The Nerd Next Door Turned Out To Be The Magic Tower Master - Chapter 80

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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 80
To say that in the moment before death there was not even a flicker of doubt would be a lie.
Each time she remembered that wretched man clinging to her, terrified of abandonment and at a loss for what to do, her resolve wavered.
If she left him behind, he would think himself forsaken. He would blame himself. He would grieve.
And yet, no matter how many times she turned it over in her mind, she wanted to return. She wanted her family. The friends she had grown up with, sharing worries and dreams. The colleagues she had struggled and encouraged alongside. The entire world she had lived in her whole life.
The longing was so fierce, so unshakeable, that she could not imagine rooting herself in this place that felt entirely unreal, wearing another’s skin like a borrowed mask.
The love her lover had given her was undeniably sweet—enough to transform her sparse view of romance, enough that she might have resigned herself to playing the fool.
But she fundamentally did not believe in eternity. Least of all in formless emotion.
No matter how beautifully or intensely it burned, how long could such a feeling truly last? Even if it lasted forever like a miracle, nothing would change.
Was her love for him truly greater than her love for her family and friends? Was it worth abandoning all the time she had accumulated and all the time yet to come?
Without a definitive answer, her choice was singular and absolute.
And yet…….
Why did tears keep falling? Why did her heart ache with such pain?
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
She continued to murmur apologies that no one could hear.
I’m sorry I couldn’t choose you. I promised I wouldn’t abandon you, but in the end I did. I’m so sorry.
But I missed my people so much.
[Haven’t I ever told you—have I ever wanted you to skip graduate school and just get a job instead? Your siblings already have jobs and give Mom money, but you’re still a student.]
[It’s enough for me if you’re happy. That’s all I need.]
When all her classmates found employment and lived with dignity, my mother said nothing, simply encouraging me to do what I wanted. Her.
If I didn’t return, she might not be able to go on living either.
The longing was unbearable. So…….
I would spend a long time grieving this decision, I would lose sleep countless nights to guilt, but even so I would not regret it.
“Are you sure?”
That was when her thoughts stopped.
A child’s voice—one she felt she’d heard in a dream long ago—reverberated through her mind rather than her ears.
Yet for her, unable to open her eyes or speak, the identity of the speaker was irrelevant.
‘Yes.’
She answered within herself, deliberately firmer than necessary, as if to brook no argument.
But the child fell silent, and after prolonged silence spoke once more.
“It is not yet time to make that choice.”
Before she could even question what that meant, change overtook her.
Her drifting body plummeted downward with a sudden wrench.
After a long, endless fall, when her body struck ground, her eyes snapped open.
She jerked her torso upright and hurriedly scanned her surroundings.
Please let it be her familiar studio apartment. Failing that, let it be that dreaded laboratory.
But what greeted her instead was the stained glass and domed ceiling she recognized, and a stone statue of a god.
The Prayer Room. The very place where she had first opened her eyes in this world.
‘You said death was the answer. So why am I here?’
Despair seized Cecilia as her face twisted. She glared at the silent stone god and spat out a string of meaningless curses.
What had happened? Had she failed to return? Or—could it be that she hadn’t actually died?
The thought that immediately followed was: I’ll kill that Pope bastard.
Cecilia bolted barefoot from the Prayer Room, breathing hard. She didn’t know why she’d been left here instead of locked in a cell, but this time she decided she would kill the Pope for certain and then follow him in death.
Yet she didn’t get far before stumbling. Someone had appeared around a corner of the corridor.
“Ow!”
Sharp pain bloomed across her palms and backside.
‘If it hurts this much, I’m not dreaming. I really didn’t die?’
She’d driven the dagger into her own chest—how could she be unscathed like this?
As she sat dazed in confusion, a familiar voice came from above her head.
“Are you hurt?”
She knew that voice. Cecilia lifted her head.
Bristly black hair, shadows beneath his eyes, black priestly robes.
The Archbishop. Kiar.
“What—you’re alive?”
Given that both the Pope and the Saint had met such an end, it wouldn’t have been strange if he’d hanged himself alongside them.
Yet because he had helped her just before she died, the tension in her body eased.
Now that she’d found the Archbishop, she could learn what had happened. She could coax him into helping her kill the Pope by promising to take him with her in death, then find out where the Pope was, and after that…….
What Cecilia overlooked, however, was that life never flows as desired, and she in particular had always been exceptionally unlucky.
Kiar narrowed his eyes and spoke with an enigmatic expression.
“I’ve always wanted to die, but—do you know who I am?”
* * *
I didn’t want to admit it, but the facts were simple. She hadn’t survived. She was dead. And she’d woken again in this godforsaken world, not her original one.
In Cecilia’s body, no less. At the exact moment of the first possession.
‘Possession and regression both—this just keeps getting better.’
She fell into a despair so profound it made the first possession seem trivial by comparison.
‘Death is the answer, they said?’
There was no answer. All she’d learned was that God was a bastard—or rather, that He was worse than any bastard could be.
‘If I die again, will I regress again?’
Could she really never escape? Never truly return?
Having lost all will to live, Cecilia returned from the Temple to the Manor and sealed herself inside her room, barely moving.
“Miss, truly, why are you like this? Won’t you take a walk with me? Please?”
Melanie stood outside the door, pleading with growing desperation, but Cecilia gave no answer, burrowed beneath her blankets.
Everyone around her expressed dismay at her change, but she counted it as a victory that she didn’t spit in the face of the Pope’s sickeningly gentle demeanor.
It was nearly a month and a half later when she finally ventured outside again.
After days of eating only the minimum, falling into death-like sleep, and then lying awake in a daze, a single thought arrived at her mind.
‘Lien.’
He had definitely recovered his memory sometime between winter and spring—around the time of her possession into Cecilia’s body, as he’d said.
He was the only person who remembered her. Who remembered his past life.
‘I met Lien three months after the possession began.’
At least another month would pass before he moved into the neighboring house.
‘Too long.’
Cecilia made her decision at once. She wouldn’t simply wait until then—she would go find him herself.
And so the first thing she did was seek out the Marquis.
“I’m going to the Monastery.”
The Marquis’s brow furrowed at his daughter’s unexpected declaration, appearing in public for the first time in weeks.
“What are you talking about? Don’t you know how dangerous the Monastery is? Absolutely not!”
“You haven’t received a letter, it seems—my brother failed to obtain the authorization. I have no choice but to go and get it myself.”
The excuse was timely enough. Nox would eventually come down to Weberdine in person rather than send a letter, but regardless, it wasn’t a lie, so there was no reason to hesitate.
After a prolonged quarrel, it was the Marquis who yielded. He consented to the journey on the condition that she travel with an uncomfortably large contingent of knights, as before.
And so, nearly fleeing, she set out for the Monastery.
The Pope had offered to assign a Holy Knight to accompany her, but this time she firmly refused. She trusted in Miguel’s integrity, but as long as he followed the Pope, she wouldn’t travel with him under any circumstances.
After well over a week of travel, she arrived at Belatis, the Monastery.
Cecilia, who had been lying collapsed in the carriage, clicked her tongue softly.
‘I never thought I’d come back here on my own two feet.’
Lost in reverie, she suddenly let out a bitter laugh.
The Monastery—where she’d been persecuted relentlessly and lived under constant threat of death—felt more comfortable than the Holy Land or Weberdine, which did nothing but praise the Saint. It was absurd.
The reason, she supposed, was someone who existed somewhere in this place.
Had Lien recovered his memory by now? Had he lived through his life a second time after all? And if so, was he resenting her for abandoning him?
She hadn’t chosen him. Even if the choice came again, she knew she wouldn’t choose him. And yet, nauseating as it was, she longed to see him. She was truly a terrible person.
She could be blamed, resented, could weep—she didn’t care. She just wanted to meet him soon.
But her wish struck an unexpected obstacle.

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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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