The Nerd Next Door Turned Out To Be The Magic Tower Master - Chapter 104

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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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Special Side Story 5. A Guaranteed Future (1)
According to the ancient religious philosophy of another empire, life and death turn in cycles, and if one commits sins in a past life, one must repay that karma in the present one.
If that were true, then hadn’t his former self destroyed an entire nation? Hiltein pondered this seriously.
Otherwise, how could his fortune with superiors be this wretched?
Even when his superior suddenly transformed like a madman in both attitude and appearance, abandoning the Magic Tower to descend into Weberdine Territory, and then insisted on marrying the Saint he’d met there—Hiltein had simply accepted it. After all, the man had never been in his right mind.
But this? This was too much.
He hadn’t expected the lunatic to suddenly become normal just because he’d married, but he’d thought at least that wretched affliction—no, that mental illness—might improve somewhat.
It seemed his superior’s madness was far more serious than he’d imagined.
“You’ve found all the materials I mentioned?”
The materials Kirien was referring to were things like Fairy Wing Dust, already extinct several hundred years ago, and a Mandrake Root over a thousand years old.
‘Find them, he says. I’m not even sure such things actually exist.’
It would have been easier if he’d simply been ordered to pluck a star from the sky—at least then he could’ve retrieved a meteorite.
Despite the fault lying entirely with the order itself, Hiltein was the one who’d failed, and he hung his head despondently.
“I am searching diligently, but the materials are so obscure that information is scarce…”
Kirien didn’t curse or reproach him. He simply turned away as though he’d never expected anything in the first place.
‘Is this somehow my fault? Really?’
The reason for seeking these impossible materials was even more absurd.
[I’m going to another world.]
When his superior explained his reasoning so plainly, Hiltein became certain. This truly was a serious mental illness.
He found himself in awe of the Saint’s patience—that she hadn’t abandoned such a lunatic and continued to live with him.
‘Please, run away from him, Saint!’
He recalled a conversation with the only sane person in his sphere (though one could hardly call marrying his superior a sign of sanity), his former Saint.
[…You’re truly the worst superior, Kirien.]
[I am?]
[Yes. If I were Hiltein, I would have written out a Letter of Resignation and thrown it in your face ages ago.]
When the former Saint had struck at the heart of his feelings so precisely, he’d nearly shed tears from the sorrow of it.
‘I’ve imagined doing that a hundred times. But if I actually did it, my face would meet with his foot…’
He had to swallow words that could never be spoken aloud.
In any case, one thing was clear: if the relatively sane former Saint ever learned of her husband’s plans, this unreasonable order would be rescinded immediately.
‘…Though I certainly don’t have the courage to snitch to her.’
So what could he do? He could only pretend to obey.
“If you can’t find them, just say so. I’ll search myself.”
Somehow, I will find them.
“No, sir. I will find them.”
“Tsk. There are so many required materials, and you move this slowly. Should I call in someone else?”
I’ll find the other materials myself. Probably soon.
Cradling the Letter of Resignation he’d failed to use again today, Hiltein bowed his head.
* * *
The room, now empty after Hiltein’s departure.
Ririen, who had been buried in old books, roughly shut one closed. Hundreds of volumes were scattered across the floor. For months he’d ransacked every single one of these tomes like hunting rats, yet still the research showed no progress.
He rubbed his gritty eyes perfunctorily and rose from his seat. Soon Cecilia would be returning from the Temple.
Before that, he left the room intending to make her favorite omelet—specifically departing from the leftmost room on the second floor of the Mansion.
In fact, the final of the Secret Rooms that Cecilia had been astonished to discover contained, surprisingly, not a single item belonging to her.
It was merely a laboratory.
The purpose of the research he’d set up in this space was singular.
‘Finding a way to travel to another world.’
It was research of a danger dimension wholly different from the Regression he’d succeeded at by sacrificing his own life.
‘If this is discovered, I’ll be scolded far worse than when the first room was found…’
He was aware that he himself was not in his right mind—that his state was far removed from normal.
For that reason, he didn’t want to do anything Cecilia wouldn’t wish for. Indeed, after collapsing while attempting the Soul Binding Attempt, he hadn’t even glanced at reckless acts.
Yet the reason he’d taken on research far more dangerous was, paradoxically, due to one person alone: Cecilia.
For him, who could not let her go, Cecilia had abandoned her original world. Every time he trembled with fear that someday she might come to regret that choice, yet that wasn’t the only reason.
It was on a rare night when Cecilia had returned to the Mansion later than usual due to Magic Tower business. He carefully lifted her into his arms as she slept soundly on the sofa waiting for him. As he gently lowered her onto the bed, careful not to wake her, he witnessed it.
Tears glistening at the corners of Cecilia’s eyes.
Immediately after, the unfamiliar name that spilled out hazily was one he’d heard her mention before—the name of her family.
That night, Kirien remained motionless until sunrise, turning over her confession in his mind again and again.
[It would be a lie to say I don’t miss them. But if I’d left you behind, I would have regretted it even more.]
After long deliberation, he reached a single conclusion. He could not abandon his place at Cecilia’s side. Then wouldn’t it suffice if he crossed over into her world alongside her?
He held no attachment whatsoever to his own world. In fact, without Cecilia, he would find it nauseating. All the more so after living through it dozens of times over.
Of course, even with family, he’d find it somewhat burdensome to see her cherish and hold affection for beings other than himself—yet he now possessed the certainty that she would continue to love him most of all.
Yet resolve and capability were two different things, and even he—who had turned back time countless times—found crossing between worlds nearly impossible.
The first obstacle was locating an entirely different world whose coordinates he didn’t even know. It was like searching for a needle in a desert.
If only he could speak with that ‘God’ Cecilia had encountered, he might find a thread to pull. But he’d abandoned that attempt quickly enough.
‘A true priest can’t even meet them. There’s no way the one who made this world a mess could succeed where they failed.’
If there was a being God despised most in this world, it would surely be the Pope—whom he’d handled with his own hands—and then himself.
‘So what now?’
He was irritably rubbing at the mark God had left on the back of his hand when—
“Mew!”
A strange tickling sensation brushed his ankle. He looked down to see a familiar cat had somehow slipped past his defenses—defenses so absolute that not a single ant should have been able to cross the threshold.
The cat circled his feet once, plainly showing off, then laughed—a soft, chittering laugh.
That wasn’t necessarily true, was it?
A child’s laughter echoed not in his ears but inside his skull.
‘Warp, Polymorph, and Telepathy all at once?’
And at a level he—Master of the Magic Tower—couldn’t even detect. There was only one being in this world capable of such a thing.
The moment his suspicion crystallized, a headache of unbearable intensity crashed down upon him.
* * *
When he opened his eyes—eyes that had squeezed shut in reflex against the pain—he found himself trapped in a cramped, narrow room.
Had it not been for a few strange pieces of furniture scattered here and there, he would have sworn it was a bathroom or storage closet. The space was that meager.
“Where is this?”
He fell silent mid-murmur. He’d been speaking in the language he’d always used, yet the words that emerged from his lips were foreign to him.
Only then did he examine his body. The height seemed unchanged, but his skin tone had darkened slightly. More troubling still: the mark on the back of his hand—a scar-like reminder ever since he’d chosen Regression—had vanished completely.

Seized by an ominous premonition, he passed by several unidentifiable pieces of metal and made straight for the window. And beyond the glass, the view was—
Strange motorized carriages rolled swiftly down blackened roads, tall metal poles stood prominently along the streets in places, and buildings rose up as if stamped from a mold, all sharp angles and rigid lines.
Even a cursory glance was enough to know this wasn’t the world where he’d been born and raised. It was utterly, unmistakably alien.
‘No.’
He had no difficulty recalling Cecilia’s stories. This landscape bore a striking resemblance to how she’d once described her original world.
Could this truly be her world?
‘How?’

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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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