My Husband Is Not the Magic Tower Master - Chapter 57
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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 57
I’d slept straight through the night and hadn’t eaten since, yet my stomach wasn’t the least bit hungry.
Sleep Magic was a spell that put the body into a suspended state—no wonder, really.
But I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe Carlo’s insistence otherwise.
Regardless of factional struggles, the situation had certainly become troublesome.
‘Just get through one more day.’
Then this bone-chilling Royal Palace tour would be over. At least I could change my circumstances and get away from danger.
Once I was married, I wouldn’t even look back—I’d run.
I exhaled a long breath and turned to retrace my steps.
“By the way, a day off? You, Carlo?”
“There’s a handover of duties to attend to.”
“Are you transferring departments?”
“Something like that. Now that Rose is gone, there’s no real reason for me to stay in the Security Department.”
It was encouraging to hear, but something didn’t quite add up. I tilted my head.
‘…What does that mean?’
Carlo went on to explain briefly.
He’d had a promising successor and partner mage, and losing her meant there was no longer a point in staying with the Security Department.
I was taken aback by that.
“You valued me that much? Enough to request a department transfer because your successor mage is leaving?”
That would be rather touching, if true.
But a man who’d spent more than half his life locked away in the Magic Tower doing nothing but work would make such a dramatic choice? That seemed impossible.
‘He’s throwing away his career. This isn’t dramatic—it’s catastrophic.’
I couldn’t believe he’d do something like that just because I was gone.
To be honest, it was far more difficult to believe than not.
I was worried—what if he came back later blaming everything on me, demanding I take responsibility?
But seeing the shock on my face, Carlo shook his head in denial.
“I’m simply returning to my original position.”
“Your original position? The Special Management Department?”
“…Higher than that. Originally above the very top.”
“Ah. So you’re planning to share a study with the Crown Prince.”
The highest level of the Magic Tower I knew of was where Lucas kept his study.
Since they were childhood friends, they could comfortably share a study. What could I say?
His words about being higher than the Special Management Department had startled me, but I understood quickly enough.
Lucas must have called him first.
Carlo might well be one of the most formidable practitioners among the Magic Tower’s operational staff, save for the greatest mages alive.
Indeed, he was too talented to languish in the Security Department.
“If that’s the case, it really is a high position. Right next to the Crown Prince.”
…
As I nodded genuinely, Carlo’s expression grew even more nuanced than before.
At any rate, my resignation had prompted his transfer to another department—unfortunate news.
If he was moving to the hundredth floor, the distance would only grow wider, and the prospects for an office romance had neatly vanished.
I sighed quietly to myself.
As silence and conversation alternated between us, we made our way back to the Crown Princess Palace.
“Oh, that’s right.”
Just as our footsteps echoed in the quiet, I broke the silence.
“About when we both fell from the window earlier—actually, I had a similar accident when I was younger.”
“…Were you injured?”
“No, fortunately not.”
Someone had saved me.
But it was such an old memory that I couldn’t be certain of the details.
‘I shouldn’t mention this.’
I hesitated for a moment, but there was no point in dredging up secrets over something unrelated.
I lowered my head, and as Carlo gazed at me intently, I swallowed the words I’d been about to say and brushed it off vaguely.
“A dear friend saved me.”
“I doubt that.”
“What?”
“…If it had been Elline, she’d have been the same age as Rose, so she would have been just as young.”
“Still, she was a mage back then. Elline is just too shy to say anything, but it’s almost certainly true that she saved me.”
Of course, she had never explained the details of that day to me.
Elline and I were fourteen years old.
At the time, I was nothing but a sickly, frail noblewoman, but she was different.
Even then, Elline was a talented mage who had succeeded in Magic Manifestation—that notoriously difficult achievement—and a rising prodigy worthy of challenging the Magic Tower examinations.
Even if she was still a novice with clumsy technique, there’s no way she couldn’t have caught me as I fell past that window.
“What if there was another spell on that window—one difficult to undo?”
“You speak as though you know something.”
“Of course, I know nothing of the sort.”
What are you talking about? He’s been puncturing every word I say this whole time.
Carlo shook his head stiffly. Instead, he offered an answer from a different angle.
“Still, this much I can say with certainty.”
“…?”
“A novice mage who’d only recently manifested magic would have struggled to memorize even the incantation for warming a glass of milk.”
Just beyond the Crown Princess Palace, which we were nearly upon.
“…Then what of a spell that summons a great flood?”
In the midst of the grass swaying as though the wind would uproot it entirely, I stopped walking without thinking and asked him.
A question I’d wanted to ask someone for so long.
Had my magic ever struggled because of a calculation error or insufficient memorization—even once?
‘If anything, it overflowed, and controlling it was the harder part.’
At the childhood memory that crossed my mind, my eyes wavered with sudden emptiness.
Carlo, who had stopped moving just as I had, smiled quietly at the corner of his mouth.
“A spell that brings calamity typically falls into one of two states.”
“…Which is?”
“Either it has overloaded. Or it is overwhelmingly powerful.”
I’m sorry, but I’m already drowning in romance as it is. I didn’t want to layer obsession and madness onto it too.
But who exactly are you calling overwhelmingly powerful?
“Ah.”
I gave a half-hearted response, my brow furrowed.
Then, since we were nearly at the palace gates now, I turned to face him, thinking it was time to send him away.
“Carlo―.”
“Rose.”
My voice was cut short by his lips, which moved faster than my words.
“I’ll come by early tomorrow morning.”
“No. Now that we have a temporary solution, I’d rather not trouble you further.”
“Is this a favor? This is my heart.”
His face, which made no attempt to conceal itself, looked quite resolute.
‘He confesses as easily as breathing now.’
The fact that someone had cast Sleep Magic on the Crown Princess Palace was shocking, but in the end, it was only one day.
Just one more day and everything would be over. Besides, I was a water-attribute mage skilled in defense and protection.
I could protect my own body.
I even had that hidden power within me.
My magic called forth a great flood from the moment of its first manifestation—how much safer could it make me?
I didn’t want to burden Carlo, who still only harbored feelings of courtship, with unnecessary responsibility.
I sighed and shook my head.
“Just one more day. That’s all it takes.”
“But Rose…”
“Do I really seem like I’m marrying the Crown Prince because I genuinely love him?”
Of course not—it’s a family promise, that’s all. There’s no feeling involved.
“There’s someone else I do care about.”
Really, just one more day has to pass.
In two days, I’ll confess to you.
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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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