. Father is just so relieved.”
“If it hadn’t, Demon Beasts would have chased us. What would we have done? Mother really doesn’t even want to imagine it.”
“Yes. Return Magic….”
I gave a halfhearted reply.
After that, I couldn’t manage another word, so I rested my head against the window and closed my eyes.
Like Carlo, silent and brooding.
I’d seen it clearly with my own eyes, after all.
The moment that damned bear demon beast tore through my blouse and ripped apart several spells woven into the Magic Circle.
‘The activation failed.’
And yet we’d crossed safely into the Human Realm.
With nothing but a gesture from someone’s hand.

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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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