The Nerd Next Door Turned Out To Be The Magic Tower Master - Chapter 32

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 32
A dark night lit only by the faint glow of moonlight.
Cecilia, unable to fall asleep and tossing in her bed, finally threw off her blanket and sat up. Tomorrow was the Relief Festival Ceremony at last. Perhaps it was the tension of it, or perhaps the weight of concluding her long period of training—either way, sleep refused to come.
‘Or perhaps it’s something else entirely.’
Cecilia’s fingers drifted to the Pendant hanging at her neck, a habit formed since meeting Lien. Ever since then, she found herself thinking of his large, warm hands, his radiant smile bright as sunlight, the fierce, singular focus of his gaze fixed only on her.
The restless emotion would not settle, so Cecilia finally rose from bed and pulled on her indoor slippers. Lying there with her eyes closed would accomplish nothing; she decided instead to go to the Kitchen and fetch herself a warm glass of milk.
Cecilia lit the Oil Lamp sitting at the edge of her desk, then carefully slipped out of her room.
The Corridor was silent and dark. The candlestands on the walls held cheap candles made from animal fat rather than beeswax, but even those remained unlit in the spirit of frugality. In the end, Cecilia made her way cautiously through the dark Corridor, relying only on the faint light of her lamp.
Walking alone through the hollow passage, hearing only her own footsteps, she felt a moment of doubt—but once you’ve drawn the blade, you must cut something.
Resolved, Cecilia arrived at her destination.
Which happened to be entirely the wrong place.
‘I should have brought Sena.’
She’d left alone so as not to wake the children sleeping soundly. Had she known she’d lose her way so hopelessly, pride be damned—she would have asked for guidance.
Because the children brought her meals directly to her room every day, she’d never had occasion to learn where the Kitchen actually was.
There was no point in making excuses. Right now, she was simply lost. She let out a deep sigh and looked around.
‘This is…….’
A windowless dead end. A heavy iron door, by all appearances formidable, stood blocking the passage. It was that mysterious room where Holy Knights always stood guard whenever she happened to pass by.
Even though the hour was late, a single Holy Knight still stood firmly before the door—though he was nodding off, drowsy and struggling against fatigue.
She approached with measured steps, careful to make no sound, yet the knight showed no sign of waking. Cecilia felt a pang of regret as she reached for the door handle.
‘This looks like the room where the Temple stores its treasures.’
Then the Records of the Divine, which she’d heard Kiar mention, must be here too. Of course, once she received formal approval from the Monastery and was appointed as an official Saintess, she could examine it openly—but…….
‘How long will that even take?’
Rather than passively wait for an undefined future, she decided to seize this opportunity that surely God had granted her.
Having made her own bargain with conscience, Cecilia pressed hard on the handle. And naturally, the door did not budge an inch.
‘It won’t open, as expected. ……Wait?’
Click!
Against her intent, a white light seeped from her grip on the handle, and the door opened with astonishing ease.
‘What—am I actually allowed to go in?’
She hesitated for a moment, but only briefly. Cecilia pushed her body through the crack in the door and raised the Oil Lamp to chest height.
The interior was dark; she could only see as far as the lamplight reached. On a marble table sat a large, transparent dome containing objects that looked quite familiar.
‘These are all tools used in ceremonies.’
She’d expected to find grand sacred treasures—the staffs of past Saintesses, gold ceremonial cups, legendary Divine Swords wielded by heroes of old. Instead, she found herself staring at worn, modest objects, and her enthusiasm flagged.
As Cecilia reached the innermost wall, she noticed something strange. Unlike the other walls, lined with tables, statues, and bookshelves, this wall held nothing on display.
Looking more closely, she saw that the bricks making up the wall were subtly misaligned. Like a secret door, perhaps…….
‘Is that actually a secret door?’
Cecilia ran her fingers over the wall, searching for a handle or button.
The moment something with a texture different from cold stone touched her palm, a voice rang out from behind her—a voice that should not have been there.
“Your Grace?”
Startled by the soft call, she spun around. A familiar figure stood in the partially open doorway, silhouetted in shadow.
“……Your Holiness.”
‘I’m done for.’
Cold sweat trickled down her spine. To anyone’s eye, she was clearly a trespasser with ill intent.
Cecilia jerked her hand away from the wall and opened her mouth urgently. She had prepared an excuse about getting lost, whether he believed it or not.
“Did you lose your way?”
The Pope’s question held not a trace of suspicion—it was guileless, sincere, untainted by doubt. Faced with such innocence, Cecilia found herself at a loss for words.
In the end, she confessed with a feeling like coughing up blood.
“I was trying to reach the Kitchen, but I happened to discover this place. I’ve seen the knights guarding this room every time I passed by, and I became curious about what was inside, so I……. I apologize.”
“Is that so? If you’d asked the Archbishop, he would have shown you around long ago.”
If she’d truly wanted to see this room, perhaps that would be true. But if her real purpose was the Records of the Divine—that was another matter entirely. That was a sacred treasure even the Archbishop had not been permitted to view.
Unable to confess her true intentions, Cecilia fell awkwardly silent.
“I’ll ask the Archbishop to guide you another time. For now, shall we return? It’s growing very late.”
“Yes…….”
Cecilia carefully stepped away from the wall and approached hesitantly toward the Pope in the doorway.
As she drew near enough for the lamplight to reach his face, she saw the Pope’s features clearly for the first time. It had been their first meeting since she’d been confined to the Temple, given how busy he’d been.
Yet when their eyes met, his gaze so infinitely gentle, her heart grew calm and at ease in a way that astonished her.
“Here, let me carry the lamp.”
The Pope took her lamp, its candle nearly burned away and flickering faintly, and pressed his own Silver Candlestick into her hands instead.
As they left the room and walked side by side through the quiet Corridor, the Pope spoke suddenly.
“I had meant to greet you the day you arrived at the Temple, but somehow it wasn’t until the eve of the Relief Festival Ceremony that we finally met. How has life in the Temple treated you?”
“Well enough. Everyone has been very considerate…….”
I couldn’t bring myself to lie and say I was fine, so I fumbled through a vague response and quickly changed the subject.
“Your Holiness, you’re still working at this late hour?”
The Pope stood before her in a white vestment with a travel cloak draped over it, as if he’d had a busy day.
The Pope smiled sheepishly and tugged at the wrinkled folds of his garment here and there to smooth them out.
“The Relief Festival Ceremony is nearly upon us, so we’ve had more and more worshippers visiting the Temple.”
In other words, he’d been dispensing his Holy Power to ordinary lay worshippers well into the night.
The Pope occupied a position as exalted as an emperor, yet his willingness to grant audiences to commoners—something even the Archbishop Kiar was excused from—and to personally tend to the sick went beyond respect into something almost incomprehensible.
“Even preparing for the Ceremony alone must be exhausting. Aren’t you tired?”
“I believe this is the mission and calling that the Divine has bestowed upon me. Besides, to share the grace I’ve received from the Divine with others—that is pure joy.”
His answer was thoroughly that of a man of faith, utterly beyond her understanding.
To feel ‘joy’ while keeping up such a grueling schedule, pushing himself to the brink. And for the motivation beneath it all to spring not from compensation or duty, but from ‘faith.’
To direct one’s life by believing in something that cannot be proven, to find that difficult work becomes not a burden but a source of strength—this lay beyond the pale of her comprehension.
If ‘faith’ truly were something so extraordinary, then it seemed….
“Blind, almost.”
The words tumbled out too honestly, like a cough. Cecilia quickly caught her lower lip between her teeth.
Yet the Pope seemed hardly troubled by her irreverent remark. He even appeared to acknowledge it.
“You may well be right about that.”
They stopped walking.
Cecilia found herself gazing into eyes the color of still lakes, gold and luminous. That calm gaze held the depth of one who had lived many ages, yet the gently smiling face appeared almost boyishly pure.
As she stared vacantly at the ageless features, at the trembling veil of dim light that shimmered across them, and at the shadow that lingered despite all else fading, the Pope resumed his pace with noticeably slower steps.
“Do you know the Founding Mythology of this empire?”
Cecilia easily recalled the story of the one true god, Soltis, which she had studied diligently alongside prayers and holy texts.
The deities that appear in the myths are never singular. Yet because Soltis alone is the god who directly watched over humanity and loved them, it was only natural that humans, as creatures so deeply beloved, should revere Soltis as the sole god.
“You mean the god who loved humanity, Soltis, descended to this land in person and tended to them and ruled over them?”
“Precisely. But there is a hidden truth behind that story.”
“A hidden truth?”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————