The Low-Ranking Civil Servant Wants to Achieve Success - Chapter 166

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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 166
With a soft thud, Mother dropped the experimental apparatus.
A moment of silence fell, and then Mother crumpled to the ground, her body wracked with sobs.
These were tears I had never seen from her—not even when the Empress had seized her and struck her back.
[I suspect she’s not someone who only values magic, but rather someone who never even considered the possibility of losing something precious.]
[Did you ever have anything precious?]
[Of course. Magic I never even used couldn’t have been my entire life.]
Only then could I understand what the Empress had meant.
What was precious to Mother was the people who would always love her. That had to be more precious than magic.
‘It seems… more painful than having to atone for sins is being abandoned by the people she trusted.’
Though calling it abandonment was generous—they simply refused to comply with her threat to erase their memories.
‘Now she finally wears the expression of someone whose entire world has collapsed.’
For the first time in her life, Mother seemed to have realized that she had lived wrongly. After that, with a hollow expression, she was led away by the Red Knight Order.
In truth, the fact that she hadn’t been bound at all was already sufficient courtesy toward the Tower Master’s Daughter.
* * *
And so we left the underground facility.
All the researchers, including Biberus, were arrested, and thanks to the Ravens dispatched to the Regional Temple, even the most remote safe houses were tracked down.
It didn’t take long for all of this to be resolved.
“Oh my, Arana… Arana.”
Grandfather wailed and sobbed uncontrollably.
Then he grabbed Kiaros and began pleading, asking for any leniency possible and promising that the Magic Tower would cooperate with anything.
“The Magic Tower has been quite unfaithful to the Imperial Family all this time, hasn’t it? Now that this old man has finally come to his senses, I’ll straighten up. I will, I promise. Yes?”
“To be precise, it wasn’t unfaithfulness to the Imperial Family—it was unfaithfulness to the Empire itself.”
Capturing the leader of the Gaejo Faction didn’t mean everything was finished.
So Kiaros was extremely busy, and in the midst of it all, he still had to placate Grandfather.
“In any case, speaking of charges, at least it’s not a death sentence, so please calm yourself.”
While Grandfather continued to cling to Kiaros and make a scene until the very end,
I went to the back garden with Jayden, the Empress, and Father.
Part of it was because Father felt uncomfortable being around Kiaros, but more importantly, we had asked Jayden to nullify our abilities.
“My goodness, what a waste of those muscles.”
The Empress clicked her tongue and looked over Father’s body with regret.
“Those muscles weren’t built in just a day or two of training…”
At that, Father shrank back and spoke thus:
“Achievement, properly speaking, refers to knowledge or skills acquired through learning after birth. By that definition, these muscles are not the result of my proper achievement. Since they are not achievement, I feel neither regret nor loss—merely a return to my true nature. Should I regret the muscles, I need only strive in life to achieve them genuinely. It is human nature to think lightly of what comes easily, so this is merely the natural consequence.”
The atmosphere became quite awkward. Watching Father speak his mind so bluntly to the Empress, I thought to myself:
‘He has no prospects for advancement whatsoever. The life of a powerful relative who could build influence is beyond him—he’ll just have to remain an obstinate recluse.’
Fortunately, the Empress was not angered. She merely looked embarrassed and muttered.
“I just wanted you to cancel it, but you sure talk a lot…”
And she grumbled that if she received any instruction from this stubborn old fool, her very soul would be stripped bare.
“Jayden, hurry up and do it, then let’s leave. This is not someone I wish to converse with.”
“Yes. He’s a typical old-fashioned hypocrite spouting moral platitudes with his mouth while failing to live his own life well.”
With that, Jayden nullified all of Father’s experiments.
Father’s appearance transformed instantly—becoming lean and pallid once more.
It matched exactly the image I held in my memory. Only the weight of fifteen years lay faintly upon his features.
“Father.”
I immediately pulled him into a tight embrace.
“You’ve suffered so much all this time.”
Having witnessed Father’s prison with my own eyes, my heart ached unbearably.
My father, who had sacrificed his entire life without hesitation—to educate me, to repay every debt that had accumulated in my name.
Seeing Father’s appearance restored, I finally felt as though everything had truly ended.
“Our Namia suffered the most. I’m sorry for entrusting my daughter to such a wretched family.”
“But… that’s your family too, Father…”
“…”
In any case, Father held me close and released a deep sigh.
Despite having met me and spent sufficient time together, the sorrow lingering in Father’s expression seemed rooted in thoughts of Mother.
Had I not mentioned it before? He couldn’t tell me because he felt sorry, but he still loved Mother.
“We’re all so sorry to Namia. What can we do?”
Father held me close as he spoke.
“Your grandfather, myself…”
As everyone came to know Mother’s circumstances, it only reinforced the realization that ‘she was consistently hopeless as a mother.’
“The Tower Master worried greatly too. He kept saying—our Namia is so talented, yet we’re all holding back her ankles…”
True enough, without my existence, Grandfather would never have needed to beg Kiaros.
He would have simply taken matters into his own hands and fled with Mother instead.
“Don’t worry, Father.”
I patted Father’s back as I spoke.
“I’m already planning to collect the price of that apology myself… It’s fortunate that Grandfather has so much to give…”
Father flinched at my gentle words. I smiled softly and continued.
“Just focus on living your life well from now on, Father. Since childhood, that’s been what mattered most to me. I always felt your life was ruined because of my birth.”
In my childhood, when I said ‘you can just hand me over to the Loan Sharks,’ that was my sincere wish. I’d always felt sorry for my own existence.
“Everything is over now, and we owe no debts. Let’s think only of the life ahead.”
It’s true that Father became an experimental subject of the Gaejo Faction and lived as part of it, but regardless, I had previously secured a promise of ‘Father’s clemency’ when I saved the Empress.
Therefore, Father could live freely as he wished from now on—just as he had before meeting Mother.
“Since I’ve met you, Father, I’ve already achieved the goal I’ve desperately longed for all this time. I’ve lived with only that one wish in my heart.”
I deliberately avoided mentioning anything related to Mother. The wounds between us still seemed too fresh to broach that subject.
And right now, Jayden, the Empress, and Kibon were beside me.
The Empress was weeping bitterly after hearing our conversation, lamenting how tragic and pitiful it all was, while Jayden solemnly held Kibon and sighed heavily.
Thus I released my embrace with Father and turned to Jayden with a smile.
“Young Prince, I have a request for you as well.”
Jayden then asked carefully.
“Really? If I truly nullify these experimental results, will Namia lose the ability to traverse the Imperial Palace in a single day and also lose the strength to tear apart the High Priest?”
“Yes.”
I nodded without hesitation. That resolve had never wavered once.
“I’m truly fine. I’ve never been particularly greedy for things that weren’t mine to begin with.”
“…Somehow it sounds like the position Namia coveted was originally hers to claim.”
Jayden tilted his head, muttering about the “strange Namia who only loved power yet claimed to have no greed.” But he immediately used his ability on me.
And to verify the results.
“It… it activated?”
I crafted a luminescent scroll and tested it.
After a brief moment, an extremely faint light began seeping from the scroll.
It was far weaker and more meager than the magical power I’d possessed at eight years old. In other words, it was the sort of power level that would be too ambiguous to enter the Magic Tower—barely enough to work as a low-ranking civil servant in the Scroll Department.
“Ha ha….”
The faint light couldn’t even sustain itself for long before extinguishing.
Watching it fade, laughter erupted from me unbidden.
“Ahahahahaha!”
I was twenty-three years old.
It had been so long since I believed I possessed tremendous magical talent. Yet all of it had vanished as though it never existed. And somehow, that was profoundly liberating.
“My goodness, ahahahahaha!”
I laughed aloud for a long while.
A small dog barking “woof woof,” my father with his lanky frame towering like a beanpole, and a clever daughter without any particular magical talent. An peaceful afternoon we could share together.
Perhaps this was the most perfect day that my mother and I had dreamed of, however vaguely, fifteen years ago.

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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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