My Husband Is Not the Magic Tower Master - Chapter 85
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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 85
Currently, the Magic Tower was at Alert Level 3.
Demons had invaded various locations throughout the Delpinia Kingdom.
The mastermind behind this catastrophe was, unsurprisingly, the king of Delpinia who had tormented me all this time.
Carlo said he’d known the king had dabbled in forbidden magic, but hadn’t realized he could wield an innate ability sealed away in the ancient past.
The king’s original Mana reserves were only lower-tier level, after all.
“To open a passage connected to the Demon Realm in such a short span of time would require power of that magnitude—but surely, he must have paid an equivalent price.”
Yet there was one blind spot, even for Carlo, who had mastered the arcane arts long ago after living through countless ages.
Dark Magic was now a lost ritual to the humans inhabiting this era, and consequently there was precious little information to excavate about it.
Conversely, that meant the range of unknowns was vast.
How far humanity could descend into corruption, and what atrocities it might commit in the process.
Most of all, what the king truly coveted wasn’t something so simple as great power.
His lifespan had already worn thin.
And since he’d successfully unsealed the Binding Curse innate ability that the first king, Delpheid, had sealed away for future generations, there was nothing left to fear.
“What does he gain by provoking me? I don’t even know what my own innate ability is yet, as you can see.”
“That’s precisely it.”
Carlo said.
“The mightiest Archmage of Water Attribute Magic, shackled by a Binding Curse wielded by a mere low-tier mage, moving like a puppet on strings.”
“Hm….”
A kind of pseudo-dopamine rush?
I murmured to myself.
It would be thrilling, wouldn’t it—flipping the entire pyramid hierarchy upside down in a single stroke.
Only, whether it was worth throwing one’s life away for was another question entirely.
Carlo either hadn’t heard my muttering, or else he continued explaining after some thought.
“More precisely, it would be a final, desperate flailing…that captures it better.”
“Ah. So it’s a mutual annihilation ending, then? We all perish together?”
“…An ending? I’ve told you before—this is not a world contained in a book, Rose.”
Carlo, walking down the corridor after exiting the elevator, twitched the hand he’d been holding mine with.
Perhaps because I was responding as if this were someone else’s affair, despite it being a grave situation on which the very survival of humanity and magic depended.
Or perhaps because, still bereft of any memory, I couldn’t share in the deep intimacy he sought, conversing instead like office colleagues.
His complexion had grown quite dark.
Was he disappointed?
But contrary to expectation, before I could ask, he hesitated and spoke again.
“I am truly sorry, to you.”
“Pardon?”
“I wasn’t trying to deceive you on purpose. It’s just that, as matters kept spiraling larger….”
Up to this point, it sounded like a reasonable excuse.
What followed was a proper attempt at reconciliation.
“…If I’ve disappointed you in any way, I promise to do better going forward. As your husband, and as your colleague as well.”
His unexpected confession of conscience left me frozen in place, blinking. He certainly knew what he was doing.
Here he was apologizing for deceiving me.
Yet he seemed incapable of imagining even a single scenario where he might actually let me go.
“No, how are you my colleague? You’re the Tower Master.”
As of today, I’d be facing the highest authority and my superior—someone I didn’t want to encounter again.
I let out a laugh despite myself, beyond mere bewilderment.
“So what exactly do you want to do, keeping a lover who’s lost her memory and been reincarnated right by your side?”
“I want to care for you well. In this life, I’ll love you even more.”
“Pretty words. You pass.”
The moment I nodded, Carlo’s expression brightened immediately.
I’d thought he was hurt by me, but it turned out he’d been worried about my feelings all along.
For an instant, I thought: so the Carlo I used to know was like this, after all.
I’d overlooked it myself, just now.
‘That’s why I liked him.’
I smiled at him in return and, nestling back into his arms, rested my head against his shoulder without hesitation.
“…You’ll trip if you keep doing that.”
“It’s fine. You’ll catch me without letting me get hurt, won’t you?”
Carlo said nothing in reply, simply drawing me close with a firm embrace.
Even if we were the kingdom’s well-known official couple, we needed to exercise restraint in the laboratory—I’d planned to keep it to walking together only as far as the entrance.
Meanwhile, the demons that had invaded the kingdom were being mopped up by the efforts of other departments.
What remained was the barrier between realms, cracked and shattered once more.
What good was patching the fissure when it kept appearing? Until we eliminated the root cause, it was nothing but spinning our wheels.
“Speaking of Dark Magic, though—surely the king wouldn’t actually destroy the barrier itself, would he?”
“No. He’ll use a Binding Curse to harness your power instead.”
“That’s a grave problem. If we wait for the king’s natural death, the safe zones will crumble in the meantime. And if we try to find a way to break a Binding Curse’s Innate Ability…”
This was genuinely intractable.
A groan escaped my lips of its own accord.
Even if this world wasn’t truly bound within the pages of a book, I knew what came after its ending.
But the more I thought about it, the more my head ached, and a melancholy settled over me.
“Well… eventually Elline awakens as an Archmage of the Earth Attribute, and at that point she gains a special power called Destruction, right?”
I hadn’t known that it was a unique ability only Archmages possessed—in other words, an Innate Ability.
In my memory, Innate Abilities weren’t a particularly important detail in the world of “A Mage’s Way of Love.”
“I’ve heard that the power to destroy can break every single rule and law that exists in this world—it’s a privilege unto itself.”
But unfortunately, even I couldn’t say for certain when Elline would awaken as an Archmage.
A month from now? If some variable prolonged it, perhaps two or three months?
But if the king moved within that timeframe and triggered another tragedy, we’d all end up destroyed anyway.
Even if the king were living on borrowed time, he still had nearly half a year left.
Hmm.
‘We’re doomed.’
A world-ending apocalypse greeting us after our cheerful newlywed life seemed distinctly unappealing.
“Sigh.”
Outside the Security Department’s laboratory entrance.
Carlo had explained the Innate Abilities of Archmages of each Attribute to me long ago, but all I felt was helpless.
“It’s more of a joke, really.”
According to Carlo, Innate Abilities were inherited, passed down like a mantle.
When the next generation’s Archmage appeared, that successor naturally received their own special power.
“Searching for an Archmage of the Wind Attribute now would be too late, wouldn’t it?”
The king was not an Archmage.
In that case, the Binding Curse’s Innate Ability might be stolen by a future mage instead.
I laughed with a wry smile.
“You never know. There might be someone else out there like me, hiding their identity and living an ordinary life in obscurity?”
It was an absurdly unlikely possibility, but reality was often more dramatic than fiction.
“Surely not.”
Carlo shook his head firmly, then immediately pulled open the door handle.
Click.
“Since Delpheid, there hasn’t been a single mage who deceived my eyes by concealing their identity or reached that level of Magical Power with a Wind Attribute.”
* * *
At the same moment, the 100th Floor.
Inside the Crown Prince’s study.
Or rather, should it be called the outdoors, given that the roof and windows had been completely torn away?
When the 88th Floor collapsed and the demon attack began, Elline had rushed to the 100th Floor out of concern for Lucas.
But now she wondered if she should have come at all.
“Ugh—you’re okay, aren’t you, El?”
“Yes, I am…”
She had come here precisely because she wanted to protect him, arriving the moment the situation on the 88th Floor was resolved.
Why? In case someone of lower magical rank than Lucas might get hurt.
While Elline was of the highest tier of mages, he was merely competent—mid-tier at best.
But facing the sight before her eyes now, Elline found herself at a loss for words.
“Screeeeeech!”
“Shrieeeeeek!”
“Come on then. I won’t let my woman get hurt.”
The man she knew didn’t seem to be someone who beat demons down with his bare hands.
As Lucas casually gripped dozens of demons by their necks in each hand, swinging them about as if they weighed nothing, he looked perfectly at ease.
As if he were borrowing the power of wind itself.
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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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