On Official Duty with My Tower Master Ex-Boyfriend - Chapter 81

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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 81
It felt like just yesterday that everyone had leapt with joy at the news I’d become a civil servant at the Imperial Palace.
Ancient Language Teaching work had been unstable and the pay insufficient, so they must have all worried deeply.
That’s why steady income for their employer was reassuring, but the servants of this Residence went beyond that—they celebrated as though it were their own achievement.
I found that both then and now to be touching, even strange.
Usually when a family’s fortunes decline, servants seek to leave; they don’t cling to their posts as these people had.
“Why do you stay at a Residence with no master? If you want better work, I could write you letters of recommendation.”
At my question, they shook their heads as if they’d heard nonsense.
“But miss, how much kindness we’ve received in this place.”
“There’s no need to speak of debts like that……”
Embarrassed, I tapped my plate lightly with my fork, and one by one they spoke with quiet conviction.
“The Baron used to set aside money separately for our mother’s medicine.”
“When my brother took the Academy entrance examination, he introduced us to excellent tutors.”
“When I was attacked by a Monster Beast on the road home to my village, he sent a physician and gave me paid leave until I’d fully recovered.”
“……”
Listening to tales of my father’s kindness, I pushed a sip of water into my mouth to hide the bitterness rising in me.
I wasn’t resentful that my father, despite his modest means, had looked after his servants so well—they were precious to me too.
But how could he be such a good man to strangers, yet cast aside his own family?
‘If only I’d been a stranger to him—could I have seen him differently then?’
After the meal ended and I climbed to my bedroom, closing the door behind me, the bustling hours seemed to dissolve like a dream into silence.
My thoughts settled, but my chest felt hollowed out.
‘The Magic Tower wasn’t like this.’
Thanks to Rana and Tris, I’d spent bustling days there, and even when I returned to my room, it was simply quiet—not hollow.
Perhaps it was because staying there had felt like a journey, however uncomfortable.
As I looked around the quiet room, my eyes landed on the bedside table and I flinched.
A dried flower bouquet still stood in the vase—flowers I’d received from Cade sometime ago.
‘So it was still here all along.’
After parting with Cade and becoming an Attuner, I’d been so consumed with my new duties as a civil servant that I’d had no time to clear away his traces.
I’d barely managed to keep my head above water.
‘If Tali learns that the reckless Tower Master is actually Cade, will she feel relieved or shocked?’
A dried petal fell from the vase with a soft sound.
Staring at it, I pulled a box from beneath the bed.
Inside lay a heap of letters Cade had given me.
He was awkward with expressing emotion, but his letters—he always poured genuine feeling into those.
‘How pathetic is this.’
I hadn’t retrieved them to dwell on memories, unsettled as I was by seeing Cade.
With the letter box and the gifts he’d given me in hand, I made for the Incinerator.
Perhaps keeping these things was why I couldn’t put my own heart in order.
Our relationship had already ended long ago.
‘Besides, if I’m going to die for exposing what the Grand Duke did, I don’t want these things left behind as my remains.’
I sifted through the figurines, books, flowers, jewelry he’d given me, preparing to cast them into the flames.
“……”
Yet, strangely, I couldn’t bring myself to burn them. The letters especially—I couldn’t bear it.
Cade—no, Cade’s neat, careful handwriting seemed to shimmer before my eyes.
The feel of his lips parting, the tickle of his hand on my back.
“……This is infuriating.”
It was all his fault—for keeping me confused and unsettled until the very end.
I glared resentfully at the flames a moment longer, then turned away.
My feet carried me to my father’s Study, which stood firmly locked.
I’d sealed it myself after Mother’s funeral.
‘It’s been so long since I’ve been here.’
Even inserting the old key felt strange.
The door creaked open with a sound that resembled my father’s retreating form.
I pushed back the unsettling feeling in my stomach and stepped inside. The scent of aged paper brushed against my nose.
The first things that came into view were the Maritime Chart hanging on the wall, then the Crystal Whale Sculpture and the Ship’s Wheel, and finally a small frame on the bedside table.
‘I never thought you wouldn’t come even to Mother’s funeral.’
The Baron, a scholar of Crystal Whales, had set sail to see a Crystal Whale and vanished. The Baroness had fallen from her horse and died.
At the time, enough wealth remained to live modestly until I came of age—enough even to hold a funeral for Father.
But I didn’t hold one. I believed my father would return soon.
It wasn’t an emotional decision. It was far better to live as a Baron’s daughter waiting for his return than to officially become an orphan.
‘Though everyone treated me as one regardless.’
I stared at my childhood portrait for a long moment, then flipped it face-down hard enough to make it crack.
Then I noticed something and gasped.
“What—what is that?!”
Someone was standing outside the dark window. That this Study was on the second floor barely mattered.
Though the distance was far, I could make out the fluttering Robe and the bluish glow of their eyes.
“Cade……?”
He stood suspended in empty air, watching me.
Too startled to notice the box slipping from my hands, I rushed to throw open the window.
Night wind poured in, scattering the Study’s documents wildly.
“……”
And there was nothing in the sky. Only a winged Magical Beast cried out its long call as it flew past.
‘Really. Cade doesn’t leave Melgote. There’s no way he’d be here.’
Recognizing my foolish mistake, I gave a hollow laugh—and then something occurred to me.
Cade had left Melgote once before. Because of me.
‘Could it be… he’s come to see me again this time?’
The thought had barely formed before embarrassment flooded through me.
‘What am I thinking? This is no time for that nonsense.’
I’d ridden in a Carriage for three days straight, so exhaustion was inevitable—but still. To hallucinate something like that when tired.
“I’m just tired. That’s all.”
I mumbled the words firmly, rubbing my eyes.
Until the matter with the Grand Duke of Melgote was resolved, he would not cloud my mind again.
‘This isn’t running away. I’m simply focusing on what matters.’
I shoved the fallen box into a corner of the Study and locked the door securely behind me.
‘That’s enough. I won’t open this door often anyway, so let’s simply forget.’
Then I turned my back on it and fled, as though running from that very room.
Hoping that this would be the end of my thoughts of Cade.
***
The next day.
Seeing off Tali’s fussy farewells, I arrived at the Imperial Palace to find an atmosphere far more hectic than I’d expected.
“We’re going to be swamped for a while.”
“Let’s hope it’s just ‘a while.'”
“As long as things proceed safely, it’ll ease the burden on several departments.”
The civil servants conversed quietly among themselves while walking with barely restrained haste.
Even officials from departments other than the Magical Beast Ecology Survey Bureau showed the same urgency.
The government office was always busy, but it had never been this chaotic and turbulent.
‘But the Crystal Whale Capture investigation hasn’t even formally begun yet. What’s going on?’
As I walked toward the department head’s office, I couldn’t shake a sense that something was wrong.
“The long struggle between the Imperial Government and the Magic Tower is finally over.”
“My goodness, it took long enough. It took real resolve from both the Imperial Government and the Magic Tower.”
“……?”
The Grand Duke’s matter shouldn’t have become public yet—so why were they speaking like this?
Had someone leaked the notion that the Imperial Government and Magic Tower would unite through the Crystal Whale Capture investigation?
Bewildered, I reached the department head’s office, only to find familiar faces blocking my path.

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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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