The Nerd Next Door Turned Out To Be The Magic Tower Master - Chapter 62

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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 62
That day, beneath the sprawling tree, the one left behind stood in a daze for a long while before picking up the fork that lay scattered on the ground and stabbing the back of his own hand.
Crimson blood dripped onto the verdant grass, and only when a sharp, aching pain began to spread did he finally accept that this was real.
Not a dream. It couldn’t be.
So why wouldn’t the unease fade?
‘What if I’d simply desired her so intensely that I conjured an extraordinarily vivid dream?’
‘What if I’ve actually lost my mind?’
‘What if she merely mistook her own feelings?’
Churning through every terrible possibility, he rushed back into his child’s body.
And then, suppressing his anxiety, he trailed after her uselessly, day after day.
Each time he watched her live her life as though nothing had happened, he felt his hidden lips twitch beneath the Veil.
‘Is it true?’
‘Do you care for me? Would you want me, even half as much as I want you?’
His chest felt as though it were turning black with longing to press her for answers, to hear her confirm it herself.
But on the day he saw her for the first time after the incident.
He grasped at once that what he’d thought might be a dream had truly become one.
Resignation came swiftly. For her to care for him? It made no sense from the start.
There was no way such a miracle would visit him again. No way at all.
And yet, every moment she turned away from him, he wanted to die—though part of him also wanted to harm his own body just short of fatal blows.
She had always been vulnerable to anything pitiful or forlorn.
Perhaps, if he were injured, she would draw close to him again as she once had.
“Please don’t go anywhere. Rest.”
Had he truly believed she would take pity on him so readily, he would have broken his own legs long ago.
Even through the fever, through the haze of delirium, he regretted such things.
* * *
The moment Cecilia’s departure to the Monastery was decided, he braced himself for his identity to be exposed.
Duke Dilanshe—his father—was not a man who blindly deferred to the Imperial Family to the point of wielding even his son like a tool.
Before adolescence had even ended, he had surpassed his siblings, his father, and even his master; the Duke had made a point of not introducing him in various circles. Thus, aside from family, only his former master, the Former Tower Master, the senior officials of the Magic Tower, and members of the Imperial Family knew his true identity.
Yet should she inevitably find herself facing Imperial relatives and members of Dilanshe, the astute Cecilia would surely piece together his identity from the smallest clues.
In truth, the moment he confessed his real name—Kirien—the ending was already sealed.
He knew well enough that he should reveal the truth before she discovered it herself.
But wanting to stretch out the time he could spend at her side, unable to bear losing her again, he cowardly kept his full name hidden and fled.
Had she had no reason to come to the Monastery. Had the Emperor not summoned her. He might have lingered longer in this precarious performance.
Muttering pointless hypotheticals like a madman, he burst directly into the Imperial Palace.
Bang!
Without so much as a knock, the Emperor’s office door swung open violently. The startled aide dropped his papers, and the pen the Emperor had been holding snapped clean in half.
“How dare you! This is an outrage!”
The aide was aghast at such rudeness toward the Emperor’s office. He glanced at the noisy intruder with a subtle eye, and with that alone, the aide crumpled to the floor like a puppet with cut strings.
The Emperor, who had maintained silence even through the violent entrance, finally spoke.
“So you really did follow the Saint back here. It’s been a long time, Prince Dilanshe.”
“Yes. I’m relieved to see your mind is sharper than I’d feared.”
A hollow, humorless exchange passed between them.
There must have been a time, certainly, when they stood on friendlier ground. Before his memories returned. When all the world’s affairs felt tedious, yet he held no great resentment at bearing the name Dilanshe behind his own. He had not served the Emperor, but neither had he opposed him.
But just before he departed for Weberdine, he had gladly faced the Emperor as an enemy.
It was an unusually dark night, with the new moon hanging overhead. He entered the Imperial Bedchamber without concealing his face.
The Emperor, reading documents by the head of his bed, looked up sharply.
“What is the meaning of this, in the middle of the night?”
“You needn’t ask for an explanation. Surely you can read the situation.”
The Imperial Bedchamber was all but the safest place in the Imperial Palace. Layers upon layers of Defensive Magic, painstakingly woven by the finest mages of both the Palace and Dilanshe, stood guard over it.
Yet he had pierced through it all without disturbance and reached the Emperor’s chamber.
The Emperor, himself a mage, could perceive it. That the figure before him had transcended a Realm that every mage covets.
That had assassination been his intent, he could have twisted the Emperor’s neck long ago.
The Emperor swiftly came to his conclusion, descending from the bed and donning his nightgown.
“What do you want?”
The hour was too late for roundabout conversation.
“You told her to seek your approval directly. Stop whatever this is.”
“What?”
“Whatever scheme you’re plotting with my father—cease it.”
The content of the demand was more shocking than the brazen tone.
Here was the Prince of Dilanshe, practically the Emperor’s right hand, now threatening the throne itself—absurd enough. But his chosen protégé? None other than the Saint.
[Was the Tower Master a believer in divine intervention?]
The Emperor, his brow furrowed, posed the question, but received no answer in return.
She clicked her tongue and irritably swept back her long, disheveled hair.
[So there was a reason Duke Dilanshe kept his second son hidden away. To think he was such a madman. Or should I call him a traitor?]
The Magic Tower had to maintain at least the appearance of neutrality. Yet when Kirien became Tower Master, he had concealed his identity behind “Asilien” precisely because he was of Dilanshe.
Yes, because he was Dilanshe.
The Emperor, suspecting nothing, had kept the Tower Master’s true identity secret. Indeed, she had been pleased by it.
Never realizing her own foot was the venomous serpent she had harbored.
Contempt and betrayal rose across the Emperor’s flushed face in turn.
Yet standing before such an Emperor, he could only smile with derision.
‘A traitor, he says……’
This dull creature before his eyes could never fathom it. His very birth, his entire life thus far, standing here in this place now—all of it had been for her and her alone.
Everything that made him who he was had belonged to her from the beginning.
So he could never betray her, nor could he ever attempt to.
Yet instead of laying bare the truth, he chose his words with studied indifference.
[I understand your objective. You wish to make the Imperial Princess your heir. Despite such a ‘defect.’]
[How could you possibly…….]
[There is no need for me to specify what defect I mean—Your Majesty surely understands it far better than I.]
[Hah! I know not how you came by this knowledge, yet you dare speak it aloud so carelessly? Contrary to rumor, you are a fool of the highest order! Do you truly believe I would not cast aside Dilanshe after such a pathetic blackmail attempt?]
The Imperial Princess’s defect was the Emperor’s reverse scale. She erupted in fury like a trapped beast.
But he, too, had no intention of wasting time on such trivial discourse.
[Do you truly believe I stand before you now out of simple foolishness?]
In the darkness, his eyes flashed redder than firelight. In those eyes, which seemed almost mad, burned absolute certainty—that the Emperor, indeed the entire Imperial Family, could never harm him no matter what power they marshaled.
The only regrettable thing was that his arrogance happened to be true.
The Emperor pressed her temples, muttering as if grinding her teeth as a headache bloomed.
[……So Dilanshe has been raising a viper.]
[These are my own independent judgments and actions.]
Indeed, Duke Dilanshe—who would pluck out his own Mana Core if the Emperor commanded it—would never permit such a thing.
Only when the Emperor finally composed herself did he continue in that same weary voice, whispering like a demon.
[I shall accomplish your desires.]
[……And your price?]
[There is but one thing I desire.]
In time, he opened his mouth.
That night, they must have exchanged vows, stakes and all—his very power as a Mage bound into that promise.
When the seasons turned and they met again, he was more sinister than before, and far more unhinged.
“I regret that my warning seemed to amuse you.”
A killing intent poured forth so raw it seemed as though he might strangle her where she stood.
Though he had anticipated her reaction to some degree, sending an invitation to the Saint was born of curiosity—what sort of person was this wretch, wrapped in madness yet retaining some semblance of reason?
Perhaps he had simply wanted to see that brutish face contort in horror.
Yet despite his gaze, sharp and piercing enough to flay skin from bone, the Emperor answered with perfect composure.
“I am keeping my promise.”

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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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