On Official Duty with My Tower Master Ex-Boyfriend - Chapter 6

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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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Episode 6
I rubbed my gritty eyes and sat up, brushing my hair back from my face.
It was the same dream again—the day Cade had pushed me and I fell into the sea. The moment I gained the Attunement Ability.
‘I hadn’t had that dream in a while.’
I’d heard stories of sailors who fell overboard and were rescued by Crystal Whales, but I never imagined it would happen to me.
‘Least of all that I’d gain the Attunement Ability and become a civil servant at the Imperial Government.’
I drew back the heavy curtains and opened the window. A bitter sea breeze rushed in.
Even at midsummer, the northern continent of the Guyana Empire maintained cool weather.
The coldest city in that empire was Melgote, nestled along the northern coast.
True to its reputation as the land of the northern wind, the morning air felt as though it carried a thin skim of ice.
Yet even that biting cold couldn’t shake the fog from my mind.
‘I barely slept all night, tossing and turning. And then the dream on top of it all—I’m exhausted.’
Against the pale sky and sea, a large gull wheeled through the air.
I tried to think of something else, shifting my gaze here and there, but the dream from last night kept surfacing.
My father’s retreating figure as he walked out the door of the manor, toward the sea where the Crystal Whales swam.
A back. Just a back.
Always a back.
‘I’m tired of it.’
As though his face didn’t exist, my father lived in my memory only as a retreating silhouette.
Whenever I thought of the Crystal Whales, I felt a familiar sickness rise in my throat—his distant figure growing smaller and smaller.
Even though there was nowhere left for him to go, he seemed to recede endlessly.
In my dreams, when my father turned to face me, there was nothing but an unfinished face in his place.
He smiled and called my name, but there were no eyes. I couldn’t remember how my father had ever looked at me.
‘If only the Crystal Whale had never existed.’
My father, so obsessed with the Crystal Whale that he abandoned his family, went out to sea one last time with the same certainty that he’d made another great discovery—and never came home.
It had been seven years since Solling Marquis, my father, had vanished.
In that time, my mother passed away, but my father didn’t appear at her funeral.
The impoverished House of Solling, which had little to begin with, fell into ruin.
With no other relatives, I was all that remained of the Sollings.
Working as a tutor in Ancient Languages, I could barely pay the taxes—had I failed, the manor would have been seized outright.
‘It’s all because of the Crystal Whale.’
Never mind that it had saved my life and awakened the Attunement Ability within me.
If it had played a hand in reducing another family to this state, shouldn’t it bear some responsibility?
‘Getting assigned as a Crystal Whale investigator didn’t fill me with gratitude.’
I wanted to cover up the sea I’d be forced to stare at for days to come, if only for a moment.
I was reaching irritably for the curtains when I turned around—
—and collided headfirst with a dark shape that had materialized out of nowhere.
“Ugh!”
I jerked my head up in surprise and found myself staring at Cade, his hood pulled up over his head.
I froze for a moment, then fumbled desperately for the blanket draped over my chair to cover my nightclothes.
Books scattered across the floor tumbled beneath my feet, spilling into chaos.
“C-Cade?! How did you get in here?”
My mind was slow to connect the dots—the fact that Cade was a Wizard—and only after asking did it occur to me that he must have used Teleportation Magic to enter.
Of course, being able to use Teleportation didn’t excuse him for barging into someone else’s guest room, much less one occupied by a woman alone.
“Do you understand this is breaking and entering? How did you even know I was here? If someone sees us together outside the Magic Tower—”
Cade simply stared at me as I rattled on, then asked quietly:
“Have you been crying?”
“…What?”
Just in case, I touched my cheek, but I felt no trace of tears. What was he talking about?
“Whether I’ve been crying or not is none of your concern. What are you doing here?”
“You dropped this in the office.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled something out.
A badge engraved with a sandpiper and a pen—my Civil Servant Badge, the one I didn’t even know I’d lost.
“You really are a civil servant. I apologize for doubting you.”
He hadn’t believed I was a civil servant, even after learning I was an Attuner.
I regarded him with some coldness and took the badge back.
“I appreciate you bringing this, but I’m going to the Magic Tower today anyway. You didn’t need to come all the way here.”
“I’ll be away from the Magic Tower for a few days on business. There’s no point in trying to find me.”
“What? For how long?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Is it because of me?”
I asked hesitantly, half-expecting him to deny it—but he answered without hesitation.
“Perhaps.”
“…”
The anger that had been rising like a tide drained away in an instant.
He was the master of the Magic Tower; I was barely a first-year civil servant. There was no point in my getting angry at someone so far above me.
My grip on the blanket loosened, leaving only a hollow ache in my hands.
I found myself staring up at Cade, as though entranced, and reaching out to grab the hem of his Robe.
“Then what am I supposed to do…?”
He flinched and stepped back, but the fabric didn’t slip from my grasp.
Even if Cade refused to stamp the Official Document, as long as he remained at the Magic Tower, I could keep trying.
But if he wasn’t there…
I couldn’t exactly chase after a Wizard on a whim. He could simply use Teleportation and disappear.
‘I need this opportunity so badly. Is it really me? Is he doing this just because I happened to be the civil servant who came to him?’
Desperation overwhelmed me; I had no words to persuade him, so I simply held on.
Cade’s expression tightened, revealing some emotion I couldn’t quite read.
He pulled his Robe free, and when he spoke again, his voice was cold.
“It’s because of the Monster Beasts. They’ve been appearing more frequently lately. I need to eliminate them before they gather at the docks.”
“…Monster Beasts?”
Unlike Magical Beasts, they seemed devoid of reason—ferociously savage, leaving corrupted magical energy in their wake, tainting everything they touched.
I knew that in recent years, these sea monsters—creatures of unknown origin—had become far more numerous, and that their numbers were steadily rising.
I also knew that they were more vulnerable to magical attacks than to arrows or swords, which was why the Wizards had been working tirelessly.
Before I was hired, I’d heard stories of Crystal Whale researchers nearly losing their lives to these monsters.
‘So it’s not because of me, then. Was he just teasing me?’
I looked at him blankly for a moment, then opened my mouth.
“Fine. I’ll wait.”
“…You’ll wait?”
“You’re going out to hunt Monster Beasts, so of course I’ll wait. Once you come back, I’m visiting the Magic Tower immediately. Mark my words.”
He probably hadn’t expected me to be this stubborn.
Cade simply stood there like a nail driven into the floor, staring blankly ahead.
“Now go. I need to get to work.”
As I told him to leave, I habitually opened the guest room door halfway before closing it again.
‘I still can’t get used to Cade being a Wizard.’
Hiding my embarrassment, I turned back to look at him—only to find he’d already vanished. He’d left via Teleportation Magic.
“…”
I stared at the empty space where he’d been, then let out a long, heavy sigh.
I would have to stay here until I could get the Tower Master to stamp the Official Document. That meant I’d have to face Cade again.
This Cade, so different from the one I’d known.
Perhaps it was natural that he seemed like a stranger to me. It wasn’t odd that he was only gentle with his lover.
‘Though he’s been so different it almost feels like I’ve been deceived.’
Maybe he’d realized how coldly he’d treated me yesterday.
Why else would he have come all the way here to tell me he wouldn’t be at the Magic Tower? And to return my badge?
‘Could it be that now he’s starting to have second thoughts about—’
The moment that thought crossed my mind, I was suddenly back in those memories: the instant he’d pushed me, the moment he’d cornered me in the Magic Tower.
‘…No, that doesn’t make sense. It can’t be.’
I didn’t know how long the Monster Beast extermination would take, but I’d need time to adjust to this office anyway, so I decided to think of it as fortunate timing.
‘Meeting Cade is awkward, but it’s work. I just need to do my job properly. Since I’m already assigned here, I’ll do the observatory work well too.’
This place was far from the Imperial Capital, so rumors about me might never have reached here.
With that thought, even though it was my first day of work, my heart felt lighter.
***
But contrary to my hopes, the moment I stepped into the Melgote Marine Observatory, hostile stares rained down on me.
“Is that her?”
“Who? Oh, you mean that ‘thing’ the Imperial Government was supposed to send?”
“…”
Somehow, my reputation had reached this place. But how?
Even the office manager here seemed to regard me with displeasure.
“It’s an honor to meet you. I’m Vivian Solling, sent from the Imperial Government.”
In response to my polite greeting, she fixed me with a sharp stare.
“I’m office manager Yukel. The Tower Master asked us to verify your credentials—what exactly did you do to cause such a scene at the Magic Tower?”
“Who… what are you talking about?”

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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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