My Husband Is Not the Magic Tower Master - Chapter 82
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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 82
This is the story that came after the founding monarch had Stein exiled to the Demon Realm, and all word of her vanished completely.
Carlo, who had lived a long life watching every act the Royal Family committed, offered his verdict in a few short words.
The first king, Delpid, had brought about his own destruction.
As a master of the Great Wind Magic, he had come to deeply regret using his own unique gift to drive Stein into the Demon Realm.
When she disappeared from the human world, his kingdom was buffeted as if it had been waiting for ruin itself—a tempest of chaos engulfed it.
In a world stripped of its strongest guardian, wickedness flourished without restraint.
Demonic creatures, possessed as if by some madness, descended without warning and ravaged the foundations of the people’s lives, while lower-rank mages sparked rebellion in the tower in their hunger for greater realms of power.
Tens, hundreds of mages fell gravely wounded or dead each day.
As the balance of the magical realm crumbled, the authority of the Royal Family sank lower with each passing moment.
Not until Delpid knelt before Carlo and admitted his own arrogance.
“We must find her. Stein. Immortal mage—we must bring her back.”
“…How can you find someone who has disappeared without a trace?”
Worse still, Delpid himself had been the one to send away the greatest mage of the age, the strongest by his own hand.
He had already resorted to Forbidden Magic in his desperation to restore the waning prestige of both the human realm and the Magic Tower.
And yet, no matter what he did, he could not find Stein, wherever she had gone.
The Demon Realm was a truly unknown world—from ancient times, no record of it had ever existed.
Once Stein crossed the final boundary of the human realm and passed into the Demon Realm, she was as good as dead.
Even Carlo could not guarantee her survival; he could only entrust her to the next life. He could not give Delpid a definitive answer.
“She has…by your command, embarked on a journey far, far away.”
“No—she cannot be dead. She cannot. That’s impossible….”
Delpid, consumed by the forbidden magic that had tainted his soul, withered day by day as his lifespan was devoured, and at times he fell into despair over the terrible things he had done.
The founding king did not linger much longer after that.
He met his end in that uncertain liminal space between human and mage—an incomplete existence, a pitiful life cut short.
Carlo hated the king who had forced him and Stein apart.
But having watched the whole of his life, Carlo could not bring himself to hate him entirely.
At first, of course, there had been anger—but as time passed, what remained was only a bitter emotion, and in the end, he felt something close to pity.
You surely met an end unbecoming of a man.
The Delpinia that Delpid loved was bitterly selfish, a place that exhausted everyone in the endless cycle of bloodshed.
If Carlo had learned love and friendship—and more—from Stein, then it was compassion he learned in this place.
“Listen well. Your grandfather was a blackguard worse than a savage, a wretched creature, and his seed was rotten to the core.”
After Delpid’s death, Carlo involved himself directly in the governance of the kingdom.
He selected a successor of upright character as his foremost disciple, taught him, and chose the next king. He contributed to the kingdom’s prosperity.
Delpinia, which had been crumbling, gradually found its footing and recovered its stability.
Stein remained absent from his side.
But Carlo could faintly perceive her future.
‘You swore you would find the Demon God you made a contract with and meet him again.’
He did not think she would fail.
The Stein that Carlo knew was the most powerful and magnificent mage in all the world he had ever inhabited.
Your long absence was, perhaps, not death but good news—a promise that we would meet again someday.
‘Come back to me.’
She would return.
Someday, she would come.
She would not have forgotten me.
Instead of surrendering to the deep weariness of longing and solitude, Carlo built the deep history of Delpinia with his own hands.
And one by one, he corrected what had gone awry in that first age.
Years passed, until nearly everything reached stability in the present day.
Thanks to him, the Royal Family knew bloodshed no longer.
Lucas, the First Prince whom Carlo had selected, successfully completed his investiture as Crown Prince at the age of eighteen.
These were peaceful days.
Until a certain sense of déjà vu began to creep in.
“Master, why doesn’t my magical power seem to increase at all?”
“That’s simply the limit of what you can reach.”
“Oh, that’s too harsh! Surely you should offer encouraging words to help your disciple grow!”
“Advanced rank is already high enough. Know your place.”
“Grateful as I am to have a master who understands the subject, this disciple no longer has the strength to train. I’m going to rest now.”
Lucas sprawled in the shade, abandoning his practice with Fire Magic to escape the blazing sun, sweat pouring down his face.
“Get up.”
“I refuse. Truly, I’m on the verge of collapse as it is.”
And summer’s nearly here, besides!
As he grumbled about how unreasonable it all was, Carlo sighed and spoke.
“Don’t whine about being small just because you haven’t grown enough.”
“That’s not whining!”
Lucas’s face registered a moment of alarm, but it quickly softened into the look of a meek lamb.
Carlo’s expression as he gazed down at him was far more frightening.
“…Get up while I’m still asking nicely.”
“Nicely? That sounds like a threat!”
Carlo furrowed his brow out of habit.
He’d tried to reason with his disciple, but his poor way with words meant his persuasion fell flat.
Lucas had already turned away with a pout, lying on his back stubbornly.
One year into his magical awakening, Lucas had risen from the Lower-Rank Mage level to nearly the upper echelon in a remarkably short span.
Carlo subjected him to relentless magical training, repeatedly warning that such exceptional progress was unbecoming of one with royal blood, and that complacency was forbidden.
But Lucas seemed to have reached the limit of his patience.
“I’m just an ordinary person!”
It wasn’t entirely wrong.
Even calling him upper-rank, he’d only just graduated from the Intermediate Level—a green mage in every sense.
He was still a child, far too young to withstand the cold, sharp gaze of his master.
That is, if one ignored the fact that every night, by order of the current king—blinded by jealousy—assassins crept into the Crown Prince’s Palace to harm Lucas.
Watching his oblivious and cheerful disciple, Carlo exhaled a long breath once more.
“I’m counting to three.”
Even as he spoke, he was pushing forward with his pitiful student.
“It feels like I’ve been resting plenty already.”
“I’m telling you, I feel like I’m actually dying!”
“Humans don’t die that easily. Unless you fell into the heart of the Demon Realm, perhaps.”
“Huh?”
Lucas’s face twisted with obvious grievance at those words.
As if suddenly resolved to resist, he threw himself flat on the ground and pointed wildly at the garden surrounding them.
“Master, don’t you feel sorry for all these beautiful flowers and trees?”
“What?”
“On such a warm spring day, to see the Crown Prince’s Palace gardens blazing in flames like this—no matter that you restore them with Water or Wind Magic, given your versatility….”
“One.”
A squeak escaped Lucas’s throat.
……
But no sound of “two” or “three” came from Carlo’s lips.
When Lucas, trembling with fear, opened his tightly shut eyes, there was no one there.
“…Master?”
Only an empty space remained, as if scattered by the wind.
Carlo’s magic was somewhat impulsive in nature.
The High-Speed Movement Magic activated instinctively, without conscious thought.
His body, drawn on the breeze, sensed something and reached a rather extraordinary conclusion—and he found himself beneath a tree he hadn’t intended to reach.
“What in the―”
Carlo’s red eyes, quiet for centuries, wavered uncertainly.
When he opened them, there was empty air beneath his feet.
‘A window. A tree. A manor.’
He glanced around briefly.
His instinct told him he’d arrived somewhere in the southern provinces.
Before his eyes stood the leisurely mansion of some provincial noble house.
Until that moment, Carlo believed his magic had malfunctioned.
“Rose—Rose!”
A shriek pierced the air―
Not until he caught the girl tumbling from beneath the window safely in his arms.
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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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