The Low-Ranking Civil Servant Wants to Achieve Success - Chapter 46

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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 46
The Magic Tower was such a closed-off place that the public knew virtually nothing about the Tower Master’s private life.
“My wife died giving birth to her, so that child is my only family. It’s been quite some time since she went missing.”
The Tower Master appeared to be well into his sixties at first glance, which meant his daughter would be middle-aged by now.
I answered with a dejected tone.
“My father has been gone for fifteen years.”
“What?”
The Tower Master’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Good heavens! Abandoning a child like that—your father is truly hopeless!”
He clicked his tongue and continued.
“Of course, my daughter is no better.”
“Is that so?”
“My daughter was born in the Magic Tower and spent her entire life there. She received nothing but doting care, and then one day she suddenly left for the harsh world outside without any preparation. She must have caused some terrible incident.”
Hearing this from someone who had been living in that harsh world for twenty-three years, I found the story rather uninspiring.
Still, I spoke carefully.
“Truly? Is it possible that this middle-aged child was kidnapped by some criminal organization?”
He had clearly said she received nothing but doting care.
Why would the Tower Master’s only daughter, raised with such love, leave recklessly and cause trouble?
If it were me, I would have stayed attached to the Magic Tower, never ventured out, and lived like a princess my entire life.
“I’m not sure.”
The Tower Master sighed heavily and spoke.
“One night, she stabbed me with a sword and…”
Hmm? Patricide?
“…collected my blood, then…”
Bodily theft?
“…emptied my wallet and…”
Robbery?
“…simply ran away from the house.”
Elopement?
“That was the last I saw of my daughter at twenty years old.”
Good heavens.
Even someone raised with nothing but doting care could turn out this hopeless.
“Don’t you think your father is just as hopeless as mine?”
“No, sir. Compared to that, my father is practically a model of responsibility.”
I drew a clear line at the Tower Master’s words.
The Tower Master let out a groan and added.
“In any case, the fact that I still haven’t found that child makes me suspect she’s entangled with some dangerous organization. I don’t know when or how they might demand a ransom, and I can’t even begin to guess what kind of trouble she’s caused.”
One thing was certain.
The Tower Master had utterly failed at raising his child.
“My daughter may be lacking in many ways, but I did my best for her, didn’t I? I loved her and cherished her.”
The Tower Master’s shoulders slumped as he muttered to himself.
“But why… why did this have to happen? Even if she was lacking in some ways, everything was fine.”
The Tower Master’s dejected expression overlapped with my father’s dejected expression in my mind.
[I was actually good to your mother. I told her everything was fine… So why did she leave us?]
I knew the answer.
[It’s because Mother didn’t love Father.]
My father’s face crumpled with deep hurt at my answer.
But speaking those words wounded me as well.
Because… I was also among those Mother didn’t love.
[If Mother had loved me… she wouldn’t have abandoned me with nothing but debt.]
A daughter unloved by her mother, who destroyed her father’s life.
That was me.
Sometimes it seemed… I didn’t deserve to be happy.
If only I could restore Father’s life, then at least I could face myself with dignity.
As I fell silent, the Tower Master continued muttering.
“The problem is… the more I search for her, the worse my intuition becomes. It feels like she’s caused something truly catastrophic. I need to somehow contain it quickly…”
In the end, it all came down to family troubles interfering with his work.
That fact hadn’t changed.
The Tower Master’s neglect of the Scroll Management Department was why it had fallen into such disarray.
[Regardless, he did make me Minister of Education. Thanks to that, I was able to abolish the Cinderella Operation.]
I decided to forgive the Tower Master graciously.
In truth, there was nothing I could do even if I didn’t forgive him.
“Well, all these shortcomings of mine will come back to haunt me as karma later…”
The Tower Master groaned in anguish, then shook his head and looked directly at me again.
“Anyway, Minister, about you.”
Though the official appointment ceremony hadn’t been held yet, the Tower Master had apparently decided to call me Minister from now on.
“The Empress said you created a very unusual and novel scroll?”
“Ah, yes.”
I scratched my ear as I spoke.
“Long ago, my father wanted to see the stars… so I developed this scroll when I was young. The principle works like this.”
I picked up a piece of parchment for scrolls that was lying around on the Previous Minister of Education’s desk.
Then I began quickly sketching out the scroll.
Since I had created this scroll myself, it didn’t appear in any books.
As I explained the principle and how it functioned, the Tower Master’s expression hardened.
“I… when the Empress said she’d never seen it before, I thought it was just an unusually unique scroll that wasn’t widely known. But you actually created it yourself? Purely original?”
“Ah, yes.”
“You really made this yourself? Alone? By reading books? When you were only… eight years old? Without even a mage nearby?”
“Ah, yes.”
The Tower Master blinked slowly. Then he muttered quietly.
“Even being generous, you created 160 scrolls in a single night.”
“One hundred sixty-six scrolls.”
“Well, that’s possible. Occasionally, geniuses like that appear once every ten years. Even one hundred seventy scrolls—let’s say someone could activate that many at once.”
“One hundred seventy-two scrolls.”
“Yes. That’s possible. Occasionally, geniuses like that appear once every twenty years.”
The Tower Master stared at my scrolls and bit his lower lip.
“But something like this… well, truly… it’s genuinely extraordinary.”
“Yes, of course.”
“…Don’t you normally ask what makes it so extraordinary?”
As I tilted my head in confusion, the Tower Master furrowed his brow.
“Creating new scrolls… People outside the Magic Tower don’t understand magic well enough to grasp this, but that’s something only adults can do. And typically, you need to spend more than five years in the Magic Tower refining your magical power!”
“Yes, of course.”
“But you said you created them when you were eight years old! You’ve never even been to the Magic Tower! You wouldn’t lie, would you? Even you must find this strange!”
I shrugged indifferently.
“Strange or not, it’s because of that I became the Minister of Education.”
“What?”
“I think that’s all that matters—that Namia Loapi, Minister of the Scroll Department, achieved this.”
When I referred to myself as the Minister, the Tower Master let out a sigh.
Then, furrowing his brow, he asked.
“…How old are you exactly?”
“I’m twenty-three years old.”
“Tell me more about your parents.”
I hesitated for a moment, then began speaking about my parents again.
Today, so many people had been asking about them.
I’d told the Empress the same thing earlier…
When I finished, the Tower Master studied my face intently.
“Born in the Southern Arbin Region, twenty-three years old… And you’re saying you don’t know your mother at all? Not even her name?”
“That’s right. My father said my mother used an alias. He said she kept getting confused about her own name…”
“Have you ever heard anything about your mother’s appearance?”
“Oh, my father mentioned once that my mother, my father, and I all have blue eyes.”
Blue eyes were the most common eye color in the Empire.
So it wasn’t exactly a distinctive feature.
“And he said she was incredibly beautiful. But what made her even more charming was that she didn’t seem to know how beautiful she was.”
When he said that, my father looked genuinely bashful. Watching him, I made a vow from childhood.
Never, ever, ever let myself be captivated by appearance.
If I only looked at beauty, I could end up like my father.
‘That’s exactly why I was able to keep my wits about me when Kiaros proposed!’
Honestly, just looking at that face was enough to make me feel satisfied…
But still, I managed to refuse rationally, keeping my mind sharp.
“Hmm.”
The Tower Master furrowed his brow and regarded me quietly.
It felt as though he were dissecting my face piece by piece.

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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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