The Low-Ranking Civil Servant Wants to Achieve Success - Chapter 129
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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 129
The Tower Master didn’t know what to do and froze for a moment.
Once I missed the timing, it felt far too awkward to suddenly rise as if I hadn’t died here.
‘I’d rather die than admit I was frightened of you lot….’
In that instant, Namia grunted and rolled the Tower Master’s body over. Without thinking, he closed his eyes. It somehow felt like the right thing to do.
“No, no!”
Namia cried out, her face streaked with tears.
“I haven’t even gotten to call you grandfather yet….”
Wait a moment.
“Open your eyes, Grandfather, ple….”
I can’t resist that.
The Tower Master’s eyes snapped open.
“Namiaaaaaa!”
He immediately sprang up, swept Namia into his arms, and spun her around in circles.
The old man’s robust muscles danced beneath his robes.
“How on earth did you get all the way here! Where do you think this is! Huh? Huh? Huh?”
Namia stood there with a dumbfounded expression, her characteristic vacant eyes blinking.
“My precious girl, sniff sniff, you wanted to call Grandfather, didn’t you? My darling!”
It was as the Tower Master tossed Namia up with a slight lisp in his voice.
Namia’s eyes suddenly blazed with light.
“Activate!”
At her cry, all the monsters rushing toward them from the distance collapsed at once.
Only then did the Tower Master snap back to awareness. This was the Maze, and it was teeming with monsters.
After surveying the surroundings once more from her elevated position, Namia spoke with an embarrassed smile.
“Ahaha. As you can see, that precious girl who wanted to call Grandfather has become rather… powerful….”
“I, I see…. Yes, of course.”
The Tower Master quietly set Namia down.
* * *
Entering the Grand Temple was one thing, but there was still an order to these matters.
We quickly recounted everything that had happened.
“You already knew, didn’t you? That I was an experimental subject….”
“What….”
The Tower Master sighed with an embarrassed expression.
“I hoped you would never find out. I just wanted you to pretend not to know and live happily.”
Either way, the Tower Master knew far more about the Gaejofa Faction.
He was the one who had spent over twenty years investigating them alone.
Of course, it wasn’t out of a sense of justice, but rather from a desire to secretly spirit away his own daughter….
“So, based on my deduction, here’s how things unfolded.”
The Tower Master began explaining carefully.
“Your mother underwent experiments using my blood after she became pregnant with you. Well, what else would you expect? She must have asked them to make you into a great mage like me.”
“That’s likely correct. The Crown Prince obtained a pregnant monster test subject and made the same deduction.”
When Kiaros revealed what he’d discovered, the Tower Master nodded with an unsurprised expression.
“But I only formed a hypothesis after seeing you myself, so neither Aran nor the Gaejofa Faction would have known about it.”
“That’s true. If the Gaejofa Faction had known about me, they wouldn’t have left me alone.”
Up to this point, I had been making roughly the same deductions.
“Then it seems Aran underwent a second experiment. I discovered this while investigating.”
“Why on earth would that be? Mother didn’t know my situation, so she must have thought the experiment failed.”
“I’m not sure what Aran was thinking. But since she didn’t die after the experiment, she must have become willing to try once more. Usually, individuals who don’t match well with the Gaejofa Faction’s experiments die immediately. In most cases, anyway.”
That was connected to something I’d always been thinking about from the beginning.
No matter how many experiments the Gaejofa Faction conducted, those test subjects never played an active role in the war. In fact, they weren’t even mentioned.
Surely there must have been quite a few test subjects like me.
According to the Tower Master, the survival rate in experiments seemed to be extremely low.
‘Is that why the test subjects won’t become a major variable in the coming future?’
It made me worry even more about Father. Whether he’s even alive right now…
As I bit my lower lip, the Tower Master subtly observed my expression and added:
“So I, while Aran is precious to me too….”
Honestly, Mother bore much of the blame for how things turned out.
But I couldn’t speak ill of Mother to the Tower Master. After all, she was a daughter he cherished terribly.
“I was trying to save your father first… You said you missed him.”
“Yes… That’s true.”
I nodded, wiping away tears.
After all, the reason I came this far was ultimately because I wanted to see Father one last time.
“I’m curious too.”
The Tower Master clicked his tongue once.
“What kind of man is your father anyway… Aran always said, like a habit, that she dislikes muscular men like me.”
My father was clearly the complete opposite of the Tower Master.
Thinking of that long, paper-doll-like frame of his, longing welled up in my eyes again.
“My father has no muscles at all. He’s tall but slender and lanky! And he’s quite handsome.”
“Hmm? Is that so? That does sound like Aran’s taste.”
“His face is kind, just like an ethics teacher would look. He’s incredibly considerate, and his manner of speech is gentle and measured.”
“Ethics, you say… Aran takes after me, so she doesn’t even properly understand right from wrong.”
So my father and the Tower Master were opposites in nature as well.
The Tower Master wiped away my tears and spoke:
“That child Aran grew up doing whatever she pleased, never doing anything she disliked. Your father probably did appeal to her.”
“I suppose so….”
I nodded, sniffling.
How would the willful princess of the Magic Tower ever have a child with someone she disliked?
But she must have had something more urgent that made her abandon me and Father to rejoin the Gaejofa Faction.
“Mother… simply did as she pleased….”
“Of course, yes, Namia, naturally you can’t understand Aran, but still, our Aran isn’t inherently wicked or anything.”
The Tower Master stammered, repeatedly wiping away my tears.
“That child has her own desires, so… we should try to understand her a bit.”
Understand? What a joke.
Even so, I resented the Tower Master for trying to take my mother’s side in front of me, no matter what.
I hardened my expression and cut off the Tower Master’s words.
“I had desires too.”
“U-uh?”
“I had a man I loved, and I wanted to live happily with him… to have children, to build a home filled with the kind of love I never experienced…”
The Tower Master froze solid. Even Kibon, who had been resting nearby with his body stretched out, subtly watched my expression and tucked his tail away.
“Mother got to do everything she wanted, but because of her, I was forced to part with the man I loved so dearly and ended up here.”
I added through my sobs.
“The Crown Prince said it while killing the experimental magical beasts. That anything unnatural should be eliminated quickly. And back then, knowing nothing, I completely agreed with those words.”
“I… Namia…”
“Grandfather told me to hide it as much as possible because he was afraid I’d find myself repulsive… If people knew I was an experimental subject, who would ever love me?”
“Just hide it, hide it. My dear, yes? If you hide it, it’ll be fine… Just go back now. Tell him you misunderstood something, and then just get married.”
The Tower Master’s answer was absolutely absurd. I couldn’t help but refute him immediately.
“No, how could I live my entire life hiding such a huge secret from the person I’ll spend forever with? Frankly, what if I suddenly turn into a monster or die depending on Mother’s experimental results?”
“That’s why I’m saying hide it for now, yes?”
“No, where in the world do you find someone so morally bankrupt that they’d marry while hiding something like that!”
“We did it with our cute and clever Aran!”
It became clear where Mother had learned such a warped sense of ethics.
I, the victim of it all, ended up crying out loud.
* * *
The Emperor had always felt sorry toward Kiaros. Always, without exception.
From a very young age, Kiaros had been a taciturn eldest son who never asked him for anything.
Whether he knew what he wanted or not, his son essentially desired nothing from his parents.
That long stretch of time weighed strangely on his heart. But then…
“Faster, please. Faster. Faster. The speed has slowed a bit at this moment. Faster, give it your all. More.”
His son was now making all the demands he would make in a lifetime.
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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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