The Nerd Next Door Turned Out To Be The Magic Tower Master - Chapter 60

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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 60
Her heart wavered at his confession, which displeased her—but what displeased her most was that she had to doubt it at all.
She had grown weary of him, weary of trusting him and doubting him alike, weary of the man called Lien himself.
Weary enough that she had no more emotions left to pour into him.
When she only stared at him coldly, offering neither word nor gesture, he collapsed to his knees at her feet.
He wiped his blood-soaked palms roughly against his trouser legs, then grasped the hem of her skirt with trembling fingers as his confession spilled forth.
“I love you. No—I love you. I really love you. Cecilia.”
……
“I know the words you spoke on That Hill are long forgotten. I know they were like a dream, that I have no right to live on a single phrase you uttered. But even though I’m despicable, I can’t stop loving you. I love you so much it’s driving me mad.”
……
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being something like me, for loving you. I’m truly sorry.”
She listened numbly to his wretched confession that ended only in apology, her teeth clenched so hard they ached.
Lies. It was all lies.
Fury rose in her throat until her vision burned scarlet and she could bear it no longer.
She tore her skirt from his grasp and finally she screamed.
“You lied about everything from start to finish! You hid your identity, you hid your purpose, you deceived me!”
She had desperately hoped that whatever secret he harbored would not betray her heart, that his deception would not be absolute. That night—with what feelings had she drawn him close? With what feelings had she admitted to love?
And yet the truth was this.
He had deceived her love, betrayed her trust. Cast it aside like refuse.
“You wouldn’t even reveal your own name! You let me discover who you were like this! You’ve made me the most foolish, pathetic creature in the world!”
……
“And now you tell me you love me? That you love me? You expect me to believe that confession now?”
In the face of her reproach, which clawed at them both indiscriminately, a tear finally fell from his eyes.
That was enough. Let him drop that tiresome pretense and show his true face.
But no matter how she raged and glared, he remained unchanged, confessing only his guilt and his love.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love you. I love you.”
Love—that damnable love confession continued, raw and aching.
She wanted to cover her ears, to rage further, to strike his face. She thought of all these things.
But beyond her vision, which was growing hazy and pale, the flower petals held in his hand had not yet fallen—they still trembled softly in the air.
Yes, the petals. They had not fallen.
‘Your love is real.’
That, at least, was not a lie.
‘But what does that change?’
Could she truly hold Dilanshe—him, who was nothing but deception—for no better reason than that?
In that question, sensing her own heart falter weakly, Cecilia let out a hollow, broken laugh.
She tore the flower from him forcefully and clutched it tight, speaking as if in vow, as if steeling herself against her own heart.
“I hate you so much.”
And then one petal drifted down, tumbling through the air.
Cecilia watched the falling remnant with unseeing eyes.
Her laughter had ceased. The anger that had held her body rigid crumbled away, and she went slack. She tilted her head upward toward the darkening sky, then looked down at him once more.
At last her voice emerged, barely audible, worn through with exhaustion.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to trust you completely. You’re the cruelest liar I’ve ever met.”
“I love you.”
“I don’t think I’ll love you more than I love myself. When the moment comes to choose, I might abandon you.”
“I love you.”
“I might come to hate you. I might come to regret ever meeting you.”
“I love you, Cecilia. In any form you take, in any life you live, I will love only you.”
So be it. You’ll go on confessing love, begging for love, and I’ll have no choice but to hold you at the end.
That was why she hated emotion, hated love.
Even hating it terribly, Cecilia had still failed to hate him, and so she finally leaned toward him. She covered his tear-dampened lips with her own, fierce and bitter.
* * *
He first recalled the memory of ‘her’ in the winter-spring of his twenty-second year.
In that musty Research Room without a glimmer of light, where dust had accumulated for years—the day he finally shattered his limits and reached the Archmage Level.
As he thrust himself to his feet, papers inscribed with countless symbols and characters scattered like snow around him.
The liberation of knowing he could do anything. The euphoria of barriers dissolving before him.
The exquisite sensation that shot down his spine faded as swiftly as it had struck.
Because he was a man who could do anything, yet wanted nothing.
In the face of such momentous change, his world had not shifted in the slightest, and that realization sickened him profoundly.
In that moment, a violent headache found him.

He was prone to headaches, certainly, but there was nothing he could do against a pain that felt as though his skull might split in two.
He gasped for breath, his body trembling. A different kind of understanding came flooding in—or more precisely, vast memories crashed over him like a tsunami.
Memories from his Past Life.
At their center was a single woman.
In his Past Life, he had conducted himself as a stranger much as he did in this one. Grasping the truth of all things without need for deep inquiry, he had found this world tedious as a stage play, and humans were no more than mute creatures capable only of gesturing their intent.
And so, paradoxically, he had been lonely. He was certain that no being could understand him, yet he yearned for one.
Then came a Miracle, piercing through odds so astronomically slim that even he had not dared imagine it.
A woman he had met by chance in those indolent, weary days.
“Cecilia, you don’t know me? I ran into a newborn on the way here and even they recognized me. Are you telling me you really don’t?”
“Why are you like this? It’s worse than the rumors……. Isn’t this basically what happens when you’ve taken a bullet to the head?”
From their first meeting, she had been a constant source of wonder—his sole person of understanding.
“You’re lonely, aren’t you? ……This is a secret, but honestly, I am too.”
He thought of her as a kindred spirit encountered for the first time. Someone as precarious as a person drifting alone on an isolated island.
Someone who would laugh playfully, then fall suddenly into silence—as if woven from loneliness and sorrow.
“Tell me, do you believe in God’s existence? Do you think faith is sublime? That it’s a signpost pointing your life in the perfect direction, do you think so?”
A person who clothed herself in the garments of one who served God, who posed such questions hollowly beneath the statue of a deity.
As if she might cast off her fleeting flesh at any moment and depart for a place beyond her own reach. Yet when he grasped her sleeve, she looked upon him with such compassion and pity.
It seemed to him like the tenderness of a God caring for His creation, and he had become like a believer who would gladly kiss his God’s feet.
By that time, he had finally admitted it: she was the sole problem he could not solve, the only Calamity he could not foresee.
Yet she had remained so welcome precisely because, in a life he had found so flat and devoid of meaning, he felt, for the first time, truly alive. His heart throbbed with pulse, his breath quickened, and sometimes he would laugh as though he had come loose from his moorings.
And at the end of all those changes was her.
It was so perilously, sweetly intoxicating that he had been drawn to her utterly, in a single breath.
But before he could hold her in her entirety, her God had stolen her from him.
When the golden eyes lost their light. When even the faintest smile faded. When he held the body growing cold. When he thus came to understand viscerally, through his own skin, the difference between life and death. And when at last he grasped that he could never reclaim her.
He was consumed by a despair and fury so vast it obliterated all else.
Such was the memory, and where it ended.
After every emotion had swept through, only a man shedding silent tears remained, alone.
He wiped his face roughly against his sleeve and forced himself upright.
This memory—which had torn apart the inanimate thing he had been and reassembled him—was no mere delusion.
And even if it were, even if he were mad, it mattered little. He had to meet her again, at any cost.
That her true nature was a Saint, the very thing Dilanshe regarded as an eyesore, held little weight for him.
He at once resigned his professorship, began collecting robes, and purchased the manor adjacent to Marquis Webadine’s estate at great expense.
Then he ordered the pursuit of the Fanatic Group that had driven her to her death, and moved to Webadine.
Beyond the towering walls, staring toward the manor where she dwelt, he wrestled with himself countless times.
When we meet again, what words should I offer you? To this life’s version of you, I am nothing but an enemy.
It would be wise to conceal my identity. To her, bearing the name Dilanshe—both Webadine and Saint—would mean nothing but hatred itself.
And since she had never cared much for his appearance, he must never behave like a madman, never let his true face be seen.
If he approached her wearing the guise of her tastes, perhaps she might grant him greetings, and if he dared hope further, she might deign to speak with him.
Yet all the prepared courtesies and fabricated pretexts became useless.
One day, she appeared suddenly like a rabbit through a round hole beneath the wall.

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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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