On Official Duty with My Tower Master Ex-Boyfriend - Chapter 49

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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 49
‘You think you’re the only one who can forget the past and treat me coldly and professionally? I can do that too. I can forget you just as cleanly.’
I stuffed the Bureau Director’s letter into my bag and spoke with an icy edge.
“It’s not that I’m ungrateful to you.”
“If you’re grateful, then just say you’re grateful.”
“You’re irritating and insufferable and disappointing, but I did receive your help, so that much is true.”
…….
“I’ll accept your offer to stay at the Magic Tower.”
“It’s your superior’s order, after all.”
At his hollow laugh of a response, I fixed Cade with a sharp glare.
He’d gripped onto my words even though I’d managed to thank him, however grudgingly, and it infuriated me.
“Since when have you cared about the civil service chain of command?”
“……Enough. I’d like to tell you to rest—you must be exhausted—but before that, there are a few things I need to confirm.”
Cade tapped his fingers against his folded arms, as if gauging and calculating something.
“Who knows that you’re staying at that inn?”
“I haven’t told anyone. Not even the observatory staff.”
My tone and bearing remained distant, but Cade didn’t seem to mind much as long as he got his answers.
“While you’ve been in Melgote, have you ever felt like someone was after you? Any sense that you were being targeted?”
“Who in the world would be after me……?”
I started to deny it outright, wondering why he’d ask such a thing—then something surfaced in my mind.
Separate from my anger at Cade, I was capable of sharing information if it was necessary.
Especially if it might concern my own safety.
“A little while ago, I saw an Eastern Continent Mercenary at the Grand Duke of Melgote’s residence. The one who was staying in the room you destroyed—the one whose windows you blew out.”
“That mercenary was at the Grand Duke’s residence?”
“It was definitely that mercenary.”
As I answered with certainty, Cade’s expression darkened.
But my account didn’t end there.
“And I overheard the people who moved the crate I was hiding in.”
It had struck me as suspicious even at the time.
“They said they were bringing the dying magical beasts to the ‘Imperial Princess.'”
“The Imperial Princess?”
Cade’s face went noticeably rigid as he uncrossed his arms.
“Which Imperial Princess.”
“I only heard ‘Imperial Princess,’ so I don’t know which one. But since those people decided to drag me along only after realizing I was a civil servant—probably because they were worried I’d report them—they weren’t targeting me from the start.”
……I see.
He didn’t sound entirely convinced.
Exhaustion was finally catching up to me, and I was genuinely ready to rest when Ben arrived to say the empty room was prepared.
Cade seemed to realize he’d kept me too long and told me to go without asking further questions.
I gave Cade a curt nod in acknowledgment, nothing more, and turned to follow Ben out of the office.
Chirp—chirp—chirp.
At that, Tris, who had been curled up quietly beneath the chair, suddenly jumped up and followed after me.
“Tris? You want to come with me?”
Chirp!
Tris had been on edge ever since I entered the office, for reasons I couldn’t quite place.
I’d deliberately left him alone because of it, so it was a bit odd that he didn’t want to be separated from me.
Summoned spirits with unstable emotions typically clung to their masters.
‘Is it because I rescued him?’
Regardless of the reason, since Tris’s true master wasn’t me, I glanced at Cade to gauge his reaction.
…….
He seemed lost in thought and paid us no attention.
‘As the spirit’s master, he should be able to sense Tris’s location anyway.’
In the end, I scooped Tris into my arms and followed Ben out.
I was so exhausted that I could have passed out in a storage closet or even a crate if that’s what the empty room turned out to be.
***
Only after Vivian left the office did Cade collapse with a suffocating expression on his face.
He sank to his knees, gripping the desk with one hand shielding his eyes.
‘Should I have sent her back to the Imperial Capital no matter what from the day she first arrived at the Magic Tower?’
If he’d made her leave Melgote sooner, she might never have suffered through any of this.
Cade condemned himself for being too soft with Vivian.
His reputation as a rake was already common gossip, and he shouldn’t have granted her repeated visits to the tower just because he didn’t want to show her his cruel side.
He had long suspected that the Imperial Family was behind the deaths of the previous Tower Master and the wizards.
After he’d discovered that the carriages bearing the Imperial Crest had been loaded with crates containing magical beasts, he had spent his time dismantling places that illegally captured or smuggled magical beasts.
Today’s raid had simply been part of that ongoing operation.
He’d thought it was just another black-market smuggling site for magical beasts; he’d had no idea there was an auction house there.
He’d never imagined he’d encounter Vivian as a “bidding item” in such a place.
‘A bidding item.’
He couldn’t shake the image of Vivian curled up inside that overturned crate.
Beneath her coat, a nightgown with a tattered hem, and a face drained of all color.
Rope marks on her wrists and blood smeared at the corners of her lips.
If he’d arrived even slightly later, he would have found Vivian cold and lifeless.
‘The way things were then……’
In the shadow beneath the desk where the previous Tower Masters had sat, Cade clenched his jaw.
‘Serazade. What should I do? How should I handle this?’
The previous Tower Master, Serazade, had been his benefactor—the one who’d taken in the homeless young Cade.
Perhaps it was because she’d recognized the enormous magical potential that lay within him.
But to Cade, Serazade had been like a mother and a grandmother all at once.
Young Cade had possessed extraordinary magical aptitude, yet his character was lacking, and he’d never fit in with the other wizards—a fact that hadn’t changed even as he grew into adulthood.
Unable to shake the conviction that he had no place here, he had left the tower, convinced he would never return.
“Cade. You’re leaving without even saying goodbye. I’ll miss your presence here.”
“I don’t belong here. I never have.”
“Wherever you rest your head and lay your body down, that becomes your place. Why would you think such things?”
“I won’t come back. I’ll go far away.”
“If the wounds from your childhood haven’t fully healed, there’s no need to rush. Anyone who endures such things needs a great deal of time.”
“No! I’m already completely broken. Even you can’t fix me, Serazade. Besides, you’ve always found me repulsive anyway!”
Serazade hadn’t tried to hold him back. She must have known that restraining him would only have been pointless.
And so he’d left the tower, spilling only harsh words in his wake—only to find that when they met again, Serazade was already dead, cold and stiff.
He’d never managed to tell her he was sorry, never had the chance to thank her, and his only family had slipped away from him forever.
…….
The thought that such a thing might happen again drained all color from Cade’s face.
To threaten Vivian, to press her, to wound her……
And then to let her slip away forever.
‘……Then what is the point of any of this?’
Cade let out a sound of anguish as he dragged his hand across his face.
It was then that Ben entered the office quietly and let out a sigh as if he found the sight pitiful.
“I was the one who suggested you confine her to the tower, but did I really mean for you to actually do it?”
“I’m not scary anymore, am I? You were stammering not long ago.”
“That’s the same expression you had when you came back to the tower after hearing about the previous Tower Master. Absolutely identical.”
Cade briefly considered whether to throw Ben out of the office, but decided against it.
Ben was the one the previous Tower Master Serazade had particularly wanted at his side.
“Why don’t you just be honest about it?”
“……Then Vivian will never go back to the Imperial Capital.”
“If you’re planning to send her back to the Imperial Capital anyway, you might as well treat her well while she’s here. Why are you being so harsh? You can’t even properly get rid of an inspector.”
“This doesn’t concern you, I think.”
“Don’t do what you did when the previous Tower Master left.”
…….
When Vivian found out about his fiancée and burst into the office, furious, Ben had been there too.
He was behind the wall that half-obscured the office, so the enraged Vivian hadn’t noticed him.
But Ben had heard every word Vivian poured out at Cade—right up until just now, without showing any sign of it.
“Regardless of what you’ve been doing outside the tower, don’t do something you’ll obviously regret.”
…….
“The atmosphere of the tower depends on your mood. The tower’s safety obviously depends on your state of mind too.”
…….
Cade simply stared straight ahead without speaking.
He didn’t nod or respond, but Ben believed he understood what was being said.
Ben rose to his feet and returned to his role as the Tower Master’s assistant.
“So, Tower Master. Please take care of the tower.”

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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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