The Nerd Next Door Turned Out To Be The Magic Tower Master - Chapter 82

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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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Episode 82
The Imperial Princess burst into loud laughter.
“I see you’re quite mad. But are you really a Saint?”
“I’m technically a fake one, since no one’s approved me yet.”
“You’re… completely different from what I imagined. Strange person.”
“But you don’t dislike me, do you?”
Cecilia spoke with supreme confidence. She knew this because Regina had already shown her fondness for this side of her before.
The Princess, unable to deny it outright, collapsed onto her seat.
“So what do you need from me?”
“It’s not a difficult request. Can you get me admitted to the Academy?”
The Academy, like the Magic Tower, maintained a certain neutrality as an institution, but located in the Monastery as it was, it could never fully escape the Imperial Family’s influence.
If the Princess herself stepped in, getting one person admitted through special arrangement would be child’s play.
“The Academy? Why there? You didn’t suddenly develop an interest in scholarship, surely…”
“I can’t explain the details, but there’s someone I need to find. I only need to attend for about a semester.”
“Well, sure. I’m not being asked to give up my title as Princess or anything like that.”
She began to retort that it wouldn’t matter anyway, then closed her mouth. Instead, she placed her hand over the back of the Princess’s.
The white light that had enveloped her was then absorbed into Regina. They hadn’t drawn up a formal contract, but it was a gesture of trust nonetheless.
Pleased with the gesture, the Princess quickly arranged a meeting with the Academy’s Dean.
In just three days, no less.
* * *
Inside the Dean’s Office, which somehow reminded her of a professor’s study.
Between the kind-faced Dean and his distinguished visitor hung an uncomfortable silence.
The Dean glanced in turn at the Princess’s letter with the Imperial Seal plainly stamped upon it, the stiff-faced Knight standing guard at the doorway, and the celebrated blonde woman with golden eyes, then spoke haltingly.
“Well, um, Miss Saint, or rather Miss Webdin, or…”
“You can just call me a student.”
“Ahem, yes. The thing is, student, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but the new semester began quite some time ago. So a regular admission would be rather difficult, and instead you would become a temporary transfer student in the Theology Department.”
“The Theology Department? Does the Academy even have such a program?”
She had understood that one typically began as an apprentice at the Temple and received formal baptism to become a priest.
“Yes, yes! It’s not for becoming a priest, but rather a department dedicated to studying theology as an academic discipline.”
‘I suppose it’s like history studies, just a bit different.’
“In fact, transfer students, like new students, normally take both written and practical exams before entering in the new semester. So you’ll be introduced as a special transfer student for Temple-Academy exchange, which is more of a formal designation, and consequently your actual degree…”
The Dean trailed off, his brow glistening with nervous sweat. His meaning was clear enough.
Cecilia nodded readily.
“Of course. I’ll attend quietly for one semester and then disappear.”
She didn’t know what excuse the Princess had made, but she’d never intended to lengthen her academic credentials. It was simply to gain easy access to the Academy.
Besides, obtaining a fraudulent degree would be intolerable to her as a person of learning.
The Dean, finally relaxed, promptly handed over the Academy map and Student ID.
Cecilia accepted the Student ID, offered a perfunctory greeting, and shuffled out of the Dean’s Office.
Unlike the Dean’s Office, outside was vibrant and bustling.
Cecilia walked across the Campus with her blonde hair and golden eyes—traits that defined her identity—hidden beneath her Robe.
Fresh-faced students hurried past clutching thick books, while others sat on the grass enjoying lunch with friends.
Witnessing the lively scene, she finally felt it sink in.
‘I’ve come back to university—well, the Academy—with my own two feet.’
It was a grim reality, yet her heart raced with excitement.
Lien had to be here somewhere. She would meet him soon.
Rather than heading to the Theology Department, Cecilia asked some students for directions and found her way to the Magic Department.
‘He definitely taught Theoretical Magic.’
The structure didn’t differ much from the university she’d attended, so she had no trouble slipping into lectures in other departments. The fact that most Magic Department students wore Robes made blending in even easier.
Cecilia took a seat in the back of the fairly large lecture hall.
Students with dark shadows beneath their eyes, as drab as their Robe colors, shuffled to their seats like zombies. As their chatter about overwhelming assignments and exhaustion died down, a man stepped onto the podium.
He was impossibly young to be a professor. He had black hair and red eyes. Yet his face seemed unfamiliar.
‘There’s supposed to be a Theoretical Magic class at this hour. Did I find the wrong lecture hall?’
That was the moment of confusion.
“Today we’ll examine Teleportation Magic Circle Design and Transformation.”
A low voice echoed through the lecture hall.
That alone was enough for her to be certain. It was definitely Lien.
She had once thought that if Professor Lien weren’t wearing a Robe, the class attendance and satisfaction rate would be one hundred percent.
He wasn’t wearing a Robe, but it seemed he had cast some magic to obscure his real face instead.
‘With a face like that, he’d have no choice.’
Because she, too, would focus on his face rather than the lecture.
Cecilia stared unblinking at the man lecturing from the podium, neither stammering nor blushing.
Though his appearance differed from what she remembered, those large hands, that finely textured hair, that sturdy back—all of it announced he was Lien.
Cecilia held back the impulse to leap down and throw her arms around him.
While she’d been searching for a way to meet him since arriving at the Monastery, the seasons had turned; warmth now lingered in the air and green shoots had begun to emerge on the trees.
So by now he must have recovered his memories. He must be believing that she would remember nothing this time, just as before.
But when she stepped before him, when she called his name, when she offered an apology long overdue—
what would he say? Would he grieve, tears streaming down his face? Would he resent her, rage at her?
She’d come to the Monastery on a desperate whim to see him, had even tracked him down here at the Academy, yet truthfully she had no idea what to say to him, what face to wear when they met.
While she remained lost in thought, the difficult lecture—thick with mathematics and physics—finally ended.
“That concludes today’s lesson.”
The moment he dismissed the class, students poured out of the Lecture Hall like a receding tide.
When the last two students—muttering about their next class starting in just ten minutes—finally left, only Lien and she remained in the vast hall.
Cecilia hesitated before approaching him as he gathered his notes and prepared to leave, her steps uncertain.
“Lien.”
He stopped dead.
Cecilia pulled back the hood of her robe. She had resolved that if he recognized her, if their eyes met, she would apologize first.
But the gaze he turned upon her was glacial—as if he were looking at something inanimate.
He had never once looked at her this way.
Startled by a reaction that matched none of her imagined scenarios, she stiffened—and then Lien spoke first.
“What’s this?”
‘What?’
She doubted her ears, but she had neither misheard nor misread him. Cecilia was left speechless.
How could Lien—that gloomy, ill-tempered, strange young man who’d always been shy—conduct himself in such a manner? She couldn’t understand it at all.
‘Could it not be Lien?’
No, that was impossible. She had recognized him even when he’d been covered head to toe in his robe.
‘Has his memory not returned yet?’
But he was supposed to recover his memories around this time.
She remembered clearly because the timing of his memory recovery coincided closely with when she’d possessed this body.
Perhaps something had gone wrong in this cycle.
‘What do I do now?’
Even without his memories, because he was still Lien, she’d thought she could somehow muddle through. But with this temperament, everything had changed.
From the situation alone, she was simply a Saint who’d appeared out of nowhere before Dilan She. The ending didn’t look particularly favorable.
As Cecilia took a hesitant step backward, the man’s expression grew more menacing.
“Who are you? How do you know me?”
At a question even more unsettling than before, she could only blink.
Despite having her face fully exposed, he clearly had no idea who she was.
“Cecilia Webdin.”
……
“You don’t know me?”
How could someone not recognize a Saint itself, regardless of lost memories?
Of course, this was the Monastery, not Webdin or a holy site, yet whenever she stepped outside, everyone recognized her—which was precisely why she’d gone to such lengths to wear the robe.
“Even a newborn I passed on the way here recognized me. Are you really telling me you don’t?”
Just how indifferent to people did someone have to be?
She was so exasperated she nearly forgot to be grateful he hadn’t recognized her.
He scrutinized the robe and her golden hair, golden eyes with a slow, deliberate gaze, then muttered softly.
“Are you the Saint who came to the Magic Tower?”
“Yes. Though your subordinate turned me away at the door.”
“So you knew my identity and sought me out deliberately.”
His voice, grinding out the words, was so ominous that darkness seemed to gather around him. Or rather—it actually was gathering.
As if bound by invisible chains, her body was suddenly pulled forward toward him.

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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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