My Husband Is Not the Magic Tower Master - Chapter 88

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 88

What are the conditions for a Grand Mage’s Ability Manifestation?
“From what I’ve heard, it’s supposedly an ability that manifests naturally whenever a successor appears every century.”
“….”
“But it doesn’t seem to work that way. I haven’t shown any changes, and neither has the Crown Prince until now.”
I laughed awkwardly even as I spoke to Elline, who listened to me in silence.
Lucas and I had both awakened as Grand Mages of Water and Wind Attributes respectively, but unfortunately we still had no awareness or manifestation of our abilities.
In my case especially—the Water Grand Mage—information was so scarce that I didn’t even know what ability I would manifest.
All that existed were Stein’s records in the history books, and those seemed to be only half-written.
So I could only make predictions based on my own intuition as the person involved.
“Somehow, I think there might be specific conditions rather than it just being granted automatically?”
For instance, maybe it’s delayed if you refuse to accept the power for years without relenting?
Over the past nearly two years, I’d been hiding more than half of my innate Magical Power.
Lucas, for several times longer than that, had been perfectly concealing his Wind Attribute while pretending to be a Fire Attribute mage.
The time and methods these two of us had spent hiding our identities were entirely different.
Yet there was one thing that overlapped between him and me.
Nothing other than denial of reality.
Both of us had rejected living as Grand Mages thus far.
‘Magical Power can’t have a consciousness, surely.’
It seemed time would be necessary.
If it were connected to psychological factors, that is.
Only yesterday I’d been busy hiding my Magical Power, and now I was only just beginning to use it—the same went for Lucas.
There might still be specific conditions, like certain environments, that hadn’t been met yet for detecting or awakening to the ability.
Of course, I still don’t know exactly what ability I’m meant to inherit.
At least I could breathe easier knowing Lucas had awakened.
‘Wait, I’d almost forgotten.’
Lucas was the Crown Prince of this Kingdom.
Since Delpinia’s first king had been a Grand Mage of Wind Attribute, naturally there was a possibility that a successor could emerge from his descendants.
I shared all the information about this world that I knew with Elline first.
The world in which she and Lucas had been the protagonists had already come to a close, but after that ending, another incident had unfolded.
And even the tragedy King Rekio had wrought, and the existence of the Returning Ability and Destruction Ability.
I laid bare everything I’d experienced before her.
“You’re going to be the next Earth Attribute Grand Mage, Elline. I’ve been waiting for your awakening from six years ago until now….”
I know it’s come very late.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner. I mean it.”
During the time I spoke of the beginning and end of my memories, she gave no answer.
I knew it was a selfish confession.
If the king hadn’t threatened me with Dark Magic, I probably would have kept this secret until I died.
It seemed it would be more beneficial to peace, closer to an ordinary life.
Some secrets disappear forever, never revealed to the world.
“I wasn’t trying to deceive you.”
More honestly, I didn’t want to grow distant from Elline.
“It’s just… I think I became more afraid as time went on. The choice to become real friends with you was mine alone… and I was terrified you’d think even that was fake.”
“….”
“…”
Lucas, as the Wind Attribute Grand Mage, had said we needed to reclaim the Returning Ability that the current king was misusing as soon as possible.
I explained in detail how Carlo, who possesses the Immortality Ability, has an old connection with me going back to long ago.
Ah, and I mentioned that my ability isn’t even in those common history books, so I don’t know what it is.
I even mentioned that the Water Grand Mage is supposedly the strongest, but since I don’t know the most powerful status or how to utilize it, I’m currently useless.
My words came to an end like that, but for some reason Elline just stood there looking at me, still quiet.
“Hey.”
“….”
“Elline?”
Say something, anything.
As the silence stretched longer, I awkwardly reached to speak again.
“Why….”
Elline’s voice came out in fragments.
At the same time, her eyes, which had been staring vacantly into empty air, grew wet with tears.
“Why do I feel like I’m going to cry?”
“Hm?”
“You were definitely… you treated me badly so many times, weren’t you?”
So she remembered.
Now that I thought about it, she had left out the history of harassment from around age fourteen.
That part seemed to require further explanation, so I hurried to speak.
“I’m sorry for that—”
But that was as far as I got.
I couldn’t say anything more. Elline pulled me urgently into her arms, her whole body trembling.
“I’m sorry, Rose.”
“W-what?”
“Now that I think about it more carefully, I don’t think that was really what happened. No—I don’t think it ever happened at all. Not even once.”
“…What?”
Held in her embrace, I asked blankly in return. Her sobs only grew louder in response.
Whatever had made Elline so sorrowful, she could only murmur apologies to me over and over.
“I forgot. I lost the memory. I didn’t even realize my memories had been changed….”
Memories, she said, had been altered.
“You see, Rose, I actually knew it all. I knew, but I’d forgotten for a time. Because you cast magic on me to make me forget everything.”
The fourteen-year-old memory I held onto.
That day’s fall was, according to the story in the book, something Rose of Stein had orchestrated herself to frame Elline.
And yet Elline wept openly, like someone who had only just recovered a lost memory.
That day, Elline and Rose had finished their meal and napped together, she said.
“I felt something was wrong and opened my eyes, and you got up and went to the window, then suddenly said something strange.”
“…You’re saying I manipulated your memory before falling from the window?”
“Yes. That’s what it seems like.”
Elline, nestled in my arms, embraced me tighter with both arms as she answered.
“You never bullied me, Rose. From the moment we first met, we got along perfectly fine.”
“….”
“You simply needed a narrative so you could understand and accept this world.”
After all, even one of the strongest in the past—a Grand Mage like Stein—would have difficulty knowing the events that would unfold in the future.
‘…So why skip the second life and come to the third instead,’ I thought.
Had I glimpsed this world in advance by transforming the story into a book in another world?
Erasing all memories of my life as Stein, perceiving this place as if it were inside a novel?
“So I used myself for something….”
My head spun.
Then what had Stein sought to gain in a life that repeated three times?

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————