The Nerd Next Door Turned Out To Be The Magic Tower Master - Chapter 64

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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 64
The smoke billowed up in thick clouds, and a rough curse finally escaped his lips.
Kirien raced headlong toward the concentration of Holy Power, searching. Using Teleportation Magic was severely hindered by the Mana Restriction Magic, and besides, the forest’s similar terrain made it difficult to pinpoint exact coordinates.
Perhaps he should just shatter that Magic Circle.
He considered it, but there was the risk of giving his enemy wings. So he had no choice but to run, and run again.
His breath rose to his throat, and his lungs expanded and collapsed repeatedly at their limit. The fierce wind stung his eyes raw, and both cheeks burned with cold.
Only when sensation began to fade from his skin did he realize his Robe had slipped half off during his sprint.
He started, stopped short, and hurriedly pulled the Hood down over his head. He even donned the enemy’s Mask, which he’d taken for tracking purposes.
He knew he might be mistaken for an enemy by Cecilia, but there was nothing to be done about it.
He’d barely found her, and now the Princess and her Holy Knights surrounded her. If he’d approached with his face bared in this critical moment, she might have seen through his real name, his true identity.
‘I won’t be able to stay by her side anymore.’
So he would hide his identity, kill the enemy, and vanish.
Having decided thus, he moved forward quickly. But the Holy Knight’s strike came faster than his approach. The knight who’d felled the last enemy collapsed helplessly to the ground.
Kirien surveyed from a distance the fallen Holy Knights, the Princess showing signs of illness, and Cecilia in disarray.
Fortunately, no new enemies pursued her. She seemed to have no serious wounds. Disappointing and yet fortunate at once—the Holy Knights standing guard beside her had done their part.
Now that he’d confirmed she was safe, he should have turned back and pretended to have witnessed and experienced nothing. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to leave.
Cecilia standing alone looked too frightened. Or rather, he himself was far too frightened. He couldn’t bear it—not to examine her for every hidden injury, not to pull her trembling body into his arms.
‘All the Imperial Knights are down, and the Princess isn’t herself. Wouldn’t it be all right to reveal myself and approach?’
But fierce longing crumbled before conflict could even take root. A Holy Knight had rushed forward and immediately attacked him.
He deflected the sharp assault, and barely reached a decision.
With the Holy Knights at her side, Cecilia would be safe now.
Instead of engaging the bothersome Holy Knight, he turned away from her and returned toward the mages.
Hiltein, who’d been standing in for the absent leader, spotted him emerging from the forest and widened his eyes in surprise.
“Tower Master! Where on earth have you been…? Wait, are you injured?”
“There’s an impure faction in the forest. Check if any stragglers remain and eliminate them.”
Hiltein, looking even paler than the wounded, nodded frantically. After giving the order, Kirien haphazardly poured a Potion onto his numb arm. But recovery was slow—whether they’d coated it with some fatal poison meant for mages, he couldn’t say.
He clicked his tongue, drew down his blood-soaked sleeve, and stepped back toward the forest.
“Where are you going in that state? You said there’s an impure faction left in the forest!”
“Hunting.”
“…I’m sorry?”
A startled Hiltein prattled on about needing to treat his wounds first, but he still had work to do.
[I’ve set the board. Now it’s your turn to keep your promise.]
The Deal with the Emperor.
‘Judging by the Princess’s condition just now, luring prey to her won’t be possible.’
Then he’d have to catch it himself.
So he went alone to the Northern Forest. He hunted the most savage bear. Finally, he mounted the dais and played along with the Emperor’s whim.
“You’ve done well. I’ll keep my promise too.”
The Emperor spoke with satisfaction amid thunderous cheers.
The promise was fulfilled without issue. Cecilia hadn’t been hurt. Yet still, why did a chill run down his spine?
Conscious of only one gaze amid countless curious eyes, he quietly concealed his left arm behind his back.
Fleeting, as it was.
* * *
If someone were to ask him why he loved her, he would counter: do you know why a fish can only live in water?
They would answer.
That’s simply how it was born.
Yes, he was simply born that way. Born to meet her, to exist for her, to love her.
So the heart that swelled uncontrollably, the desire that grew—all of it was as irresistible as the laws of nature.
Even if the moment came when she found it utterly abhorrent.
Shortly after returning from the forest, he loitered near the Princess Palace. He’d heard that Cecilia would be visiting the Princess soon.
He was deliberately staying close despite the risk of exposure, chasing after her traces like a dog seeking its master. And he met her, just as he’d hoped.
Early winter’s chill needed no apology. Cecilia, whom he encountered at the Imperial Palace, was like a snowflake.
Unexpected in its descent, beautiful the more he examined it, and sure to melt away in an instant if he dared to grasp it.
She approached him quietly, like snow falling to rest. And fixed eyes on him that revealed no emotion whatsoever.
Her coming near him, her long gaze upon him—these were things he’d yearned for so long.
Yet he wanted to run. He’d glimpsed something beyond that motionless golden veil.
He stumbled backward uselessly, tried to turn away, but his wrist was revealed, and his identity exposed.
“Kirien. Kirien Dilanshe. That was your real name, wasn’t it.”
His complete name fell from her lips.
It was the end. That was a death sentence for him.
“Don’t come any closer!”
“Don’t call me by that name anymore. No—just don’t let me see that face again.”
A sharp, cold expression. Eyes full of contempt. A voice stripped of warmth. A small back turning away without hesitation.
It was a familiar sight. One he’d anticipated. And yet he found himself suffocating, like a fish hurled onto dry land, unable to bear it.
In that instant, he thought and thought again.
What should he have done? A name cannot be carved away like the body can.
He’d even considered draining every drop of Dilanthe’s blood from himself. But he knew well that doing so would change nothing of what he truly was.
‘Please.’
If she turned away like this, if she abandoned him, he felt he would truly die. So he stumbled forward and blocked her path.
With the cleverest mind in the world, he spilled nothing but the most foolish words, scattered and incoherent.
“I’m—I’m sorry. I never meant to harm Cecilia, I mean, Lady Webedine. I only…….”
“I’m sorry for making excuses. Because everything about me is a lie. Because I keep disappointing you, because I’m that cursed Dilanthe. I’m truly sorry.”
He wouldn’t dare hope for her love. Wouldn’t presume to ask her forgiveness for his endless deceptions, wouldn’t dare beg to remain at her side.
Just—don’t turn away.
As though erasing him were possible. As though it could be done.
“I love you. No, I love—I love you. I really love you. Cecilia.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. That something like me loves you—I’m truly sorry.”
Like a saint calling out to a silent god, like a wretched creature daring to look upon heaven, he begged like that. He clung. He spilled even his shameful heart bare.
His eyes, burning and throbbing, grew wet despite everything. His throat tightened as though choked, and nausea threatened to overcome him.
Yet even if he wept and vomited his insides, even if he stopped breathing altogether, nothing would change. She would still despise him, still turn away, and he would be left alone, and he—already on the edge of madness—would descend further into it, perhaps unto death itself.
“I’m sorry, sorry. I love you. I’m in love with you.”
Like a fish gasping desperately at its gills though it knows it cannot breathe on land, he spoke of love with desperate urgency.
Because it was the only thing he could do.
“I love you.”
“I love you. Cecilia. In any form, in any life—I will love only you.”
Even if she recoiled in disgust, even if she found him abhorrent—that was simply what he was made to be.
If she cried out that she hated him. If she cursed and spat. If she showed her revulsion.
Then he would calmly place a blade in her hand, offer up his heart and throat to her without hesitation, and blinked with eyes grown cloudy.
As a tear fell free, his vision cleared. And then he saw.
A face utterly unfamiliar, and yet one he had longed for since time immemorial.
An emotion that resembled hatred, contempt, abhorrence—but whose essence was entirely different.
Their lips met rough and urgent, breath tangled. The kiss born of mingled blood and tears from his bitten lower lip tasted not sweet but metallic and salt.
Yet why did it feel so achingly precious that he might die from it?
He had been the one clinging, and yet somewhere along the way, he was the one plundering greedily.
In the brief moments when they parted for breath, his lips trembling, he confessed desperately.
“I love you. I love you.”
Overwhelmed by the torrent of his love, she steadied her ragged breath and spoke through tearful laughter.
“You’re infuriating. You and your endless talk of love—I’m going mad from it.”
…….
“……And yet I can’t bring myself to hate you. That’s what infuriates me most.”
He, who had been kissing her again and again, pouring out his love, went rigid.
He blinked slowly, his eyes wet. Understanding came to him very slowly, but it came deep.
Despite being such a terrible, repugnant creature, she would not abandon him. She would endure his love.
She might even allow him to stay at her side.
Holding back a sob that threatened to burst from him, he drew his one and only treasure eagerly into his arms.
His small god, who had finally answered.

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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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