The Nerd Next Door Turned Out To Be The Magic Tower Master - Chapter 83

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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 83
He brought his cold hand to her throat and spoke with an icy edge.
“Tell me how you found out.”
He wasn’t applying pressure—not yet. But he could, whenever he wished. That much was clear.
Still, it was unmistakable: Lien was threatening her, and her alone. Unable to accept the reality, Cecilia trembled violently and knocked his hand away.
“What’s wrong with your personality? It’s worse than the rumors…….”
Cecilia dredged up rumors she’d buried deep in memory—all of them sinister, not a single hopeful word about his temperament.
So perhaps he’d always been like this. But…….
“At this point, hasn’t someone put a bullet in your head?”
If the Lien she’d known and this man were one and the same, then one of them had to have been shot for any of this to make sense.
“Who took a bullet—you? You look like you’re trying to get yourself killed.”
Whether by fortune or misfortune, he didn’t press the threat further. He’d simply lost interest along with the menace, brushing past her without another word.
“Nothing worth seeing. Stop lingering and get out.”
And he’d left her with that.
Cecilia glared at his receding back, grinding her teeth.
‘We’ll see what happens when you get your memory back.’
If he thought she’d back down from a mere threat like that, he was badly mistaken.
* * *
The Dean, who looked like a neighbor’s uncle, seemed to take landscaping quite seriously. With spring in full bloom, fresh green leaves and yellow flowers adorned every corner of the Academy.
The air hung heavy with floral perfume, and warm spring sunlight settled gently upon the afternoon.
Cecilia cut a figure at odds with the beauty around her, releasing one long sigh after another.
Since that disastrous reunion, she’d been showing up at the Academy with unwavering consistency.
The sudden arrival of a Transfer Student had piqued curiosity; Theology Department students had swarmed her with questions, nearly exposing her identity. But the attention faded quickly once exams and coursework consumed their interest.
Now she lived quietly, unremarkably, in those peaceful days.
Yet…….
The real problem was the very reason she’d come to the Academy: Lien.
She’d thought that without his memory and with his cold temperament, he—as Dilan She—might harm her, a Saint. But he did no such thing. He never threatened her, never attacked.
He simply refused to acknowledge her existence. Most of her attempts at conversation went unanswered, and when he did respond, it was only with a weary “Get out” or a flat “No.”
She’d clung to the threadbare hope that his memory would return soon, following him relentlessly. But as spring deepened, nothing changed.
‘He’s obviously going to ignore me again today…….’
Cecilia rose from the bench and trudged forward without spirit or vigor.
Her mind scattered and her will depleted, a gust of wind nearly tore her hood away; a hulking Sword Arts Club student shouldered into her; she tripped over a flower bed—one misfortune after another. At the end of it all, she found herself at Lien’s door.
Her body and mind were already in disarray, but Cecilia knocked steadily on the door.
Knock, knock.
Without waiting for an answer, she pushed it open.
Lien sat in a sparse room containing only a desk, sofa, bookshelf, and table. He wore large silver-rimmed glasses, suggesting he’d been reading.
He didn’t even glance at the uninvited guest, turning the page of his book instead. Either he already knew who she was, or he had no interest in anyone at all.
‘I should be grateful he’s not throwing me out.’
At first, he hadn’t let her set foot in his private space.
After being coldly rejected as usual and eating a dispirited meal that tasted worse for her melancholy, she’d overheard something useful at a neighboring table one day.
[You got introduced to that Magic Department girl last week, right? How’d it go? You two work out?]
[Don’t even mention it. She started going on about her major the second she sat down—I almost bolted right then. Then while we were eating and moving around, she suddenly got curious about something and just started stopping random people to ask them questions. I was so embarrassed I told her to just head home.]
[That’s how all the Magic Department types are. They can’t resist curiosity. Those people are basically 90% inquisitiveness, I swear.]
‘Could Lien be like that too?’
With half-hearted doubt, Cecilia attempted a strategy: hook him through curiosity. And surprisingly, it worked.
[Aren’t you curious how I found out your identity?]
[…….]
[I know you better than just your identity.]
[…….]
[For instance, you have a scar on your inner thigh?]
His relentless stride faltered. This was the first clear reaction she’d seen from him since their reunion.
A sharp gaze fixed on her. Not disgust, not a glare—just a searching, probing look.
[If you let me come find you, I’ll tell you. How about it?]
He gave no answer, but from that day on, she’d been allowed access to his room.
‘The problem is, that’s all I’ve gotten.’
Seated on the opposite sofa, Cecilia opened a book she’d brought without a word.
She’d tried various approaches to jog his memory, only to be relocated to remote corners of the Academy several times. She’d learned only one truth about this version of Lien.
He despised being bothered. Conversely, as long as she didn’t trouble him, he paid her no mind—as if she were furniture in his room.
So she could audit his classes without disrupting him, or even occupy the sofa in his study like this, and he’d offer no objection.
Therefore, coming to see him and spending time in the same space was the best she could do.
How long had she been reading like that, with no response whatsoever?
Cecilia set down the book that refused to hold her attention and watched him intently.
Outside of lessons, he never used Magic, so his face remained unchanged—genuinely beautiful in its natural state.
The long lashes that once trembled with fear of being disliked, the red eyes that had been fixed on her every moment, the pale cheeks that flushed crimson whenever their lips met, the lips that had spoken of affection again and again.
They were the same, yet somehow nothing was the same.
The sheer fact of it made her chest tighten anew.
When she first learned that Lien had lost his memories, she had agonized over whether to wait by his side until he regained them, or whether she should simply give up and leave.
She wondered if the Weberdine Mansion might be better than staying here at the Monastery, where the Imperial Palace and Dilan She’s influence reached, with threats to her life looming at any moment—yet she also knew that if she returned like this, she would only lock herself away in her room and sink into melancholy thoughts.
In the end, she remained at his side, but…….
Cecilia’s gaze drifted suddenly toward the window. Pink petals from a cherry tree near the building drifted down like snow, dancing in the breeze.
Before his memories returned, before he had to face her death once more, before she could hurt him again.
‘Maybe I should just die.’
The thought arrived without warning.
Until now, she had lacked the courage to attempt it precisely because she harbored the assumption that she might wake again in the Prayer Room. She was too terrified of having to accept that she could never return. So she had never thrown herself from a window or sought out a sharp blade.
Besides, she hadn’t even properly achieved her revenge yet.
‘The more I think about it, the more hopeless it all seems.’
With no courage and no wisdom to speak of, she grew even more despondent at her own uselessness. She began to curl herself into a ball as she always did, knee drawn up, when a sudden sharp pain shot through her.
“Ah…….”
When she pulled back the torn robe, her bloodied knee was exposed.
On the way to the professor’s office, she hadn’t noticed the edge of the flowerbed and had fallen hard. Too embarrassed to even examine the wound, she had scrambled to her feet—but apparently the injury was worse than she’d thought.
The Divine Power that usually erupted instantly when threats loomed proved utterly useless in situations like this.
‘Perhaps it only manifests against real threats.’
Now that she could see it, the pain seemed to intensify. Cecilia frowned and covered the wound again with her robe.
Through all of this, Lien showed her no attention whatsoever.
The real Lien would have been unable to bear even a small scratch—he would have worn a pained expression, fretted helplessly, suffered more than if the injury were his own, and showered her with Potions or healed her with Magic.
‘Is this my punishment?’
Perhaps she was being punished for breaking her promise to him.
Cecilia rose quietly, her laugh bitter, gathering the book she’d barely managed to read.
Lien would soon head off to teach, and she, for the sake of appearances at least, attended Theology Department classes once a day, so she decided it was time to head back to the Theology Department.
‘I should stop by the Infirmary on the way.’
She called to mind the location of the Infirmary from the map as she bid him farewell.
“I’ll be going now.”
“…….”
“The weather’s absolutely beautiful—you should take walks sometimes, or you’ll end up as an incredibly gloomy person.”
As she thought of the man who was gloomy but somehow endearing because of it, Cecilia let out a soft laugh and turned to leave.
There was no point waiting for a response that would never come.
But an unexpected voice stopped her in her tracks.

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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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