My Husband Is Not the Magic Tower Master - Chapter 83

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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 83

Carlo understood only then why he’d had to come to this place.
“…!”
“Ugh, ah.”
“You….”
A girl who’d tumbled from the window without warning, caught unthinking in his arms.
The moment their eyes met, time seemed to stop.
“…!”
Ordinary brown hair and amber eyes.
He’d thought there was nothing about her that resembled the woman he’d known.
“Hush.”
She stifled her sobs, and her clear eyes were already looking up at him from where she lay in his arms.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, yet she held herself with utter composure against his chest.
She met his gaze calmly, then slowly placed her index finger to her lips.
Carlo knew exactly who she was from that look alone.
…Stein.
“Not yet.”
With those few words, he held her close as she slipped into sleep, treasuring her against his heart.
“…Come back to me.”
You haven’t forgotten me after all.
* * *
Not yet.
According to Carlo, that single phrase uttered by fourteen-year-old Rose in that moment was pure Stein—wholly and completely her.
Not Rose Stein, but Stein.
The Stein of his past, the one he’d loved.
‘How could that be.’
Honestly, as his current wife, I didn’t particularly want to understand it. But I couldn’t deny it either—my mind had already worked through the logic of it, at least to some degree.
Carlo said he’d watched me from a distance for quite a long time after we first met.
“But you’re the one who approached first—why didn’t you say anything more?”
“…She didn’t remember me. From what I gathered, she’d lost all her prior memories.”
“Ah… well, I suppose that would explain it.”
Memory loss. That much was true.
More precisely, it was something like the loss of existence, a soul swap.
“I couldn’t bring myself to get closer. To look at her, she simply wasn’t the person I knew.”
“…I see.”
We sat side by side on the bed, listening to the old history he unfolded.
I had nothing to say in response, so I just tapped my feet restlessly against the floor.
‘This is rather awkward.’
And it wasn’t wrong.
The Rose Stein he’d encountered right after the accident wasn’t her at all—it was me.
The ‘me’ who’d opened her eyes in a different body in this world the moment my life in another ended.
Until she lost consciousness at the window-fall accident, that had been the original Rose. But from that moment on, it was me living in her stead.
What could I even say? The only metaphor that came to mind was a relay baton handoff, which left me scratching my cheek in embarrassment.
In the end, Carlo said he kept circling my side and watching over me because of that single phrase the previous version of me had spoken.
‘Without knowing it was a scheme.’
I’d thought we’d met by chance at the Magic Tower, flirted, and eventually married.
Now I realized nothing had gone as I’d believed.
“…So you knew beforehand that I’d awaken as a Mage?”
“I knew it would happen someday, but I didn’t know it would be at twenty.”
“Either way, you knew. And I’m asking this just to be sure—that Mage Special Recruitment Examination I took, you arranged that too…?”
“In all my years of life, my authority as Tower Master proved most useful in that moment.”
Good heavens.
I opened my mouth in disbelief.
“Of course, Elline handled both the job offer and played the decisive part, but….”
A decisive part—that was quite the word choice.
It was painfully obvious what method Carlo had used to win Elline’s favor.
Nothing surprising about it, really.
He’d undoubtedly followed his friend inside and plastered recruitment notices for Water Attribute Mages across every place Elline frequented.
‘Now that I think about it, the heroine passed the exam half a year earlier than originally planned.’
I’d assumed it was thanks to me, having encouraged her to take the Mage Special Recruitment Examination ahead of schedule, but that wasn’t it at all.
Looking back, I’m not sure I’d even taken that Magical Power aptitude interview all that seriously myself.
Yet somehow, the panel had unanimously passed me on the first try.
At the time, I’d thought it was easy because I’d subtly drawn on that hidden strength of mine.
But standing before him as he laid bare all the secrets he’d kept from me, I finally understood what had really happened.
Me: a Mage in my second year of practice.
My husband: Master of the Magic Tower since ages past.
“…Oh.”
If Carlo had been in that interview room back then, he would have seen through everything.
Back when I was still a novice Mage, I’d believed such a deception would fool anyone.
‘Absorbing someone else’s attribute—it wasn’t really such an extraordinary technique.’
With sufficiently advanced Magical Power and a rigidly structured incantation, it was possible, however briefly, to merge two attributes.
It would be difficult, certainly, but not beyond reach without a High-Ranking Mage’s power.
After a few years as a Mage, when I finally got around to thinking about it properly, that became clear.
But if a novice, barely awakened, had suddenly unleashed a massive quantity of Magical Power and pulled off such an impossible feat….
Anyone would have found that strange.
To everyone else, it would have pointed to one of two things.
Either a High-Ranking Mage, or a Dark Mage.
‘I could have been arrested on the spot.’
So then—who had hidden that from me?
It had to have been Carlo.
If others had discovered I was a High-Ranking Mage instead of him keeping it quiet, the situation could have become truly awkward.
And all the while, I’d been thrilled, thinking I’d passed through my own merit.
That recruitment exam had been in Carlo’s hands anyway—I would have passed regardless—but….
‘He’d known my true nature from the beginning, so he simply kept quiet and protected me.’
Oh gods, I’m mortified.
Seized by sudden embarrassment, I quietly started edging away from his side toward the far edge of the bed.
But Carlo, as if he understood without words, caught my fleeing hand and spoke.
“I have protected you in many ways. For instance, when you were practicing magic and accidentally flooded the inside of the Estate—”
“Oh no.”
That wasn’t something I’d contained on my own?
“And during the interview itself, stopping time and erasing the examiners’ memories—you have no idea how much effort that took—”
“Stop, please stop.”
“Don’t move any further away.”
“I’ll stop. If I just sit beside you like this, that’s enough, yes?”
When I returned to my original position and pressed close to his side, his words finally trailed off.
Carlo gazed at my flustered form with a satisfied expression, then slowly smiled.
Like someone lost in remembrance of ages past, his eyes held a fleeting sadness.
It felt too distant, a span of time too vast, and even before I could fully comprehend what he might be feeling, my heart grew heavy with a realization that had just occurred to me.
“Carlo.”
“Yes?”
“Then, right now, your age is…?”
“Since I stopped counting precisely after more than a hundred years, I couldn’t say for certain.”
…He doesn’t even count his age. What are you, a goblin or something.
My stare lingered for only a moment before I spoke to him again.
“I don’t remember any of it—centuries spent as promised lovers or anything like that.”
“….”
“Will that be alright with 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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